T came over today to give me my Christmas present(s) which was wrapped (wow) with the ribbon drawn on it in marker. There was a decoy present of a bag of unshelled sunflower seeds (nice), and then my real present hidden under it, which was Final Fantasy Tactics (better!). She also gave me a box of white Christmas lights for my (well, Jeremy's) dorm. Also, she returned stuff she borrowed, which I think as an aside is kind of funny.
I'm so happy. ^____^
Merry Christmas, two days late!
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Friday, December 26, 2003
Lux Mundi
His hair, strangely, looks worst right after it has been combed. It is jet at night, but in the honey golden light of day the sun shines through it and turns, in a hazy nimbus about his forehead, chestnut-amber, and in the heat of day unstraightens in suggestion of a wave. It looks best when totally unnoticed and pushed backwards in the shower sticking up like a little mohawk after fingers are run through it (wet mahoghany) and when in the short lifespan of a few moments he wraps a towel around his hair to dry it, rakishly tilted one end falling past his back or shoulder, he is tall and straight and shirtless striding out of Kipling's jungles. He wears collared shirts that button down and frame the hollow of his neck that I like dropping kisses into, and the parallel seams of his fencing jacket form a chevron that follows the clean diagonal of his upper body. I poke his bellybutton. He's an innie. He has two pinched marks above the bridge of his nose where the feet of his heavy glasses sit which never fully go away and purple rings under his eyes that never leave even after he has slept or showered except at night when the world shows black or white or grey and the bruises blend in with the pale moonlight and shadows of his skin but are still there under the darkness' great equity. I remember what he looks like when he frowns but not when he smiles. His lips curve upwards at the edges naturally all the time so sometimes it looks like he's sneering as he speaks when he's not but sometimes he is. When he makes threats he becomes exponentially more articulate. When he makes love he becomes exponentially more inarticulate. His lips curve around my fingers when I feed him grapes. His eyelids have a crease in them. In the shower little rivulets form whorls in his body hair like grasses flattened in a stream bed and I revel in the strength of his arms and place a thumb and index finger around and pinch his biceps. He likes when I kiss his jaw below his ear and his neck above his Adam's apple; sometimes it's prickly. He is six inches taller than me so that I must stand on tiptoe to rest my chin on his shoulder or comfortably throw my arms around his neck but I must stoop a bit to hug him. His fingernails are comically squarish and his fingers are flat and each a joint's length longer than mine, so that when I push my hands against his, palm to palm, mine feel small but fit just right.
His hair, strangely, looks worst right after it has been combed. It is jet at night, but in the honey golden light of day the sun shines through it and turns, in a hazy nimbus about his forehead, chestnut-amber, and in the heat of day unstraightens in suggestion of a wave. It looks best when totally unnoticed and pushed backwards in the shower sticking up like a little mohawk after fingers are run through it (wet mahoghany) and when in the short lifespan of a few moments he wraps a towel around his hair to dry it, rakishly tilted one end falling past his back or shoulder, he is tall and straight and shirtless striding out of Kipling's jungles. He wears collared shirts that button down and frame the hollow of his neck that I like dropping kisses into, and the parallel seams of his fencing jacket form a chevron that follows the clean diagonal of his upper body. I poke his bellybutton. He's an innie. He has two pinched marks above the bridge of his nose where the feet of his heavy glasses sit which never fully go away and purple rings under his eyes that never leave even after he has slept or showered except at night when the world shows black or white or grey and the bruises blend in with the pale moonlight and shadows of his skin but are still there under the darkness' great equity. I remember what he looks like when he frowns but not when he smiles. His lips curve upwards at the edges naturally all the time so sometimes it looks like he's sneering as he speaks when he's not but sometimes he is. When he makes threats he becomes exponentially more articulate. When he makes love he becomes exponentially more inarticulate. His lips curve around my fingers when I feed him grapes. His eyelids have a crease in them. In the shower little rivulets form whorls in his body hair like grasses flattened in a stream bed and I revel in the strength of his arms and place a thumb and index finger around and pinch his biceps. He likes when I kiss his jaw below his ear and his neck above his Adam's apple; sometimes it's prickly. He is six inches taller than me so that I must stand on tiptoe to rest my chin on his shoulder or comfortably throw my arms around his neck but I must stoop a bit to hug him. His fingernails are comically squarish and his fingers are flat and each a joint's length longer than mine, so that when I push my hands against his, palm to palm, mine feel small but fit just right.
Christmas wasn't particularly special. Stella and Jonathan came over on Christmas Eve with Nathan rather unexpectedly, so my mom had to accomodate them by cooking more, which she started rather late because she got into a totally pointless argument with Jonathan about driver's license requirements (on my behalf). After dinner was cooked Nathan wouldn't stop crying, so after Stella fit in a few ceremonial bites, they left. So we were left with all this extra food but no one to eat it (except for me)(and my parents). My dad commented, "Other people's kids are always more annoying, aren't they?" and I concurred. Nathan is three months old now and incredibly cute, though we joke about him being cone-headed (my mom semi-seriously joked that you have to place him down in different positions when he sleeps so that his skull will grow evenly). I have a Christmas card of him looking cherubic stuck to the fridge with a magnet, but in reality he cries entirely too much; Stella says the doctors said he has a good set of lungs. No kidding.
I vow (sometimes successfully) not to go online on Christmas, so I spent Christmas rereading Lord of the Rings, though of course not all of it. This is better than going online because I can pursue fairly good conversations with my family while I'm reading, and relax over tea. I did this last year too, inspired by the Fellowship Extended DVD (and of course this year by the T2T DVD and RotK), so I think I may make this an annual tradition. I have a longer break this year, until the 27th of January so I might actually re-read the whole book, who knows? My attention span, not time, is the limit. At certain parts of the book lines from the movie (sometimes one and the same) would echo in my head and sometimes I would find myself humming themes from the soundtracks. Tolkien really does write beautifully, but it can be annoying how many times I have to pull out the dictionary only to find that certain words aren't in it. Tolkein actually wrote parts of the Oxford English dictionary... damn dictionary writers shouldn't write novels! Grrr! ^___^
I had dim sum for lunch (because on Christmas only Chinese places are open) with my mom and dad and Mark, one of my dad's friends from China with no family here to keep him company over Christmas or whatever, as it always seems to be with my dad's friends. We bumped into Shirley, my ex-piano teacher, and her family there, which is what I dislike about going to Oriental East; you always see random Chinese people who you know but don't really feel like talking to. My dad wondered if he could go visit Rosita, his depressed and sometimes suicidal ex-wife who is the cause of most our family issues, but my mom wouldn't allow it and that was that.
Later on T and Mehmet came over so that I could give T her Christmas present (and birthday present because it turns out I'd never given her one), which was money to buy a hoodie with, but since Mehmet had already given her a hoodie she'll just have to buy something else. My dad yelled at me for not introducing Mehmet to him. Chastised, I did so, and just for courtesy I also introduced Mark to Mehmet, to Mark a friend's daughter's friend's boyfriend. Both Mehmet and Mark found it strange and awkward because they really, really could've gone through life perfectly happily without ever having talked to one another. It really made people's lives a little worse, as opposed to a little more pleasant, as such introductions turn out to be examples of exalting the form of etiquette over function.
We spent the night eating from the hotpot and watching Finding Nemo. My dad isn't really a fan of animated movies, but he loves fish (our entire basement is fish tanks). He was rather enthusiastic about it and I was pleasantly surprised.
I vow (sometimes successfully) not to go online on Christmas, so I spent Christmas rereading Lord of the Rings, though of course not all of it. This is better than going online because I can pursue fairly good conversations with my family while I'm reading, and relax over tea. I did this last year too, inspired by the Fellowship Extended DVD (and of course this year by the T2T DVD and RotK), so I think I may make this an annual tradition. I have a longer break this year, until the 27th of January so I might actually re-read the whole book, who knows? My attention span, not time, is the limit. At certain parts of the book lines from the movie (sometimes one and the same) would echo in my head and sometimes I would find myself humming themes from the soundtracks. Tolkien really does write beautifully, but it can be annoying how many times I have to pull out the dictionary only to find that certain words aren't in it. Tolkein actually wrote parts of the Oxford English dictionary... damn dictionary writers shouldn't write novels! Grrr! ^___^
I had dim sum for lunch (because on Christmas only Chinese places are open) with my mom and dad and Mark, one of my dad's friends from China with no family here to keep him company over Christmas or whatever, as it always seems to be with my dad's friends. We bumped into Shirley, my ex-piano teacher, and her family there, which is what I dislike about going to Oriental East; you always see random Chinese people who you know but don't really feel like talking to. My dad wondered if he could go visit Rosita, his depressed and sometimes suicidal ex-wife who is the cause of most our family issues, but my mom wouldn't allow it and that was that.
Later on T and Mehmet came over so that I could give T her Christmas present (and birthday present because it turns out I'd never given her one), which was money to buy a hoodie with, but since Mehmet had already given her a hoodie she'll just have to buy something else. My dad yelled at me for not introducing Mehmet to him. Chastised, I did so, and just for courtesy I also introduced Mark to Mehmet, to Mark a friend's daughter's friend's boyfriend. Both Mehmet and Mark found it strange and awkward because they really, really could've gone through life perfectly happily without ever having talked to one another. It really made people's lives a little worse, as opposed to a little more pleasant, as such introductions turn out to be examples of exalting the form of etiquette over function.
We spent the night eating from the hotpot and watching Finding Nemo. My dad isn't really a fan of animated movies, but he loves fish (our entire basement is fish tanks). He was rather enthusiastic about it and I was pleasantly surprised.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Wherein Angie Experiments with Drugs
In the evening after RotK, I went with T and Mehmet to Georgetown to do holiday shopping. Because of the prices of anything, we didn't get much shopping done, but it was fun looking around. Georgetown has a very nice small town feel that's almost colonial. I think, this year, that I've been happiest when I'm shopping. I never buy anything, but there are so many new things to see.
We found, in Georgetown, a restaurant called The Prince, which is a Middle Eastern restaurant chain of sorts that T and Mehmet are familiar with. The atmosphere was rather bad; it was something of a swanky place, given a kind of underwater European nightclub look by having the whole room dark and dimly lit in watery greens, blues and purples. This reminded T to seek out a similar (less swanky) restaurant called the Oasis in Alexandria, so we drove there, past the White House and the National Christmas Tree and National Mennorah*. Across the Key Bridge someone had taken the time and effort to get every single highrise building to line its roof in white Christmas lights. The entire skyline was silhouetted as if someone had drawn the shape of buildings in the sky with light.
The Oasis is mainly visited for its shishah, a type of flavored tobacco smoked in Egyptian waterpipes, like hookah I suppose. It has one smokey, sweet-smelling room, with sturdy fretwork tables and benches, and metal traceried lanterns hanging from chains above, and to either side, painted walls with sand dunes and camels and minarets and the Nile, and the eyes of a veiled woman peering out a window. Chatter, the clicking of dominoes, and all around, young people of dubious legal age (many seem suspiciously high schoolish; all the cool kids) and one or two genuine Arabs (sometimes school aged, sometimes not). The menu is in English and Arabic, and one flap, piously Islamic, reads, "Absolutely no gambling or alcohol!" White Christmas lights are strung around the ceiling. The restaurant was constantly busy.
Mehmet didn't want to be known as the Bad Guy Who Introduces Me to Smoking, so he made me swear, quite solemnly, "Promise me that after this you will never ever touch a cigarette." I promised, and with that we rented a smoking pot thing. It looks like a metal brazier that comes up to about table height; on the very top is a lump of glowing coal which heats tobacco in a compartment under it. The smoke is drawn down, through a glass bulb filled with water, and into a tube from which you inhale. Anecdotally the water filters out many of the toxins in the smoke. This story is probably not true but it made me feel better so I don't care.
I didn't really know what to do with the tube. I inhaled, kind of went "Huh?" and exhaled, coughing. ("Cute!" T declared about my inexperience.) But actually it's rather easy; you inhale, and exhale, slowly. T and Mehmet can both make smoke rings like Gandalf, but I never could really manage it. T had said that her first time smoking had involved the burning sensation of what is essentially hot smoke pouring down your throat and into your lungs, but waterpipes are different. It only felt to me like pleasantly inhaling a mist, or the vapor of a tea, sweet-smelling and tasting. T said I should pretend it was my 18th birthday, since I'd never indulged in the tobacco part of turning 18, but since they never checked ID anyways it didn't make me feel special.
We ate, without forks originally because they'd given us pita and expected us to eat with our hands, but we requested utensils and got them. We smoked and ate and played a game of dominoes, and after the coal died, went home.
We got thoroughly lost on the way back, going in circles and driving along Massachusetts Avenue at least twice, and got an unintentional nighttime tour of DC. "Look, the Lincoln Monument! Union Station! The National Postal Museum! The Natural History Museum! The Washington Monument! The Capital building!" Mehmet had a big headache by the end of it, driving, but I think I had fun, having had a very satisfying night.
*I'd never known there was one. It looks ghastly, and Mehmet said disparaging things about Israeli national interests. Trees are naturally as big as they grow to be, but mennorahs aren't meant to be twenty feet tall and electrically lit.
In the evening after RotK, I went with T and Mehmet to Georgetown to do holiday shopping. Because of the prices of anything, we didn't get much shopping done, but it was fun looking around. Georgetown has a very nice small town feel that's almost colonial. I think, this year, that I've been happiest when I'm shopping. I never buy anything, but there are so many new things to see.
We found, in Georgetown, a restaurant called The Prince, which is a Middle Eastern restaurant chain of sorts that T and Mehmet are familiar with. The atmosphere was rather bad; it was something of a swanky place, given a kind of underwater European nightclub look by having the whole room dark and dimly lit in watery greens, blues and purples. This reminded T to seek out a similar (less swanky) restaurant called the Oasis in Alexandria, so we drove there, past the White House and the National Christmas Tree and National Mennorah*. Across the Key Bridge someone had taken the time and effort to get every single highrise building to line its roof in white Christmas lights. The entire skyline was silhouetted as if someone had drawn the shape of buildings in the sky with light.
The Oasis is mainly visited for its shishah, a type of flavored tobacco smoked in Egyptian waterpipes, like hookah I suppose. It has one smokey, sweet-smelling room, with sturdy fretwork tables and benches, and metal traceried lanterns hanging from chains above, and to either side, painted walls with sand dunes and camels and minarets and the Nile, and the eyes of a veiled woman peering out a window. Chatter, the clicking of dominoes, and all around, young people of dubious legal age (many seem suspiciously high schoolish; all the cool kids) and one or two genuine Arabs (sometimes school aged, sometimes not). The menu is in English and Arabic, and one flap, piously Islamic, reads, "Absolutely no gambling or alcohol!" White Christmas lights are strung around the ceiling. The restaurant was constantly busy.
Mehmet didn't want to be known as the Bad Guy Who Introduces Me to Smoking, so he made me swear, quite solemnly, "Promise me that after this you will never ever touch a cigarette." I promised, and with that we rented a smoking pot thing. It looks like a metal brazier that comes up to about table height; on the very top is a lump of glowing coal which heats tobacco in a compartment under it. The smoke is drawn down, through a glass bulb filled with water, and into a tube from which you inhale. Anecdotally the water filters out many of the toxins in the smoke. This story is probably not true but it made me feel better so I don't care.
I didn't really know what to do with the tube. I inhaled, kind of went "Huh?" and exhaled, coughing. ("Cute!" T declared about my inexperience.) But actually it's rather easy; you inhale, and exhale, slowly. T and Mehmet can both make smoke rings like Gandalf, but I never could really manage it. T had said that her first time smoking had involved the burning sensation of what is essentially hot smoke pouring down your throat and into your lungs, but waterpipes are different. It only felt to me like pleasantly inhaling a mist, or the vapor of a tea, sweet-smelling and tasting. T said I should pretend it was my 18th birthday, since I'd never indulged in the tobacco part of turning 18, but since they never checked ID anyways it didn't make me feel special.
We ate, without forks originally because they'd given us pita and expected us to eat with our hands, but we requested utensils and got them. We smoked and ate and played a game of dominoes, and after the coal died, went home.
We got thoroughly lost on the way back, going in circles and driving along Massachusetts Avenue at least twice, and got an unintentional nighttime tour of DC. "Look, the Lincoln Monument! Union Station! The National Postal Museum! The Natural History Museum! The Washington Monument! The Capital building!" Mehmet had a big headache by the end of it, driving, but I think I had fun, having had a very satisfying night.
*I'd never known there was one. It looks ghastly, and Mehmet said disparaging things about Israeli national interests. Trees are naturally as big as they grow to be, but mennorahs aren't meant to be twenty feet tall and electrically lit.
RotK Redux
So yesterday, I went to lunch at Lebanese Taverna with T and Mehmet. I have decided that the food there is bad.
Then we went to see Return of the King at the Uptown, which for those of you who don't know, is a big single-screen theater in DC which has balcony seating, like in the old days. They don't make theaters like that now, just multiplexes, so it's like an annual pilgrimage for us locals to go to the Uptown to watch whatever big nerd movie that's out. T asked where I'd seen RotK before, and I told her at Muvico at Arundel Mills, and she was for some reason impressed; I think it has quite a reputation. *
It could just be that I was watching RotK for the second time, in some fairly crappy seats at the back of the balcony, but the Uptown was not as impressive as usual. Still, it was fun because of the size of the crowd. It was very applause-happy, and we clapped in all the right places and then in some rather questionable ones; we clapped for Viggo in the Hidalgo trailer, and as in the first time I saw RotK, people clapped for Denethor's death, which is a big difference from the books because it's not a death you're supposed to applaud, you know? But John Noble did make himself so exquisitely despicable. Some poor fool clapped at the end of the Rivendell scene after the fade to black, only to face laughter from the entire theater when he and the entire audience realized that, of course, the movie wasn't over yet.
Comments overheard during RotK:
"He's finally washed his hair!" -Person sitting next to me regarding Aragorn at the end.
Mehmet and T spent a lot of the time cuddling*/making slashy comments regarding Frodo and Sam, and groaning when I said, cheerfully, "It's not over!" I enjoyed misleading T because she never read the books; I got her to think that Frodo would jump in after the ring. Well, she came up with the idea herself, but I rather encouraged it.
Mehmet said that out of three hours and forty minutes, forty minutes of RotK is the ending. When we left, we had a hilarious time walking past the long line of people waiting to get in for the next showing and saying things like, "Why did they have to kill Frodo? That's just wrong!" Don't think anyone bought it though.
I was impressed that I didn't have to pee for the whole time, but of course I was dehydrated because I'd hardly drank anything during lunch beforehand.
PS:
I feel the need to add this to the list of things to not do during a RotK showing: throw popcorn kernels at the screen during the Cracks of Doom sequence.
*Jose and Kay will be glad to hear (or confirm) that Muvico gives the Uptown a run for its money. It has reclining seats and a mural of the Nile at sunset (or sunrise) painted on the walls. The lobby has these big plaster columns, the halls have electric torches and the doors have brass fan-shaped handles that remind me of those jeweled collars pharoahs wear. So we have some pretty nice theaters close by UMBC, it turns out, though we don't often appreciate it.
*Watching other people cuddle is a bit annoying. Being that this is something I myself inflict upon innocent bystanders whenever Jeremy is around, I figure that I'm obligated to put up with it from other people.
So yesterday, I went to lunch at Lebanese Taverna with T and Mehmet. I have decided that the food there is bad.
Then we went to see Return of the King at the Uptown, which for those of you who don't know, is a big single-screen theater in DC which has balcony seating, like in the old days. They don't make theaters like that now, just multiplexes, so it's like an annual pilgrimage for us locals to go to the Uptown to watch whatever big nerd movie that's out. T asked where I'd seen RotK before, and I told her at Muvico at Arundel Mills, and she was for some reason impressed; I think it has quite a reputation. *
It could just be that I was watching RotK for the second time, in some fairly crappy seats at the back of the balcony, but the Uptown was not as impressive as usual. Still, it was fun because of the size of the crowd. It was very applause-happy, and we clapped in all the right places and then in some rather questionable ones; we clapped for Viggo in the Hidalgo trailer, and as in the first time I saw RotK, people clapped for Denethor's death, which is a big difference from the books because it's not a death you're supposed to applaud, you know? But John Noble did make himself so exquisitely despicable. Some poor fool clapped at the end of the Rivendell scene after the fade to black, only to face laughter from the entire theater when he and the entire audience realized that, of course, the movie wasn't over yet.
Comments overheard during RotK:
"He's finally washed his hair!" -Person sitting next to me regarding Aragorn at the end.
Mehmet and T spent a lot of the time cuddling*/making slashy comments regarding Frodo and Sam, and groaning when I said, cheerfully, "It's not over!" I enjoyed misleading T because she never read the books; I got her to think that Frodo would jump in after the ring. Well, she came up with the idea herself, but I rather encouraged it.
Mehmet said that out of three hours and forty minutes, forty minutes of RotK is the ending. When we left, we had a hilarious time walking past the long line of people waiting to get in for the next showing and saying things like, "Why did they have to kill Frodo? That's just wrong!" Don't think anyone bought it though.
I was impressed that I didn't have to pee for the whole time, but of course I was dehydrated because I'd hardly drank anything during lunch beforehand.
PS:
I feel the need to add this to the list of things to not do during a RotK showing: throw popcorn kernels at the screen during the Cracks of Doom sequence.
*Jose and Kay will be glad to hear (or confirm) that Muvico gives the Uptown a run for its money. It has reclining seats and a mural of the Nile at sunset (or sunrise) painted on the walls. The lobby has these big plaster columns, the halls have electric torches and the doors have brass fan-shaped handles that remind me of those jeweled collars pharoahs wear. So we have some pretty nice theaters close by UMBC, it turns out, though we don't often appreciate it.
*Watching other people cuddle is a bit annoying. Being that this is something I myself inflict upon innocent bystanders whenever Jeremy is around, I figure that I'm obligated to put up with it from other people.
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