2001-12-10 - 12:30 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Brahm's Lullaby"

So, last night I went to the mall to get some tailoring done, buy sunglass clips, find Poindexter some sweaters, and see if I could find some knee-high boots to put my birthday money toward.

I drove Poindexter's pickup (black, natch), our newest (1995), nicest car, to the mall. After wandering around the mall for a good three hours or so, I headed out to leave. Put the key in the ignition, turned it, and ... nothing.

Apparently, I had left the headlights on. Oops.

There's a service station across the parking lot, but it's closed.

So I go find a pay phone, and call up Poindexter. "Heyyyyyyyy, Poindexter, how' ya doin'?" He says, "Fine," in a what-did-you-do tone of voice. I explained the situation, and asked if he had jumper cables in the truck. "No."

So I asked him to go get MY jumper cables (*I* have jumper cables) out of the Volkswagen and come over and give me a jump. Then I went back to wait. I figured he'd get the cables and drive the POS over because he'll be worried the VW doesn't have enough juice.

I get back to the waiting spot when I remember that I took HIS keys, and he's probably wandering around the house looking for mine. So it's back to the pay phone (which is nowhere near the entrance I'm waiting at, grr) and leave a message telling him where he can look. Later I found out he'd found the keys on the first try -- in the pocket of the coat I took to the grocery store the day before.

Almost as soon as I get back outside, Poindexter drives up.

In the Volkswagen.

With the gorgeous dry fall we've been having, we haven't driven the POS in weeks, so its battery was also dead.

Poindexter couldn't stop laughing the whole time, because we were jump-starting our newest car with the 30-year-old one. And it worked fine, thankyouverymuch. Nice old trusty reliable Volkswagen.

We watched "The Phantom Menace" last night, plus some of the special features. In the documentary stuff, there were a few (too few) short glimpses of Ewan McGregor just, well, being himself -- laughing, and wiggling his eyebrows at a little kid (Jake, I think; I wasn't paying much attention to anybody else onscreen at the time).

Apparently that was all my subconscious needed to go into overdrive, because last night in my dreams it was All Ewan, All The Time. Every dream I had, he was there. Mostly it felt like high school -- me yearning from afar, him unaware of my existence -- but towards morning he started paying attention to me. Got a few smooches out of him in my mom's dining room, even. Woo!

Most of the time it was that alternate universe thing, where I'm not involved with Poindexter, but not in one of them. In the bathroom this morning, before work, I confessed my dream-cheating to Poindexter:

Evelynne: I'm feeling sort of guilty this morning.
Poindexter: Why?
Evelynne: For playing footsies* under the table with Ewan McGregor while you were sitting right next to me.
Poindexter: [jaw drops, stomps into shower in a huff]
Evelynne: [laughing] OK, I'm going to work, give me a kiss.
Poindexter: [washes face with both hands giving me the finger]
Evelynne: [laughing some more] Come on, it was just a dream!

He gave me a kiss and made sure to get water all over my face while he was at it.

*I'm not sure what "footsies" really is -- in this case it was basically just interlocking feet, like "holding feet" under the table. This may sound tame to you but it was pretty damn exciting at the time.

So. The Phantom Menace.

I saw it once, with open captions, in Georgetown. This was my second viewing. I'm trying really, really hard to like this movie, but I don't. It's pretty awful.

It does have a few redeeming features. In particular, I adored the fight scenes. The "fighting" featurette (I think) discusses how they deliberately used the actors rather than stunt doubles so that you could see their faces as they were fighting. I wasn't consciously aware of this, but it did enhance my viewing of those scenes.

I was trying to articulate what bugged me most about the movie. I got a little bogged down in the awful writing, terrible pacing, and the wooden performances. It was when I thought of Episode IV that I figured it out -- I don't give a rat's ass about any of these new characters. They were like cardboard cutouts. When I think of the characters in Episode IV -- cheesy and stereotypical as they sometimes where -- they leap off the screen compared to this movie. I loved them all and I cared what happened to them. The whiny brat, the cocky bastard with a good heart, the pissy, bossy princess.

I *so* hope that George Lucas will pay more attention to characterization next time around. Please. Please, George.

One of the things that I tend to forget about journals is that as much as you may think you know about the person, you don't know shit, really. You only know what they choose to tell you. And it's quite possible that the things they aren't telling you are pretty big.

One of my longtime reads just announced recently that she's separating from her husband. There was absolutely nothing in the journal leading up to this. Just one day, boom, we're separating.

It makes me wonder what's going on in other journaler's lives that we're not hearing about!

So, I would just like to say, to put your mind at ease, the following things:

1. There's nothing going on with me that's not in the journal. My life really is exactly like that.

2. Poindexter and I are very happy, no problems, no issues, no plans to separate (my dream-dalliances with Ewan notwithstanding).

Honestly, I lead a charmed life. I'm so content and having so much fun in every regard that I am constantly worrying that there's some other shoe that's going to drop. Most of my worrying centers around losing a loved one or dying. Ugh. As long as the worrying doesn't keep me from enjoying, life, I guess...

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