2000-09-27 - 1:03pm

On the internal soundtrack: "She Hangs Out", The Monkees.

I actually got up at 7am today. Minor miracle. Had to take the in-laws to the Metro station for a White House tour at 8:45. I hope they got there in time. We left the house a little late (fortunately, it wasn't my fault, since I was up at 7).

I told them to give Bill the finger for me. I wonder if they might actually run into him?

Everyone is getting sick! My office mate sounds stuffy, and one of the administrators is out with a bad cold. Everybody's sick! Even some of the journalers I read have colds, although since Rob is in Connecticut and Heather is in Utah I probably don't need to worry too much about catching one from them.

I have to remember not to touch my face. Best way to keep germs my hands pick up away from my mouth, nose, and eyes. Of course, as soon as I resolve not to do that, my nose starts to itch.

I despise having a cold. Since I already can barely hear, when my ears stuff up, communication becomes extremely difficult. Plus I hate not being able to breathe through my nose. During cold season I get completely paranoid about picking up germs, and won't touch anything and wash my hands 25 times a day. If someone in my household is sick, I won't let them touch anything in the kitchen (which means I wait on them hand and foot, so they don't mind too much).

Fortunately this, coupled with my insistence on sleeping 9 hours a night, means that I only catch about one cold a year. And it usually only lasts a few days, not a week like it used to. Thank god for that.

I hear we're going to have a Halloween skate, in costume. Now THAT is going to be cool. What should I be? I have a Casper the Friendly Ghost costume. I have a scary mask, but that would be a bitch to skate in (hard to breathe). Well, maybe it's time to cough up some cash and buy one of those adult costumes. We shall see.

We watched "Any Given Sunday" last night. My GOD, what a stupid movie. All those slo-motion shots of a spiraling football. And the weird juxtapositions of "Ben Hur" and a conversation about teamwork. All the weirder when Charlton Heston shows up later on.

I also had mixed feelings about the cutting back-and-forth between multiple scenes, or between time periods in the same scene. On an artistic level it was interesting, but it mostly just called attention to itself rather than enhancing the movie. It might have worked better in a different type of film.

The movie would worked better if it hadn't had so many famous people in it. I kept thinking, "That's Al Pacino!" and "That's James Woods!". Cameron Diaz did not work well here at all. The best character was "Shark", who I'm told is a real-life football player. Actually, Jamie Foxx did an excellent job too. Especially once I stopped remembering his "Wanda the Ugly Woman" character on "In Living Color". Lela Rochon was wonderful, plus hers was the only character I actually liked in the movie.

The in-laws said that Washingtonians were extremely helpful, nice people. What a surprise! Everyone wanted to help them figure out how to get where they were going. Maybe being on foot is the key thing -- no one would say that Washington drivers are helpful and nice.

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