Let's just say, for argument's sake, that I've got it in my head to write a (mostly non-fiction) book about relationships. (That would be just about the broadest generalization humanly possible of the subject matter, but I am being purposely vague.) So, let's say I'm working on some ideas for this book, and I've decided that I probably should do some sort of survey. Would you be willing to answer questions and possibly be quoted?

A story about legwarmers, as promised. So, Kevin McKenzie is the current (creative) director of American Ballet Theater. The position was previously occupied by Michail Barishnikov, for those of you keeping score at home. My father has been the principal timpanist in the NYC orchestra for about 26 years, and I've been to the ballet pretty much every spring since. (ABT is at the Met Opera House for 2 months every spring. The rest of the year, they tour and play with local orchestras.)

In 1982 or thereabouts, when McKenzie was still just a lowly (principal) dancer with the company, PBS broadcast a performance of Romeo and Juliet live from (I think) the Met. Live. During the third act, ol' Kevin pranced onstage still wearing his legwarmers. Live on television! He apparently never got over the embarrassment. Poor slob.

He did, however, exact his revenge on the world by re-choreographing The Nutcracker, and making its target audience the Ballet-Illiterate Retards of the world. Bastard.

Important discovery that may be worthy of discussion: Helene's "34C" looks like it could crush mine without any effort whatsoever. I am now suspicious of the Scottish method of determining bra size. And rather anxious to try out this "crushing" theory...

What I got for Christmas:

Oh, lordy. I made out like a bandit. I'll try to organize by gift-giver, and I'll probably forget stuff (and/or people). I have been spoiled rotten.

from oslowe:
a Jenny Sparks comic
Japanese soup bowls with dragons
a pasta pot
a book about Hollywood in the 50s
Sharpe's Rifles
White Christmas
The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack
a tea kettle
lots of little stuff (in my stocking) including a back scratcher (Silly boy is sick of doing it himself I guess)

from oslowe's parents:
a necklace
a gorgeous cashmere sweater
a rather odd little purse (which is exactly brick-sized!)
a crock pot (for both of us)

from my mom:
Singing in the Rain
Thoroughly Modern Milly
The Wizard of Oz

from my dad:
tickets to The Nutcracker for os and I
sushi dinner
my own copy of a Krazy Kat book (a rather subtle hint to give my sister's back, I think)

from my sister:
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
(She is also sending me a pair of boots and a video of her last dance performance)

from my friend John:
Notorious (my favorite Hitchcock movie)

from CassyLee:
To Have and Have Not
The Music Man

from tinkcat:
a prosperity spell
the cutest pen on earth

from CoiledSoul:
a CD of old country music
cookies and fudge!

from P@ and Stephanie (and Saren and Harper):
a Bettie-themed CD
a monkey bulletin board
a Boromir bookmark (complete with One Ring which I have been making stupid jokes about ad nauseum)

from Soupytwist:
a Christmas music CD

from Jamie Marie:
That Thing You Do!

from tkf:
a coffee sampler from Seattle's Best
those fabulous stress balls - the little metal jingly ones that you rotate in your palm and I can't think of the proper name for and I think I have to end this sentence in a preposition...

from Christine:
a LOTR:TTT pocket-sized calendar (in German!)
Betty Boop underwear (very sexy)

and finally...

Cards from almost everyone I know, including a lot of you.

And yet, I still enjyed giving more than receiving. Kinda.

In two minutes, it will be Christmas Eve.

I am so fucking excited.

My evil twin

I've realized that my life would be much more interesting if I did one or more of the following:

1. Left the house more often.
   
2. Lived closer to Katherine.
   
3. Drank more.
   
4. Took over the world.

It's doubtful that any of these things will happen (at least soon), but I can dream.

My boyfriend is sleeping, a much-needed sleep after a bottle of Maker's Mark and a terrible awakening at 6:00 this morning. He had a nightmare, but tonight I have sworn to protect him in dream-land. For now, Kudsai is guarding him while he sleeps, but I will find him if he needs me. I promised. I also promised to kill anyone who tried to stop me, and to make it good and bloody for cinematic value.

My life isn't so bad.

I have come to the conclusion that the one thing guaranteed to make me happy all of the time will be swing dancing. On a regular basis, of course.

This means, of course, that I have to get Will to learn. He isn't unwilling, and in fact we've taken lessons in the past - he just has some sort of learning block when it comes to dancing, which is weird, because he's usually very good at picking things up, and quick too.

We're looking for a new apartment. I didn't call the places in Los Feliz or Silver Lake, because of the commute he'd have to work, but now I'm wishing I had. At least 2 of the buildings were quite close to The Derby, one of them practically across the street, and I'm almost positive they still have free swing lessons once a week. Possibly more. Besides, I've never been there, and it would be less hassle if we could walk.

I have also come to the conclusion that I need a digital camera, ASAP.

Er...I had something I was going to write about, but Katherine and I have been talking about our irresistable Other Halves, and I forgot.

We saw The Two Towers last night. I'll write about it when my brain starts functioning again. Suffice it to say I loved it.

Dear Tolkien fans,

Kindly take your fingers out of your butts/noses (delete as applicable) and repeat after me:

It's a movie. If they translated the book directly onto the screen, it would suck. Peter Jackson is doing a great job, and the liberties he's taken with the story aren't hurting anyone.

Thank you.

It's days like these* that I wish I had a shotgun.

*yesterday

So, I got locked in the bathroom on Tuesday morning. I feel that it is of great import to note, from the start, that there is no lock on our bathroom door, but merely a sticky latch. Occasionally the handle is difficult to turn. Yesterday morning I took a shower with the door firmly shut, the heat lamp on, and the water fairly hot. I got out, dried myself off, put lotion on my hands and face, and opened the door.

Ahh. Right. I tried to open the door.

The handle didn't turn. Assuming that my hands were simply too moist from the steam and the lotion, I grabbed a towel and tried to open the door holding it around the knob. Nothing. I called to Will, who tried to open the door from the outside. No good. Worried that Will (and possibly I) would panic, I began fiddling with the knob, trying to figure out how to take it apart. There was no obvious solution, as there were no screws or in fact anything that one might normally find on a doorknob that would enable one to take it apart. By sheer luck, I found the small slit on the side of the knob which, when my nail file was inserted, released the catch and enabled me to take the actual knob off. I fiddled with the insides, hoping to force the latch. Nada. I attempted to explain to Will how to take the knob off on his side. I had him pass me a screwdriver under the door, and took apart the rest of my side of the knob. The latch remained firmly stuck, even after Will took off his side of the knob. I think the thing was made of titanium, or some such material.

In past experience, I've found it possible to force even a locked door to open if you insert a flathead screwdriver between the door and the jamb and wedge it into the latch, using your body and the tork of the screwdriver for leverage. Unfortunately, this has to be done from the outside, which is the side of the latch with the 45 degree angle. The outside of our bathroom door has molding around the jamb, which made it impossible to insert anything, let alone a screwdriver, and get it anywhere near the latch.

So there I was, naked, stuck in the bathroom, with a small hole through which I could see my boyfriend, and both of us late for work.

I decided, naturally, to take apart the hinges. There are (were) two, and as I'm sure you know hinges merely rest together and are held in place by a long bolt. Using my screwdriver and a wrench that Will slid under the door, I managed to extract the bolt from the bottom hinge with very little trouble. The top one proved a challenge, though, as it was above my head and the only thing in the bathroom upon which to stand is the toilet - across the room. After much sweating and cursing, I did it, though. I am very strong.

With both bolts removed, I climbed back into the bathtub and hid behind the plexiglass door while Will used his body weight to force the door open. He managed, with his shoulder, to lossen the top half of the door, but the bottom hinge, painted over several dozen times, held firm. I told him how high it was off the ground, and he started kicking.

Suffice it to say, I got out, but the door is now in two rather large pieces, having broken in half horizontally at approximately the height of the damn latch. Incidentally, the latch moves smoothly now that it is nowhere near the doorjamb.

There were other reasons for wanting a shotgun, all of which involve the mall, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Well, I am both shocked and appalled. We watched Reign of Fire last night. I was reading when Will started it, but put my book down for the intro, and again (for the duration of the film) when Christian Bale first took off his shirt. I'm very shallow. But that isn't what shocked me. What shocked (and appalled) me is that this movie has no right to be any good, but it was. I really enjoyed it! It was funny, fairly well-paced, not too cheesy, and had cool dragons.

Backing up a bit: We decided to try out NetFlix. Our first batch of DVDs arrived on, I think, Thursday. We didn't watch any that night, as it was Sean "Baby" Smith's birthday, or Friday, as we were going to the Kodak to see The Nutcracker (more on that later). Saturday evening, after a very long nap, Will asked if I'd like to give Brave Two Zero a shot. Gee, watch Sean Bean as an SAS operative? I don't know... Unfortunately, the movie was a very good example of how not to tell a story. It had tons and tons of potential, but just was really crummy. Oh well - it had a nice shot of Mr. Bean's ass. When it was over, I was pretty much ready for bed, but Will wanted to watch another movie to get the bad taste out of his mouth, so to speak. I told him to watch Dagon, as I knew it was based on H.P. Lovecraft stories, and have not been impressed with any of the "interpretations" I've seen so far (namely The Haunted Palace). He was very excited about the movie, though, as he'd seen an internet teaser for it that was excellent. He wanted to show me the trailer on the DVD so that I'd know why he was looking forward to the movie so much. Let's just say that the trailer blew, and leave it at that. He was almost prepared to skip watching the movie, but I made him start it so that he could see if it was worth the original trailer he'd seen. Well, the movie was excellent. I just might brave the reading of some Lovecraft one of these days.

Backing up again: Friday night. I got dressed up real pretty and entered the Kodak Theater on my sweetheart's arm. We hung about in the lobby for a few minutes, checked out the facilities, and then were ushered to our seats. We were in about the tenth row, a bit to the right. I was very excited, as it was an American Ballet Theater performance. My father's been in their orchestra (the NYC one, not the one that played at this performance) for 20-some years (since before I was born, which I think would make it 26) and I've been to more ballets than I could ever dream of trying to count. We sat waiting for the lights to go down and talked about our childhoods in theater - his father was the director of the National Symphony. We have so many memories that are of nearly identical experiences, but are from opposite viewpoints. It was really neat. Then the house got dark, and the conductor came into the pit. Had I known it was Charles Barker, or ever seen Kevin McKensie's choreography before, there's a good chance someone else would have had our seats. I truly had a wonderful time, but my god! No one has tried this hard to ruin Christmas since The Grinch, and Scrooge before him. As my dad, said, Kevin McKensie just never got over the leg warmers. (Full review and explanation of final comment to come, I promise.)

Up to speed: It's Monday. It's very cold, and I'm doing this instead of the cleaning and wrapping and addressing I should be doing. I suck.

I'm sick again. Still. Man, this sucks.

The good news is that we're going to see The Nutcracker tonight. I'd better buy more cold medication between now and then.

My precious had a good day. However, my precious spent 3 times what she paid for [stuff] to send [stuff] to England. The post office is raping my precious's bank account. Or, more specifically, my precious Will's bank account.

Beth and I had a hysterical chat last night. I tried to tell Will about it, but it just doesn't translate. So, I'm not going to copy it here.

Um...monkey!

I forgot to mention. My sister has front row tickets (well, I imagine just one) to see Sean Bean as Macbeth on January 16th on the West End. I've disowned her, and am trying to figure out ways to steal her identity so that I can go in her place.

On Sunday we watched The Hobbit. I've been calling myself "my precious" ever since, and I think it's giving Will the heeby-jeebies.

Yesterday, our large styrofoam crate of steaks and other goodies arrived from Omaha. We put all the foodstuffs away and then poured water into the crate to make the dry ice turn into scary fog. It was wizard. When we got bored with that, we put the remainder of the dry ice into the toilet and Will pissed on it. This was great fun until I had to pee. Then it was a rush to drench the stuff in water and make it evaporate so it wouldn't freeze my hoo-ha.

Today I went to work for the first time in two weeks. Tiny Owen is sick again, and it was quite frightening to see his little body convulse when he coughed. He turned bright red and looked all panicked - and who wouldn't? Poor thing. Then he fell asleep, and I put him down, but he kept trying to roll onto his tummy, which frightened me even more.

I still haven't written my Christmas cards, or sent a certain package overseas. The cards might arrive in time, but someone's present is going to be late.

Had a very funny discussion with Cassy about Christmas trees and Detroit, and an equally funny one with Phoebe about...a thing that I can't name because I used her real name. Oops.

In conclusion, I hate Ben Stiller.

I'm too tired to write much, but I thought I probably ought to reassure everyone who reads this - the friend in question isn't one of you freaky internet people. It was one of those freaky other friends. You know.

And things are looking up.

So...how do you tell someone that you used to consider a friend why you no longer do?

Anyone?

I must still be sick. Last night after I fell asleep, Will got back up to read his book, which he loves more than me. At some point, I started talking to him in my sleep, apparently telling him the same incomprehensible thing over and over again. He thought it sounded like I was saying something about him being cursed, and asked. I laughed, said, "Not cursed, silly," and repeated whatever I'd been saying yet again.

I'm retarded even in my sleep. And also funny.

Heehee. Someone just made the Most Pointless WD Post of the day. It made me giggle. To paraphrase: "Vampires are evil and murder people, but they're keeping the population down!" Only less articulate.

I am so easily amused.

Have discovered that my mother reads my blog. Hi mom! Would like to state on record that I do not smoke, drink, have sex, or do any drugs whatsoever.

In other news, I was thinking yesterday about an old friend who I haven't seen in ages. Almost emailed her, but thought better of it, since I was feeling rather incoherant. Today, she had re-registered at the Watcher's Diary. Joy! We've been PMing all day.

There's a new episode of Firefly tonight. I'm very excited. I love, love, love this show. I just know Fox is going to cancel it, for that very reason, so I am savoring every minute of it that I can.

In conclusion, I love the Buffy fans, even if they are very stupid sometimes.

Yesterday Will came home from work and informed me that I would not be getting the entire Sharpe series for Christmas. Now, please note that I didn't ask for it. I've never even seen it. It's a 10-part series about Richard Sharpe, of Sharpe's Rifles, as played by Sean Bean. I'd love to see it, and not just because I want to have hot monkey sex with Mr. Bean. My boyfriend is so sweet. Of course, he's right in thinking that $270 is far too much to spend on me. My goodness, for twice that I could go to England. Which I would in no way be doing in order to see Macbeth. Nope, not at all.

In other news, I will from now on be referring to Jamie as Princess Jamie. She figured out what was wrong with my computer, even though it wasn't really her problem at all. Now I just have to wade through all of the crap that Microsoft thinks I should download and identify the updates that I actually need.

I have the best boyfriend ever. That is all.

Well, that proves it. They're out to get me.

I was over at CHUD, poking around for their review of Equilibrium, which is supposed to be fabulous but I know nothing about excepting the cast. So, I find the review, and I start reading. The first two pictures are of Christian Bale, which is fine - he has first billing, and is presumably in most of the movie.

So I keep reading. I scroll down. More pictures. A book. Christian Bale. Christian Bale. Christian Bale.

Where is Sean Bean? This is so unfair.

Which Bettie Page Are You?
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"I will always kiss you. Even when you've got the plague.

...but no tongue."

~Will on kissing me while I'm sick

I'm sick. I think I coughed up a lung earlier.

I'm also very grumpy and quite tired of these idiots over at the you-know-where. For cying out loud - I'm a moderator. If I make a decision that you don't agree with, PM me about it! If I refuse to back down on something, I probably have a really good reason. Like, oh I don't know, maybe board policy.

And if you don't like it, go cry to Spike. I hear you think he's a real person.

Despite some conflict and a bit of panic, I've had a lovely weekend. Yesterday as Will and I were finishing our coffee and getting ready to go down to see Cassie, it started to rain. Heavy, loud, fierce rain, and the sun shining the whole time.

Due to the fact that Angelinos cannot drive in inclimate weather, we cancelled the trip and just spent a lazy afternoon, reading, playing on the computer, napping.

I didn't get a rainbow, though. I'd write to my congressman if I knew who he was. And if I were a California resident. I don't think I'm technically an anywhere resident. Hmm. Must fix that.

Today we were going to have lunch with Jenn's friends Ludic and Amy, but they cancelled, so Jenn came over and we had a research party. We've been looking at Deadlands books all day, with a brief hiatus to watch Big Trouble in Little China, and Will and I may have created the Best Character Ever.

Will has the coolest dreams on earth.

I also did some online Christmas shopping, which went well except that I fucked up my Amazon orders and wound up having to pay more shipping than I should have (which would have been none). Since fixing my mistake did mean buying a lower-priced item, I suppose I still came out ahead, but only if I over-rationalize and under-think the matter.

Now the weekend is over, and tomorrow Will has to go back to work. Sometimes I hate holidays, because they end.