Wanna Put a Movie In?

As I age I find myself doing things, saying things and liking things that I can still remember mocking, not listening to and hating.

Now some of these things I can kind of wrap my mind around and not hate myself for- like I remember being 13 and driving around with the family on Sundays to look at houses and being aware of a part of me that didn't loathe it, even the occasional trip to Lowe's was ok.

But saying that shorts in the winter was ridiculous or that what the neighbors thought mattered...those were just dumb. C'mon, of course wearing men's boxer shorts 2 sizes too large in December in a snowstorm instead of pants was SO NOT ridiculous. School was inside, right?

I was at a high school football game at a catholic school in Connecticut a few weeks back and the thoughts running through my head about the get ups these girls were wearing! It had nothing to do with being weather appropriate. Seriously, do you have any idea what high school girls are wearing? To football games? If that's what they're wearing at a private catholic school I don't think I could handle public school.

I was blushing. For real. I literally had to look away because it was like some sort of pop video moving across the bleachers in front of me. You remember those Aerosmith videos? It's all fine and well when it's on the screen and you think, "So one of those girls is a rock star's daughter and the other is an actress." It's another thing when you're sitting so close to the display that the flakes of dried breast milk that you are flicking off of your t-shirt are sticking to the porn star lip gloss the young girls are wearing.

I don't remember us all looking like size 2 mini-whores...Is that the tom-boy in me, the 30+ year old in me or what? I know I wouldn't go back and look like that if I could. I wouldn't know where to put my hands, there's no way you could do anything with the pockets on their hip huggers but lament how nice it would have been to have a place to tuck a stick of gum if only Earl or Joe or whatever designer jean maker had thought it useful. And by the way, I think "hip hugger" is a mite generous.

But see, there I go. I started this damn entry to demonstrate a point but I've gone and climbed up on my I'm more older than I am younger soapbox.

Let's see, getting back on track. I still haven't gone so far over to the older side that I am wearing ankle length denim jumpers and sporting a bowl cut. I'm not reading Redbook and watching Lifetime while I munch Viactiv chocolate chews. I'm not wearing mom jeans and listening to the radio station that plays Rod Stewart, Elton John, Shania Twain and Clay Aiken. I do think that a slightly more buttoned up look is more alluring than a flesh feast, I think wearing more than one ring tends to look gaudy, and while a second glass of wine might sound good, I value a clear, pain free head in the morning too much to risk it.

So I go to Lowe's on the weekend and I enjoy myself, while wearing clothes that allow me to still turn a foam front mesh back clad head or two. I look forward to clean sheets and the simple pleasure of a basket of folded towels. I love feeding my family wholesome meals. All very unexciting, unfulfilling things 15 years ago (except the sheets, I've always treasured the first night's sleep in a set of freshly laundered sheets.) But I still drop f-bombs, I try to stay up to speed on useless pop culture of the moment and I still like to look pretty hot every now and again.

Alas, I just can't stay up late. Little joke 'round our house is my complete inability to make it through a movie started after 7pm. Which means, based on the bedtimes here at our house 7:55pm for Avery and 8:15 to 9pm for Briar (and that isn't "sometime between 8:15 and 9" that is from 8:15 to 9 we read stories, rub backs, explain we're coming back, give kisses, rub more back etc.) and since I don't want to start a movie until we can watch it the whole way through even though Sean will swear he has never watched a movie with me without pausing it with the exception of the 4 movies we have seen in theatres and the one trip to the drive in.

We belong to Netflix and I try to keep our queue fairly up to date. We inevitably have a dvd or two kicking around, one is usually an Elmo something or other and the other two are a cut rate chick flick I thought would be fun and another movie that I heard about that I thought Sean would like. We have had such piss poor luck with movies. I mean seriously, a few months ago we had a string of like 8 that all involved the death of a child. We were both disgusted and ready to swear off movies, but we are kind of back now.

Anyway, the other night Sean says, "Wanna pop a movie in?"

It was 9:45. "Are you kidding?" I asked?

"No. Why?"

"It's 9:45. I'll never make it."

"We could try," he said with the gentlest hint of a smile curling up at the sides of his mouth.

"No. Nooo. I know what you're up to. You probably won't even make it through a movie. You just want to watch me struggle to not fall asleep."

"No, I don't," he said with very little conviction.

"Yes. You do. You're bored and you want to watch me sit in the chair
with my head lolling back every few minutes. You'll sit there laughing
as I sneak peeks over at you to see if you caught me sleeping, then I'll
squint my eyes and readjust my position in the chair."

His eyes were really starting to twinkle at this point.

"Then I'll repeat the process several times, even taking the blanket off my lap to see if being chilly will help me stay awake. Then I'll sit back one last time and wake up to the credits rolling while you quietly laugh at me.
'How'd it end?' I'll ask. And you'll say, 'We could watch it again," which we never do, which just adds up to another movie I haven't seen. Besides, we're talking about The Lake House. I really want to see it!"

Eww, I got petulant about The Lake House.

Whatever.

We watched it.

I fell asleep.

I asked how it ended.

He told me.

I've forgotten.

And we'll start the whole process all over again as soon as I find the Netflix envelope to send the Sentinel back. Another movie I didn't make it to the end of. Damn it.