2003-12-18 - 2:56 p.m.
I went over to Nathan's (aka Nightcrawler) house the other night. We just hung out and talked, which was great with me since 1) I had no money and 2) I'd never met his girlfriend Ann before, who is now living with him. The house is all decked out in Christmas trim, complete with Christmas tree and ornament carved from the bottom of the trunk and colored "Nathan and Ann's first Christmas, 2003". They don't have a television in their entertainment center, or in fact anywhere except a small one in the bedroom, which I liked. They have an espresso machine and about 30 different kinds of flavors, as well as homemade whipped cream. Nathan made me a chocolate carmel latte with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, and a candy covered coffee bean resting on top. Very nice! We also had root beer floats.
The best thing to me was how happy they both seemed. You can tell when you walk into a house what kind of person lives there, and everything about their house was happy. I enjoyed chatting with them.
At one point that evening, I came out of the bathroom, and Nathan walked into the living room from the kitchen and said, "It wasn't my fault, it was an act of God," very seriously and sternly. Ann said, "Noooo...," and I thought this might be a good time to leave or possibly go to the bathroom again. Then Ann said, "I need act as a verb," and I slowly realized they were just trying to come up with sentences to translate into Spanish for Ann's college homework. I had a good laugh at myself and so did they. :)
Last night I went to the Lord of the Rings with my parents. The exclusion of two things would have made that movie experience a million times better: a light fixture that was constantly rattling, and a woman who brought her 2 year old girl to the movie.
People bringing their young kids to adult movies has been written about at least a million times. Now it's about to be a million and one.
I understand that people who have kids sometimes feel trapped in the house and need to get out. What I don't understand is how they feel the need to inflict everyone else in the theater with this particular problem. Bringing a young child to a movie on opening night? NIGHT? A THREE HOUR MOVIE? When you know the movie theater is going to be FULL? HOW FUCKING RUDE COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE?! Not only to a theater full of movie-goers, but to your own child. Someone that young shouldn't be subjected to sitting still for that long that late at night (11:00 pm is when the movie ended), not to mention there were some things that scared the shit out of ME, a 23 year old, in the movie. I'll be the first to admit that I'm easily frightened by movies, but I'm sure that a 2 year old is even more easily frightened.
For the Lord of the Rings, I can MAYBE understand that there might have been extenuating circumstances... maybe her sitter cancelled at the last moment, and maybe she's as big a fan as my father and I are. What really killed me with this woman is that when her child started crying, she'd let her kid cry for a few minutes, and then take her to the back of the theater, where she continued to cry. Not OUT of the theater... to the BACK of the theater! I don't care how badly you want to see this movie... take your kid outside! Even if you don't care about a bunch of people you'll never see again, even if you don't care that you're ruining the moment for 200 other people, at least care about your own fucking kid!
*end rant*
For the record, Pippin is my favorite character in the movies. Merry of course a close second.
It being the Christmas season, I'm a little more open to hearing about the good in things, and christening them Christmas miracles. (I know that rant about kids in movie theaters is the opposite of that. Cut me some fucking slack.) Here is today's Christmas miracle.
My mom is on a board for a small medical facility called West Suburban Teen Clinic, which provides counceling and birth control for teens up to 23. They really helped me out when I needed a medical exam this month but had no insurance. It's a place for kids to go when they think they might be pregnant, or have questions about std's or would like to get checked, or just need advice. Doctors volunteer there nightly to do exams, and other volunteer efforts keep costs low. Of course a place like this can carry a lot of negative press, such as it encourages kids to have sex by providing birth control, etc. This last year however, they were nominated as 2003's Community Hero, and won the yearly award. They recently suffered some setbacks, and my mom was going to have to sit on a board tonight to decide who they were going to lay off, because of a lack of funding. Earlier today, my mom got a call; the community answered back and the teen clinic got the funding they needed!
There can be so much beauty in this season if you open your heart to it. I hope that even that damn woman who brought her kid to that late night movie has a Merry Christmas.
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