Companions

Yep. Just as I imagined, I'm more than halfway into my home alone experience and I've accomplished really very little. In defense of me, however, I have been feeling under the weather since late last week. Undoubtedly I could have taken Friday as a legitimate sick day because I felt plowed, and not in the good fun plowed-by-cocktails kinda way, either. So, Friday I walked myself to the movie store and rented a stack of films. It's strange - Craig loves nothing more than to settle in for a movie night, but usually I feel too restless to watch movies these days. However, in his absence a movie is like a companion in his place. The TV season is wrapped up so I can't count on anything on cable channels (well, most of that is a result of HDTV not spanning enough channels and therefore I tend to ignore my old standby faves anymore, such as Lifetime for Women and MTV reality tv marathons.) Nevertheless, I have a mixed review for a movie I rented called Catch and Release. Come on, I had to watch it - I mean, it's not only in the chick flick genre with Kevin Smith as an attraction for the boyfriends who are forced against their will to sit through chick flicks, but it also stars Jennifer Garner, an actress which, no matter how many times I've struggled to hate her (she's just too perky and gorgeous and sweet, or something) I have a hard time disliking. So my review goes a little something like this: Nice work attacking such an abject plotline, to begin with. How much more tragic can you get than a young woman losing her fiance before they get married? So as for straight plotline alone, I applaud the writers. However, there were so many holes. I loved the opening sequence. The narrator is delivering a mental monologue directed to her deceased fiance, and despite my difficulty admitting that Jennifer Garner is at least an okay chick flick actress, I will say that her facial expressions were on target. And, really for the first half hour of the movie, her reaction seems natural enough. But then things get tricky. There's money laying around, of course, in his wake (pardon the pun.) There's potentially a child he fathered, which could be true enough to life. But a child he wasn't sure he fathered and still sent the mother 3 G's a month as support money? Get out of here. When does that happen? Next up: the sexy Californian guy friend sticks around Boulder after the funeral? Why? Clearly he has money of his own somehow, which I'd guess is from a job (he mentions "making commercials" - whatever hours those people work, I'm envious) yet he just hangs around for weeks following the guy's funeral for what, again? It doesn't seem that he's specifically staying to seduce the widowed fiancee, but of course, that's what winds up happening - or she seduces him - what a way to mourn. Does that mean those two would have fallen for each other regardless of the to-be husband's life or death status? Or did circumstances just lead to their newfound love? And then there's her name in the movie: Gray. Gray? Clearly the intent was to match Grady with Gray (Grady is the guy who died) but seriously, couldn't they have picked like Alex and Alexandra or something? Adam and Amanda? But whatever the thinking was behind it, certainly the aim was for artsy. I've got to be honest, when artsy is aimed at and the arrow just misses, it's a little bit annoying. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the movie overall. There were moments when I just kind of cringed. That's what watching chick flicks is for - the unspoken understanding that what I'm watching isn't a film necessarily as much as it is a two hour reprieve from real life.*That said, I also rented Because I Said So (again, this isn't a Craig-geared show even though he is very compromising and willing when it comes to watching KB-movies) and an Australian film called Candy. Heath Ledger is in this film, and he's once again managed to display the complete ability to act. He's incredible in it. So is Abbie Cornish, his junkie wife. The reviews I read of this film were that another heroin - junkie movie doesn't need to be made - we have enough already - but the fact that this particular movie took place in Australia added a new element for me. Now that I've been to England, I have better grasped an understanding that cultures react differently to similar behaviors, and yet there is still the underlying human vein that is universal. I think what piqued my interest the most about this film was the amount of screen time between Heath and Abbie. It's a rare instance to see them apart, and when you do, there is a more strongly felt absence than is present in typical in relationship-type movies. They're so into each other, much more into each other than into their drug habit, but yet the drug habit is like a seam that holds them together, too. The soundtrack was pretty incredible, and the unfolding drama in that they are both artists (she, a painter, he, a poet) contributed a good deal to the movie. I think the bottom line is this: artists and writers have an inherent inability to tuck as neatly into regular society as other-minded types, and sometimes that leads to self-destructive behavior. But what is interesting to note is that once a person falls out of step with his or her art form and lets a drug take control, the art evaporates and what's left is a shell of a human who used to create. Candy isn't my favorite version of heroin junkie life, but I did rather like it.*Above shown is a bar in the Meatpacking District where Craig and I had a drink last weekend. This bar is called The Gaslight, and Craig had scoped it out on the internet prior to us stopping in. We were taken aback by its emptiness for a Saturday mid-afternoon, though. Anyway, I really posted it mostly because Craig has the camera on his fishing trip this weekend, so I wasn't able to shoot any pictures of my home alone time over the past few days. Positives about my weekend so far: I've stuck to the diet well, with the exception of wine intake (right now is a Sauvignon Blanc in celebration of summer), I'm listening to my Nano and Snow Patrol is singing me a song of theirs I've never heard before (we stocked our iPods with Snow Patrol a while back, thanks to Grey's Anatomy, of course, but I haven't spent much time with it yet), last night I ate Asparagus Soup which was excellent and spicy and healthy, tonight I am eating Greek Penne Pasta which contains tomatoes, Kalamata olives, spinach, fat-free feta, garlic, pine nuts and some seasoning, I still have one movie left to watch (Half Nelson) to send back to Netflix, after blogging I plan to embark on my initial closet and kitchen cleaning plan, today I bought two smart work shirts from Banana Republic, plus some comfy cotton GAP stuff, there is a thunderstorm somewhere in the distance so it isn't raining here, but I can hear the thunder from afar, the Subway Series is this weekend and at least last time I checked, the Mets have it (they play one more game of the series tomorrow), and tomorrow I head to the Port Authority to jump on a bus to Weehawken, NJ to meet at Pam's for book club. I need to figure out the plan for that. I know we're meeting anytime after 1, and I pulled The Year of Magical Thinking off my book shelf so I won't forget to bring it along. It will be interesting, even just to see Pam's place - I think her apartment overlooks the Hudson, which means commanding views of New York. No camera!! I hope someone else has one tomorrow. I may volunteer for next book club but that might mean meeting in the UES somewhere that isn't my apartment - maybe we could go to Central Park. And no, I didn't go there by myself this afternoon as planned. I really should have.*Another thing I have realized in Craig's absence is that I really am one of the luckiest people alive to have a companion in life that I love so much. We haven't spoken in now two days (no cell service in the Gulf of Mexico), and hopefully we can chat when he gets to the Jacksonville airport tomorrow, but I really miss him. I just miss so many things, I couldn't even begin to name what I miss. Little grunts, his feet on the coffee table, how he breaks into song unpredictably, the smell of his neck and the sound of his breathing while he sleeps on the couch...among so many other things. I'm not sure what New York did for me this weekend without him here. It compliments our lives together so much better when we're both here. That's a wonderful thing.*