Just Watched:  The Fisher King - What a great movie.  Sometimes it's hard to describe what you like about a movie.  For me that's usually because what I like about it is the way I feel after I've seen it. After this movie I felt a combination of things, but I also felt like thinking big thoughts.  I don't know if that makes any sense.  It reminds me of the way I feel after I watch one of my favorite movies of all time The Razor's Edge.   It's funny that both movies star great comedians and neither are comedies (although this one has some truly funny moments).   I'm not 'cool' enough to refrain from mentioning that Robin Williams gets completely nude and jumps around in the park in the middle of this movie.   That's not why I like it, but it is something I remember from it.

Also Just Watched:  Average Joe - When I heard about this show, I hoped that it might be different somehow.  In a good way.  They took a beautiful woman, asked her what was important in a guy, and she said personality was more important than looks.  She lied.  She gave herself away in the first five minutes of the first show.  And I can't say that she's gotten any less shallow.  The producers, meanwhile, are taking every opportunity to exploit the fatness, baldness and geekyness of each guy.  This week?  They invited a professional football player to come throw the ball with the guys.  Give me a break.  And the guys they picked for this show are not only "average" looking, most of them are socially inept.  One of them is a total asshole.  Wanna guess which one she made out with this week?  If you said the asshole, you win.  No one else will win in this show.   I've decided not to stick around and watch myself be right.

One Big Sidebar

November 14, 2003

Mews of Miss Mimi: Today Mimi shredded her first roll of toilet paper.  Happily, there was not much on the roll.  Currently there is none at all on that roll.  I have started closing the bedroom door at night to keep from being invited to play at 3:00 am every morning.  And I will soon have to purchase a spray bottle, if I'm going to keep my furniture in one piece.    

In other words, things are going pretty much as one might suspect.  

I mentioned I was setting up a quiet place for myself.  Here's what I think is a pretty good start.

The word count is temporarily unavailable.

Excerpt:

Elizabeth was an actress. Well, she could have been, if she hadn’t gotten married and sold out to the white picket fence. When they were in college, Elizabeth was an actress. She was in several productions at the Century playhouse, while Keli sometimes volunteered to paint sets or clean up after a show. They didn’t know each other well back then. They got more acquainted after graduation.

Mary Beth was one of their mutual friends. No big deal really. Keli had gone to high school with Mary Beth’s sophomore roommate. Yeah, they were more than roommates, though nobody said so. By the time Mary Beth graduated, she’d decided to date only boys. Elizabeth happened somewhere in the interim.

That was twenty years ago. Keli didn’t like to think about it. It was hard to sort out how much that happened back then was lies, and how much people just changed. Sold out, more likely. To the expectations of their parents. To the 401K. To the major medical and the long term disability coverage. To the PTA and the United Methodist Church on the corner. 

Keli had promised not to sell out. She lied, really. Partly because she had in fact taken a 'low level job with room to advance' in a major corporation, and partly because not doing something because you don’t want to sell out is like selling out to its opposite. The same way that Satanism is a Christian religion. Pagans don’t believe in Satan. He was a construct of the Christian church. A bastard born of prejudice and misinformation. Keli’s rebellion was like that. She sold out to being the opposite of what was expected. And now she was alone.