The Rabbit Hole

I didn't ride my bike to work on Wednesday because I had to hold my Dad's hand as he bought a present for my mother in the Apple Store. I was never going to get back from Grand Central in time on a bike. So I used my stationary bike at home that night, and, as a complement to the biking, I did all of fifteen--you are in shock at prowess, I can tell--push ups. My arms are fine--they're mostly used to supporting a lot of force and weight from the regular biking I do. My abs, on the other hand, are all stupid and achy. It took me most of yesterday to figure out why. So, not only am I not especially strong, I'm more than a little clueless about this exercise stuff. Better not do too much of it, just in case.

In other news, I almost bought stuff on Threadless yesterday for Christmas presents, but I couldn't hit the cap for free shipping without buying a bunch of bullshit. I was all set to abandon it as a hopeless quest when they e-mailed this morning with a change not only to their minimum for free shipping but in the costs for their shirts. The shirts dropped to $10 (from $12), which left me maddeningly below the cap again. Luckily, I chanced upon this shirt which I will get for my mother. (She likes moose. At Christmas, our entire staircase is filled with mooses. Moosen. Meese?) Free shipping and my holiday stuff that needs to be done asap is mostly taken care of. There are still a few outlying presents and one that I have to actually take to a post office, but otherwise, whew.

Couldn't let this glorious day go by without wishing you all a safe and happy Halloween. For those of you rocking costumes at work, I salute you. I went with orange-and-black striped tights, my black-crow-on-orange-background shirt, and my stitching jewlery that I got from Etsy. It's been fun seeing reactions all day. The jewelry distracts people enough that they keep missing the tights, which is kind of funny since the tights are so bright.

Anywho, have a Happy Halloween, one and all!

But applications are DONE. The heart-attack-inducing bill for this exercise in futility (and the resulting I-can-treat-myself-because-I-just-spent-10-times-as-much-on-applications post-application spending spree) is yet to come. I expect drinking will happen the night it does. A lot of drinking.

I can now resume caring about what is more important in life: television, movies, family (if I have to). My youngest sister is also applying to schools right now, and she's already at the interview stage (dental schools start earlier than vet schools). I promised to assist with my sartorial knowledge. Since she's a trifecta of tall, skinny, and cute, I don't really have to stretch my fashion skillz here--not like I will for when I need to dress myself, certainly. I have that to look forward to this weekend, as I do hanging out with my mother and geeking out with her about Spooks and Halloween stuff we both crave. (You guys, my mom is a-ding-dang-dorable.) Then I have a friend's birthday party to attend, which will kick off the birthday season as a whole. I look forward to being even more broke come Christmas.

I think I'm going to write something tonight. It's been forever since I wrote fiction and I've had a story idea kicking around in my head for a week that needs committing to electronic paper before I forget it.

This weekend, I got an idea of what my next year might be like. For all three of you I haven’t told, I intend to see a movie a week at the movie theater for all of 2011. I saw two movies in one weekend, and I’m beginning to understand that there may be some theater-going overload with this plan. Then again, going to two movies right after the other is a good way to really put my reasons for liking/disliking them in perspective.

 

The two movies I saw were Tron Legacy and Black Swan. I didn’t particularly care for either, but both had a strange effect on me in that, while watching them, I was rather transported. It was only upon their ending that I felt dissatisfied. This is entirely due to heightened expectations, though I hadn’t really realized how much hope I’d sunk into Tron Legacy in particular until it ended and I almost wanted to cry because I was so depressed about how little I liked it. I admit to having been inordinately in love with the idea of seeing Tron on the big screen, especially after falling in love with it via the original on DVD and by playing alongside Tron in Kingdom Hearts. I seriously <3<3<3<3<3 Bruce Boxleitner, especially as the adorable, innocent –but-kick-ass Tron, and there plain wasn’t enough of him. I am glad, at least, that mithras03  was with me on finding his silver-fox status THE SEXXAY, even as I spent much of the movie bemoaning the lack of him. While I admit that this is my own bias making me inordinately hard to please, I do not think it too much to ask that the movie feature the goddamned character it from which it took its name. Alas and alack, the siren lure of Oscar-Winner Jeff Bridges combined with the endlessly rapacious studio need to build a franchise on the back of a younger star meant that Tron was given the short-shrift in his own sequel.

 

And? Honestly? Neither Bridges nor Flynn-the-younger had the chops to carry this thing.

( Some minor, minor spoilers )

That said, getting to watch lightcycle racing and the disc wars gaming in the movie was supremely satisfying. The updated effects were fun, though as moonlightalice  pointed out, dreary in their palate. It was a thrill with the early action sequences, though. I happened to love the soundtrack, though others thought it was distracting, especially because it added a drive to the movie that was otherwise lacking, plot-wise. If nothing else, the booming base kept things surging.

 

Black Swan intrigued me, and, although my expectations for it were lowered by reviews, I did go in with an open-to-optimistic mind. I wasn’t thoroughly disappointed as I was with Tron Legacy, I was just indifferent to mildly unimpressed by it.

( No spoilers if you've seen the trailers, but just in case... )

 

Another improbable thing that happened--besides my seeing two movies in a weekend and liking neither of them? I won Twilight Scene It. I'd bought it as a Christmas present for viridian , who, along with feiran was the only person to have read the books and seen the movies. We had to play it. Predictably, those two ladies dominated most of the game. If I got anywhere, it was out of sheer luck. The best run of said luck was where I followed someone else who revealed, in her question, what the name of Dakota Fanning's character was and what her SOOPER vampire power was, and then the next two questions I got were about those exact things. (So as with other franchise-specific Scene It games, Twilight Scene It suffers from a lack of sufficient material upon which to make questions more varied.) I'd been far behind the leaders for most of the game, then I ended up tied with them at the end. I got lucky on a couple of questions and guessed correctly on the third to win. HIGHLY IMPROBABLE VICTORY. I don't know whether to be ashamed or pleased that I continue to dominate at Scene It given that this dominance was achieved PLAYING TWILIGHT SCENE IT. (I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE.)

I will take this moment to credit glvalentine for making a point of saying how awesome Bella's friend Mike is, because I did win a question with his name. Thanks!

I'm out to San Francisco in less than eight hours. (Urgh.) Have a happy and safe holiday season and I'll see you all in the new year!

I'm feeling...stuck. I think two weeks of vacation wherein I do almost nothing at all and barely leave the place I am residing have finally gotten to me. I'm not the type to get stir-crazy, not really--I could spend a weekend locked away at home and doing nothing and be utterly content. But two weeks? Is pushing it. I couldn't go anywhere in Oregon. I was so trashed from jet-lag from that trip that I couldn't barely leave the apartment in New York. (Hurrah! I have NO FOOD!) And when I went to my parents' place this weekend, I tended to park in places.

As a result, I'm feeling a need to start attacking my living environment, seeing as the weather is not exactly conducive to me running around outside much. Which brings me around to resolutions for the new year. I was fishing for others' resolutions this weekend, but no one had any great ones I could steal. I took a look at the last ones I made (two years ago, woo-hoo), and I rather like that they were productive yet not impossible. In keeping with that, I've decided on the following resolutions:

1. Clear out the bins under my bed
This is a huge project that will involve my, five years later, finally putting together a scrap book of photos from my trip to Australia. Better late than never. While the distance from the events means I'm almost sure to have forgotten every detail, I will be able to part with the junk I've stored up there, which is all for the good, really. I will also work on getting all my photos scanned in so I have digital backups. To think: if I'd been born only a few years later, I'd have had digital copies to begin with, which is really the most sensible thing for me, given how lazy I am about photographing shit in my life.

Huge project--projects, really, as I suspect the Australia trip isn't the only event collecting dust down there--but doable. Certainly doable within a freaking year.

2. Finish my sister's wedding present.
Only four years late on that one! I'm really, really close. I just need to go some place away from cats for a couple of weekends (i.e. upstate), queue up a hundred movies, and sit and sit and stitch and stitch. This one I'd like to have ready before her birthday in August (if I really push myself, I might have it done by her wedding anniversary in March). After I finish it, I then need to sit down with her and discuss what the shit she'd like me to do with them. I have chosen the most useless hobby, I swear. Cross-stitching is useful for two things: framing and making pillows. I wouldn't presume she wants these things framed (because then she's more or less obligated to hang them whether they're to her taste or not), and they're far too intricate for pillows. I was thinking, though, that working them in as panels in a quilt or a quillow (that's a one-square quilt block that is attached as the outside of a blanket pocket--it folds into a pillow with the nice design on the outside, and is used as a blanket with the nice design safely tucked away in the pouch). Must work on getting that done, first, and planning what to do with it, second.

3. Read twice as many books as last year.
I think I read about 20. That's pathetic. I have about six or seven that I've accumulated in the insanity of holiday busyness, so I can get off to a good running start. I just have to not let my time get shanghied by video games, TV, exercise, or movies too much. I think I can do it. I'd also be happy to just read about half again as many. So 30-40 books. Let's go team.

4. Lose 20 pounds.
This was the goal I set for myself when I first programmed my profile into the Wii Fit. I set a timeline of 6 months which is fastly coming to a close with all of about two pounds to show for it. (Which means zip-o given that you can fluctuate that much in any given day.) Whenever I fail at that resolution, I'll reprogram my goal to be for the year. The 20 isn't a number, it's a BMI thing. And while I have trouble with BMI standards, it is a useful benchmark even if it's an arbitrary one. We'll see.

5. Be a better person.
Ah, the vague one. I've actually been pondering this some time now, and a new year seems a perfect time to put into action some notions I've been entertaining. For one thing, I'd really like to pay a genuine compliment to someone every day. It's something I've considered a while now, sparked by a few genuine compliments I've received here and there. It would be so nice to be able to, without seeming like a crazy person (must work on delivery, delivery is key), tell someone (whether I know them or not) that they are particularly sharp, seem blissfully happy, or look especially well put together. I have to be careful not to just fish one out (i.e. avoid studied and saved compliments a la Mr. Collins), but to really mean it. I think that would really improve my mood, too.

This also covers vague life goals upon which I have no direction--career aspirations (hah!), personal fiscal responsibility, intellectual stimulation and enrichment, improved sociability--without making it seem like I've failed to accomplish anything if I have no specific incident I can furnish as proof.

I guess it's a good thing I'm not shopping for Christmas this year because apparently I suck at it.

Because it's quickly disappearing from the internet in favor of the "remastered" edition, I snapped up a used copy of volume 3 of Star Trek: the Original Series for my mother about two-three weeks ago. I was going to give it to her for Mother's Day.

I just got a note from Amazon telling me that, no, actually, they're refunding me. No Star Trek for you. Or, are they punishing my mother for not being making a Nazgul noise of horror at the screen when she saw the preview for the prequel/reboot/anal rape new Star Trek movie??? I GUESS I WILL NEVER KNOW.

(I might, though, if I tried re-buying the thing. It will have to wait until after Christmas either way. Redonkulous.)

Two weeks ago, I went into a store to pick up birthday gifts for a couple of people, and I was already commiserating with the lady working at Barnes and Noble about the fact that they had Christmas music playing. (And not just Christmas music, but covers of Christmas staples. Worse, covers by Mariah Carey.) I know this is a yearly complaint, but it seems like Christmas started ridiculously early this year. Well before that trip out to pick up presents, I swear I'd seen most stores festooned for Christmas before Halloween junk was even fully taken apart. (Thanksgiving says what?)

However, it is now December 1st, so I suppose I just have to get over it. Perhaps the insanely advanced onset of Christmas is part of the desperation with the financial situation these days. Retailers really, really, really want you to remember you still need to do your patriotic duty and spend money you can't afford to spend on junk neither you nor your loved ones needs. (At any cost, shop.)

I, myself, won't be participating this year. I really like shopping for friends and family for the most part, but I've decided to scale back. So this is me apologizing for not being able to provide Christmas presents per my usual. I'm going to do my best to make sure birthday gifts are even more wonderful to compensate as best I can. I don't know how to say this without sounding presumptuous, but anyone who was thinking of giving me anything should just save their pennies and wish a "Happy Holidays" instead.

In a weird way, I'm actually sort of hoping that, for the most part, this becomes the tradition. Like I said, I will miss not shopping for people, but I really loathe Christmas shopping season. I'd infinitely prefer to just hang out with people more and do fun activities in that space and avoid retail shops altogether (as much as is humanly possible, what with as many birthdays as I've got in the months of November-December). How's that sound?

#1: My mom's cooking everything.

I think that should qualify for reasons 2-10, really.

Happy Turkey (or Tofurkey, depending on your dietary interests) Day, one and all!