Whatever you all end up doing, I hope you’ve had a good year and an even better one in 2008!

I have to admit that last night may not have been all that great a night to go to the movies. I’d been up late every night and up early every morning, and worked ten hour days every single day since Christmas. There is also no end in sight, not for the next 19 days.

But when I got home last night the power had been out in my apartment for over four hours, and my friend, having spent a large chunk of time reading a comic book by the light of two flickering candles, greeted me, noting the darkness of the entire complex. Rather than spend an indefinite amount of time in the dark doing nothing, we decided to go out to eat and see a movie. “The Golden Compass” seemed to be the only thing of worth which neither of us had seen, and which neither of us had promised to see with other people.

(Spoilers!)

So at a late 9:45 we sat in the theater and awaited the start of the movie. I knew I would be drowsy, but I was hoping that a good story and special effects would keep me awake. But even as the previews started I found myself slipping a bit.

Luckily, I have this weird inability to fall asleep in public places no matter how tired I am. So with the loud noise I was able to keep conscious.

But I don’t know. Maybe if I had fallen asleep, this movie would have made more sense. Within the first ten minutes I was completely lost and dismissive of this movie. My first gut reaction was, what the hell? And pretty much after the opening navigation, I didn’t try to understand anymore.

Here is my plot synopsis:

People in this alternate universe have animal spirits which talk to them. Some street urchins are playing, and then a foul little six-year-old girl, Lyra, runs into some government place and hides. Her uncle Daniel Craig, whose movie name is not important, and whom I would have an illegitimate child with, is almost poisoned, gets angry with her for being rambunctious, and calls her a ruffian. He decides to go to the North Pole to capture this mysterious ‘dust.’ Apparently, dust connects other worlds. Through people and Aurora Borealis. He leaves. She stays.

Then, a plastic-looking Nicole Kidman with a baby bump brings her to a new house and the little repays her by acting hateful and bratty. She was given a Golden Compass by Daniel Craig’s lackey, and was asked to hide it from Nicole Kidman. It tells the truth. Kidman almost finds it in Lyra’s possession, but at the last minute the little girl jumps out the window and runs away.

She is captured by a band of gypsies, aptly called Gyptians, armed with arrows and swords, and they board a pirate ship going somewhere. The little girl discovers she has spontaneously acquired the ability to read the hieroglyphics on the Compass. Then she meets an airship cowboy pilot and a witch, Eva Green, who flies out from no where and tells her she’s special.

They meet a talking polar bear who was de-throned. He’s lost his armor. So the girl annoys him until he promises to protect her.

Since all of the old city’s children have gone missing thanks to Nicole Kidman’s group, “the Gobblers,” Lyra, the polar bear, and the band of gypsy pirates go North to get them back.

Long story short, they try to find the children, find out at the Gobblers are guarded in their glass ice palace by Russian Nazis with killer wolf souls. The little girl challenges to polar bear King to single combat, using Gandalf her own polar bear friend as her champion. If the king wins, the King gets her as a prize. A six year old. And if he loses, which he did, her own polar bear gets to be king. The polar bears duel for twenty minutes and then resume their journey.

Finally, the little girl walks into the heavily-guarded ice palace, frees the children, and starts a war between the Russian Nazi guards, the gypsy pirates, and the witches that fly in from the sky at the end. Then they fly into the sunset vowing to stop the coming war of free will, which her father would be starting.

It didn’t make any sense, and I felt terrible wasting my life and my friend’s life watching it. It seemed as though the writers tried to cram a gigantic epic journey into a terribly compiled script and that they left out hours of the film for brevity, thinking that we, the audience, could fill in the gaps. Maybe some people did, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My life is hectic right now and I am not enjoying it.

Generally I like being busy, but this kind of busy is not fun. I need to be able to finish projects in a day or at least see an end in sight. There is an end for this situation, but it is not for another 20 days. By then my friends and family will have gone and I will be in charge of getting myself back to see them.

We’re working weekends now, and I hate that. I feel as though I barely have room to breathe. As my aunt said, I should definitely consider putting myself back into the market for new jobs. I partially agree with her, but at the same time I refuse to be pushed in a direction I don’t want for myself.

Sorry to be so vague. My head feels muddled.

Ah, Tim Burton.

Whenever I’m feeling too warm inside, I know I can always rely on this man to come out with a movie that sucks the cheer right out of me.

I say this of course as fondly as possible. I went to see “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” I have to admit at first I was uncertain about it. A horror musical? With Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? (Spoilers!)

But I went to go see it anyway. It started appropriately dark, painting England as a sore on the Earth, where all of humanity’s filth gathers. Sweeney Todd, newly returned to England (from where I wasn’t sure…Later it’s mentioned that he was imprisoned, but then I wasn’t sure how he got to be on the ship and how he ended up traveling the world). He has a companion with him, a young sailor, but he promptly goes back to Fleet Street where he meets Mrs. Lovett, a widow (Helena Bonham Carter). We find out that Todd used to be Benjamin Barker, a young man with a beautiful wife and baby. His wife had caught the eye of Judge Turpin, the man who had Barker jailed. Mrs. Lovett tells Todd that after he left, although Turpin tried to seduce Barker’s wife, she ended up posioning herself with arsenic. Turpin then adopted Joanna, Barker’s daughter, as his ward. In a nutshell, Sweeney Todd resolves to have his revenge.

Basically, I enjoyed this movie for its darkness. And amazingly, the music was rather enjoyable as well. It wasn’t as entrancing as the movie adaptations of Rent or Phantom of the Opera, or even something like Moulin Rouge, but it was well done for what it was. I think it was the musical aspect of this movie that made the blood and gore okay to watch, since it was hard for me to take everything too seriously (the throat-slitting, the cannibalism) while I listened to them sing. Yes, cannibalism (Mrs. Lovett’s abysmal meat pie shop takes a turn for the better once they have to figure out what to do with Todd’s bodies, the ones that drop through the top floor and slide down a shaft into the basement, where they go into a meat grinder).

And let me say that I would love, love, love to have Alan Rickman threaten my life any day with his deep-throated velvety hiss that is his voice.

Overall I liked it. I would probably see it again, possibly on DVD (not if I wanted to feel very happy about life, since let’s keep in mind this movie is, of course, a tragedy). The acting was good, and the music fairly characterized the whole feel of the movie–at times overblown but always with an ironic sense of humor, a la Tim Burton.

(I have also decided that cannibalism in general disturbs me much more than other violent film themes. This stems from a discussion I had with Boy a few weeks ago about a show on the History channel he had watched one day, as well as several disturbing dreams I’ve had recently.)

I saw I Am Legend again with my cousin last night.

I have to admit that while I didn’t think it was spectacular my first time through or even so this time, I did like it more the second time. The movie was probably more enjoyable because there weren’t annoying people talking through the whole thing or hooting anytime Will Smith opened his mouth. Therefore, I wasn’t as taken out of the whole movie-watching experience as I was last time and I could take moments to notice the subtleties of the film.

Overall, it was good. My cousin enjoyed it.

The things I had problems with were as follows:

- It was very short.
- The  dark seekers or whatever were kind of a zombie/vampire hybrid-of-sorts. I would have been fine with this except that we just didn’t see all that much of them in the movie, unless they were attacking and biting. I like my monsters to have a bit more substance and screen time.
- Yes, there was a small plot with the ‘leader’ dark seeker or whatever, but there was no history and I didn’t really feel that he was that decent of a character. I mean…why did this leader seeker want to take revenge upon Will Smith instead of just eating him like the others? Was that his girlfriend that Will Smith clubbed and experimented on? I thought Neville reported that total social devolution was complete?
- What was with the vinegar? I mean… it was not exactly an intuitive point in the movie when he was dumping it all over his step, and it was never explained in detail. I am pretty sure, however, watching it the second time, that it was to mask Neville’s scent so that the seekers didn’t follow him home. But a little explanation would be nice.
- I still felt as though it went downhill the moment he met up with Anna and Ethan. Or that somebody just rushed the ending. The first 2/3 of the movie (day-in-the-life) were far more compelling.

Overall though… now I have the book and I will be reading it very soon. I am excited; this is the kind of movie that makes me want to write and tell stories again.

Good things…

Yesterday. I walk out to the showroom with a message for one of the outside designers, who doesn’t normally work here. My boss intercepts me instead and gives me a puzzled look. “Did someone from up front call you and tell you we were meeting? Is that why you’re out here?” she says, and clasps her hands to her chest.

“Oh,” I say. I feel my face heat up and my back suddenly become damp. “Well, no. I didn’t know. I was supposed to give Ray a message. But then I’ll come to the meeting; I’ll be there.”

“Okay good,” she says, still looking at me uncertainly.

I deliver the message and then go back to my boss’ office where she and another one of my managers sit. I sit in the far left orange chair against the wall and far away from the door. My stomach flips.

“We just brought you in here,” my boss says, after she’s settled at her desk and run her hands over the length of the wood, smoothing it, “to tell you how much we love you here and what a great job we think you’re doing.”

All I can think is, oh no! A performance review! and sit even as my body breaks out in sweat all over.

“And we wanted to tell you we’re raising your pay to a level that we think better suits your abilities and the dedication you’ve shown in the last few months,” she continues. She ignores me even as I gape and stammer a jumbled thanks.

I leave the room a few minutes later after rambling on about something ridiculous. Suddenly the showroom is brighter. I work the rest of the day, even content sitting on the floor at the very, very end through my favorite gym class pricing pillows and making small talk. The world feels more secure, better. I even forget that for a while I will be alone for the week preceding the holidays, that Boy has gone home to be with his friends and family, that I am stuck here. It doesn’t seem to matter as much.

Yesterday. I am driving on 75 south. The road is clear, traffic minimal. I missed my gym class and went to a late one only to come home to a late dinner, and now I sit comfortably full. The road winds and turns and feels like a runway, like I am speeding through every turn to burst over a hill and into space. I pull up to the airport and see my cousin standing there on his phone with his pilot’s cap and trench and luggage. As he loads his stuff in the trunk I stick my head out the window, squint as the cold air hits my eyes and makes them water, and watch a plane taking off into the night.

When we get back to my apartment we talk for a while about family. I suppose I am hungry for family news, having felt as though I’ve been deprived from it for so long. Now, finally old enough to warrant attention from the relatives, I am interesting to them and they are interesting to me.

Today is a meeting in which I am given more responsibility and they reaffirm again that they like me and want to keep me busy and progressing. We get our office supplies and calendars and everyone seems happy.

I also realize that I am hopelessly addicted to these.

And there is a moment, one that has been ongoing today, in which I suddenly realize that I like the space I have right now. Perhaps is it just a by-product of both of us needing space after the last three months of fighting and turmoil and conflict being masked under the general term, ‘adjusting?’

I don’t know. I do know my hopes and fears though. Or is this what feeling fulfilled is like? Is that why I feel so uneasy.

Friday: work, work, work all day. Drink day-old coffee that’s been sitting out. Think about how the Boy is going home on Monday. Brood about the day’s plans and whether or not we will fight this weekend. Think about Christmas and wonder what to do about gifts since I am poor. Think about getting paid. Finish DSS project. Try to go home; remember that keys are locked in the car. Sit on the hood for half an hour in the growing darkness. Watch the traffic go by and read a book. When the boy comes tothe rescue, get keys and then drive home. Go out to a brewery somewhere in an industrial park where there is free beer (for us) and glasses and lots of people milling about drinking. Then go to the movie where we wait for forty minutes until the theater fills. Go home and to sleep.

Saturday: Exercise. Come home and pay bills, then go out Christmas shopping. Drive to a winery in Acworth and buy wine. Drive back in a torrential downpour, get lost around Lenox mall, and come home. Play games for a long time and then watch a movie until late. Go to sleep.

Sunday: Wake up. Skip the gym because it is too damn cold to go outside. Play games all morning, then go to the store for food and presents. Come back with a movie or two, and then play more games. Eat leftovers. Watch the movie (The Man in the Iron Mask). Play games until late. Sleep.

I am not ready for Christmas. It will be a strange one, and although the Boy has returned to Maryland for a few weeks, I don’t feel very lonely. I think this is because I will be spending much of the time here at work. And Thursday I get to dog-sit for a co-worker, and so that will take the edge off of some of the loneliness. My family will be visiting on the 26th, and so will a close friend. After that it’s New Year’s, then Market, and then I will be able to consider visiting home for a few days.

I feel hopeful. Here’s to a week’s worth of quality time to myself.

Strange things have happened to me in the past few days.

- Last night. I lean against my car, my jaw set, my whipped about by the wind cast off from cars passing by quickly on Northside Drive. The gas pump must be the slowest one in existence, but when I look at the clock only a minute or two has passed. It seems an eternity. A woman comes up to me and I am so concerned with myself that it takes me a moment to hear her saying softly, Could you put some gas in my car? For a moment I am so shocked by the fact that someone is vying for my attention that I forget to answer. I stare at her. I feel hollow. Then I remember that I am in public, and deny her gently. I don’t have any spare money (I am only allowing myself exactly $20 in gas on my last credit card) because I won’t get paid for another three days and my funds are running precariously low. Too low (I have a suspicion that several checks are going to bounce, but that’s neither here nor there).  She tells me that’s okay that I don’t have any money. She just wants gas. Just put a little gas in her car for her. Off of my tab. I blink. Can this be happening? Is it a scam? I stammer and sputter for words for so long that she finally just shrugs and gets back in her car. Drives away.

- Last night. I get to the gym much too early and end up waiting outside for the Hip Hop class to end. The girl I met several weeks ago is back taking the class. I tend to do that. Become interested in certain people for little reason other than that they’re intriguing. This girl is skinny, always barely clothed at the gym, has some kind of burn scar on her right eyebrow that gives that one eye a hooded look, and seems as happy. But her happiness, I believe, is a thin veneer for something else, considering she slipped into the conversation (in a single night) that her boyfriend just broke up with her and that somewhere along the line she had ‘caught’ liver disease. At both these admissions I’d stumbled again and blinked at her, told her sorry?  So she is there again for that class before mine. I sit, stubbornly waiting. Megan, the instructor shows. We talk. It is the first time I have spoken to her in two months of taking her class. I am sure she knew me by face the third time or so, but now we have spoken and so I feel a personal debt to her to do well. The class isn’t very hard, but I have had a crummy week and no sleep and can hardly keep up.

- Last night. We fight again, the Boy and I, but suddenly something is different and we’re talking again like we used to when we were first dating.  It reminds me of many nights past staying up and chatting until the sun rose. In fact it is six o’clock in the morning when I finally get back to sleep after giggling and laughing for much of the early morning after we had calmed down.

- Today.  Although yesterday I had felt that the radio had been predicting negative things for me, this morning all of the conversations were positive. I felt the same way, uplifted. Things have turned out well for every one. The morning shone brightly and was warm.  Two strangers smile at me and say good morning. The wind chimes are sounding in their low, melodious tones outside of Building 3. I read my book and feel peaceful.

- This morning. I look into my fish tank. Puffer is no where to be seen, and I grow worried. I spot him in the same place he was last night, only this time he looks more still. Pale. Oh no, I think. He’s died. So I take the green mesh net and begin poking at the plant. Sure enough, the little body is stiff and simply jostles with the water movement. Increasingly sad, I shake the small pale body out of the plant where it drifts to the gravel and stays. Too bad, I think. I really liked the little guy. Then, with an angry flourish, the puffer springs to life. His eyes swivel, seeming to focus on me.  I feel relief through my chest and smile, although now I feel terrible for disturbing him. The puffer begins to pace back and forth across the glass. He is irritated. Because I feel bad, I dump in a few pond snails as a treat for him to hunt down later. The big ones. Whoops.

I really resent people who play games with me, and who aren’t honest with me.