Smokin' and Drinkin' on a Tuesday Night*

Only it's Wednesday.

I just poured a couple of fingers of Crown Royal over gem-shaped ice cubes in a vintage highball glass. There was something inherently amusing about drinking CR over ice cubes shaped like jewels. I also opened up Wicked Ale, because, dammit, I'm a rebel.

I am not normally a mid-week, by-myself drinker. I am more usually a adrenaline-fired, lust-soaked, nerve-seeking drinker. Or a hot afternoon in a best friend's yard, pounding back pineapple juice and rum drinker. Or a hey, look, it's legal to drink mango daiquiris on the street for breakfast in the French Quarter kind of drinker. But I only indulge in the self-absorbed, Tom Waits blasting on the rah-dee-oh sipping of whiskey on certain occasions. This happens to be one of them.

I know in my heart of hearts that I am not cut out for the life of a full-time musician. I am not a good goer-to-bed-at-any-time, I am cranky for three days after a smoke filled bar. But Jesus, I love it. The crowd thrills me, I adore the lights and the gear and the applause. Oh, God, the applause! I love the accolades. The real down side is that when it's all over, I get a little depressed. I mean, not like DT shakes or anything, but the world seems... flat. Muted. The edges aren't as sharp and the middle has no substance. I want to do this all the time. I feel like all the mundane bullshit would just melt away. Three chords and the truth, right?

Anyhow, I'm having an episode with my ex right now, which is probably makes it worse than it is. But I miss the limelight right now, as we speak. I miss people's eyes on me, and them shouting and cheering. Sigh. I won't finish the whiskey or the beer, I swear. I'll just hold them.

*with apologies to Crazy Joe Tritschler. And I don't smoke, but you knew that.

Well, you knew I was a weak woman!

Stupid fabulous rockabilly boys! Deke 'n' Joe 'n' Chris are smokin' hot players, and their music is pretty great, too. I wish I didn't love them so....

Who doesn't love a hedgehog?

Could you die?


Oh, and Miss Thing replies.

Do you love musical theater?

How about supervillains? Captain Mal Reynolds? Doogie Howser? Sarcasm? Laundry?

Okay, if you love all of them, then you already know what I'm gonna say next. If not, hie thee IMMEDIATELY to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and languish in the marvelosity that springs fully formed from the mind of Joss Whedon. If you go and watch this and say anything - ANYTHING - derogatory in the comments, then you are dead to me. DEAD, I say, because this is the very pinnacle of webertainment, as far as I am concerned.

If that is not enough to convince you, might I just say that Nathan Fillion's shirt is decidedly nippletastic? I thought so.

An overwhelming sense of nostalgia

Is this what happens when you hit your thirties? This indistinct but resolute longing for a return to childhood? Cuz, damn. Enough already.

I brought myself to tears listening to two songs this week: Dan Fogelberg and Emmylou Harris singing Only The Heart May Know and a very grown-up Mark Knopfler singing a pared down and heart-tearing version of Romeo and Juliet. Then I listened to Willie Nelson's Crazy and had to go lay down for a little while.

Speaking of tears, Wall*E about slayed me. If this had been a live-action film with a breathing actor, it would be deemed too sad, too apocalyptic and desolate for children. It's a portrait of what we do to stave off the burden of loneliness, a picture of how the comfort of routine and purpose keeps hope's candle burning and the darkness of spirit at bay. It reminds us that we can measure our humanity by our connection with other humans, and that mere existence is not living. And guess what? The kids got it. My kids did, at least. Cap'n Jack walked away thinking how great it was that Wall-E found a girlfriend and true love; Miss Thing walked away thinking how great it was that Wall-E found somebody just to hold his hand. Holding hands is something to wait for, even if it takes seven hundred years.

Go see Wall-E. Do yourself a favor, though, and don't listen to Willie Nelson or Mark Knopfler right before.

Lamest Update EVER.

Oh, hey! Hi! Sorry, I've been... kinda busy...with stuff...

Okay, I always have stuff to say, but I haven't been saying it on this blog lately. Sorry for all you regular blog-checkers.

Watching:
Sex and the City. I went in with low expectations, and I was still disappointed. Everything was just off. The pacing was terrible, the writing was worse, for every wonderful, inspired outfit, there was a high-priced trainwreck, and there was the slight problem of Carrie being referred to as 40, after a decade with Big. If I remember correctly, they celebrated her 34th birthday in the first season, also the season she met him, so she should be...44, right? She mysteriously did not manage to age for nearly half the decade. I am sure that there is deeper meaning in that statement, but I can't be bothered. I can't because I have to talk about the happy ending bullshit. Are we still buying the myth that the path to happiness is paved with goddamn diamond rings? I call shenanigans. I don't even want to talk about it anymore.

Also featuring Sarah Jessica Parker, Ed Wood. Tim Burton is a magnificent freak.

Listening:
Lipstick pop-punk heroes The Dollyrots and Go Betty Go. Sometimes a girl just needs a hook, y'know?

Reading:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris. This is self-explanatory, right? Everyone already knows? It's funny. zs

I'm also rereading the 7th Harry Potter book, but just on and off because it happens to be laying next to my bed.

Eating:
Cherries. Piles of them. Rainier ones.



Finally, I always show pictures of Miss Thing, because she is slow enough to capture with a camera. Cap'n Jack, not so much. Nearly every shot of him is blurred and out of focus. But I managed to get a pretty great one of him in Juneau. It makes me sad, though, because it's one of those pictures that shows the future.

I always spoil everything.

*SPOILERALERTSPOILERALERTSPOILERALERT*

If for some unfathomable reason, you have been even lamer than me and have yet to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Motherfucking Alien Magnetic Crystal ESP Skull, please feel free to skip this post. Oops, I just spoiled everything.

AREA 51? Steven Spielberg, are you OFF your NUT? I know that there is no hope for George Lucas - JarJar Binks clinched that one for me - but come ON. I can forgive you cracking wise about Indy's age. I can forgive the clumsy and unnecessary love story, because they all have clumsy and unnecessary love stories. I can even forgive you trying to pass Shia "call me Stanley Yelnats" LaBeouf off as a Marlon Brando embracing greaser of a tough, clumsy and unnecessary James Dean biker cap notwithstanding. But interdimensional aliens? Roswell AND the Lines of Nazca? Jesus wept, man. No. No, no, no. I bought your undead, 800 year old Knights Templar and James Bond as Han Solo's dad. I will not have you heap the X-Files on my ever-loving, unsuspecting noggin.

Here are some other places you could have visited: Angkor Wat. Stonehenge. The Buddhas of Bamyan. Atlantis.

And just a couple more points, real quick: 1) I don't believe for a second that a piece of quartz half the size of Harrison Ford's torso could be toted around with such impunity in John Hurt's left hand, which leads me to believe that the inclusions that look like crumpled Saran Wrap are indeed, crumpled Saran Wrap and 2) Indy says with a sense of wonderment about the tourists from the 4th dimension, "They were archaelogists!" No. All those artifacts you found down there were supposed to be contemporary to the period in which our pointy headed friends visited South America. If they were collecting them from study, that would make the aliens ethnologists. If they were just collecting them because, well, you have to bring something back for the girls at the office, because if you don't, that's just rude, then the visitors were morons and the ancient and priceless artifacts were tchotkes.

The fistfight were too much, except the impromptu malt shop rumble, but Cate Blanchett LOVES her job, and Harrison Ford still does most of his own stunts. Damn. Also, props for the age-appropriate love interest, even if it was clumsy and unnecessary. Ditto for the well-groomed pomp on Mutt.

If you are the debunking type, which I (ahem) am, here's interesting reading. And if you are just sad because the mileage included a few too many miles of bad road, here's Indiana Jones like you remember him: