What Time is It?

My sleep schedule is all out of whack. I'm still feeling pretty sick and have fallen asleep crazy early a few nights in the past week. Like last night I fell asleep at 7:30. So then I woke up at 11:30 and stayed up until 2. Or Monday morning for no good reason at all I woke up at 6 and could not fall back to sleep. All of this is cutting into my knitting time, my time with friends and my life in general. I'm am so very, very tired of being sick. My sinus infection seems pretty much cleared up but I'm still hacking and coughing and feeling like crud.

I have very little new knitting to report other than I have working on the gusset decreases on my second Bayerische and my Tangled Yoke is getting a little longer in the body.

What I can report on are documentaries. I have been on a small doc kick lately.

Grey Gardens: Albert and David Maysles's fascinating portrait of the Edith and Edie Beale, aunt and cousin of Jackie Onassis. Shot in 1975, it thrusts you into the strange, sad world of this mother and daughter living in a crumbling East Hampton mansion. There is no exposition, no explanation. You are just dropped into their home and observe their co-dependence and decay. Incredibly interesting. The Beale's lives are being turned into a feature film. Given that the director's only previous credits are PA positions on crap films I'm not feeling too hopeful about this turning out to be any good.

The Weather Underground: An informatiive, though terribly biased, history of the 70s radical group, the Weathermen. Mostly talking heads with some historical footage.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly: Werner Herzog's portrait of Deiter Dengler, a German-born US naval pilot shot down over Laos in the Vietnam war. His incredible story of his capture, life in a prison camp and eventual escape and rescue is heart-breaking and bizarre. Herzog revisited his story again in Rescue Dawn with Christian Bale which I hope to see soon.

Born Into Brothels: Zana Briski befriends and teaches children living in a brothel in Calcutta's red light district about photography. The film, which won the 2005 Oscar for Best Documentary, is both up-lifting and gut-wrenching. It beautifully illustrates the universality of childhood and hope.