Dance Hall Days

God, I love to dance. Dancing used to be the highlight of my weekends. It was from the first time I used a fake I.D. to get into the bars in D.C. (to dance, not to drink) through college and beyond, pretty much up until the whole married with children stage, at which point the highlight became more of a semi-annual thing than weekly.

In recent years, it's been nonexistent. But that didn't stop me and a dozen of my friends from going out on Friday night, doing endless lemon drop shooters, and taking over the whole cheezy dance floor with abandon.

Silly boys posturing their way into our swarm were hardly phased when they asked our names ("Mrs. Miller, 37, three kids"), at least to the untrained eye. Sure, when it got late and the 20-something girls that were wearing utterly revealing strips of material over their huge breasts started pole dancing on one another these boys were distracted for a moment. But the allure of Desperate Housewives is alive and kicking! We had stamina. Plus we knew all of the old songs (great screaming rendition of Pour Some Sugar on Me, gals).

The whole thing reminded me that it doesn't require a big road trip to a "more fun" city to go out and enjoy yourself. And I also realized that even if my feet hurt and I was sore all over the next day, dancing is still the best form of exercise out there.
P.S. No, that's not us in the picture. Pinky swear.

When the Bullet Hits the Bone

I am a shallow, mean human being because this made me laugh out loud.

Shmucks.

Misty Mountain Hop

I'm beginning to think it's me...

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain tonight for my birthday. While the rest of the world is just now discovering Jake Gyllenhaal, I've been following his career (or watching anything with his cute little mug on it that I could find) for the past few years--which, given his youth, is his whole adult life.

So I was very excited to see this when I saw previews a long time ago. Then the Oscar nominations and other awards, talk shows, magazine covers came along, and the hype was at such a frenzy that I was SURE I'd love this movie.

Love is a strong word. In fact, it was kind of boring. And slow. And depressing as hell. Beautiful! And unbelievably well acted. And Jake was definitely still in prime cutieness mode.

But it was the same thing for 2-1/2 hours. Nothing happened. At all. Until the end, which was (no spoiler here) rather a downer. Did I mention it was depressing?

The Good Girl wasn't exactly a light and airy flick, either, and I loved that so much I bought it. And his turns in Donnie Darko and Bubble Boy were definitely not easy humor. And, well, Lovely & Amazing was all about screwed up people, too. Okay, he's not into fun-loving roles, apparently.

Anyhoo...I digress. This movie was pretty, believable and well crafted. But if the book was this mundane I'm glad I skipped it. I'm feeling like I should have opted for Queen Latifah----a sentence I don't believe I ever imagined I'd write in my lifetime.

Rage Against The Machine

Whoever invented DirecTV and high definition television can kiss my sweet behind.

Consumer Alert:
If you buy a hi-def TV, you need to shell out another $11/month to DirecTV on top of the 8 gazillion you're already paying.

You have to get a really big, ugly new dish for outside of your house.

You also need to buy new receivers.

You also need to buy assorted new cables and cords. And if you want to watch DVDs in hi-def, you need to buy new DVD players, too.

Then the nice little DirecTV men will come to your house and seek to install all of this new equipment.

But they won't be able to. Because there are various problems with the multiple pieces of exorbitantly expensive equipment you were forced to purchase.

And if and when they do get the system to work, you will have absolutely no idea how to turn it on or off.

Personally I had absolutely no problem with the definition I was living with before--but there's no turning back now. I'm in hell, even if everything looks really crisp and clear from here.