I was sitting down to watch a movie (El Crimen del Padre Amaro tonight) when I got to poking around my hard drive beforehand and I found a bunch of old stories I wrote a few years ago. A lot of them were just silly fanfic but some were a bit better than that. At least, they had bits and pieces in them that I liked and wanted to keep. So I posted a few excerpts over on my writing blog.

Actually as I was watching Most Haunted this morning I thought about what would happen if one of the psychics on the show became possessed by a malevolent ghost, as they do from time to time, and strangled the host of the show. Would the psychic really have been possessed when he murdered her or was he faking it. How could he prove it?

Hmmm… I dunno, maybe that’s too “Murder She Wrote.”

Anyway, Thanksgiving was lovely. Meeting Kelly’s boyfriend was great and I hope he wasn’t overwhelmed by meeting the whole family at once 🙂 Was really good to see Kelly again as well. I wish we lived closer.

Shannon worked for the paper the evening before Thanksgiving stuffing papers in bags. She made fifty bucks and is quite pleased with her self. While she was doing that Kelly, the bf and myself hung out at the Chicken Coop playing pool and being accosted by a bit of an overzealous dude who just wouldn’t shut up. But he bought Kelly and I shots of Bailey’s for no reason which was nice. But his constant pestering me to chug the shot was annoying. Bailey’s is meant to be sipped slowly and savoured, so it goes down smooth – not downed like tequila. Ah well. Kelly’s boyfriend figured he was just bugging us because he could check out the cleavage as we bent over the pool table. He was very starey.

Next day was spent with that side of my family and it was very nice. Rick brought a keg of my favourite root beer that he brews for the Coop so I was in heaven. Later that evening we bowled. I fell. It was most amusing.

Did “Walk the Line” again this morning (and there’s the “Brokeback Mountain” trailer in front of that – even better to see that on the big screen) while Shannon wandered the mall and drooled over the clothes in Hot Topic. I know it’s weird of me to go see it again, but well, it’s a good movie and I love Joaquin Phoenix. Sue me.

Yeah so that’s a rundown of the past few days. To sum it up: Boyfriend = good, Root beer = Goooooood, Bowling = bad, Joaquin Phoenix = So so good.

So this is what I wanted to say about Brokeback Mountain. But Mike said it better.

My favourite bit:

You see, when you watch an action movie, you’re often watching people blowing things up. When you watch a horror movie, you’re often times watching mass murder. Hell, when you watch a romantic comedy, you are often times watching stalker-type behavior that would get you arrested in real life. What you aren’t doing by watching any of these actions, is advocating it.

Thanks Mike.

I want to see “Brokeback Mountain.” I’ve heard rumblings about the “gay cowboy movie” for a while now but its upcoming release has brought more exposure and promotion for it and the story is enticing.

I found Annie Proulx’s short story the movie is based on online the other day and devoured all twenty pages of it. “Haunting” is one word that comes to mind. I’ve seen two other wonderful movies this weekend but I can’t get my mind off Brokeback Mountain.

Check out the trailer. It just grabs me and won’t let go. Ang Lee is a force to be reckoned with I think and with the only ‘Western’ author I truly love, Larry McMurtry cowriting this movie I can’t see it not winning awards.

I can see it not coming to Grand Island though. Because of course a controversial topic such as two lonely cowboys falling in love with each other would just be subject to ridicule by the straight guys around here who might feel their masculinity threatened if they admitted they enjoyed this movie.

But this isn’t Will & Grace – while I love that show, it does pretty much play to stereotype. Brokeback Mountain transcends just about every gay stereotype you can think of because at the end of the day it’s just a simple, tragic love story.

It opens December 9th. If you can, go see it.

On a slightly different topic, I wonder what it is about stories like this that attract women to them. Slash fiction is prevalent on the Net and yet the majority of slash writers are female. It’s not the same attraction displayed by men who want to watch two women mudwrestle naked. It’s not like that. At least for me. I don’t think it’s about sex really. More about the.. I dunno, forbiddenness of it. The angst (I love angst), the love stories. I liken it to my same attraction to stories about fallen priests.

I’m weird I know. But anyway Brokeback Mountain looks beautiful and I can’t wait for it.

My cat is driving me nuts. It seems I’m not allowed to sleep beyond 4:30am because of her. I can’t figure out why she insists on clamoring outside my bedroom door, yowling and scratching at it until I wake up pissed off and frustrated. Not a pleasant way to start the day.

Now, I’ve had Spooky for around 6 years and it’s only rare when either Shannon or I allow her into our rooms during the night because she’s restless. She has to explore the rooms she should know by heart. She likes to do laps around our bodies, making sure to step on our hair when we’re asleep so that we can bolt upright yelling, “Owwwww!” She enjoys wastebasket tipping, 2am rips around the place at top speed – things like that. So we decided she was never going to be one of those kitties who curl up at their owners’ feet for a long night’s sleep.

She has a comfy area in the living room all to herself. But no. She’d rather wander over to my door at around 4:30am every frikkin’ morning and meow as if she’s never going to see me again.

*sigh* It’s very frustrating and all this week I’ve been a right cranky bitch because I can’t seem to get a decent, cat-free sleep.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Spooky. When she’s not yelling loud enough to wake the dead (or the dead asleep anyway) she’s very cute. She likes to climb up on my chest and put her paws on either side of my face and umm… how to explain… roll her paws? You know how cats do that kneading thing on blankets or something? She does a lighter version of that on my face and it’s really cute. She’s hilarious when she’s playful, and when she’s stalking some speck of dust and fully concentrating on it, we like to make a loud noise which causes her to jump straight up in the air about three feet. It’s very amusing.

Anyway tonight Shannon’s got a notion to camp out in the living room and I’m very much looking forward to it because it means Spooky will have someone else to bother at 4:30am 🙂

Or more specifically, laundry fecking etiquette in an apartment complex.

Rule #1: If someone’s clothes are still in the dryer (and this is the important bit) and the dryer IS STILL GOING, it means that hmmm, let’s see – THE CLOTHES ARE NOT DONE! Just because you two loads of laundry to do does not give you the right to remove my still-wet clothes to dry your own. Git.

Rule #2: Never, ever touch my clothes again. I will kill you.

The sooner I find another place to live the better. I fucking hate this place and my inconsiderate, shrieking sex-having, smoking in the halls, twat neighbours.

I have this overwhelming feeling like I’m forgetting to do something. It’s oppressive and bothering the hell out of me. I got a boatload of work done today and my task list is almost cleared so it can’t be that. I talked to the Gs about a duplex near GISH but it was out of my price range. We got the ball rolling on sorting and packing so it’s not move-related. I still need a photo for today, maybe that’s it… Nah.

Argh. Oh well maybe it wasn’t important. And if it was, then I guess I’ll find out soon enough 🙂

I forgot how good “Election” is. I randomly decided to watch it tonight when I gave up the battle with my memory. Hey maybe that’s what I forgot…

After an absolutely rotten day at work (not going into details – blogging about issues at work = bad) I’m relieved to be at home. Been a long time since I’ve been that angry. Oh and normally, the smell of chili cooking is lovely. Ten or eleven crockpots cooking chili all morning with the heavy, meaty, spicy, pungent aroma drifting around you for hours on end – not so nice. Right now I could go the rest of the year without having to smell that again.

Ok shutting up about work. My bathtub’s done – yay! After two weeks of yicky baths I’m finally able to take showers again. I took the longest one ever the other night and it felt goooood.

What else is going on… I’m finding it a challenge to take an interesting photo every day. It’s difficult because frankly, my life is a lot of routine dull stuff. Nothing that makes for dramatic daily pix. Ah well. I guess those of you checking that blog will have to put up with more shots of my laptop, my groceries and my cute kid and cat.

Going to be moving soon as well I hope. I’m on the prowl for a small house or duplex closer to the kid’s school. I can’t go much higher in rent so I doubt where we end up will be a dream home or anything, but hopefully it will be better than where we are now. It was fine when I came back from England, but it’s just too small now and too far away from the school, the rellies and other things. So far the pickings are slim so this may take some time.

Oh and I chickened out of doing NaNoWriMo. Ah well.