I’m typing this (probably brief-ish) entry from my sister’s apartment’s spare room where I have taken over for the past few days. She and her fiance have a (freakin’ adorable) dog who has left her slobber-covered hedgehog stuffed toy on the bed next to me, probably as an apology. The dog scratched my face a few minutes ago (near my eye) and I had to give her the “That’s bad” speech and she wasn’t too happy about it, but she did leave me her toy… so I guess we’re still on good terms.

I have to work on Wednesday, so today is my last day visiting my sister and then I’ll drive back up from whence I came tomorrow. I’ll be making a new mix CD momentarily so I have something newish to jam to on my way back. Eight hour solo car rides aren’t the most exciting things ever… but they sure as hell beat the 15+ hour ones I’ve taken before.

It’s been a good visit at my sister’s… she had a party the other night to celebrate a friend’s birthday, so I got to meet a bunch of her current posse. I saw a lot of her friends over the past few days as some of us went to see some movies (Titanic in 3D and American Reunion), then went out to eat one night (Japanese – nom nom nom), and then last night we played Music Bingo at some bar. I also went out to lunch today with my sister, her fiance and one of the other people in their group. Everyone’s been really nice and it was good to get to hang out with some new people.

So, Titanic in 3D was okay (like, it didn’t *need* to be in 3D), but I will love that movie until the end of time. I first saw it in theaters when it came out YEARS ago… I remember being overwhelmed by the epicness of it all, but not really flailing over Leonardo DiCaprio like my peers. I have since come to recognize DiCaprio as one of the greatest actors of his generation and do think he is downright adorable and extremely likable as Jack Dawson.

I don’t like James Cameron much, but I do enjoy and respect the work done on this film. I once watched it with director’s commentary and found out some very fascinating things about motion capture and production.

I rarely cry at movies, but I did find myself tearing up during one scene, even though I’ve seen this film dozens of times by now. (Somehow seeing it on the big screen again just heightens everything, feelings wise. That, and the fact that the score to this movie is beyond emotional and damn-near rips my heart out every time I hear it because it just triggers all the feelings.) So, yeah… I teared up during the scene where Leo & Kate are on the front of the boat and she’s all like, “I’m flying Jack!” and then they kiss and then the scene seamlessly transitions from them being all intimate on the front of the ship to the cold, dark, sunken ruins of the ghastly underwater tomb of the Ship of Dreams. It’s just such a powerful juxtaposition of life and death.

Then yesterday, a larger group of us went and saw American Reunion. It wasn’t the greatest movie of all time, but we laughed a lot and the (90s) music was STELLAR. (As was the trailer for Ted… holy shit, that looks funny!).

I’ve seen the first two American Pie movies a bunch of times, but only saw American Wedding once or twice. American Reunion was much-appreciated because it reunited EVERYONE. And I mean EVERYONE. (Though, the ending was left open so wide for another American Something movie… I think they seriously need to stop now. It was already a stretch to have them do a 13-year high school reunion.)

I dug this movie because this year will be my 10-year high school reunion. I’m way undecided if I’ll actually go (it’s the day after Thanksgiving and during that time, I’ll probably be with my family… who no longer lives anywhere remotely close to the city where I went to high school), but this movie really hit home because I grew up with these characters. They were seniors when I was a freshman. I went through four years of band camp after the entire world was treated to the “This one time, at band camp” line. I didn’t have crazy friends like Stifler and I didn’t go to any wild parties like they did, etc… but I could still relate to these characters.

So, here I am, 13 years later and about to face my high school reunion, just like them. Do I want to see these people again? Do I need to see these people again? High school was definitely not the highlight of my life thus far, nor did I expect/hope it to be. But it just makes you think about who you were back then, what you thought you would accomplish by now, who you are now, and what you did/did not accomplish since then.

That’s heavy, yo.

Well, the eye-scratching dog just jumped up on the bed and gave me another toy and licked my computer… so I guess that means we’re square and it’s time to play with her rope. Good thing for her that Aunt Kate is forgiving of a scratch to the face.

Have a good one