trinityvixen | Happy Halloween (belated)

Well, I, for one, had a fun time this weekend. Friday and Saturday, I dressed up as a zombie for my book club and a group outing to the movie "SAW." To my great surprise, my book club thought 'costume' meant 'mask' or 'clown nose,' and they pretty much had had me well pegged as either over-doing it or not doing it at all. Seeing as my costume consisted of me making myself pale with rather realistic (or so I flatter myself) bite marks all over, a torn t-shirt covered in fake blood (oh, the irony: it was a shirt from the Columbia blood drive), and topped off with more fake blood oozing from wounds and some black circles around the eyes....yeah, I'd say I was overdoing it. At least Michelle dressed up as Illyria from Angel, and Carrie let me put another bite wound on her forehead Saturday (I'd done one for her Friday, too), so it looked like she'd been bitten by me, which is pretty cool. Of the two of us, I'd always figured I'd be too prepared to be the zombie. I'd get bitten, sure, but she'd be the zombie first. I think her idea to go as Bush and Kerry would have been hilarious, but she refused to be Bush despite the fact that I'm taller, she grins more, I tend to go on and on and on when I talk, she has more prominent ears....you get the idea.

Despite the protests of some, "SAW" wasn't that bad. A bit ridiculous in the acting at points, but I felt it was pretty tense nonetheless, and it had a good twist at the end. Poor Carey Elwes. Man, has he let himself go. I guess I can't expect him to remain Wesley forever, but if The Princess Bride never gets old, why should he? Anywho, good fun, silly stupid movie, and dressings up. Ken also brought Inu-Yasha, which, eventually, I swear I will get through, and thanks Ken again for it.

It was a nice counter-point to the earlier part of the day where Pooch, theKathy, and I went to the AMNH for "The Frogs." When I get pictures (in three years, going by my average), I'll post. Mostly, the frogs fell into the 'OMG! SOOOOOO CUTE! I WANT ONE ALTHOUGH IT WILL CERTAINLY KILL ME IF I TOUCH IT!' or the 'that looks like a pile of crap' categories. There were few, normal-frog exceptions, but the memorable ones were the brightly colored kill-you-so-dead poison dart frogs and...well, the turd frogs. The turd frogs looked ridiculous because they looked exactly as I'm describing: imagine a water balloon lying on the ground and not that full of water, the pooling, rounded, squishy-ness of it, and you've got a couple of these frogs. There was also the obligatory gush over the froggie gift shop, though no purchases.

Saturday also heralded a true New York kind of story. We walked across the park from the museum (after deciding that, despite his hotness, Alexander Hamilton's exhibit would have to wait for another day), taking a winding, meandering path that eventually led us out to 72nd and 5th, where, about a 100 yards from the street, there were three large fork-lift pads supporting huge cardboard bins of, tah dah!, pumpkins! A park official or two were shouting that they were free, so we three drifted towards the bins. A little girl was being really cute and offering to wipe the dirt off them so we could carry them. Were they not as dirty, we might have taken as many as we could carry, but as was we took two each. TheKathy wanted Lisa to make pie, which, once we did some shopping, was possible. Except that Lisa made the seeds into a treat for people (not me, kept getting in the sockets where my teeth were), and theKathy worked on the pie past when we had to leave to make the movie. She made whipped cream, too, and it and the pie were very good and enjoyed the next day.

Sunday was meant to be a day-long marathon of movies. I got rousted at the new 11 am by an over-eager Carrie, and she, Ping, Michelle, and I watched Ju-on and Ju-on 2 on Lisa's computer. It seems that Ju-on 2 is rather like an episode of Sailor Moon: only about half of it was new footage. The first half was basically the ending of Ju-on, and when it reached the end of the first film, it kept going, less coherently, from there. Other than Arachniphobia and Bubba Ho-tep, the day mostly devolved into video games, which isn't exaclty Halloween-y, but we've played enough Eternal Darkness and watched House on Haunted Hill enough recently to make up for it. Plus, I intend to rent Dawn of the Dead, or at least watch it with my friend Liz C at home in the near future. Mm zombies.

Speaking of the unholy undead, a quote from Bush, stumping desperately in his last weekend: "I ask you, come stand by me. If you are a Democrat who believes your great party has turned too far left in this year, I ask you, come stand with me."

FAT FUCKING CHANCE, DUBYA. This party isn't too far left. It's center. That's good enough for me. Despite my rantings, I'm not actually that liberal. I believe in some conservative ideas, mostly those considered financially conservative, I'm not just a commie pinko liberal. I'm a moderate liberal who's just been pushed too goddamned far because my every attempt to be reasonable is taken as a sign of weakness, a lack of conviction, or worse, a mistake. It's wrong for me to believe what I believe, even when what I believe, nine-out-of-ten times, bears no consequence at all on the people telling me I'm a murderer, a sinner, a non-believer, a cynic, a brainwashed college kid. I'm tired of this arsehole telling people that liberal is a BAD thing to be, when from his point of view the idea of a woman working a job, considering contraception let alone abortion is a monster and sinner, where people who want to devote their lives to each other for the rest of their years are destroying the sanctity of marriage, and people who question any of his ideas are liberals. Sure, if you're as far right as George W. Bush, just about everyone is a liberal. So, now I'm just a liberal, and no more moderate about it. I look forward to a time where I have the luxury of apathy, of hugging the middle course and not having to defend my views that fall on either side of the great divide. Because I believe they balance each other out and prevent me from aligning totally one way or the other. This president doesn't believe you can't be other than for or against him, so, naturally, I am against. For human rights, for human lives, for human freedoms, I stand against George W. Bush.

Cross your fingers, world. Tomorrow just may be the first day of the rest of our lives. It could also be the last day of hope for four more years, Heaven forfend.