And worth every second...

Mmm, Love that Studio 60 goodness.

Hey, even Sundays need to have good points...

Studio 60...

Is back, back, back.

Danc-o!!

(Hey, when you watch this little TV, every little bit matters...)

Desensitize this...

So, okay, as Daniel was the birthday boy, he got to choose the movie. And as the movie looked really good, we all agreed on it.

Just before the movie starts, I look around and notice that there are absolutely no children in the theatre. I naively attribute this to the fact that it's the 10:10 showing and we're downtown. But really. There are always children at the theatre.

Pan's Labyrinth...

Now, for those of you who know me, you understand that I am not a squeamish person. Give me anything but doomsday movies and I can watch them till the cows come home. This movie, though, brought a whole new level of violence to entertainment, one which I really don't think I've ever seen before.

I must admit, though, that even with the frankness of this violence, which, admittedly, though harsh, really did help to forward certain characters. You come to realize towards the end that some of these people are hardly people at all, but brutal, mindless animals bent solely on reducing everything and everyone to their basest level.

Sad, sad, sad. This story reminds you of when there were fairies. And where there are fairies, there be monsters lurking close to. It's stark, it's ugly and somehow completely beautiful. And maybe everything doesn't end up all right in the end. But maybe it does.

A true fairy tale, confusing, dark, violent and gorgeous.

See it. Be ready to cover your eyes and gasp and jump and completely fall in love with it.

(I don't write movie reviews because I'm scattered and easily influenced by the voices in my head, but please understand that this is an endorsement).

Humming in my dreams...

This, apparently, is the new thing I've taken up. Cos says it's very cute, especially as it's punctuated by small giggles. He asked me what I was humming, as he doesn't recognize the tune. Of course, being asleep, I'm not chock full of the useful knowledge in this regard.

I tell him it's my theme song.

"Each person who ever was or will be has a song... Take Daisy, for example. Her song, which had been somewhere in the back of her head for most of her life, had a reassuring, marching sort of beat, and words that were about protecting the weak, and it had a chorus that began, "Evildoers beware!" and was thus much too silly ever to be sung out loud. She would hum it to herself sometimes though, in the shower, during the soapy bits."

- Neil Gaiman,
Anansi Boys

He liked that. That, along with the bits about how a lime was "just a lime" are some of the best moments of that book.

Anyway, I figure it might be because yesterday I was taken off contract at my new job. It's a wonderful new job, much like the old one started out. However, this one's for an actual company, not some guy's demented harem, and therefore, it's unionized. This means that if they decide to change the rules (Say, cancelling overtime but expecting the same hours' of work, or neglecting to give vacation pay, etc.) they can't. Or they'd have an awful lot of explaining to do. And a lot of angry union-types on their collective asses. Also, my boss is sweet.

Long story short, I left [crappy company] for [good company] on a hope and a dream. Seriously, it was a three month contract, but things were so bad I was willing to wing it. And on the day I went in to sign my contract (Fancy that - actual contracts!) I was informed that they had received budget to hire us on full time. Eventually.

Eventually came yesterday in the guise of my giggling and excited boss, and I, of course, signed my new contract that removes me from the realm of contract players immediately.

And tomorrow the Square Tablers are getting together to celebrate Dan's birthday. I know we had a Christmas get together and before that a Halloween party and before that CPS and Polly got married. But it seems like forever since we broke bed together, and for this I'm very excited, although slightly worried, in the "Will the East! crowd appreciate us being loud and rowdy? Will we be loud and rowdy when surrounded with the East! crowd? etc.)

Anywho, very exciting, definitely worth humming about.

Now if I could only figure out the words to my theme...

Addendum...

I'm also sick of her maligning my taste in music.

This is a 74 year old woman who will drive to various venues across Detroit to see the "incomparable" Clay Aiken croon his passionless love songs, and yet scorns the power and beauty in something so simple as a Nirvana tune or a wee ditty by The White Stripes.

Can she judge me a snob when I've listened and found lacking and she's never given mine the time of day?

And does she have a leg to stand on when she's 74 and into teeny bopper music when she mocked me, at 10, for liking NKOTB?

Which is more age appropriate, anyway? American Idol is not a good musical forum, unless you're looking for unimaginative pre-packaged pop, which I'm not. (Fantasia singing a Macy Grey song was definitely the end of this "live and let live" policy I'd adopted with the show. Watching the judges tell her she had such a unique voice and vision of the song, when she'd quacked it out in exactly the same manner as the original artist - And far less convincingly - just about did me in. I still have scars from how high the veins on my head tried to pop!)

She do be crazy, she do that. And apparently she's taking me with her, as I'm contemplating all of this in actual seriousness...

Family, or what have you done for me lately...?

Wow. They said it, whoever "they" are. You can't choose your family, but blowing them away and ending up a whodunit on Court TV is really embarrassing to all involved, so don't do it.

You know, there are people in this world you have to love, because they're related to you, and blood is supposed to be thicker than water. There are people you take around with you in your day to day life because of chromosomes or last names. These are the people who make it easy to understand how you can love someone, but not like them.

My grandmother, maternal, is one of these people.

She's erratic and judgmental and probably one of the scariest people you'll ever meet, if you ever get to meet her real side. Otherwise, she's just another in a long line of sweet old ladies who want things their way.

Either way, it's hard to take.

It's hard to take when you're 8 and your 6 year old brother has a cough, and instead of driving to the nearby pharmacy, she leans across you in the front seat of her car and grabs your brother's neck to stop him from coughing. How insanely Telltale Heart is that? ("The sound of that infernal cough!!")

It's hard to take when you're 12 and she says to you "You know, you don't read enough for a child of your age." Especially when you reply, "Well, Nana, you know, I read a book or two a week." To which she replies, without batting an eyelash, "You read entirely too much."

It's hard to take when you're 14 and your sweet, loving cat has just been intentionally hit by a car, and she says "Well, it's all your fault for letting him out in the first place." Especially when you know that her 8 cats are currently running themselves ragged around her neighbourhood.

It's hard to take when you're 17 and your 15 year old brother is in hospital for anorexia and she tells you "He does take his cues from you. It's your fault he's in hospital in the first place. And while we're on the subject, you really could stand to lose a couple pounds."

It's hard to take when your brother has troubles with drugs, and she insists to your mother "If she hadn't taken him down to Queen St. none of this would have happened."

It's hard to take when your brother has missed three methadone servings in a week because of the Christmas rush and has to go to the hospital and she sits in the front seat of the car and says "Addicts have ruined my life. If he only knew what he was doing to his family (Meaning her) he wouldn't be doing this now." How do you explain to a 74 year old woman that 1. She wasn't there when he was a junkie, his family (Me, my mother and father) were and 2. He's clearly trying to deal with it in a more socially respectable way and 3. He didn't hit the streets looking for something illicit, he went to the hospital to get what he needed?

It's hard to take when your mother confronts the old bat for bad mouthing her son in front of his sister and father, and the first things out of the woman's mouth are "And how did she blow it all out of proportion this time!?" Especially when it was the father who reported it and you merely confirmed the report.

It's hard to take when your mother informs her that you feel left out and would like a better relationship with her and her only response is a defensive "Well, she's just jealous of [13 year old super awesome girl cousin]." Which I'm not. Well, not for what she has or what she's given, but for the acceptance and affection given to her by my grandmother. Is that jealousy?

It's hard to take when you invite her over to your house again and again, once for Christmas (At which point she says "Well, you know, at Christmas your cousins are more important." As opposed to all the other times I'm more important? But never mind that) and then she has the gall to pout about not being over to the house yet, in front of your family and your husband's family.

I hate being made to look like an asshole by this woman who has knocked back every single attempt I've made at forging familial bonds. I hate being made to feel like I'm the idiot child of the idiot child she's only now beginning to appreciate. I don't have 53 years of waiting for my grandmother to approve of me, nor do I want her approval. I would, however, give considerable donations to a church, hospital, individual, for an ounce of like from this woman.

And there, my friends, is the crux of the problem, I suppose...

Blood blister...

What? It's my blog, I'll discuss bodily ailments if I want to. It's only little, anyway, and was shaped like a guitar pick. But now it's healing and I guess soon it won't be anything.

I was worried my body would reabsorb it, or something weird, you know, one of those weird body things you hear of when you're little but don't believe, and then find out when you're older that it's real? Turns out it's not.

Anyway.

Saw Perfume tonight. For about 12 years I've been waiting for this movie to come out. Maybe longer. Ever since I heard Scentless Apprentice, anyway, which would have been in '94, which makes me old. (Yes, I can do math).

My brother and I have each lost at least one copy of the book and have read it many times. In fact, we were just talking about it today. So when Cos said we could go see this on our date night, I knew full and well why I married him and just how much he loves me. (Yeah, a little self-plug, what of it?)

It was wonderful. Very true to the novel, with only very minor omissions. I won't tell you what, in case you're reading this and have intentions of seeing the movie, but there was one bit I wish I could've seen on the big screen, but which really didn't detract from meaning or content or anything.

I will say this, though: Dustin Hoffman? It was like someone put a Bronx Jewish Mafia kid circa 1936 in the middle of 18th century France. And every once in a while he'd remember he was supposed to be Italian Italian and shout out Basta!!, which my Nonna does whenever she's trying to prove to me that she's really and truly Italian, in case her getting up at 4:30 every morning to make (yummy and mmm-nutritious) home-made pasta wasn't enough.

Hush... It's late, I just felt like proving I can still blog.

Pictures...

Please note that all of these pictures were taken by the hot little hands of either Cos or myself. If you have any questions (Locales, etc) please feel free to ask. Go ahead and use 'em if you need to, but if anyone asks, they're mine. Thanks :)