December 19, 2002

Run Run Rudolph

Before I begin, I must express to you how great The Two Towers was. Easily and truly the best movie I have ever seen in my life. Hands down. Period. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding in the way that I don't kid about death, taxes, and Ben and Jerry's White Russian Ice Cream. See it.

The only weird thing was the three people that came dressed up as TLotR characters. Now that's some die-hard fandom, right there - they'd have to be to suffer through the amount of teasing and raised eyebrows they got while waiting in line for the seating to begin. We had a Strider that looked more like Will from "Will and Grace"; a chickie all a-braided, trying for Galadriel but succeeding at Fairy Princess Crack Whore; and a Gimli-meets-blonde-armored-surfer-boy combo.

Then there were the idiotic kids sitting in front of us who were making up obscene alternate lyrics to "Jenny From The Block" while we were waiting for the movie to start. Calvin was inches away from beating the snot out of them and getting us *all* kicked out of the theater.

Ah, but the movie. The voice of Treebeard sounded just like the rock guy from "The Neverending Story". Gollum rocked. Marie sighed over Orlando Bloom every. damn. time. they showed his face on the screen. Shadowfax made me want to cry. It just started right where the last movie left off, and it's going to make for some rawkin' movie marathon sessions when I can get my hands on all three DVD's and watch them right in a row, like an uninterrupted 10 hour long movie. I wonder if they'll do a special release like that? It would be seamless enough so that you'd never realize they were three separate movies.

Man. Just go see it, okay?

Fuck. I just remembered. I have to wait another YEAR. I may cry.

********************

The countdown began on Monday. Day by day, fewer and fewer AcronymCo employees showed up for work, and the ones who did left earlier and earlier. If today, Thursday, is this tomb-like (and it is - no hallway conversations, plenty of parking, a half-full cafeteria at high noon), I can only imagine what tomorrow will be like. We've all been suffering from Holiday-itis. I myself have only occasionally indulged in work-related activities. I've written entries, read my regular journals, e-mailed with Heather, balanced my checkbook, written up and distributed Christmas cards, put together a grocery list for all the cooking I'll be doing this weekend, done up the budget for next year, figured out how to save enough money for Hawaii (if we stick to it), and read and deleted just enough e-mails in my work in-box to keep the thing functional (it gets to a point where it doesn't allow me to send anything unless I do some deleting).

I'm burned out. Burned out on work, burned out on Christmas, burned out on responsibilities and chores; pretty much burned out on anything but sitting in the hot tub or watching TV. I need this time off like you wouldn't believe.

Oh, wait. I'm not burned out on Christmas cookies yet. They're everywhere around the office... mmm... my boss makes these sugar cookies with a hint of almond flavoring. Man, these suckers are good.

I'm not burned out on Christmas carols yet, either. While driving home from the grocery store earlier in the week, "O Holy Night" as sung by Josh Groban came on. Now, long time readers will recall that "O Holy Night" is my Christmas carol. I'll stop whatever I'm doing when I hear the song and just absorb it. Anyhoo, in this particular rendition, Josh does the cascading finale with the extra high note at the end not once, but twice. That's the part that always gets me weepy - "Oh night... deVIIIIIIINE, Oh night, Oh-ohhh ni-ight deeeviiiine!" Man.

Anyway, I'm getting all choked up, the song reaches its end, and there's a silent pause while I'm all uplifted and emotional. Then the next song starts up...

"Uh-I'll a-have uh a buh-luuuue Christmas without you..."

Goddamn Elvis and his mo-fo moodbreak.

Anyway. That whole "Wah, wah, I'm tired and stressed, wah, wah, I can't enjoy the holidays, wah, wah..." I just repeated the litany that everyone else on the planet is chanting. Except for maybe the part about the hot tub.

With as much preparation as I've done for the holidays so far, you'd think I'd be more in the spirit. I mean, I am in the Christmas spirit compared to *some* people I could mention - I seem to be surrounded by Grinches this year. Maybe that's what's holding me back from being the full-blown, carol-singing, gift-wrapping (I've *never* left it this long before to get the gifts wrapped), event-planning, goodie-scheming, shiny happy Christmas Geek I usually am.

I know it'll get better. As soon as Calvin comes home from work on Friday, and we know we have all this time stretching out in front of us to spend together and relax, we'll both be in better spirits. Exactly 24 hours from now (it's noon) I'll be leaving work and not looking back. I'll spend the afternoon wrapping presents and listening to (the good) Christmas carols, and we'll do some social things on Friday night and over the weekend.

It's just the getting there that's proving to be the battle. Every minute is dragging by like at least ten. Maybe fifteen. The day would pass faster if I would be more productive, but I just can't force myself to get into anything right now. I'm just killing time, waiting for someone to let me out of this damned eternal detention.

Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic. But still. I want to get the party started, already!

<-Previous

Next->

Original content belongs to ME. Exceptions are noted. Stealing really isn't recommended, or necessary.
©Laura Charon 2000 - 2002.