Just under two weeks and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (70) finally bites the dust.

I sold my first piece of furniture today. A huge bookshelf that in the past has held my disgusting collection of books I haven't read was pawned off to the good Ross ... something or other. And it is both satisfying and just another sign of how completely different my life is about to become.

I'm at just under two weeks before I pack up all of my belongings and hit the road and let me tell you I am a ball of conflicting emotions. Excitement, happiness, sadness, nervousness - nearly every emotion I could have crackling through my body right now is pretty much gut punching me on a daily basis. My room is a cluttered mess of books and clothes all needing to be taken somewhere for sale or donation. My social calender has to the potential to be fuller than it has, well, ever as my friends and foes from across the Seattle spectrum are checking in one last time before I hit the open road. My computer, my sweet sweet desktop computer that has treated me so well in the years past has been sold to my equally transitory brother. And most exciting of all Alex, sweet Alex, just purchased an avocado colored desk to fill the space of a sea-faring chest and to give me a bit of room to write and collect my thoughts. I could not be more excited.

I'm sure this will be the main source of all my blathering as the week(s) proceed, so please bear with me, I'm a little nervous and I tend to ramble when so.

As much nervous energy might be coursing through me right now, I was finally, FINALLY able to power through the last hour and ten minutes of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (70) last night. It's a strange film, way too long, and paced in a way you might call glacial and my biggest fault came with where Scorsese chose to focus his attentions. The title of the film, The Last Temptation of Christ (70) describes the final forty minutes of the movie and Jesus' choice not to stay on the cross, but instead to succumb to Satan's offer of living the life of a normal man. Thus, you see Jesus having a child, you see Jesus getting old and raising a family, and of course you see poor Jesus' sweet little world falling prey to Satanic forces. My question is why did Scorsese feel the need to spend two hours prior to this showcasing the life and times of Jesus? I wanted more of this final temptation business, what Jesus' life as a man was like, but instead I got treated to a humanistic portrayal of the Son of God ... that took me almost two weeks to finally get through. Nonetheless, I'm grateful that I made it through this film and even more grateful that I can mark another Scorsese film seen.

I'm still in the midst of a long haul here folk, but after Bergman's opera, it starts to look up a bit.

Tomorrow: The Magic Flute (71)