Long (But Good) Day

Today was a long day. A lot longer than expected.
It started with the world trying to push me to get up, for whatever reason, at 7. I said, “The hell with that,” and decided to push back rather forcefully.
So forcefully, in fact, that I pushed myself to sleep a half an hour beyond when I normally get up.
This delay in waking threw things sufficiently out of whack that I seized the opportunity to not go for a walk when I got up.
After all, I’d already stepped outside of my routine.
I had plans for the day in the form of heading to DC with Scott to see “Mirrormask,” the movie written by Neil Gaiman, at the only theater in the area (outside of Baltimore) that was showing it.
We had to catch it this week, as it was only a one-week engagement.
The plan was for me to meet Scott at his house at 1:30, which would leave us enough time to get to DC (and find the theater) in time for the 2:55 matinee.
Because it takes anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to get to Scott’s house, I figured I’d head out into the world a bit after 11 to do a few things and get lunch before making the trek to Manassas.
First stop was Wal-Mart, where I returned a pair of pants I bought last week, and then picked up a few things like a birthday card for my niece Jenni, and various toiletries.
The funny thing is that the total cost of what I bought was just shy of exactly how much money I’d gotten back for the pants I’d returned.
After that I drove around trying to figure out where I was going to eat lunch before finally settling on McDonald’s, which was kind of silly, as I could have just eaten at the McDonald’s inside of Wal-Mart.
Ah well.
From there I made my way to Scott’s. Traffic was relatively light, though there was an infuriating moment in which I found myself stuck behind a slow-moving truck that was hauling a bulldozer.
I’d been caught behind it at a light, and so I was unable to get into the other lane to pass it, as I had to wait for the stream of traffic whizzing past me.
(I said “stream,” and then I said “whizzing.”)
Eventually, I got an opening and moved into the other lane…where I was stuck behind some Jackass in a Land Rover who was matching the speed of the bulldozer-hauling truck.
After several minutes I moved back in behind the truck and managed to actually get past the Land Rover, which had slowed down even further, that way. WTF? Why would anyone deliberately drive slower than a truck that’s hauling a bulldozer?
Anyway, I still managed to get there a bit early. I didn’t stop, as I didn’t think Scott was home (I thought he was at the doctor’s with Stacy, who was going to be home at 1:30, which was why we’d set that as the time to head out DC), but after making a pass by to see if Stacy’s car was back yet I noticed that the door was open, so I parked and made my way over to the house.
Once Stacy arrived (in their newly-purchased Grand Caravan), Scott and I headed out.
We actually made very good time, and arrived at the theater with ten minutes to spare.
Except…
Turns out that we’d read it wrong on the Web; the movie started at 2:25 not 2:55.
So, given that there were very few previews, that meant that the movie was already well underway, with the next show not until 4:50.
After Scott made a quick call to tell Stacy about the change to our schedule, we decided to head over to the Smithsonian to pass the time.
We went into the Museum of Natural History and found that the IMAX theater had a 3-D movie called “Into The Deep,” which would carry us through most of the time we needed to kill, and so, after checking out some of the displays it was time for the movie.
The 3-D effect, at times, was pretty amazing, but for the most part it made my eyes water and gave me a headache.
From that theater we were off to the other theater, which, I must say, was the most unusual theater I’ve ever been in. As best we were able to determine it had been converted from a hotel.
(The theater seems to specialize in “art” films and various other special interest movies)
The actual auditorium in which the movie was playing was pretty small, and there were only a handful of people there to see the it (no doubt all hard-core Neil Gaiman fans).
As for the movie itself, Scott and I both enjoyed it a great deal. It was funny, magical, and visually astonishing, particularly given the almost non-existent budget Gaiman and McKean had to work with (a scant $4 million, which is nothing for a movie, especially one so full of eye-popping visual effects). I think it’s a shame that it’s getting such a limited release.
I was especially impressed by the performance of Stephanie Leonidas, who starred as Helena, the 15-year old girl raised in a circus who wants to run away and join the real world. She was very cute (in real life she’s 21, so I’m not a total perv) and engaging, and she brought a great range to the role.
After we left the theater we got out of DC surprisingly quickly, and, since it was after 7, thought we would be avoiding the rush-hour traffic.
We would have done so, but an accident on 66 slowed things down considerably and we were forced to take a detour around it. The detour was supposed to simply take us off the freeway and then lead us to an on-ramp on the other side of the accident. Unfortunately, the on-ramp was also blocked off, and we had no idea how to get back onto 66.
Eventually we found a road that Scott knew and we were well on our way.
My drive home was uneventful and surprisingly quick, allowing me to get home just in time to catch “My Name is Earl.”
Still, like I said, while overall it was a good one, it was a long day.
After leaving the movie I was telling Scott about the fact that Neil is actually working on making his mini-series “Death: The High Cost of Living” into a movie. I mentioned that I’d read an interview with him in which he was asked if he had any thoughts on casting, to which he replied that he did…in a rather coy manner that indicated he had no intention of telling anyone what those thoughts were.
Sort of out of the blue, Scott said that he thought that Rachael Leigh Cook would be ideal for the role of Death.
(For those who don’t know, Death, as presented in “The Sandman” and related comics is a very sweet, quirky, petite, and beautiful Goth chick.)
I was a bit nonplussed by this.
Not because it isn’t a good idea, but rather because it is a good idea and it never occurred to me.
I don’t mean that to sound egotistical, as if to say that I’m the only person who has good ideas, but if you consider that Death is a favorite character of mine, and I love Rachael Leigh Cook, you’d think that putting the two together would have been obvious.
But it never occurred to me.
In fact, I said to Scott, more than a little shocked, “It never occurred to me that my beloved Rachael Leigh Cook should play Death.”
And yet it’s so obvious.
Of course, in fairness to me, it’s really been years since I’ve thought about who should play Death. Back in the day, the most obvious choice had always been Winona Ryder.
Of course, that only adds to the obviousness of RLC as Death, as there are a lot of physical similarities between her and Winona.
I can only offer my humblest apologies to RLC (and Death) for this oversight on my part.
In any case, I think it’s time that I bring my long day to a close.