Tuesday, January 27, 2009

No more tears.

Two conversations from Friday night:

A – Dad calls to ask some random furniture questions, and I am crying my eyes out watching Across the Universe. Y’all. I’m sure you have heard of Across the Universe – you know, the Beatles-but-not-really movie? Trust me, if you have not yet seen it, I strenuously urge you to hit up ye olde Netflix. It’s fabulous. Anyhow, there is this scene involving the Watts Riots and the Vietnam War, and it is held together with this rocking awesome Gospel rendition of “Let It Be.” I have seen this movie 47,000 times and I cry every single time I watch it. Very cathartic, you know. Check it out:





I keep hoping my church choir (yes, we are one of "those" churches) will do this on a Sunday. No offense to Lennon/McCartney et al, but thay have been totally trumped by this interpretation. I really don't think the song should ever be performed any other way. However, Dad is not impressed, not having seen this masterful powerhouse performance, and is pretty much ridiculing my emotional distress. So I say, “Dad, you don’t get it. It’s like the kangaroo, but with people!” Dad is immediately remorseful, though chuckling.

B – The Todd calls not long after that, and I answer, still sniffling because I had to rewind the “Let It Be” scene due to el Padre’s interruption.
Pete: “What are you doing?”
Jamie: (sniff, sniff) “Watching a movie” (sniff, sob, sniff)
Pete: “Are you watching the kangaroo? BY YOURSELF?!?”

What, you ask, is the kangaroo? Only the single greatest (though, I fear, inspired by a really serious trip with the brown acid) specimen of Australian Animation ever to come out of Sydney. Dot and the Kangaroo. Cartoon characters spliced on top of actual video of the Outback? Adventures during which one rides in the pouch of a red kangaroo? A singing
platypus? What more could you ask for? By the way, not showing off or anything, but the Latin term for the platypus is Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, which I learned at the foot of the singing mammal himself. This made the letter P so much easier, you have no idea.

For those of you with children, know that I will one day show up at you house with a copy of this movie, but I warn you that it is not without its problems. First off, there is a
Bunyip. I would explain the sheer terror of the Bunyip scene, and its accompanying song, but it gives me nightmares to think about it. I am thirty-one years of age, and I will skip this scene. God bless DVD’s. Second, the crying. Oh, the crying. Obviously, kangaroos are meant to live in the wild of the Australian Outback. Pioneer children like Dot are meant to live in cabins. One cannot really change this territorial pattern. Let me just say that whole “wild animals need their freedom” discussion was lost, totally lost, on Toddler Jamie. Witness the sadness:





I am CRYING. Tears running, right now. Is that not the worst thing ever? Oh, it just rips my heart out. I think it’s the change from cartoon kangaroo to real kangaroo that does it. Sort of like an Australian
Velveteen Rabbit, if you will. As a child, I would just work myself up into a sobbing frenzy, and then beg to watch the film again, promising I would not cry if they would just rewind it. And nothing, nothing, has ever come close…….except for the Let It Be scene.

I think I will watch that again.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Yay for love!!!!

One of my best friends, Chuck the Girl, is getting married. I am quite the excited one, not only because I love Chuck and I am happy for her and all that, but also because I do NOT have to buy a bridesmaid dress. I am a terrible bridesmaid. My Phi Mu little sister asked me to be a bridesmaid (This was several years back. She now has two kids, so at least the wedding took.) and here is the list of things for which I am sure she later regretted having me in the wedding.

1. I missed SEVERAL showers.
2. I forgot to bring her lingerie gift to Savannah for her bachelorette weekend. (In fact, it’s probably in a closet somewhere.)
3. I was half a day late for said bachelorette weekend.
4. I also had a little sleepwalking episode at the bachelorette weekend which really does not have anything to do with this topic but it was funny and I will tell you about it one day.
5. The Todd and I blew a tire on the way to her wedding rehearsal and I missed the first half of it.
6. I took off my dyed sandals and wore
Chaco’s under my dress at the reception. (Shut up. They were cool then.)

So you can see how I am extra excited to be just a regular guest at Chuck’s nuptial festivities. Well, I’m doing the save-the-dates and the invitations to a shower we are giving her, but that’s just fun for me. OOHHH, and I get to do a reading, and I am allowed to read anything I want, which is just mind-boggling with possibilities! Suggestions?

Now, in Chuck’s honor, I am giving you the top four true “how we started dating” stories I have ever heard. In the interest of anonymity, I will not tell you who they are, but one of them is me and the Todd.

Couple #4 – We will call them Jack and Diane.
Diane lives in the country. Jack’s family moves in close by, I think next door but I can’t remember. Diane brings a homemade blueberry pie to welcome Jack’s family. Jack sees her cross the yard with a pie and decides right then and there that Diane is the woman for him.

Couple #3 – We will call them Jake and Samantha.
Jake and Samantha’s folks are friends, but Jake is way old and way hot. Years go by without Jake and Samantha having any contact at all. One day, Samantha and her friend see random dirty hippy at the local bar. Random dirty hippy is watching Samantha, and comes over to ask how her family is doing. Samantha has no idea who random dirty hippy is, and is a bit freaked out. Random dirty hippy introduces himself to Samantha’s friend. Samantha realizes random dirty hippy is old, hot Jake. Love ensues.

Couple #2 – We will call them Fred and Daphne with a guest appearance by Velma.

Daphne and Velma are college roommates. Velma has many classes with Fred, as they have the same major. Velma repeatedly tells Fred that her roommate is perfect for him, but Fred and Daphne NEVER MEET. After graduation, Fred declares he is going to the mall to find a wife. Velma goes with him. He spots a random girl in a bookstore and announces to Velma that the random girl will be his bride. Velma looks into the bookstore, and the random girl turns out to be her roommate Daphne.

Couple #1 – We will call them Chuck and Matt.
Chuck and Matt go to high school together. Chuck is the snobby cheerleader. Matt is the regular guy. Chuck and Matt do not really run in the same circles. Fast forward to their 10 year reunion. Chuck sees drop-dead hottie. Drop dead hottie is Matt. They end up engaged. Sometimes life is a John Hughes movie.

I love you, Chuck and Matt!

I did it!

See my new follower counter????? DON'T LET ME BE A PASTE-EATER!!!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

I am so jealous. You have no idea. You know, I am not by any means the only one of my friends to have a blog. I probably have friends whose PETS have blogs, because I can think of several pets with MySpace pages and Facebook fan groups. (**Cough, cough, DEVON AND BUSTER, cough cough.**) But let me tell you what I found out last night. We had book club last night at Ou La La, home of the world’s greatest chocolate covered espresso beans. And several of us have blogs; I think there was a race to see who would post about book club first this morning and I obviously lost.

So……..one of the girls says that she doesn’t put anything personal on
her blog. Would you like to know why?

BECAUSE SHE HAS FOLLOWERS!!!! I don’t think too much about who reads this blog
and I definitely don’t think I have any readers who have not physically spoken to me at least once. In fact, If you are reading this and I don’t know you, speak up, because I want to know. Anyhow, girlfriend has over 200 people who get updated on her daily life. Damn! I think that’s so rockin’ awesome! My little friend is an Internet sensation. Like a mini-celebrity.

Is it strange that I think this is a big deal? Is that just showing my age? I read blogs – I probably read too many blogs. But most of them are either written by people I actually know or about some sort of crafty thing – digital scrapbooking is my new toy. The one exception is the
Blog d’Ellison. I LOVE the BdE. The guy who writes it cracks me up. But I just don’t read too many “random” blogs. Perhaps I should.

Another of the book club girls has an equally
great blog, but it doesn’t have a follower option on her page. There could be twice as many people who read her blog but I just wouldn’t know about it. I think I am getting blog insecurity. I should get a follower counter. But what if NOBODY FOLLOWS IT? It would freak me out. I would feel like the paste-eater of the Internet Blogging Scene. I would be the blog that tries too hard. Hmm.

Here is (most of) our little No-Name Book Club – I would tell you which one is Miss Internet ’09 but I think it’s supposed to be a secret.







Right now, we are in the midst of discussing “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers, but I am not going to talk about it, because I have another book to tell you about which I think is having an adverse effect on my life.

A friend of mine – Miss Internet ’09, in fact – recently lent me the book “
Prep.” It’s about boarding school, and it’s written by a girl (woman, I guess) named Curtis. And I hope she was really cute, because I feel very few female people could pull off Curtis as a given name. I understand the boy’s name as girl’s name thing – I sort of have to, unless I want to change the name of this blog. But I feel Curtis is going a bit far. But that’s beside the point.

“Prep” has as its main character a girl who is in Boarding School on scholarship and all her raging early teenager emotions are all deeply explored in this book. All the awkward feelings she has are written out letter by letter. Her first crush, the more popular people, the less popular people, the uncomfortable stuff you don’t want to remember? It’s all there. And ever since I read it I have these moments where I feel like I am 14 years old. I think the character has given me her inferiority complex. And now it is seeping
out off me in strange ways.

Like deranged blog follower jealousy.