I’ve been asked why I haven’t written a post in a while. The truth is that I want to write but haven’t been able to sieve my thoughts through a filter to help separate them and refine them into a topic for a post. I feel scattered and distracted. I really do want to write, though, so I will just outline some of the things I’ve wanted to talk about over the past several days.

• Christmas seems expensive this year. Not because we are spending more money on gifts, but because we go shopping for gifts and come home with things we’ve purchased for ourselves. We bought books and movies for family at Sam’s and a heated mattress pad for ourselves. We went to Game Zone and bought some games for our nephew and came home with three DVDs for our collection. Brad went to Sears on Black Thursday, not to buy Christmas gifts, but to buy a Roomba for me.

• I am not certain how much the Roomba will increase my productivity around here since I find myself mesmerized when it is cleaning. I stand and watch it to figure out the method to its seemingly aimless wanderings about the room.

• I spent the day with my cousin who is recovering from surgery for renal cancer. She is the same cousin whose son is afflicted with a rare, terminal genetic disease called Alstrom syndrome. I have been weepy all evening because it seems to me that surely she has way more than her fair share of heartaches.

• My friend’s father died the day after Thanksgiving. I called her tonight to offer condolences and to say I love her. She said she loves me too. That conversation was heartfelt and warm even though it has probably been two years since we last spoke on the phone.

• Bump threw up several times Thanksgiving morning. At the urging of family, we attended the family meal anyway. Since then, my dad, my grandma, my grandpa, Crash, and my uncle have all suffered from the same virus. I managed to sicken half of the family in one fell swoop. I think I’ve discovered my secret talent.

• I am reading The Color Purple for the second time in two weeks. Something about the book touches my heart and inspires me yet I find myself unable to explain exactly how it makes me feel.

• We’ve seen Casino Royale, The Santa Clause 3, and Stranger Than Fiction recently. Of the three, I highly recommend Stranger Than Fiction for it’s phenomenal acting and Casino Royale for Daniel Craig’s beautifully sculpted body. I can’t find a reason to recommend The Santa Clause 3 except for those of you who happen to be masochists.

Stranger Than Fiction

A doctor asked me yesterday if I was pregnant. He was looking at my ass when he said it and I am not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. I soothed my hurt feelings by eating enough chips and queso at dinner to add an inch of girth to each thigh.

Brad and I saw Stranger Than Fiction at the movies this evening. It’s the second time for me. I first saw it with my mother in San Jose and was so impressed that I vowed to take Brad to see it while it is still on the big screen.

I cried this time just as I cried the first time I saw it. Not because it was sad but because I was so moved by the raw emotion and human-ness of the movie. When Harold Crick’s eyes filled with tears and he picked awkwardly at a nonexistant piece of lint on his jeans, I felt everything he was feeling.

It scenes like the one I’ve just described that always make me think, “I could do that.” Not only do I think I could do it.

But I wish I had the courage to try.

The Terminal and other chit-chat

My friend and I went to see “The Terminal” this afternoon. I thought it was a really great movie. Tom Hanks is just so great at inciting emotion. I would love to meet him in real life. I may even love him better than I love Barbra Streisand. Some who know me may cry “Sacriledge!” but admit it: He IS like buttah! The thing I liked least about the movie was Catherine Zeta-Jone’s character. She was completely emotionally inept and not evolved enough for the audience to appreciate her co-dependence. There was just no depth to her character. Otherwise, the movie was great. The bad guy was really a turd. It was easy to despise him and adore Tom Hanks character.

My husband and I just watched Under the Tuscan Sun. I liked it. Diane Lane plays a woman who suffers through a heartbreaking divorce. She goes on a sightseeing trip to Tuscany and ends up buying a villa and staying there. Her epiphany comes when a young character tells her he will die of heartbreak if he can not be with his girlfriend and she says, “You will not die.” That is when she realized she would live through her own heartbreak. Diane Lane did a good job of completely opening herself up and showing the pain of a divorce. I told Brad that, if anything so horrible ever happened between he and I, Tuscany would not be far enough away. I would have to move to the moon. Actually, I think I would die of heartbreak. I am not sure I am made of such tough stuff as Franchesca in the movie.

My best friend e-mailed me today to tell me her 9 month old has started walking. It is so nice to have a best friend who shares all of these important things with me. I remember sharing all of the very same things with her when my boys were babies. I wonder how women who have no best friend survive? I have friends that I have met in my adulthood, but it is really hard to make friends as you get older. I have just always been so thankful that there is someone like Angie out there who knows me so well and whom I know well. We have done so much laughing and crying together and our lives have been so intertwined. I really don’t see how sisters could love each other any more than she and I love each other. What’s really great is that we both have really healthy marriages and still understand that there are some things that only a girlfriend will ever understand. The other good thing about us both having good marriages is that we don’t have to get mad at each other’s spouses:-) Now if we could just live closer to one another everything would be perfect!

Retirement?

Although I am only 29 years old, I am an old lady and I think I need to retire! I had two EP Studies and an ICD implant today and did not get home until 8:00 pm and I feel like I could just lay down and sleep for days! My back hurts and my head hurts. Of course, I also had my Stats class this morning. So, when you consider that I went to Stats, went to work, and then came home and did homework for stats–I really worked about 14 hours today! Maybe I am not old, just human!

I saw some reviews for “Saved.” Mandy Moore stars. It is about a very religious high school student who is highly critical of anyone with differing religious views and yet is still the most popular girl in school. It looked like it may be good. I really like Mandy Moore. I wish she would branch out into acting that does not cast her as a high school student. I think she is mature enough to play some older, deeper roles.

I am trying to finish reading “Emotional Intelligence.” I finished reading “Bookends” by Jane Green. It ended up simply being about relationships–the comfort of old relationships and the anxiety and fear people who have been hurt emotionally feel at the prospect of new relationships. By the way, Portia turned out to be a good character. She was not as well-rounded as I hoped she would be, though. The author started out building up the mystery surrounding Portia’s personality and then promptly took her out of the story for a 10-year period of time. When she came back into the picture, there was really no exploration of her character except that she turned out not to be the bad guy that so many believed she was. Basically, “Bookends” was good light reading, but had the potential to be so much more than it was. All of the characters needed to be more evolved and the book needed to be longer to resolve some issues with the plot.

The Stepford Wives

Brad and I went to see “The Stepford Wives” on our anniversary. It is a movie about a community where all of the women are perfect homemakers who cook three meals a day, keep their homes spotlessly clean, wear flattering housedresses with high heels, have big breasts and blonde hair, have fantastic sex with their husbands in the middle of the day and fulfill requests for lunch for their children which are submitted to them by their kids by e-mail. Oh yeah–they also have the ability to stick a credit card in their mouth and act as an ATM cash dispenser for their husbands. Upon investigation by one as-yet-untransformed-wife, it is discovered that all of the Stepford wives at one time were high powered CEOs, bank presidents, etc. Ball-breaking Manhattan bitches is the term used in the movie. It becomes apparent early on that the men of Stepford have some sort of scheme going on to transform their wives into model housewives. We learn that the men are tired of being the wuss in their marriages and being second best in every endeavor i.e breadwinning, board games, communication and even sex. Bette Midler plays a writer who has moved to Stepford with her husband, Jon Lovitz. I love the exchange between them that goes something like this:

Jon: Did you finish the laundry?
Bette: No, I finished a chapter.
Jon: Why don’t you ever cook like this?
Bette: Why don’t you?
Jon: Where are the children?
Bette: What children?

Later in the movie:
Jon: Why don’t you ever make cupcakes?
Bette: Why don’t you?
Jon: Because I have a PENIS! That’s why!

Jon Lovitz plays the typical male chauvinist perfectly and Bette Midler is great at the liberated woman who sees no need to be the only family member to cook and clean.

At one point, Matthew Broderick’s character is telling his wife (Nicole Kidman) “You have always earned more money than me, been more respected than me, more intelligent than me—you are even better at sex than me. Don’t deny it. Nicole Kidman’s character comes back with “I wasn’t going to.” At that point, Matthew Broderick asks “I am married to you and you are all of these things–so what does that make me?” Nicole Kidman’s character answers “Lucky!”

Although I truly believe that our society has been much worse off now that most mothers and wives are considered to be of inferior intelligence and value if they choose to be a housewife and mother, this movie, finally at the end, seemed to have a point. Husbands and wives can not be perfect all of the time or even most of the time. But, when two married people are willing to communicate and change and grow for the sake of the greater good–the marriage relationship, neither spouse needs to be perfect! In that case, the relationship is a work in progress and eventually will become a masterpiece of its own.

On another note, I had another Statistics exam today. I was up late studying for it last night and I feel like I did really well on it. I felt good about all of my answers and doublechecked all of them to be certain they were right. As I told my friend today, I tried to be certain of all my answers but I can be CERTAINly wrong as easily as I can be CERTAINly right:-)

A Complete Family again

We got the boys back home today and boy did it elevate my mood! I didn’t even realize how down I was until I saw them. Those big hugs I got when I first saw them were so great! Brad and I keep finding ourselves staring at their sweet faces and remarking on how wonderful it is to have two little boys in our house:-)

“Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch” turned out not to be a worthwhile read so I have abandoned it and started “Irish Girls About Town” which is a collection of short stories by female Irish authors. My favorite so far has been “Thelma and Louise and the Lurve Gods.” I have noticed that the subject/heroine of most books and stories is almost never the beautiful, thin, supermodel-esque women that are so revered by our society. The books are almost always about the slightly flawed, mildly overweight, intelligent women with insight. Maybe that is just the type of books I choose or maybe that is also the description of most female writers? Maybe the perfect supermodel-esque women have less imagination because so much attention is always paid to them? Or maybe no one ever feels there is a lesson to be learned from a beautiful woman because they figure beautiful women do not have the same toils and troubles as the rest of us and thus make a less interesting study? I have also noticed that when a beautiful woman is studied, she often is paired with a man who is not traditionally good looking but rather has a beautiful personality and good heart.

We watched “Shrek 2″ today with the boys. It was another look into society’s ideal of beauty vs. the beauty inside one’s soul. It was also pretty cute.

We watched “Van Helsing” the other night. It was a movie I did not enjoy overmuch. It seemed to be a very typical “man’s movie.” Lots of monsters, violence, mythical stories and, of course, the heroine had a tiny waist, big breasts, long curly hair and could fight as well as any man. However, the heroine actually died saving the hero in this film which is a little bit of a twist for a man’s movie. She also happened to be brunette instead of blonde!

I am hoping to go see “The Stepford Wives” this week.

Right now the boys are watching, “The Haunted Mansion” in their room and I am about to curl up on the couch with my husband and watch “The Lord of the Rings-3.”

Harry Potter

My mother, my 7 year old, and I went to the midnight showing last night of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I must say, I have been a fan of how true to the book all of the Harry Potter movies have been up to this point, but I was not impressed by this one. SO many important details were left out and there were some liberties taken with the story line. My theory is: if it ain’t broke, don’t TRY to fix it! I think if the original director had not quit, it would have been so much better. Of course, Book 4 has an even different director so maybe there is hope that it will be more true to the book. The potion Professor Lupin drinks every month that is made by Snape is an important part of the book and there was only one half-hearted mention of it. The new Albus Dumbledore lacks the spunk of the old one. The actor chosen to play Prof. Lupin is not evolved and really bores NO resemblance to the image in my imagination. Also, it was never mentioned that Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were Peter Pettigrew, Lupin, Sirius Black and James Potter. It is also never divulged that Harry’s Patronus takes the shape of a stag–the animal that his animagus father turned into. We didn’t see anything of the hinkypunks, grindylows, etc. I think they will have to leave out many details from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well because last night’s movie was over 2 1/2 hours long and the books only get longer in book 4 and 5. Basically, I am disappointed in the movie and deserately wish that book 6 would come out soon to chase away the diheartened feeling I have with Harry Potter at the moment.

I guess it is worth mentioning that my mother and Bump really liked the movie. Now we all just have to try to stay awake the rest of the day!!! I have to go back to see the movie again tonight with Brad!

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