Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The Chronicles Of Jon-ia: The Loner, The Weirdo, And The Something Else That Starts With "W"

This morning I was dreaming that I was back home at my parents’ house in Michigan, where we throwing some sort of party that we weren’t quite prepared for. People were starting to arrive, but my mother hadn’t finished getting dressed, and I hadn’t even showered yet, and so, on my mother’s orders, greasy and in grubby clothes, I had to answer the door to let people in.
Turns out that we had a brief reprieve, though, in that it was winter and our yard needed to be plowed before any of our guests could park and approach the house, and as it turns out, what we thought was the arrival of our guests turned out instead to be the arrival of the guy we’d asked to plow some parking spaces for us.
As I made my way to the shower, in my dream, I could hear the sound of the guy slamming the plow into the snowbank.
I soon began to notice that the sound was a little too realistic, and realized that what I was actually hearing was the sound of the garbage truck engaging in its standard Wednesday morning tango with the dumpster and that I had simply incorporated the sound into my dream.
It was only a bit after 7, and so I said, “screw that” to the notion of doing anything other than going back to sleep.
Realizing that I had nothing better to do with my time when I finally did get up a bit after nine, I decided that I would finally get around to seeing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe today.
(As an aside, though it’s not in my possession, I actually own a wardrobe. It was my grandmother’s, and sometime after my grandfather died and everything came into my mother’s possession it was decided that I would get the wardrobe. It’s kind of bulky to have to move across the country, so it’s remained in Michigan, belonging to me in name only. It’s considerably smaller than the one in the book or the movie, and I’ve never known it to lead to anywhere even remotely magical, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were some occasion in the past when I woke up drunk in the middle of the night and thought that it led to the bathroom.)
I normally don’t like to go to movies by myself, as I always feel as though I stand out like some sort of freak.
I suppose it would help if I didn’t show up to every movie wearing a raincoat, drenched in sweat, and moaning softly to myself throughout the movie, but even so, I always feel as though I’m being singled out by people for being, well, single and out.
There really didn’t seem to be any other option besides going alone, though, as, ant farm (and Web cam for remote viewing of same) aside, Brian’s not enough of a nerd to want to see the movie, and Scott has, I think already seen it twice.
So I decided to go it alone.
Before the movie, though, I ventured out into the world for a while, killing time (but not spending any money) at Circuit City, Office Depot, and a book store, and finally grabbing a quick lunch at an extremely crowded KFC/Taco Bell.
There were only a handful of people at the theater, some of whom were also alone, which is the good thing about my work schedule, as it allows me to take in matinees when very few people are likely to be going to the movies, which makes me feel like less of a freak.
Certainly I was less of a freak than the weirdo who sat a couple of rows behind me.
Based on the sound of him, to use metaphors that only a couple of people reading this will recognize, he actually reminded me of a combination of Rorschach, from Watchmen, with the random “huh,” “henh,” and “hurm” noises he was making, and my former co-worker Chip, who had managed to make loudly eating food into a kind of art form.
I considered turning around and saying, “You know, I’m sure you could make even more noise with that popcorn if you chewed it with your mouth open. Just a suggestion, since you obviously seem to be trying to eat it as loudly as possible.”
Of course, I didn’t say that, and fortunately he was mostly drowned out by the movie once it got started (though I did still hear the occasional grunt from him, and he totally ignored the request to “silence all cell phones,” as halfway through the movie he got a call).
As for the movie itself, I’d say it was okay. I’ve never been a huge fan of the books, so I didn’t really have much of an emotional investment in it, though I did recently re-read the book, and am currently re-reading the remainder of the Chronicles.
Aslan was pretty cool, and Tilda Swinton is just the right kind of freaky to play the part of Jadis.
I will say that the two girls playing Susan and Lucy were very odd-looking, though. Particularly the girl who played Lucy. It’s not necessarily bad, but in contrast to the Harry Potter kids (excepting the frog-faced redheaded kid), they just seemed sort of…ugly.
Sometimes, anyway. The girly playing Lucy looked altogether too much like a baby while being too big to look so much like a baby. The overall effect made her look like a grotesque caricature of a child.
I know, I know, I’m being needlessly cruel, and I don’t really mean to, but there was just something about the two girls that bothered me at times. Other times they looked okay.
The CGI effects were mostly very good, and there was a lot of really beautiful scenery.
The battle seemed kind of rushed, particularly after the slow unfolding of the events leading up to it, but of course in the book the battle only lasted for like a page, so I guess I can hardly complain on that point.
The other thing I noticed is that without the omniscient presence of the narrator to explain them, a lot of things that were going on below the surface just didn’t make themselves apparent.
Overall, though, I did enjoy it, and it wasn’t at all a bad way to kill a couple of hours.
Once I got home I didn’t do much of anything, ultimately walking over to Safeway to pick up something for dinner.
While there I noticed a big mass of hair and saw that the woman I usually refer to as “Hot Mama” was standing in line.
“Hot Mama” is a single mom (though she’s seldom lacking for male companionship) who lives in my apartment complex. She appears to be roughly my age, and is fairly attractive, but I’ve never really had an opportunity to interact with her, and typically have only ever seen her from a distance. Her thick mass of dark hair is her most striking feature.
Her weird son is her second most striking feature.
There just seems to be something wrong with the kid. One night, a while back, he was whizzing around the parking lot at around 10:00 at night on a scooter making motorcycle noises.
Based on the sound of desperation I heard in his voice when he’s playing with other kids he seems like he’s a very lonely kid who’s eager for any kind of attention, attention his mom doesn’t give him because she’s busy being hot and getting attention for herself from pretty much every guy who lives in the complex, including the old guy who lives downstairs diagonally from me, as one night in the summer I came home from work and saw her hanging out on his balcony wearing a bikini.
(Though I’ve never met the man and know nothing about him, I actually consider him to be my nemesis. Why? Well, despite the fact that he’s like a hundred years old, he’s still able to smoke, unlike some people who quit and still sometimes struggle to figure out what to do instead. Also, I’ve never had an attractive woman in a bikini on my balcony, which he’s managed to accomplish, again, despite the fact that he’s like a hundred years old.)
As for the kid, I might feel sorry for him if he weren’t so weird and annoying.
Of course, I suppose I could take advantage of the fact that he is so desperate for attention and take him under my wing as a means of getting at his mom, but honestly, the last thing any kid needs – especially one who’s already weird – is to have me as a role model.
And as for the mom, she’s not quite hot enough that I feel the need to stand in line to get to her (or to stand in line to get the shot of antibiotics after I did get my turn with her).
I’ve noticed that if I go online to check the balance of my checking account it shows the $10,000. However, if I try to transfer the money to my savings it only shows $400 worth of the money as being in my checking account.
By the way, contrary to what Brian suggested, I don’t intend to spend the money on “pimping” my Rio.
More likely I’ll just use some of the money to pay off what I owe on the thing, at which point I’ll probably just continue to use it until it runs into the ground.
I found out today that I’m unlikely to have any news about the mortgage before Friday, which is really irritating, as it’s getting to be just about as “last minute” as possible.
In any case, that’s probably more than enough for one entry.

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