5.26.2000

    Thom and I watched Fight Club last night and loved it. I felt that it wandered away from the book in places but that where it wandered it do so really well. In fact, I think I liked the movie better than the book. The book didn't sit in my head well. There were gaps and the prose, at times, lost me. However, the scene in the movie where they're driving in the rain looked exactly as I pictured it which is pretty amazing. Thom mentioned some ways in which the scene was markedly different than in the book but the colors and the mood and the emotion was captured perfectly, I though. What surprised me most about the movie was how funny it was and that Brad Pitt was really good.

    We also watched in the last few days: Galaxy Quest, a purposeless yet humorous little movie, and Sixth Sense for the second time which was just as good as the first time.

    My birthday is this Sunday. I'll be 25. I'm trying not to think about that but it hasn't been too hard to ignore since I've been so busy. I feel like the last few years haven't been very celebratory in terms of birthdays. I've been too engaged with real life to be silly and enjoy a birthday. Maybe that just comes with age. I thought earlier this year that I wanted to have a big party to celebrate my little quarter of a century of breathing but it just seemed too fraught with complications. Thom tried to get together some of my college friends for a little fete but none of them were available or willing, I guess. Naturally a bummer.

    It's one of the reasons I decided not to throw myself a party. I don't deal well with rejection and/or having to plan my own birthday party for when other people can make the time in their lives for me. Selfish? Whatever. Isn't that the point? 'Course, it seems that what I want for my birthday is to be left alone. Not really but... you know.

    Thom has given me two great gifts for my birthday already. The first is a certificate for an hour-long massage session with his work masseuse. I'm very excited about this. I think I'll save it until after the move to the new place. The second is tickets to Cirque du Soleil which we're going to tonight. I used to watch Cirque back when there were showing some segment on HBO back in the 80s and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Unfortunately, I heard they won't allow any sort of photography at all. I'm kinda bummed about that but it will be fun.

    Thom and I have been spending massive amounts of quality-time together and I'm really loving it. We've been taking walks and sleeping in a little bit and doing lots of hugging and laughing. I think this is why it's good to have some time apart from time to time. I did enjoy being SINGLE GIRL! but I sure missed him.

    We were playing cards on the balcony the other night and trying to think of ways in which our relationship could really suck.

Me: I could be a nag.

T: I could be angry.

Me: I could be a shopoholic.

T: I could be a drunken thief.

Me: I could be a raging sociopath.

    I've been on a massive reading jag. I've read all three Harry Potter books. Two of them back-to-back. I had weird dreams while reading those. I read the follow-up to High Fidelity which is About A Boy. It was good if not as good as Fidelity. I borrowed The Beach from Chels and finished that in two days and it was awesome, escapist. I also borrowed Book of Ruth which I started and then put down. I'll probably finish reading that this weekend. I'm also in the middle of Lolita but I've sort of lost interest. There's a quote from Time on my copy of the book: "Intensely lyrical and wildly funny." Wildly funny? Wildly? I haven't laughed once. It's not that I'm shocked or find it perverse necessarily or disgusting or even sad. There just hasn't been one thing that has made me laugh. In fact, I find the voice to be pretty monotonous. The reviewer for Time must've been huffing gas while reading this to find it intense or wildly anything.

    Before all of that I read David Sedaris' Naked which I enjoyed but I think the rhythm and timing that he puts into his stories when he is performing them really adds to my enjoyment. Something about his voice, too, is so nutty that you believe everything he says. I felt that his voice is sort of lost in the writing. Did you know that that freaky chick on Strangers With Candy over at Comedy Central is his sister? I only mention this because I just don't understand the show. I find the lead character, played by Amy, to be so hideous to look at that I can't get beyond her. (This guy also creeps me out in the same way.) I get that the point is to ape the old after-school specials but I don't know that that's enough for me.

    Lately, I've been loving the JonJon Diaries. An excerpt:

"Such a contradictory mess of good and bad things has happened over the past three or four days that I'm afraid to write about any of it. I feel like Joe Lockhart being presented with a Polaroid of Clinton sniffing his mother's panties: there is no right thing to say."

- "Right Now — I Have A Headache!" (5.21.2000)

    I also came across this, a collection of one man's Wal-Mart receipts and the resultant community that has sprung up around them. Strange. Eerily fascinating.

    I'm pretty sure both of those links came from Dana at Bobofett which is also a great read. Her raging diatribes against her co-workers and working situation help get me through the day.