The Rabbit Hole

Everywhere I turn, people are trying to spoil The Avengers for me by telling me what to think of it. I don't want to know! So I'm going radio silent until this evening. I hope I make it to 8:30.

Most of the time, I like knowing what people thought going into a movie. I like to have a general feel about the thing and what to expect so I can modulate expectations. But when I'm reeeeeally excited, I need not to know that you thought it was "okay" or "pretty great" or "not so good" (NOTE: THOSE ARE NOT ACTUAL REVIEWS I'VE SEEN FOR THE AVENGERS. I MADE THOSE UP. I WILL NOT SPOIL YOU IF YOU DO NOT SPOIL ME.) I've gone into two movies in my recent life not knowing what to expect, like, at all: Inception and Cabin in the Woods. Both benefited immensely from that, Cabin in the Woods perhaps more so. In a world where everything is known before you get to the theater, thanks to trailers and gossip sites, it's a rare privilege to enjoy things almost without knowing what to expect, you know?

So, yes, text me if you need something, or e-mail, but I'm going to read boring political blogs until I leave work because I cannot read Twitter or any of my usual sites for the rest of the day.

I dreamt, vividly, last night, and I remember it so well, perhaps, because I was woken abruptly by a series of coughs that are the last remnants of a cold. (Yes, I caught a cold in summer. Sigh.)

Basically, I was walking up the steps to my parents house, after hanging out with friends, when two men--one of whom was James Van Der Beek--came up to me, rather agitated. In my dream, I instantly became alarmed because we had agreed not to meet for a while. This meant there was A Problem. They threw a metal tube (that was somehow also a drinking glass) at me and said that they couldn't keep it any more. It was a bit rusty, but I panicked because it could have easily been blood.

It probably was blood. We had killed somebody, months ago, and they were now throwing the last bits of evidence my way to hide/dispose of. As I ran into the house to sterilize and bleach out anything I might have touched ever (CSI says you can't type blood if it's been bleached!), I was trying to remember if, in fact, I had been a party to murder. How had I gone on living so indifferently since that sort of thing? I began to question whether it could even have happened, given that I hadn't really changed my lifestyle all that much. Was I a monster? What the hell...

Naturally, I awoke in the midst of that panicking and spent ten minutes at 5 am this morning coughing my lungs out trying to remember if I HAD KILLED SOMEBODY. Basically, it was a more macabre version of this dream that I do still have all the time. Unpleasant in the extreme, but it's good to know that dream-me is as appalled by the idea of my being able to kill people and live a normal life afterward as real-me is. I believe this particular twist came up as I was contemplating how I would have fared and, should I have survived, lived after participating in one of the Hunger Games. As for why James Van Der Beek was in my head, I blame this post on Project Rungay that I read yesterday.

I shit thee not, friends, I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. Yeah, I have to spend (according to my own rules) at least an hour a day (three on weekend days) on studying for my upcoming GRE (four weeks away! aaaaaaH!!!!), but I'm going to see SO MANY movies in the upcoming weeks. I'm driven to the point of distraction over it, even.

I really enjoy seeing movies. This week, I gave myself a break after the hectic one-two-three that was final exam, MAY MOVIE, bridal shower (and Mother's Day, but that was fun, not a chore). I have watched a new movie almost every night. Not all brilliant (back in your corner, Midnight Meat Train), but I haven't lazed about quite this way in a while. And I'm going out to the theater this weekend (hopefully!) and twice next week and once next weekend! After Thor was disappointingly AWESOME, I need the cheesy, hammy badness of something like Priest. I need it bad. Oh, Vampire Cowboy Karl Urban, how can I quit you?

Morning aggravations aside, I'm looking forward to the long weekend, hanging out with feiran  and ecmyers (AND FINISHING SMALLVILLE OMG YOU GUYS) and just generally enjoying my last weekend to NOT GIVE A SHIT for two months. Then I come back, study my ass off and do nothing but apply to schools until those aforementioned friends get married. AND THEN I AM FREE. I am going to enjoy THE SHIT out of this summer, you guys. Because come fall, I have to deal with the heartbreak of where I won't be getting into schools outright, the hassle of interviewing at places that won't take me, and, if I'm very, very lucky, the agony of deciding whether to attend the one school (probably in fucking Oklahoma) that will take me.

SUMMER AND MOVIES WILL SET ME FREE. That's what I'm taking out of this. Also, if I hit all four movies I intend to in the next week and a half, I'll be ahead on my 52-movies-in-a-theater-a-year resolution for the first time since, like, January, where it doesn't really count because it was much easier to get ahead when there was only one movie as yet required for a movie-a-week resolution. It might even carry me over past August, traditionally the Death Valley of cinema. (January/February are pretty bad, but that only means they get the so-bad-they're-hilarious shit that no one wants to bother releasing in August.)

If you're wondering if I've snapped, the answer is yes. It's a gorgeous day, I have a long weekend ahead of me, and the promise of fun hangings out with friends and MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES is enough to make me batshit. Sue me!

Not that he's, you know, ugly, just that he shouldn't be able to pull off this hair better than I do. And yet? That is my experience so far this morning. I caught my own reflection and was all, "....Top Dollar? Are you having a bad hair day? Oh, wait. It's me."

Le siiiiiiiiigh. I have a presentation to give in just over an hour, and I looked at the slides that I sent my professor, and, naturally, they've been lightly chewed around the edges in the transfer from her computer to mine despite the fact that I sent her a pdf of what the slides should look like, so she should KNOW that something is off. I mean, I lost the fun stencil font (standard with Mac versions of MSOffice!) for the title, and, worse, the fungus' genus is no longer capitalized...? I have no idea how Latingenusname latinspeciesname went from that to latinGenusname latinspeciesname. I mean, what part of losing a font should even do that?

SIIIIIIIIGH. I just have to hope the video is working better.

I have a secret weakness for Poms, and someone made a Pomeranian in a tophat with monocle and I AM NOT MADE OF STONE.

Also, holy shit! It's Thursday already! AND 3:00 NO LESS? Where the hell has this week gone?

I did a ton of stuff this weekend. I volunteered (though not as much as I should have--more on that in a sec), saw a ton of people, played a bunch of card games (in which I was handedly dumped on because I advertised that I believe being ruthless is victory--might have tipped my hand too early there), and got to go peruse Michael's with my former roommate for some invitation ideas. I even put in some time with The Darkness video game, which I had a new urging to play after coming back from the 30-minute demo at PAX East. I played Rock Band, people. I hadn't done that in ages. I ended up staying up too late customizing a character and a logo for my band, which lead to me oversleeping on Sunday and canceling volunteering that day.

Karma came for me with a vengeance as a result, alas. Fully intending to continue on, eating and breaking hearts as Jackie Estacado, I took a break from gaming (instead of volunteering! my guilt! let me show you it!) to have some cheese. I had some aged gouda that I'd picked up and that would have made a lovely snack. It's a hard cheese, so I thought I'd chip away at it with a knife.

....guess how well that went? ( Drama queeeeeeeen for liiiiiiiife! )

None of that is hyperbole, by the by. I was really that worried. I need to remember that my life is not a Victorian moral and that I'm not literally going to be poisoned by cheese knife to death as revenge for not volunteering to save poor, defenseless kittens.