Maria on the path. Our lives are about paths, I think. That’s why I take so many photos of them.
 And choices.

  September 3, 2009 – I would be honest if I didn’t confess to dreading the airing of “A Dog Year” on HBO tonight, not because of any problems I have with the movie so much as a sense of being very visible,  going back to another time and wondering just what the gloomy man in the movie has to do with me or my life. Perhaps, quite I bit. I don’t really know.
  It’s a great compliment to have a movie made out of one of your books. The process is invasive and disorienting, and you just have to ride along with it. There hasn’t been a day in several years when somebody hasn’t asked me when the movie was coming out (yes, it will be available on disc).
  I’ve opened up a part of my life in many ways, and that always comes with a price.  But when you ask for it, you get it. I suspect my reclusive streak will deepen.
  I don’t know what I think of the movie, really. Too close. The character is well portrayed by Jeff Bridges, of course, but is very isolated and disconnected from the world. He is depressing and a bit humorless, grumpy and uncommunicative (for sure, not me.) I remember the experiences chronicled in “A Dog Year” as being a chaotic riot. That is not reflected much in the film. They did not go for humor.
  In the film version, Jon Katz’s life is opened up by a crazy border collie. That much is surely true.
  So I’m not sure what else to say. I’m going out to dinner with Maria. I think this will be one of the stranger days of my life, already filled with strange days.
  I don’t know why anybody would watch a movie based on my life, or make one, for that matter. But if you do watch, I hope you will enjoy it. It was made by a very classy crew of people.