"Seven Pounds" and other things to gain this holiday season

Today was spent mostly in the house and shopping with Mom. She had a doctor's appointment this morning (and she's off all week for vacation), so after her appointment she came home and we both lazed about until lunch. I baked up some frozen eggrolls (make all the jokes you want), and we had them for lunch. I also took the opportunity to start making dinner during lunch time.

After lunch, we went on a hunt for some clothes for yours truly. As I left half my wardrobe in China this summer, I'm really low on clothes anymore (especially since winter things seemed less pressing, somehow, than souvenirs). Also, I purged my worldly possessions before the Asian experiment even started. So we shopped. Struck out at Old Navy, got a few items at Target, and Ross was another no-go. I am amazed at how disinclined I am toward Old Navy these days. I still float through there regularly as the seasons change, but I find fewer and fewer things I like enough to spend money on. A lot of it, probably, is that I've become increasingly cheap. Other, I think, is that my aesthetic and Old Navy's have diverged as of late. I still like their essential items well enough, but the trendy stuff usually doesn't float my boat these days.

After shopping, we came back home, and I made an eclectic supper. We had tuna on toast, macaroni and cheese (a special, once-in-a-lifetime recipe), and the remainder of the red bean soup I made the other day. It was pretty darn good, if I do say so.

Tonight, I had a brief phone conversation with Rob and Christy as I drove myself to Starbucks to read the Emergent Manifesto book. It was an amusing talk, as per usual, and my reading was fruitful toward food for thought. When reading a collection of essays like this, it's refreshing when a fairly straightforward chapter crops up. Sometimes it feels like a sea of "otherness" is engulfing me. A smidgen of familiarity is nice once in a while, you know.

After Starbucks (where I witnessed Jonathan Elder standing up and pronouncing, loudly, "I love Jesus Christ!" for no apparent reason), I went to the cinema. I saw Seven Pounds with Will Smith and Rosario Dawson.

GO.
SEE.
IT.

I can't really talk about it, because I can't give it away. I'm not even linking it to IMDB.com, because you shouldn't read that crap until you've seen it. I will say I figured out the end out-come, but I didn't see how they would get us there. Wow. Seriously, even if you don't go see movies much, go. There's not really anything objectionable in it (a scene of non-graphic, non-nude sensuality is all I recall), which is surprising, but it is an intense picture. Go. Now.

T