Milestones (and Their Observation)

In order to gear myself up to write an Epic Marriage Milestone Post, I (reconstructed and) listened to "There In Spirit"- aka our Wedding Soundtrack*. And then, excellent music piping directly into my ears, I read back over the blog posts tagged "musings on marriage".  And then I sat and stared at the screen for a while, stumped for something else to add... and then put all that aside and, you know, actually celebrated our Ten Year Wedding Anniversary.

Cheeeeeeese!

It was pretty low-key, as far as these things go- I've said before that a wedding is not a marriage: it stands to reason that neither is an anniversary (no matter what Big Diamond would like us to believe).  My Lifemate and I have been a bit too busy having an extremely full and chaotic life together to worry about making an Artificially Big Deal out of a party that happened a decade ago.  Which is not to say we made no deal of it- we played hooky from work, loaded all four of us into the car (yes, Isis got to come), and headed out on a three-hour road-trip to Newport for some fresh fish-n-chips and a visit to the Aquarium at the Coast, a treat we've been promising TLG for a long time now.

ROAD TRIP AAAAHHHHH!

Boy loves him some "chips".

TLG was pleased as punch to spy a megalodon.

Life sized.  For real.

When we left the Aquarium it was shockingly sunny and lovely out, so we decided to hit the beach...

The wind was up!

...where it promptly hail stormed on us.  But then, considering it rained on our actual wedding day, I chose to take it as a little wink-wink-nudge-nudge from the Powers That Be.

(And then tried real hard not to take it too personally when it stopped the second we made it back to the car after a half-run up a suddenly-much-longer trail...)

From there we went to get some ice cream ("Just what you want when you're wet and freezing," Nathan joked, but ice cream had been promised earlier, and therefore ice cream would be had.) (I had something called Oregon Trail and it was delicious) and then it was back on the road.

(we DID get this conciliatory rainbow on the way home)

We'd managed to time just poorly enough in regards to Rush Hour that a stop at the outlet mall was a welcome distraction, and I ended up getting a pair of long-needed winter boots for a very nice price (happy anniversary to me).  TLG fell asleep for the last half-hour of the drive, which means I got to just pour him directly into pajamas/bed when we got home, and Nathan and I actually got a chance to watch a movie together (it was Aquaman, and it was on the enjoyable side of okay).

Exxxxcellent

So yeah, I don't know that I have anything Truly Profound to say about being married for ten years.  No new insights, nothing particularly poetic.  Just...  I'm glad I married him.  Glad he's been there holding me for the best and worst days the past decade has held.  Maybe there really is something to the whole Entanglement thing, that my falling in love with him as a teenager had less to do with who were were at the time and more to do with the many years we'd spend as partners in the future.  ::shrug::  Or maybe I, art-major-turned-financial-advisor, really have a fundamental misunderstanding of theoretical physics.  Who knows it's a mystery I guess.

One last thing to share- the "traditional" theme for gifts for the ten year anniversary is tin or aluminum.  Originally I booked a lesson in tin-type photography for Nathan, but the people I booked through lost their classroom space, so we switched it to a family portrait done in tin-type.  I'll share that once we actually get it done... Nathan's mind was working along similar lines, and he got three of our Bonnie-and-Clyde-themed Engagement Photos (taken by my Katie!) printed on aluminum in matching heights, so I can make a nice display at my office (or in the new house- we'll see!).  (For the record, we would never go on a mass-murder spree.)  (And if we did, we'd be a lot smarter about it.)

LOOK AT WHAT BABIES WE WERE!

So there you have it- ten years of marriage in the books.  But now that I've already written an entire entry, I'm suddenly feeling the need to keep going just a little bit longer... so let's break those ten years down into smaller Milestones, shall we?

A little over one since I changed careers.  Three-and-a-half since our first child was born.  Nearly five since we lost Koopa.  Nearly six since we lost the first baby.  Seven since we brought Isis home.  Eight since we moved to Vancouver and bought our first house together.  Nine since our first trip overseas.  Ten since our Wedding Day.

But... that's not really where it began, is it?  Let's go further back.

Ten years and two weeks since we eloped to the courthouse, giggling like fools.  Eleven-and-a-half years since I packed up my life and relocated 3000 miles to see if we could work as a couple.  Nearly twelve since we had the conversation that would lead to said move.  Nearly fourteen since we decided we could never be together because of our different faiths, and had our first (and what I thought would be our only) kiss.  Twenty since I confessed I was in love with him and he told me he didn't think of me that way- but we stayed best friends anyway.  And twenty-four since we met and bonded over bouncing crawdad eyeballs in Freshman Biology.

So yeah.  We've had a lot of Milestones over the full course of our relationship with just-as-much-if-not-more importance than "a decade of marriage".  And I look forward to hitting many, many more on the way.  Cheers!







*I actually put together over four hours of carefully curated (and mixed!) music for our entire wedding/reception (oh hello there control-freak-nature), but for the Album Itself (which was sent to those of our Nearest and Dearest who couldn't make it to the Official Shindig) I pared it down to a mere Twenty Significant Tracks:

Heart Asks Pleasure First (Ahn Trio)
Sunrise, Sunset (from Fiddler on the Roof)
Wedding Day- Duet With Heidi (Seal)
Love You More (Alexi Murdoch)
And I Love Her (The Beatles)
Hairy Trees (Goldfrapp)
Wildflowers (Tom Petty)
Lucky (Jason Mraz feat. Colbie Caillat)
Alabama Chicken (Sean Hayes)
Wontcha Come Home (G. Love & Special Sauce)
Untitled (Interpol)
Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve)
Holding Out for a Hero (Frou Frou)**
Singin' in the Rain (Mint Royale)
I've Got You Under My Skin (Ella Fitzgerald)
Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Gamble Everything for Love (Ben Lee)
Surfer Girl (The Beach Boys)
Delirious Love (Neil Diamond)
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)

**I can't actually get this version on Spotify, so I had to pause my Official Soundtrack and pop over to YouTube...

In General

It's been a good year for us ladies in terms of cinematic generals.  And most recently I've added General Okoye, leader of the Dora Milaje, to that militaristic list of bad-ass-women-to-be-when-I-grow-up (although actress Danai Gurira is only three years older than me, sooo... maybe I'd better hurry up with the growing up?).

YAS GENERAL

I'm pretty freaking obsessed with every last world-building aspect of Black Panther, so naturally when I drew Okoye I also took the time to pull up some movie stills and get some details in on her costume.  Never have I so badly wished for some gold paint, I tell you what.  All the little intricate details (and sadly I had to leave some out) were just super fun to put in there, and reminded me how much I love doing that sort of thing.

Anyhoo, the main challenge for me on this (after attempting to find even one frigging photo of her head tattoo) was working with Gurira's very dark skin tone.  Although I've tried my hand at a variety of skin tones through the years, the truth of the matter is that I have a lot more experience with the pale end of the Caucasian spectrum, which makes it easier for me to noodle in.  I want to fix that- I want to be comfortable noodling in any and every skin tone, so you know what that mean...

...more practice is needed!

Also I may go back in with some hatching.  I dunno'.  Probably not, if I'm being honest.  It could use it, but... I've already put four days into this one, and it's time to move forward.

Shariel

Okay, first of all, I have been drinking.  So, like, forgive any spelling errors.  Also grammatical.

Second of all, I had a conversation with a friend today, in which we compared our respective early influences re: the ocean.  His had a lot to do with Jaws, and resulted in definitive discomfort with the watery depths.  Mine had a lot to do with The Little Mermaid, and resulted in me being a land mermaid.  So, obviously, I had to do a mashup:

Part of your world.  Your bloody, tasty world.

I don't even know, man.  I had planned to go back in with some purples to bring out the hair more, but then I got invited out to the movies, which we followed up with a trip to the bar, where they had chocolate/orange infused whiskey, soooo... this is what you get.

Woo!

Jenny O and Date Night Tears

Well, we finally did it.  We finally paid an actual, non-family babysitter to watch over the Little Gentleman while we went out on a date.

I was worried that I might be anxious about leaving him with a near-stranger (someone I know in passing from the climbing gym, and who babysits a friend's kids) but as it turns out all my anxiety was reserved for updating my "So You're Watching Our Kid" info sheet, and making sure we had plenty of food available.  Once she was here (and it was established that the Little Gentleman considered us totally interchangeable) I yelled, "Later!" and Nathan and I sped out of there so fast I'm amazed there were no spinning heads.  Maybe there would have been, if they hadn't been so absorbed in getting ready for a walk.

For the first stop on our ultra-romantic date, we hit WalMart (as you do) to pick up a couple of packets of candy.  But then we headed over to the movie theater proper, where I cursed myself for being paranoid and pre-buying movie tickets (including their stupid "convenience fee") because there were, like, ten people there, and three of them were employees.  But whatever, it's fine, I'll know better next time.  Anyway, Nathan bought his popcorn, we found our seats (in the middle of a very non-crowded theater, yay matinee) and snuggled in for some child-free entertainment.

We sat through trailers that seemed extremely not geared towards us (lots of horror- why so much horror?) and then?  Then it began.

And by "it", of course I mean Wonder Woman.

I'm going to be a lady, and not discuss any spoilers, but I will say this: when the camera panned over a bunch of the Amazons in training, I started to get a feeling of pressure in my chest, especially when one glorious, ripped specimen got hit across the back and didn't even flinch.  And then later, when the Amazons go into battle, that pressure in my chest crept up and into my eyes, and then suddenly I was silent-crying in the movie theater, as I watched beautiful, feminine women kicking absolute ass with their bodies, with swords, with arrows, with all manner of elegant weaponry.  And I realized that I was crying because it was everything I'd ever wanted in a movie, when I was a little girl, and that it had taken until I was 36 to get it.  I won't say it was worth the wait, because frankly it's bullshit that I had to wait so long to see an entire screen full of women doing that, but it was glorious.  So glorious, so gorgeous, that I'm willing to forgive the movie its faults (which mainly have to do with a-questionable-grasp-on-Greek-mythology, and the clunky writing that often accompanies a combo origin/adventure story that doesn't know when to call it's ending).  Definitely the good outweighed the questionable, that's all I'm saying.

I came away from the movie totally energized (and inspired to work out again because damn) but also totally ready to get back home to my baby boy, who will hopefully never, ever understand what made his mother cry during Wonder Woman.

Soft Thoughts on Die Hard

I am pleased to say that all of the stuff I thought I knew about Die Hard, I did know about Die Hard.  And none of that knowledge in any way ruined the experience of watching it, either, so that was a relief.  Although I was a bit shocked that I didn't have any sort of fore-knowledge about the super-insightful chatterbox that is Argyle.  What the heck, pop culture osmosis?

Anyway, I did have a few thoughts on the movie, and I feel compelled to share them beyond the long-suffering audience that is my husband.

First and foremost, I had no idea that Die Hard is essentially the grown-man-version of Twilight, by which I mean just absolute, unapologetic self-insertion fantasy.  And I don't mean that in a derisive way at all (I happen to enjoy the hell out of Twilight, personally): I found it delightful, but also think it's just hilarious that no one, when they are talking about this movie, comes out and says, "By the way this shit is basically a ludicrous daydream that you have when you're pissed at the bureaucrats in your office."  It even had levels of self-insertion, you know?  Obviously everyone wants to be John McClane (looked up the spelling this time), lone wolf bad ass taking out a building full of super scary bad guys, but if we're honest with ourselves we know we wouldn't actually be that cool, because we don't have even as much training as he had (which, frankly, was not enough to do what he did but yes yes fantasy I get it).  But then there's Sgt. Powell, who any one of us totally could be- just an ordinary, overweight desk-jockey, whose main super power is seeing that all his superiors are fucking idiots.  We might not be able to save the day on our own in real life, but we can totally be the person smart enough to listen to the guy who can.

Anyway.

Another super great thing about this movie was just how much a product of its time it was.  Hauling around a giant freaking teddy bear on a plane!  Smoking everywhere, including with that giant teddy bear you're giving to your kids!  Coke is definitely something we do at a company party!  Naked boobies for literally no reason whatsoever!  It was great.  When McClane (super-sexy-tough-dude-that-every-single-lady-including-the-pregnant-one-has-been-Making-Eyes-At) pauses in the middle of things to touch the pin-up boobies for luck I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

So yeah- Die Hard was great, I get it now and I would gladly watch it every Christmas.  But also anybody who loves this movie doesn't get to give Twilight fans any shit whatsoever about their taste in entertainment.

Spoiling for Some Die Hard

I have never seen Die Hard.  But because I have a passing familiarity with pop culture, I know some stuff about it (probably):

-it's a Christmas movie
-it's super important that people understand it's a Christmas movie
-Bruce Willis plays the hero, John McClain(?)
-Severus Snape plays the bad guy terrorist, Hanz Gruber(?)
-The hero wears a white wife beater and gets glass in his bare feet
-The bad guy has a beard
-The hero's (ex)wife is somehow involved, possibly as a hostage?
-There's something important about a photo on a desk
-The hero goes sneaking about through ventilation ducts
-"Yippy Kayak Other Buckets*"

My brother and his family are here, and now that our kids are in bed, we're about to find out how much of the above is accurate.  Woo!





*(edited to so as not to offend delicate sensibilities)

Bold as Brass

So today was my One Official Visiting Day with Mom, and it was made even better by a spontaneous visit from my brother.  The three of us took Neeps out for a walk in the park, and it was a jolly good time, indeed.  It made me realize how rarely we actually get "just the three of us" time these days (yes, yes, Neeps was there, but he slept through most of it).  I was grateful for the interlude, however brief.

In the evening Mom stayed home with Neeps while Nathan and I went out to (finally) see Star Trek: Beyond.

It was excellent.

I mean I really just enjoyed the heck out it- pure entertainment.  And I appreciated seeing how Kirk is evolving as a character.  Good stuff, good stuff.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

So I, like probably every other blogger with two eyes and a heart, have put aside what I was planning on writing about today, and instead will take a moment to appreciate the hell out of the late, great David Bowie, who (along with sword-wielding Val Kilmer in a pink dress) had some serious influence over my budding sexuality:

You totally have power over me.

So You Married a Feminist

It's no secret that I'm a feminist.  I'm not quiet about it, and I never have been.  Momma done raised me right, and all that.  So, of course, Nathan was fully aware that he was marrying a feminist- and he may even have had an inkling of what that meant.

Me, on the other hand?  Well, I had my suspicions (in fact they were more than suspicions, or I wouldn't have married him) but it wasn't until the other day that I had the chance to make my pronouncement...

"I watched Mulan while you were gone," he says absently as we flip through Netflix options.

"Yeah?"  I perk up.  I love that movie.  Generally speaking, I will love any story that involves a protagonist who gender-bends to get what they want.  Especially if what they want is to be a warrior.

"Yeah.  I don't get why she wasn't more angry."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just- she saves the entire friggin' army and China all by herself, but when that guy she likes finds out she's not a man suddenly she's not trustworthy anymore?  And at the end of the movie she just forgives him like it's no big deal!"  His voice is full of disgust, and I cannot help but laugh.

"So you're saying... she should be treated the same regardless of her gender?"

He makes a noncommittal grunt, and I smile sweetly.  "You are so a feminist," I say, and kiss him on the forehead.

I Never Dreamed it Could Be So Bad

I was catching up on a thing or two this evening, and thought I'd put in a nice brainless movie to run in the background.  I skimmed through the Netflix menu and what should I see but Barbarella!

"Barbarella," I say, chuckling to myself.  "That's a cult classic I haven't seen- it ought to be awesomely cheesey in the same way Flash Gordon is.  I'm sure I'll love it!"

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah no.  Who in the name of Sam Hill ever thought Jane Fonda should have a speaking roll?  Let alone one that required her to "sing"?  ::shudder::  And that opening sequence- yeah yeah, titillation I get it, but... couldn't we have been equally titillated if she'd turned off the anti-grav first?  It would have been a lot less awkward, I'm just sayin'...

Serious Regrets, yo.

Farewell My Emerald Island

Start: Dublin

End: That depends on how you define “end”…

There is not really much to say about this day, except that I watched four movies on the Ireland-to-Chicago leg.  Four.  In one day.  That's... probably not healthy?  But definitely getting me back in the good ol' American lifestyle?

Friends With Kids; Mirror, Mirror; American Reunion; The Raven

Getting There

Start: Vancouver Wa

End: Somewhere over the Atlantic

Last night was somewhat less than restful, since the newly formed Super Duo of Annoying Dog and No Time Sense Rooster were at it again, putting their powers together to overcome the evils of a full night’s sleep (“Baaaay!” “Crow!” “Baaaaay!” “Crow!”).  This has been an intermittent Thing for the past week or so, and it makes me want to shoot everything.

Today I’m thinking it’s not such a big deal, however, as it might help us sleep on the flight between Chicago and Dublin.  I can usually force myself to sleep on a plane, regardless, but Nathan (who was up past 0100 finishing work for the Evil Empire) finds it well nigh impossible, even drugged to the gills.

Todd shows up to get us around 0830, and is surprised by our lack of luggage- we only have two backpacks (and, okay, one purse), and one of those backpacks is full of camera equipment.  That’s how we rolled in the UK, too- about twenty pounds on each of our backs, so no one gets to feel martyred.  Except today I am rocking a still less-than-100% ankle, and so Nathan keeps taking away my bag to carry them both, while I wield my cane menacingly.

Speaking of which, although I don’t really need the cane at this point, it sure does make it nice when it comes to boarding early.  Unfortunately I let my integrity get the better of me on the way off the plane, and I wait to let others past me first, since we’ve got an hour and a half until our next flight leaves.

Um, except it turns out that our flight is already boarding- and we have to exit and re-enter security to get to it.  We ask one of those beepy cart guys for a ride, and are told sourly that he’s been called for a specific person and we can go back to the gate and ask for them to call one for me, and hope that one shows up.  Awesome.  So instead we just stump as quickly as I can… and it’s possible that my husband stole a semi-functional wheelchair at this point but let’s not get too much into that…

They've only themselves to blame

We do make it to our flight in time, although without the stops for restroom use or food acquisition we’d been counting on (we were starving), and find ourselves seated next to a first-time international flyer.  Who wants to chat.  A lot.

Fortunately the arrival of Movie Time quiets him down pretty well, and Nathan and I are free to lose ourselves in our respective movies (5 Year Engagement and Wrath of the Titans), and eventually discover that sleep isn’t really going to happen.

Spoiler Free

Guess what we just saw!

Hint.

That's right, Batman.  I will say two (spoiler-free) things about it:

Nathan hated it.  Hated it with a fervor that I found kind of hilarious.

I loved Catwoman.  (But then, I always do.) (Okay, almost-always.  The-movie-which-must-not-be-named doesn't really count, anyway.)

I may dissect my reactions to the film further at a later point, but it's just not fair to do so only three days into it's release...

Hairy Situations

Today's WOD:

"My Buddy and Me"

4x
One person runs 200m while the other does a wall sit. One round is when each person has done each movement.  (penalty:  if you cannot hold the wall sit until your partner returns, you must do ten squats before starting your run- while your partner holds their wall sit)

-Then-

As a team, complete 200 Sit Ups. One person holds a plank position while the other does sit ups. Split them up however you like. (We chose to switch off every 25 sit ups)

 -Then-

5 Lengths of Burpee Leap Frogs  (This link gives you the basic idea, except we lay down instead of holding plank, and alternated leapers in a continuous activity kind of thing)

***

Ah, team-mates.  By far the absolutely most-motivating thing for me-  I always find I have a little extra to give if I know someone is waiting for me (and doing something unpleasant while they wait).  It's definitely more effective than relying on my hit-or-miss competitive streak (some days it's there, some days not so much...)

Since there were only three of us this morning, we made a Super Team, which meant that for the first leg it was me and Girl #2 doing wall-sits together while our male partner did the running.  I will be honest with you- I was pretty sure I'd be the one to screw up the wall-sit.  It was an incredibly pleasant surprise when I was able to hold it the entire time- all four times.  There may have been some swearing and some pounding on the wall, but by stars I held it.  No comment, however, on whether or not I was the the slowest runner...

Sometime during my run one of my hair-ties jumped ship, and as I started my first round of plank I noticed that my left braid was rapidly becoming a cascade of free-flowing tresses.  Not optimal for sweaty-activities, but there was nothing to do about it but press on (have I mentioned our WODs are timed?).

Fortunately for me, the stars smiled and I just so happened to see my hair tie (which is about the circumference of a dime and made of clear plastic) laying in the sun as we were organizing our burpee leap frog.  So I stemmed the chaos of my unraveling hair and got to hopping.

I'm just glad I braid my hair so tightly...

And just in case my drawings don't properly convey the ridiculousness of that aesthetic:

Who had split-personality hair and two index fingers?

After that it was Farmer's Market time, and then?  Avengers!  We enjoyed that very much, and I look forward to seeing it again.  It fills me with glee that Joss Whedon can now pretty much do whatever the hell he likes, and no one (::coughcoughfoxcough::) can nay-say him.  You go, Joss.  You just go.

A Farmer Sort of Day

Today was an excellent day, and it started (as so many of my excellent Saturdays do) with Crossfit.

WOD (as done by me):

Team Relay

200m Farmer Carry (35lbs)
500m Row
20x Burpees
400m Run w/ medicine ball (14lbs) (I think)
30x Jumping Lunges
Move a stack of weights and a barbell 100m

So the way this one worked was that we had two teams of three, and at Go our first person started the farmer carry while the other two of us waiting.  Once he got back, the second person started the farmer carry while the first person went to row, and I continued to wait.  Once the second person got back, I did the farmer's carry while person two went to go wait until person one was done with rowing, at which point she took over rowing and person one went to burpees (except I think he did wall walks [this video calls them "wall climbs"], which I was not comfortable with, hence I did twice as many burpees) .  Get the idea?  I asked to be anchor because I knew my fitness level was the least advanced, and I didn't want to slow the whole team down.  The last part of the relay, the move-the-weights part, was the only part that multiple people were allowed to work on at the same time.

Anyway, when Jack got to the part of his explanation where he talked about the run, he said, "There is no non-awkward way to do this, so just carry it however you choose."

Readers, he was not kidding.  I tried at least eight different positions with that ball as I was "running", and do you know what I discovered?

True story.

Anyway my team did not come in last, which was awesome, and I did manage to help with the very last part of the "move the weights" leg, so I got to feel like I pulled my own weight (so to speak).

After that Nathan and I took Isis the the farmer's market (you're shocked, I know), and in the afternoon we met up with our friend Nick to watch Cabin in the Woods (a second time, in my case).  If you haven't seen that movie, you probably should.  It's awesome, and I can't tell you anything about it, but you should see it.  Unless you don't care anything at all about subverting genre, and then it may not be your thing... but chances are, if you get any sort of pleasure out of the voice that this blog comes to you in, you will derive some sort of joy from that movie.

Hungering for an Opinion?

...well you've come to the right blog!  Because Nathan and I just got back from watching The Hunger Games, and  I am chock full!  (Not "chalk full" apparently; I learn something new every day.)

One thing that my friends know about me is that as much as I enjoy a good movie, what I really enjoy is a good movie with one thing wrong with it so that I can bitch about it (I am not totally joking about this...)  Long story short, I really enjoyed the hell out of Hunger Games.  I thought it was a really good adaptation (emphasis on adaptation) of a really good book.  Sure, they had to leave things out, but they didn't leave out anything that really bothered me, and they made up for it by adding a few things that, in my opinion, enriched the story.  In fact I'd have to say that the only thing that sort-of bothered me (and this was before I watched the movie) was the casting.  Because I am sorry, but it could not have been two actors in five that actually fit the physical descriptions laid out in the book.  Jennifer Lawrence is a smokin' hot young woman (although I must say- she should stay brunette fo' sheezy), but do you know what she is not?  She is not an emaciated, petite 16-year-old who-easily-can-pass-for-14.  Josh Hutcherson, while most likely attractive to a certain segment of the population, is simply not believable as a stocky-wrestling-champion-of-a-boy who can hurl 100lb sacks of flour like it ain't no thang.  And Amandla Stenberg?  I'm sorry but her skin is not "dark".  Her skin is literally almost as light as Jennifer Lawrence's (which adds a whole 'nother layer of WTF to the moronic "controversy" of casting her in that role).

But do you know what?  None of that matters, because each one of those actors played the hell out of their parts.  They may not have looked exactly like the descriptions of the characters, but they acted like them, and that's the important thing.  As Nathan put it, in the hierarchy of Casting for Movies-From-Books, it goes:

Awesome Actors Who Look Like the Characters
Awesome Actors
Actors Who Look Like the Characters
Keanu Reeves

Of course, if I can't even DRAW them like I see them in my head, what hope have we of CASTING them that way?

And yes, yes, they cut down on the horror of the book, but that was to be expected, if they wanted anyone beneath the age of 18 to be able to see the movie (it does amuse me that it's apparently okay for thirteen-year-olds to imagine someone taking hours and hours to die a painful death, but to have it be inferred on screen is too much for their delicate sensibilities).  But all in all?  I highly recommend it.

ECCC: Day One

I took the train up to Seattle this morning, and it was fabulous.  Why was it fabulous, you may ask?   Because I got three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted editing done on my Sleeping Beauty novel.  Heavenly.

I disembarked the train and hiked over to the convention center (getting stopped on the way to be asked for directions- this is a common occurance for me whilst traveling.  I'm not sure if it's my chameleon ways or just that I tend to Walk With Purpose) where I met up with my Katie and we proceeded to get our geek on.  I got to meet several web cartoonists I admire, as well as chatting up several cartoonist "convention friends" (my tattoos make me fairly memorable.)  And, of course, I spent The Monies.  But I didn't actually spend much beyond what I'd planned to (and less than my "I will kill you if you go over this" amount) and what I bought made me pretty happy (Dinosaur Comics dry erase board?  Oh my yes.), not to mention the joy of discovering a new favorite artist.

At the end of the day Katie and I curled up in our hotel room to jabber and watch the end of The Empire Strikes Back and the beginning of West Side Story, and all was right with the world...

Yes, I know Anita's skirt is a little too long.  These things happen.

I Go, We Go, HuGo

I watched Hugo tonight,and enjoyed it.  Beautiful, stylistically speaking.  I preferred the book, but still... a nice little film.  And it led to this doodle:

Yes, I do wish I could rock that haircut.

Who's Got the Button?

Nerd Night was not a full house this evening, so we ended up eating gluten-free pizza and watching Coraline, which I enjoyed- although not so much as the book.  The book was incredibly creepy, in the way that only good children's literature can be, whereas the movie was more... cute.  But still good.  Anyway, the result of that was a little doodle of Other Jenny O:

Let's be honest: I'd have mother-of-pearl eyes.

Bridesmaids: Another Movie Ruined by Expectations

So by now you've probably heard of a little movie called Bridesmaids.  Possibly you've even seen it, and raved about it to others, in the hopes that they would see it.  In fact, maybe you were so excited about the movie, about the portrayal of women-as-people-rather-than-tropes that you went a little bit overboard with your praise.  And so did thousands and thousands of other people, building this movie- which really could be most accurately called, "an Apatow movie in which the main cast has vaginae instead of penises"- up into "The Most Incredible Film in Which Women Finally Are Real, Funny People".

Gentle Readers, this is not that movie.  This movie, is, as I stated above, an Apatow movie with women instead of men.  Which means that by all rights I should have gone in expecting exactly that- and had I done so I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it as much as I did, say, I Love You Man (okay, not an Apatow movie, but you get the point).  But the accolades heaped upon this movie led me to believe that it was going to be a Great Movie.  And when it wasn't I was left... well, really disappointed.

And baffled.

Where did all this praise come from?  These cries of, "Finally women have a comedic vehicle worthy of their gender!"?  Because somehow I missed that part of the movie.  What I saw was a movie about a not-particularly likeable character (not in itself a dealbreaker) who was supposedly best friends with a woman with whom she apparently had nothing in common with beyond their shared childhood, and whose other "best friend" is another not-particularly likeable character (although there are hints that she might at least be sympathetic- hints that are never actually expanded upon, unfortunately).  What I saw was a string of stereotypes (the "bored housewife", the "naive young newlywed", the "masculine/fat-and-therefore-kind-of-gross girl") who might have stood a chance of being interesting had any of them actually done anything beyond their initial, "Here, meet the Stereotypes!" introductions.  For a movie that was being heralded for its portrayal of realistic female relationships, I sure didn't see much in the way of actual friendship.  Or bonds of any sort.  Or really, women interacting in any way other than the completely freaking insane.

Which, again, I might have been okay with, had I not been listening to so many people use the word "real" and "realistic" in their descriptions of the movie.  If I'd gone in expecting a farce,  I'd not have been disappointed to get one.