Friday Night Flop

When I was in college I was never really a party animal or anything, but my Friday nights were definitely a time to be social.  A coffee house, video games in someone's dorm room, out for pizza, an occasional frat party...but certainly something involving other people.  Recent Friday nights have been dead.  Granted, it's been a pretty busy time around work over the past month--lots of overtime at work involving production of the high school tournaments for television, and that's left me a bit burned out. 

Regardless, looking at my Friday night this week was just sad.  I got home from work late and took a quick nap.  I tried to figure out what to make for dinner, but realized the fridge was mostly empty so I went grocery shopping.  Realized that I was out of clean underwear, so I did a load of laundry.  While it was washing, I sat down with a game on my iPod touch and got absolutely sucked in (W.E.L.D.E.R.--an insanely addictive word game).  I looked up and suddenly realized it was after 9:00.  So I snuggled up with my computer and did some work on my taxes.

What happened to me??  College Josh would be so disappointed...

Once Upon a Time...

I kind of like the resurgence in fairy tales in Hollywood recently.  Between Once Upon a Time and Grimm on television and Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman coming out as movies, it looks like the memo is going around and it looks like they're attempting to take some new and interesting angles.

I think that every child grows up on fairy tales.  It's the way to pass on the message that absolutely anything is possible.  It's lovely and sweet and all, but generally the fairy tales as read to kids are not the fairy tales as originally written.  I definitely have a preference for Grimm's version of the fairy tales over the scrubbed versions that Disney has taken on.  They're grittier, have more depth, and they don't always end with "and they lived happily ever after".  (Spoiler alert if you haven't read Grimm)  The Little Mermaid dies, the queen in Snow White demands Snow's heart, liver and lungs for her dinner, and Sleeping Beauty has her father's child after she's raped.  I'm not going to say that these are pleasant images or events, but they're just...more interesting for me.  Happy and fuzzy was not necessarily the Grimm way.

And taking a familiar tale and playing with it a little bit is something I've always enjoyed.  In a college creative writing class, I wrote a couple stories from the wolf's point of view in both Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.  I enjoy looking at the motivation of "the bad guy".  I mean, what if the Big Bad Wolf was just hungry?  If his home forest was being chopped down and the other animals weren't as abundant, can you blame him for trying to get a bite to eat from a little girl's picnic basket?  Granted...chowing down on the girl and her grandmother might have been a bit extreme, but hunger makes you do strange things!  And what if the three little pigs had willfully destroyed the wolf's ancestral home to get the materials for their houses?  Can you blame him for wanting a bit of revenge?

Turning familiar stories on their heads is great deals fun for me when it's done well, which is why I'm pretty much hooked on both of the fairy-tale based television shows (and why Into the Woods is one of my favorite musicals).  When you can take the original and ask "what if?" it brings new fun into an old favorite.  I find it more enjoyable than knowing going in that it will end with "happily ever after".

Curling up with...

For as long as I can remember, I've loved the opportunity to curl up with a good book.  So when the desire to curl up with the internet or the tv is more tempting, I know something is wrong.  I've found some wonderful projects that have taken some of the time which could be used for reading (like knitting and making key racks out of Legos), so that doesn't bother me.  What catches my attention a little bit is the amount of time I spend watching TV these days (especially since my job entails watching TV as well) and on the computer. 

I still have my must-see TV, but that's only two or three shows a week.  I'll generally knit in front of the television, so that may account for another few shows that I don't feel a burning need to watch, but are good entertainment while I work on a project.  And I have my fair share of things that need to be done on the computer (including putting together a blog that can be very therapeutic at times).  But certain social media sites which shall remain nameless remain major time suckers for me.  Technically it's reading, but much of it is of the worst kind--gossip, fluff, and bad spelling, grammar and abbreviations.  There's information to be gleaned, but it's something that I should be able to read and walk away...and yet I can't.

My reading habits tend to be all-consuming.  I'll find a series that I like, dive in, and not come out until I've devoured it.  Or find a genre that intrigues me and go from book to book to book until I don't want to think about the genre ever again.  I found a series that I love, but it runs 14 books.  I have the next book in the series, but I'm not jumping at the opportunity to start it.  I think it may be time to make a switch from the noir detective novel.  I'll have to find something else to dive into and allow to consume me until the desire returns to finish off this series.  I just need to find the next glimmer of intrigue...

Creative Energy

It's never been a secret that I love the theater.  Performing, watching, working behind the scenes...there's something energizing about it for me.  And yet it's only recently that I've been able to bring myself to go to a show alone if I can't find someone with whom to go.  But in doing so, I'm getting to see friends perform, and even better, in shows that I've never seen before.  In the last month I've seen both "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and "A Year with Frog and Toad" for the first time.  Neither were professional productions, but they were done very well.  One of the joys of being in the Twin Cities is that there is all sorts of community theater to catch. 

The result of going to these shows is that they just fuel my creative energy.  I want to perform again, but due to my work schedule, the next opportunity for that probably won't occur until the summer.  However, there are other creative ideas getting fueled watching this creativity on stage.  I suddenly have a list of four or five things that I'd like to make (and I have never seen myself as the "crafty" type).  Unfortunately, I need to hunt down very particular elements to make some of these ideas work, so until I find them I'm sitting with a bundle of unfocused creative energy.  It's great to have that desire for creativity, but I need to find the right outlet.  I definitely don't want to lose it.  What to do....what to do??

Living Up to the Hype

Hype has always bothered me.  Many times the more something is hyped, the less likely I am to want to deal with it.  I think it's the reason that I don't see many movies--there's so much promotion for the blockbusters that I'm just sick of them before they hit the theaters.  And nothing can live up to the hype when expectations are that high.

Now, this isn't to say that I'll completely avoid anything that's hyped.  I read the entire Harry Potter series (but I'm pleased to say that I got into the series before it became the juggernaut that it is now).  I have to admit to being at the midnight showings for The Phantom Menace and The Matrix Reloaded (I still regret those...).  I did, however, love the much-hyped Lord of the Rings movies.  I'll see the much-anticipated The Hobbit movie when it comes out.  But there are many movies along the way that I haven't seen because I heard too much about them.  I've never seen The Sixth Sense, for example.  It was so talked about and talked about when it came out that I ran the other direction (that and someone gave away the ending).  I haven't seen Titanic.  Never seen Avatar,  Brokeback Mountain, or The English Patient.  I've never touched Twilight, in either book or movie form (although there may be reasons beyond hype for that one).  The list could go on, but I don't have time to list all the big movies that I haven't seen.

As I get older and the hype gets more distant, I find myself more open to seeing the movies.  I don't want to admit how many years it was before I was willing to see Forrest Gump.  It didn't live up to everything that people told me that it was, but away from all the hype it was a pretty good movie. 

One of my friends recently warned me that if I want to get married and have kids, I'd better catch any movies that I want to watch soon because once the kids arrive, it'll be another eight to ten years before I get to watch more of them.  I don't see marriage and kids in the immediate future by any stretch, but with a realistic mindset as to what to expect from the movies (they're entertainment--they're not going to be life changing) it's probably not bad advice.

Rejected Random Acts

I like to think that I'm a reasonably nice guy with mostly good intentions toward others, regardless of race, sex, creed, or religion.  I'll hold the door open for people whether I'm on a date with them, friends with them, or they just happen to be walking behind me into the building.  If I see someone who appears to be struggling with bags or packages in the parking lot, I'll ask if they need help.  Usually I get a "No, thank you" in response, but I figure that it can't hurt to offer.

I went to the grocery store the other day and I noticed that a mother and her children were dashing across the parking lot, the woman clearly in a hurry.  She was holding her toddler in one arm while frantically rummaging through her purse with that hand, meanwhile holding the hand of her other child in the other.  I pulled a cart out of the rack and offered it to her, figuring that she'd be able to set her toddler in it and more easily free up her hands.  The thought process may have been sound, but the offer clearly wasn't appreciated.  As soon as I offered her the cart, I received an icy glare and was told,  "I'm not some helpless woman that needs a man to take care of me."  The word "man" was dripping with disdain.  I'm not sure what my facial expression was at that point, but I was a bit shocked.  I quickly took the cart into the store and watched from behind a stack of Clementine oranges a few feet into the store to see what she did next.  She dropped the hand of her older child and pulled on a cart with the newly free hand, but it wouldn't budge.  She tugged a few more times without luck and wound up setting down her other child, placed the toddler's hand in his brother's, then went back to wrestling with the cart with two hands for a few moments before it finally came loose.  She picked up the toddler, set him inside, took her older child's hand again, and went storming into the store.

I felt a mixture of sadness and frustration toward the woman.  Clearly she had a lot on her plate and was a bit overwrought.  I had an image of her having one of those days where one thing after another was going wrong.  But watching the entire process, including her having to set down her son just to pick him up again moments later frustrated me a bit.  If she'd taken me up on my offer, it would have been far simpler for her.  But I also realized that there are a multitude of reasons that she may have rejected my gesture (she might have been a little nicer about it, but that's a completely separate issue).  I made the offer, and that's all that I could do.

Random Acts

I had a serious fajita burrito craving this week, so I decided to go out and grab my dinner.  I wound up waiting in line behind a mother and her two small children, neither of whom could have been over the age of six.  The little girl was clearly tired and remaining close to Mom (read: both arms wrapped around her leg), while the boy was taking every opportunity to explore the restaurant.  He tugged on the legs of other people in line, then waved when they looked down at him; he ran to the door and pointed at the cool cars driving by.  He then dashed over to investigate exactly how full the dispensers of plastic forks and knives were (looking, not yanking them out--I was impressed!).  He was a flurry of activity unto himself and the polar opposite of his sister.  Meanwhile, his poor mother was trying to divide her attention between him, making sure that her daughter didn't fall off her leg every time she stepped with her right leg, and finishing the taco order that she was trying to make.  I have enough friends with children to know how challenging it can be at times and I wasn't in a hurry, so when the mother shot me a couple of very apologetic glances between ordering and calling to her son I just smiled back at her and told her not to worry about it.

When she finally managed to finish the order, wrangle the kids, and pay for her meal, she turned to me and handed me the gift card with which she had just finished paying.  She said that she knew there wasn't much left on it, but she appreciated my patience in following her through the line.  I stopped in my tracks.  She didn't know me, she had enough on her plate to handle, but she stopped to give me a gesture of thanks.  There was something like $1.36 left on the card--not much in the scheme of things, but it really made my day.  It reminded me that next time I go through a drive through, I need to pay for the car behind me.  Or just pay for my coffee shop coffee with a larger bill than necessary and ask them to apply the change to the next person who comes through.  Hopefully it can make someone else's day.