Three sentence movie reviews: Free Ride

What happens when women make a movie about the drug trade? There’s a lot less on the action/adventure front and a lot more of the personal relationships. This was clearly a labor of love for all involved* and I really enjoyed this story, which probably could be told a thousand times over in different ways.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

*Interestingly, the 70s classic rock song “Free Ride” by the Edgar Winter Group is not featured anywhere in this movie.  I’m assuming it’s because the rights were too expensive.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/free_ride.html

The imbalance of power

There are a lot of words being written about Harvey Weinstein.  A lot of people are having to check if he’s an E-I Weinstein or an I-E Wienstein.  I think this photo sums up the overall problem, in Hollywood, and in general. The woman on the right is Weinstein’s wife. She’s 41, and looks great. Because ultimately, that is women’s job in this world: to look pretty, to keep their figure, to be the sex object. In contrast, Harvey Weinstein is 65 and looks like crap.  Because it’s not his job to look good.  Instead, he gets to make a lot of money and acquire certain things: a successful movie producing company, willing to pay to settle multiple harassment cases with seemingly no penalty to him; plus a good-looking wife young enough to be his daughter.

I can’t know the specifics of the relationship of the two people pictured. But I know that finding a counter example–a couple consisting of a shlubby female successful 65-year-old business mogul* and an attractive 41-year-old man–would be tough enough that they would probably be the exception that proves the rule. Because men still run the show in this country.  And what a lot of them chose to do with their power is exploit other women, elevate men like them who won’t rock the boat, and keep women in their place.

(*Because 65-year-old female business moguls are few and far between and the ones who do exist are decidedly not schlubby. Because: not allowed.)

Hollywood and the media’s focus on style over substance magnifies this situation, but it exists in every corner of our society.  Things are changing, but not fast enough.

One Story: Toby and A Month on Greene Street

A story of loss, written by a student at Portland’s own Grant High School.

Tom Hanks has a successful career as an actor, director and producer. Plus a book deal for his short stories. He’s probably got enough money to start his own literary magazine.  Thus, it bugs me that he’s taking up space in the One Story lineup.  That said, I quite enjoyed this story.

Debt Repayment Calculator

Accelerating payments is kind of boring.  It’s a lot of cutting back on this and that on a daily basis, and then eventually, once per month, you have something to get excited about: WHAMMO! Extra payment.

But here we are early in the month, with September’s extra payment made and all of October left to go.

Today I found a Debt Repayment calculator that cheered me a little.  The one I used is very no-frills and is found at Debt Repayment Calculator. The site even says in the upper left hand corner “You can deal with it” and has a very calming rainbow/banner thing.

I typed in my amount of debt, my interest rate and my current monthly payment. Then I added an additional monthly payment of $500 and the site told me that if I just made my monthly payments I would be paying this loan off for 72 more months and would pay an additional $543.14 in interest.

But!  If I make an extra payment of $500/month for 12 months, all of my student loan debt will be GONE!  Twelve months! So exciting!  Then I can put all that money into savings/investing and retirement.

That’s good news!

Payoff! October report

Much to report this month!  I made a big decision.

What I paid toward the loan in September. $6567.25.  That includes my regular payment of $189.37, plus a payment of $5852.00, plus an end-of-the-month payment of $525.88.

How much I paid toward the principal and how much toward the interest. Principal: $6567.25. Interest: $23.20.

Where the money for my extra payments came from.  I had a $10,000 emergency fund, a goal I finally achieved right before my 40th birthday. It was depleted by about 20% this year when I learned that my health insurance that my employer pays $485 per month for doesn’t really cover that much.  I had been focusing my efforts on getting money back into that fund.  But looking at my loan balance, I saw that there were two loans, one for $5k+ and one for $7k+.  What if I paid off the $5k+ totally?  On the one hand, that would deplete my emergency fund down to a little over one month’s cushion.  On the other hand, I could totally eliminate one part of my debt.  I eventually decided to do it, as you can tell from the above numbers.  My rational is that my job feels pretty secure (knock on wood) and the amount of interest my savings account is paying is far less than the interest on this loan. Plus, the psychological boost.  So I did it.  I had to write the loan company to find out how to apply the entire chunk only to one loan.  It turned out to be easy.  I made the payment, and then sent a message to apply all of the payment to the loan in the amount of $X.  Boom!  When you look at my loan list, that loan is gone.

In addition, at the end of the month, I added to my budgeted amount ($324.07) another $201.81.  That came from my unused Dining Out money ($40.00–all of my eating out in September was paid for by my company, or by a friend as thanks for resume help) and also my unused grocery money ($49.81). I made two lifestyle changes this month.  One was I decided to stop taking tap dance lessons.  I’ve been feeling too busy during the week for a while now, but had made a stink about having an Intermediate Level Tap class, so then had to take the lessons.  At the time, they were running the class with only two people total, so I kept going because I liked it, but also because I didn’t want to be the person who made the stink and then didn’t sign up. There are a few more people in the class now, so I feel like I can take a break.

Also, TriMet now allows you to buy the amount of train fare you need for the month.  I figured if I could ride my bike one day per week, and then also walk one way one day per week, I could pay less than $100/month.  My company reimburses for transportation, phone and internet up to $100/month, so this month I submitted my phone bill along with my TriMet fare purchase and netted an extra $29.50 to put toward this goal.  We shall see how this biking to work and walking once per week goes.  I’m feeling excited about it now, but I was pretty burnt out biking to my previous job. Though that was every day.  Also I wasn’t necessarily choosing it.  I wasn’t really paid enough to afford to bus to work.  (Thank goodness that job is over!)

A list of what I didn’t buy in order to put more money toward this project. To sum up: most of my emergency fund; tap dance class; full monthly TriMet pass.

Any roadblocks I’m having toward this goal.  I’m worried that this will become a tedious, sad task after this month.  I’m down to less than $6k, but I feel as though I have plucked all the low-hanging fruit. I can’t just decide in October to pay the rest off in one fell swoop, because I don’t have another $6k hanging around. Hopefully this will not be the case.  If so, I will have to figure a plan.

Here’s what things looked like at the end of August:

And here’s the graph at the end of September:

Books read in September 2017

Schooling is over for the summer.  Time to return to the regular reading schedule.


Picture Books: When’s My Birthday?
Middle Grade: Ashes to Asheville
Young Adult: Genuine Fraud (thought see the picture accompanying this post for my other favorite)
Adult Fiction: The Beautiful Land
Young Nonfiction: Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee

When’s My Birthday?
Fogliano/Rubinson
Read for Librarian Book Group
As a person who enjoys her birthday, I enjoyed this book.


Ashes to Asheville
Sarah Dooley
Read for Librarian Book Group

When Fella’s mother, Mama Lacy died, Fella could have gone on living with Mama Shannon and her sister Zaney.  But Fella’s grandmother Mrs. Madison thinks Fella should live “with her blood.” She goes to court, and wins, so Fella lives with Mrs. Madison, and only sees Mama Shannon and Zaney for church.

One night, Fella catches Zaney breaking into Mrs. Madison’s house.  Zaney’s goal?  To steal Mama Lacy’s ashes, drive to Asheville to scatter them, and be back before anyone knows she’s gone.  Fella comes along, as does Mrs. Madison’s dog.

The plan to drive hundreds of miles in an old car in the middle of the night without detection falls apart quickly, and this book is full of misadventures.  It’s also full of heartbreak, while managing to be quite funny.  Some plot points are convenient, but overall, this book is worth reading for the love, humor and even class issues, as well as LGBTQ custody issues.


When Dimple Met Rishi
Sandhya Menon

Sandhya Menon sets up a great “meet cute” by having Dimple fully focused on her education and career, and not at all interested in being matched with a husband by her Indian family.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Dimple,  Rishi has been matched with her and is excited to begin their lives together, first by getting to know each other, then after they are married which Rishi guesses will happen after they finish college and before he goes to graduate school.

The opposite of sparks fly.  Or maybe, sparks fly in one direction and are then repelled and sent right back to a surprised Rishi. This sets the stage for a delightful little reverse romance that also includes class and friendship issues, parental and sibling relations and a satisfying ending.

Genuine Fraud
E.K. Lockhart
This is Jule’s story, but her story can’t be told without also telling Imogen’s story.  E.K. Lockhart lets us in on both stories as this book unfolds.  A fun read, and best when one can read a large chunk at the beginning.  If read in bits, this book might be confusing.  Memorable characters, plus class issues.  Nicely done.

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo
F.C. Yee
Read for Librarian Book Group
This book is hilarious and the kind of outsized, bombastic story that I enjoy. It also hooked me up with some Chinese folklore, and has a punny title.  Big win!

Words in Deep Blue
Cath Crowley
Read for Librarian Book Group ????
Let’s imagine that a boy goes to school in a town until he is well into middle school.  Then he moves away.  A few years later, he drowns.  In this modern world, where we are all connected via social media, what are the chances that no one in the old town will hear of this boy’s death?

If you think the chances are zero that not one person would catch wind of this boy’s passing, you are going to have the same problem with this book as I did.  The entire premise of the book rests on the dead boy’s older sister moving back to their old town, yet not a single person she encounters (except for her aunt) knows about her brother’s death.  Even the friends she has kept in touch with during the years she has moved elsewhere.

There was a lot to like in this book.  The friendships and romantic relationships were well developed and there was good stuff around mourning and losing things (brothers, bookshops.) However, my reading experience was marred by the continuing confusion as to why no one even mentions the dead brother and then the increasing skepticism that they wouldn’t have heard about the dead brother.  I’m not sure how this book made it into publication with that largest of plot hole.


The Beautiful Land
Alan Averill

Takahiro is a washed-up American-born Japanese reality star when he goes to work for the Axon Corporation. Samira is an Iraq War veteran, crippled from PTSD.  They have their Seattle childhood in common, and their friendship that never developed into something more.

Tak’s job at Axon is to explore parallel universes, which is not your normal kind of job.  When it turns out that someone has other plans for parallel universes, Tak and Sam must work together to save the world.  And also figure out that whole latent romance thing.

Averill balances the parallel universe and the relationships with flair.  This book is high-stakes, high-action and also funny.


Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee
Loney/Mallett
Read for Librarian Book Group
Picture book story of James Van Der Zee, who took portraits of people in Harlem during the 20th Century.  Likable illustrations, plus actual examples of Mr. Van Der Zee’s work at the end of the book.