Monday, February 26, 2007

Thoughts Thought For The Past Few Days

After seeing so many average and horrible (thanks, Black Dahlia, I am still not over you), I am still in search of the next movie I am going to love or at least really like. I thought I had found this movie in Layer Cake. From the beginning it was British and smart (I admit it: I love smart and British). Daniel Craig was good and the story was interesting. But, then, halfway through, the movie got unnecessarily complicated, splitting off this way and that. I got lost. And, I discovered to my dismay, I wasn't all that interested in finding my way back. So, I turned off Layer Cake and decided instead to watch Rent. I fancy myself a bohemian at heart (albeit a bohemian with a house and a steady income) and love musicals, so Rent is perfect for me. I love the songs, the characters. There are so many movies that I have never seen, but I like the comfort of one that I know I like.
Speaking of comfort, it is comforting for me to know that my small child is already a con artist in the making. Last night as I dressed him in his pajamas, he pointed to the small red bottle on his dresser and said "I want Tylenol in my mouth." (Yes, he is two and that is how he talks.) I explained to him that Tylenol is only for making stuffed noses or coughs better. Then, my little dear let out the most pathetic little fake cough that I have ever heard. I couldn't help but laugh at him.
It has been a very hard week all things considered. Even though I was barely pregnant, my body had apparently adjusted already to being pregnant and is still adjusting to not being pregnant. The first few days I felt okay, really, but now, over a week later, I am still upset, but getting better. It has been a hard adjustment for my body to make. I don't recall the adjustment even being this hard after I physically had a baby. Of course, then I was recovering from the surgery and had a tiny baby and no sleep to occupy my time. When I have too much free time to think, I am capable of really mentally torturing myself.
Speaking of mental torture, I can't remember if I mentioned my utter distate for The Black Dahlia. It burned into my brain and I fear that years from now when I can barely remember my own name, its images will haunt me. Not likely to haunt me, though, is The Break-Up, which is the most recent Kimberly-Jeff (of Jeff-Kimberly, if you prefer) movie watched. I thought it was funny and enjoyed it.
This week's poll: Which tv show (currently on the air) cast would you most like to join? I chose How I Met Your Mother since they all seem fun and Jeff chose The Office since he said it seems you can get away with doing very little.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Monday Thoughts

Anyone who has spent more than a minute with me has noticed that I tend to have mood swings. I prefer to call it “artistic temperament,” but “mood swings” is not inaccurate. Today my feelings have been all over the place. I blame The Black Dahlia. The movie is very pretty to look at. Okay, that takes care of the positive comments: now for the negative ones. Let me start by saying that I loved L.A. Confidential. I have seen it a few times now and find it to be a good example of what contemporary “noir” can be. Dahlia, on the other hand, is boring and meandering and is less about the Dahlia murder case than my own autobiography is. It has taken us three days (so far) to watch. Even though I have not finished the movie, I still feel qualified to give my opinion. I am a big believer in second chances and not making rash decisions. However, last evening I threw all of that out the window when I decided that I had to go to bed instead of watching the last 15 minutes. Because I am a masochist, however, I will be watching the last 15 minutes this evening, and, unless there is some sort of tap-dancing animal or unbelievable twist at the end, the movie cannot be redeemed. There is potential in the story, I think, though there are so many other things going on that I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone with any kind of attention deficit (or anyone who doesn’t have an attention deficit).
Though I would like nothing more than to blame Dahlia for my current state of mind, I know there is something else going on my mind, something that I need to write about briefly, so here goes: I had a miscarriage. I was barely even pregnant, but I did have the positive pee-on-the-stick test and very short elation before I miscarried. Certainly there wasn’t enough time to bond with the barely fertilized egg before it was gone, yet I still feel sad. I am giving myself all kinds of reasons not to feel sad, but the sadness creeps in around the periphery none-the-less. Jeff and Jude accompanied me to the doctor today and as I sat in the doctor’s office nearly crying, I couldn’t help but think “This doctor must really think I’m nuts. Every time I come here, I am either crying or on the brink of crying.” I allowed myself one long look at the beauty of the pregnant women all around us, then, we went out for ice cream and I headed back to work. Life goes on and I comfort myself with two thoughts: one, I will be a pregnant woman again (though one more baby is my limit – I’m not running some kind of factory in there) and two: 15 more minutes and I never have to watch The Black Dahlia again. Now that is something to smile about. Oh, and today was unseasonably warm and I dyed my hair back to red so things are looking up.
This week's Jeff and Kim poll: Which tv character would you most like to date? Jeff chose Pam Beasley and I chose Jim Halpert (both, of course, from The Office.)

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Post Valentine's Day Thoughts

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and that can only mean one thing: one month until the Ides of March, so you may want to plan your schedule accordingly. Oh, and there are thousands (millions even) of people with sweetness hangovers from the love-and-chocolate soaked Valentine’s Day. My Valentine’s Day was very low-key, but I got to spend the evening part of it with the ones I love (and the day part with the ones on the phone who annoy me), so it was a pretty typical day. Jeff came to my place of work to take me out to lunch and chauffeured me to and from work so that I wouldn’t be killed in an ugly vehicular homicide while driving out on the ice-and-snow-covered roads. And really, isn’t part of love just trying to keep your loved ones alive? Instead of analyzing the origins or chemistry of love, as a really sophisticated and smart blogger might do, I am instead going to talk about things I love right at this very moment.
In the morning, in the shower Jude likes to take the cap off of my shaving gel and put it on Jeff’s shampoo bottle. I don’t know what started this ritual, but now, Jude will smile at me and point to the cap and say “I leave this for Daddy.” This is such a strange, absurd little thing but I love it.
We have been married for five and a half years, but Jeff still opens my car door every time we get into the car. I know he thinks that I take it for granted now, but I really don’t. I still marvel at it. He is teaching Jude how to be a tiny gentleman. The two of them have their own little men’s club and though I sometimes feel excluded due to my gender, I try not to take it personally and I love that they love each other so much.
I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which I am watching on DVD (even though I saw all of the episodes in syndication). I am on season three and though I am careful to shield Jude from any scary monsters or excessive violence, I love that he will hand the DVD box to me and say “I want Buffy.” Then, we watch a few minutes together.
I love that Lost is finally back and that it is twisted and freaky. I have been following it since the beginning and I am still on the ride, prepared to see it through to the end. I love that it is weird and really twisted and that it just keeps getting more so.
I love this little blog, my tiny corner of the internet where I can post my thoughts in a vacuum and can retrieve them later.
Jeff and I did a Valentine's Day poll to one another: who is the hottest actor/actress currently on tv? It may sound odd for a married couple to have such discussions, but not to us. We had a big discussion and neither of us thought it was strange, just good conversation. The results: Jeff chose Kristen Bell (from Veronica Mars) and I chose Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh from Hereos).
Jeff and I are currently watching Black Dahlia, so I will review that in my next blog.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Lazy Days and Sundays

Yesterday a casual observer to our home would have noticed the sort of laid-back atmosphere that generally one might see with a carbon monoxide leak. With the sub-zero temperatures outside, we had but one goal for the day: don’t go outside. So, a very casual day of hanging out was had by all. Jude curled up onto Jeff’s lap and he was the first casualty, drawn into a deep sleep. Jeff was next. With a small child on his lap, I suppose he had no choice but to surrender also to naptime. I was the lone hold out against sleep and I lay down on the couch and turned on The Brothers Grimm so that I could be amused while the men around me napped. After 45 minutes, I had to pause the movie, as I too needed a nap. I took a brief little 20-minute nap, then set about to watch the rest of Grimm.
While I can’t exactly say that I am sorry that I watched the movie, neither am I jumping for sheer ecstasy for having seen the movie either. It wasn’t that it was a bad movie, but rather that it was just okay. Sometimes I felt like I was missing something, like some crucial bit of plot had somehow been edited out. It was a very dark movie, cool to look at, but really nothing more. I was disappointed. I am a huge fan of Terry Gilliam’s other movies, so this felt like a letdown. I would recommend, though, Brazil (and obviously here I mean the director’s cut and not the bullshit “Love Conquers All” version because they really are two totally different movies) and Twelve Monkeys. Both are grim visions, but Brazil has some really funny moments and Monkeys astounded me with how good it was. Outstanding performances all around. I watched both movies alone the first time I saw them and normally I don’t mind watching films alone, but afterward, wanted to talk about both, as they really pressed my geek buttons.
Ah, speaking of geek, the promised review of Art School Confidential. If you love yourself (and I am assuming that you do), then don’t bother with this film. Actually it isn’t a bad movie, really – or so I told myself through the first half of the movie. Then, at the end I felt an incredible sense that mimicked my first clumsy sexual experience, that of “oh, well that wasn’t very good, was it?” Much of the problem was with the main character, whose name, if I remember correctly was Whiny Whinestein. I could be a little off on the name, but his sole character trait was his ability to out-whine the art school competition. I suppose the movie had a happy ending, but I wasn’t really sure whether it was supposed to be happily cynical or depressingly cynical. No matter: I wipe my hands of the whole affair. I then dried my hands on a canvas, making unusual shapes and smears and am selling that lovely piece of art here on my blogsite if anyone is interested.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Daydreamy Believer

It is a good thing that I am not an air traffic controller. Seriously. I don’t know how to keep those suckers in the air, let alone land them. Oh, and my mind tends to wander. Especially at work. I am sure that is true of most people but in my case, my lack of focus has reached legendary proportions. Should someone ask me what I am thinking at any given moment, an honest answer would be both lengthy and confusing to the listener, so I am eternally thankful that on a daily basis people tend to ignore my introspection. Here’s a sampling of the random weirdness that occurred in my brain today.
Remember William H. Macy’s character in Magnolia? Magnolia was the first movie that Jeff and I saw together and I still remember Macy’s character most of all and his sad statement “I have so much love to give but I don’t know where to put it.” (Or something to that effect, I may be a little off on the quote, but that is the basic sentiment.) If I could speak to Macy’s character (and possibly I think about interactions I would have with different movie characters unless that is completely insane, in which case, I certainly do not), I would gently steer him to the internet. The internet would appear to be an outlet for any random thought or emotion a person might have (see also: this blog). The sheer number of internet dating sites is astounding. If you are into something, you will certainly find someone else with the same interest if only you look hard enough. This is not a knock on dating sites. It was through one such site that I met Jeff. I only wish that this resource had been available to me a bit earlier in my dating life – particularly in college. I was doomed to wade through a pile of losers and miscreants and tried to choose the least loser-y and miscreant-y. Wow did I fail. I like to think that my past dating failures have made me a more loving and appreciative wife, but I think I would have still fallen in love with Jeff had I not had such a sordid dating track record. Who knows?
It is sunny today and it is expected to get up to 14 degrees today. Yep. Up to 14 degrees. Possibly by next week it will be time to pull out the barbecue. To celebrate, I have cranked up my favorite Harvey Danger CD (the one with Carlotta Valdez) in my car to ease my long commute home. Okay, that’s a lie. It is ten minutes from work under ideal conditions (no train, no ice on road, no cars anywhere else on the road in front of me).
I think I will have a piece of gum.
Last movie watched: An American Haunting. An American piece of crap is more accurate. I was so bored watching it that even its brief mention here is making me yawn. Jeff and I are in the middle of Art School Confidential, so I will review that in my next blog.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Get Connected

Get Connected

I am a bit of a grouch lately. Not on par with Oscar, certainly (and as someone who has now sat through two screenings of Elmo in Grouchland, I feel qualified to say that), but definitely on edge. The reason? No internet connection – since Saturday afternoon. At this moment, it is Tuesday and I am writing this at my desk at work, saving it to my flash disk. Why wouldn’t I have internet? Well, we have recently switched from cable to a satellite so that Jeff can get sports channels highlighting his soccer games from Europe and South America. I am fairly certain that I even saw some teams from Antarctica on the channel. When we switched, we made it very clear that we would be keeping our cable internet connection. So, of course, when the cableperson came to undo that voodoo that made our cable work, our cable internet was lost also. We didn’t know until Sunday since we were gone on Saturday afternoon and evening. Sunday and Monday, Jeff continued to call and finally on Monday we were told that someone would be coming out to our house between 3:00 and 5:00 on Tuesday to check the problem. So, here it is Tuesday at 3:30 and I am seeing the physical side effects of withdrawal. Clever, witty and altogether banal things are being said on the internet and I am not a party to it. I am dizzy and sweating, afraid that I’ll never see the internet again. I have stolen glimpses of it, like a dieter unable to stay away from that chocolate cake, swiping bits of frosting from the top, hoping to convince herself that the little taste will satiate her. But, the little tastes (from my boss’s computer while he is away in another building) aren’t helping. They are only showing me the world that I am missing. Oh, I am sick. I know it. I should check myself into some sort of internet rehabilitation facility.

Ok, now it is Friday and after having internet for one whole day (Tuesday), we were cut off again as we transition from cable to DSL. So, again, I blog at my desk at work. Most of the trembling has subsided, but my mood is still tense. I still don’t have internet access, but the prospect of getting connected once more gives me hope. Still time away from the computer has given me a chance to focus on my other hobbies (some of which I will not discuss in the forum), including movie watching. I love movies. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t (except for many of my coworkers who do not own TVs). This last week I have watch Elmo in Grouchland a couple of times and it has made me think of the joy that I get when falling in love with a movie. Jude has obviously fallen in love with this movie. Elmo is less a movie star and more a demigod for the preschool set; I suspect that they are building alters in Elmo’s name with their Fisher-Price tool sets. Secondly, though, the villain of Grouchland is played by Many Pitinkin. No matter how many trash heaps he plays upon or broadway musicals he does or episodes of Crimimal Mind that he does, Mandy Pitinkin will always be Inigo Montoya to me. I can’t help it; I love The Princess Bride that much. I believe it is the movie I have seen the most times and still remember the feelings that I had watching it when I was 15 and falling in love with it for the first time. I have met people who will watch a movie once, then will never watch that movie again. I would say that about half of my movie-watching involves movies I have already seen. Do you prefer movies you’ve already seen and know that you like or prefer the adventure of the unknown? Sure, I love discovering new movies as well, but there are favorites that never get tiresome to me. Want to know what they are? Sure you do. Well, in addition to The Princess Bride, I still get weepy at Chasing Amy and still laugh my ass off at Clerks (nope, it really doesn’t get less funny). In fact, Mallrats was on cable and I watched a few minutes. I didn’t realize that I was mouthing all of the dialogue until my husband asked how many times I had seen it. Juvenile? Yep. Silly? Yep. I still love it. I know Say Anything pretty much by heart, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to watch it again and again. I know whether Ilsa will pick Rick or Victor at the end of Casablanca, but I still love it anyway (and if you don’t know the answer to that question, than you need to stop reading this blog immediately and get to a video store). Christopher Guest would get a guest spot on my list of favorites. Thus far, I have loved all of his improvisational “mockumentaries.” I have a special spot in my heart for This is Spinal Tap just because of the sheer silly and genius dialogue (“There is such a fine line between clever and stupid” and “The answer is none. None more black.”) One night last week I was talking to Jeff and made a comment about Christopher Walken in True Romance (thus reminding me that I am one of those Quentin Tarantino whores who fawn over every word he writes, even if said words are in a movie that he did not direct) and Jeff had the audacity to say “Christopher Walken was in True Romance?” To which I responded “Yeah, in the scene with Dennis Hopper.” To which he responded “Dennis Hopper was in True Romance?” So, now I am sure that you know that Jeff and I will be watching True Romance sometime in the near future. I am sure two or three blogs from now, I will write more about movies. Right now, though, I am going through withdrawal. At work without so much as a TV screen in sight. So, take my mind off my trembling: what are your favorite movies, the ones you must watch again and again?