my faith in love is like blood, i'd spill it freely for some

I can't quite get this post started tonight; most of my posts follow the same general format (I had an x kind of day; these are all the boring things I did; here is a random observation that may turn into longer brooding passages if I'm in a local minima; and now I need to sleep, so goodnight!). In fact, perhaps you should just post that sentence on your bulletin board or make a note of it and stop checking the blog, because if you're here for variety, you ain't getting it. But sometimes my general lack of substance and structure bores even myself, and tonight is one of those nights.

Still, I have a handful of readers who will shriek if I don't post (as proved by the eight hours when my blog was hijacked last month), so I will persevere for them like the professional writer that I now am.

I. I had an x kind of day

I had a good day, really -- not as productive as I would have liked, but since I hold myself to impossible standards, no days are as productive as I would have liked. Since I went to the gym, wrote six pages, had lunch and saw a movie with a friend, and read a book, that's probably good enough.

II. These are all the boring things I did

I managed to make it into the gym by nine a.m. for a training session with Alyssa; the very act of getting up that early was more torturous than any of the many evil paces she put me through. After showering, I discovered that I had forgotten to pack leggings, so I had to come back home to finish dressing, and I got lured into talking to my mother for awhile. You and I both know that this is strange and unusual, since I only talk to my parents on Sundays, but as the Christmas season is upon us, more coordination is required than usual. Then, I returned to my original script and went to Starbucks, where I wrote for an hour before meeting up with my friend Joy.

We had lunch at my old place of work, and then we caught an afternoon showing of "Tangled", which is the new Disney animated movie based on Rapunzel. It was in 3D, which I thought was quite unnecessary, and I think that 3D is for the most part complete overkill and never going to replace regular movies. Granted, this is probably the same naivete/ignorance that people in days of yore, when confronted with an autocar that was extremely loud and prone to breakdowns, displayed when thinking that the car would never replace the horse -- as the technology gets better, everything will be in 3D, to the point that it feels like you're actually in the movie. But for now, I spit on 3D and wish that I would have seen it in 2D like a good God-fearing moviegoer should.

Rant aside, I liked the movie; it didn't have the alternate storyline that appeals to adults like some of the other animated movies (such as "Shrek") have used to gain the widest possible audiences, but it's gorgeously drawn and the love story is nice. It's not going to displace "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid" as my all-time favorite Disney movies, but it's definitely something I would recommend and be willing to see again. It was particularly interesting that neither of the two main animal companions (a horse and a chameleon) spoke, which is quite a departure from the speaking animals in other animated films -- but the animation was so great that the characters were able to be quite expressive and engaging without voices.

So I left the movie feeling quite good about storytelling, and I came home to bang out the rest of the words that I wanted to finish today. I didn't get as far as I would have liked, but my battery started dying, and rather than relocate to the couch or the desk, I decided to throw in the towel. With fairy tales still shimmering through my brain, I picked up my old, worn copy of Robin McKinley's BEAUTY and reread it cover to cover; she's written better things since then, but this is one of my all-time favorite fairy tale retellings.

III. here is a random observation that may turn into longer brooding passages if I'm in a local minima

Around midnight, Adit called me. He had texted me a bit earlier, with a text that just said "heh"; I replied "tee hee hee", which was apparently an invitation to call. He was trying to nuke a frozen pizza, since none of the grocery stores in Boston have our beloved Amy's enchiladas (or enchiladas of any kind, apparently -- such barbarism in a major city surprises me), and apparently he was feeling chatty, which was a nice way of having family time over the phone -- as usual, he insulted me, I humored him, and we got along swimmingly.

Also as usual, he asked how the book was going, and when I said that I entered the contest, he said, "Look, let me tell you something -- no one cares unless you win." And when I later said that I had been reading a book when he called, he told me that that wasn't writing, and then walked me through how reading was in fact directly the opposite of my stated life goal, and therefore a waste of time. It's funny how he can be three thousand miles away and still somehow strike at the center of my most recent broodings; maybe he reads the blog for ammunition before he calls, but I prefer to think that he is the idiot savant of insults.

However, all of this truly amused me, rather than upsetting me, but I felt that it qualified as a random observation that could turn into brooding. I wish that kid would move back, but I'll somehow have to find ways to undermine myself without him. Moving on...

IV. and now I need to sleep, so goodnight!

I've got another training session tomorrow morning, and then I intend to write and do some work for that freelance project that I was working on a few weeks ago. I also need to revamp my romance blog this weekend for that class I'm taking, so I'm going to be a busy camper. And now I need to sleep, so goodnight!