Category — TV & Movies

Just so you know, I basically wrote an entire post for you on Friday afternoon. But then Caelyn woke up and Chris decided to quit work early, so I put off the last paragraph and revising, and now the whole thing’s obsolete.

Well, not exactly.

It’s about how Chris and I are watching the Indiana Jones movies in preparation for the 4th installment and how I figured we would be watching Temple of Doom that night. I went on to talk about the quality of Temple of Doom versus the other two and about my viewing history with it. I went off on a tangent about my childhood fascination with hidden rooms and the make-believe games I would play as a preschooler at the mall with my mom, then rounded things off with a list of movies I watched a lot prior to 13.

I’m sure you’d just love to have all that info in its full glory right now, but here’s the thing. I wrote that post prior to watching Temple of Doom again and to make it relevant (and accurate) right now, I’d have to add my thoughts during this viewing and edit out speculative statements. . . .

Let me just give it to you straight: I don’t feel like doing the work.

So instead I (swallowed my inclination to feel too materialistic and) scoured the web for pics of all the stuff I bought yesterday on my Day Off Extravaganza.

Oh, you don’t Twitter? So you have no clue what I’m talking about?

Well, for Mother’s Day, Chris gave me “The Day Off.” Since I’m a full-time mom, that means I spent the day away from the apartment without a kid. Cristin watched Caelyn for the entire afternoon and evening on our anniversary last year. But, otherwise, this was my second time to spend more than 3 consecutive hours “alone” in the last 23 months. (Actually, I wasn’t “alone” on our anniversary! But that was a long babysit.) The last time was the day before Mother’s Day last year, when Chris took Caelyn over to his parents’ house for the day and I went to the bookstore, ate a couple good meals, took a bubble bath and a nap, and caught a movie.

This year Chris decided I should expand my wardrobe too. This was a great gift, considering my wardrobe has become very limited. You see, I’ve lost all “the baby weight” and then some, so none of the (few) clothes I’ve purchased since Caelyn was born fit any more. You might be tempted to think all my pre-baby clothes would fit. Not so fast. I’ve got 2 pairs of jeans, a few skirts, and maybe 1 pair of dress pants that fit pretty well. There are more hanging in my closet, but they’re (as much as I don’t understand it) too big.

But the major problem is lack-of-shirts. I don’t have a single pre-Caelyn shirt that fits (other than 2 sweaters, but in case you didn’t know, it’s gonna be mid-90s this week). Explaining why might make us all feel a little awkward, so I’ll just say that you can lose all the weight you want after a baby, but for a few women, some things that get bigger just stay that way. I’m apparently one of those women. So I’ve got 3 t-shirts that Chris bought for me when he was in Austin a couple months ago, a handful of now-baggy (supposed to be fitted) t-shirts that I bought last summer, 1 shirt to go with black pants for every single dress occasion, and 2 “nicer casual” shirts.

I know what you’re thinking: “Well, at least you’ve still got all your shoes.”

Not a chance. I’m also one of those women whose feet got bigger and stayed that way, so 20 to 30 pairs kicked the bucket last summer. (Yeah, I know I had too many to begin with.) My mom’s feet grew a half size with each kid too. But she went from a 5 to a 6 1/2. Have you seen my feet? Seriously. I’m not just self-deprecating for self-deprecation’s sake. All I’m sayin’ is shoe size really might factor in to how many more children we have.

Anyway, I needed some clothes.

And I got some:

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The blog is on the fritz. Obviously, I had to do something productive during nap time:

Part I:

Part II:

Don’t worry, real posting and commenting, here and elsewhere, will resume soon.

P.S. Steve, I’ll look into your request ASAP.

That’s where I must’ve been.

Or maybe I missed the party because I couldn’t find my car in the parking garage at the mall and got caught peeing in the corner.

I mean, really, can you think of another reason I’d miss our anniversary?

I was just sitting here thinking about how it seems like I’ve been blogging now for a while. So I checked, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s been over a year already. I wrote that first post, Don’t Add Me to Your Blogroll Yet, way back on April 3, 2007.

I had to check the calendar to find out that I did indeed miss it; today is the 21st. But, hey, it’s still April. And c’mon. Like you really care about my blogging anniversary. (I’d call it my blog’s birthday, but I switched venues, in case you didn’t notice.) I’m not even sure why I’m posting about it.

Probably just because on your blogging anniversary you ought to get a free post in which you just get to say “Hey! It’s been a year!” and nothing else, and I missed it.

I guess that means I have to give you a little something more than “Hey! It’s been a year!” huh? Okay, how ’bout a brief compare and contrast? On April 3, 2007, I contended that some things in my life hadn’t changed since my first attempt at blogging. Let’s see if they still hold true:

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As you regular readers know, we’ve been discussing workout music and the merits of hip-hop. The following are the thoughts I had while working out yesterday about why hip-hop doesn’t alter my thoughts or attitudes the way it does for some people. Bear in mind, these are the most rudimentary of thoughts. There’s a good chance that I’m going to say something that sounds ridiculous. You might even get riled up about a few of them. Just remember, I might not mean what you think I mean or even what I’ve actually said, since I haven’t fleshed this out. But, on with it. . . .

I’m not pro-misogyny or pro-violence or pro-arrogance, which all get featured in hip-hop sometimes, but I’m also not pro-promiscuity or pro-anti-God, which get featured plenty in rock. You could maybe argue that hip-hop is a movement, a lifestyle, that acts on these themes, but even if we got past the drama and show factors, you’d be hard pressed to convince me that rock isn’t just as infiltrated with an “undesirable” lifestyle.

Lex brought up Bukowski, alluding to the discrepancy of tolerating themes in one media form and not another. I think he and I are on the same page there.

Sure, there’s always a line, and I’m not saying that there’s never a time to be cautious or that God doesn’t ever direct us (as individuals) not to partake in particular media. But I’m just gonna go ahead and say that I watch, listen to, and read media with all the elements I listed above.

And I don’t feel bad about it.

There was a time when I did — like the HS year I gave up television because I realized, as I was watching 90210 (which was forbidden), that I wasn’t offended by the pre-marital sex. Instead, I caught myself thinking, “Well, they’re 21.”

So I determined to cleanse myself of such attitudes by not watching TV.

But that wasn’t the answer. Turning off the television never kept anyone a virgin.

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Lucius: “Here, please, for you.”

Me: “No thank you.”

Lucius: “No, please, take it.”

Me: “No, that’s alright. Thanks.”

Lucius: “Please, it’s a present. It’s free.”

Me: “Okay.”

Lucius: “Wait, it’s a little sticky, let me wrap it. Come, please.”

That’s the conversation I had with the nail product guy 3 quarters through the mall today. I’d already dodged the mineral makeup lady, the flat iron woman, and the cell phone man. I was on fire. Till Lucius, waving a little fuchsia stick in my direction, tricked me into thinking I could just take his sample and keep strolling.

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