Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing an advance screening of Brokeback Mountain. (It opens here tomorrow.)

There’s really not much I can say about the movie that hasn’t been said already, many times, and more eloquently than I can manage. Though I will say that it wasn’t quite what I had expected, despite the fact that I have read oodles of the reviews and press which spelled out a good deal of the movie. I’m not sure what I expected really… but it just wasn’t quite whatever that was.

Yeah, I know that didn’t make much sense.

It was a very good movie. A bit longer than it really needs to be, and the broad strokes that are painted leave a few characters a little underdeveloped (of course, developing those would have only added to the already long 2 hours 14 minutes running time that I was complaining about just a second ago…), but all in all, a fine film. It’s definitely one of the most realistic portrayals (especially for the time period) that I’ve seen of lives hidden away in the closet and the tragic consequences for all parties involved. And it’s much closer to being an “important gay movie” than the over-hyped Latter Days managed to be.

I completely agree with the critical praise being heaped on Heath Ledger, who is finally living up to the potential promise that I thought I’d glimpsed in his performance in 10 Things I Hate About You. After quite a few misses, he seems to have finally found a role that worked. I truly forgot I was watching Heath Ledger play a part; he became Ennis Del Mar. Michelle Williams put forth just as masterful a performance as his tortured wife, and Jake Gyllenhaal… well, he’s totally cute until he starts to don that mustache. He didn’t do a bad job, per se, but I was never quite able to shake the actor playing the part. (At least he was nice to look at though.) Anne Hathaway’s ever evolving tacky hair stole the show from her really, but she was good enough I suppose. Kate Mara (in a small role as the older Alma Jr.) is a girl to watch I think. She’s really adorably cute, and she did as well as she could with what little script time she was given.

I also have to take back something I thought about Jake Gyllenhaal. Somewhere I caught a clip of him saying “It’s not a gay cowboy movie,” which kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I sort of took away that he was downplaying the importance of it being a story about gay cowboys, and maybe trying to downplay the fact that his character is gay. But I get what he was saying. It’s not a gay cowboy movie; it’s a love story between two men who are forced to hide their affections because they are planted firmly in the land of cowboys. The fact that they are - at least by today’s definitions and labels - gay men, while integral to the story, isn’t quite the point.

And yes, I cried a little at the end. I wouldn’t characterize it as a tearjerker in any way, but it’s certainly not a happily ever after sort of ending. Though Dan (who has confessed to crying at movies before) didn’t even shed a tear. Really, I cry far too easily while watching movies.

The showing was quite the gay event here in town - the lobby afterward resembled a holiday party more than a movie theater entranceway. (Though maybe a depressed holiday party as most of the crowd was a bit subdued after the viewing.) So many of our regular customers were in attendance, I felt like I should be ringing up the popcorn at the concession stand. (Of course, this might have been influenced by the fact that we were handing out the passes last week.) It was also possibly the most reverent audience I’ve been a part of for a free advanced screening; there were no talkers or cell phones going off (despite the fact that the Cedar Lee didn’t forewarn patrons to shut them off via a silly fake movie) and people seemed to be chuckling (there are quite a few funny tidbits) and sniffling at the right moments.

Not to skip too far into the future, but I’m really looking forward to the DVD release of the movie. Not only will that really be a HUGE seller at the store (though I doubt even its sales will manage to eclipse the record quantity of Madonna CD’s we’ve moved), but I’d like to see it again and I doubt I’ll get a chance to make it to the theaters before it’s gone. (It’s only showing in 3 theaters in the area, none of which are terribly convenient to me.)

Of course, the inevitable porno copycat will probably make it into the store first. (And no, I’m not even going to bother with telling you the name. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ve already heard it, and likely, it’s already ceased to be as amusing as titles like “Raiders of the Lost Arse.”)

The holiday spirit is starting to seep in. Finally. And yeah, I called it holiday spirit, which is really all I have to say on that particular topic.

Anyway.

One of the perils of working in retail again is that I have regained a slight dread for the holiday season. I love the fact that the stores are busy (though after this week’s insanity, I’m not even sure that busy comes close to describing it) and I do wish we were that busy year round in a lot of ways, but to those of us who operate cash registers and fill hundreds of gift boxes with tissue paper and assorted trinkets, this season really is just about consumerism and smiling until your face hurts. (Though seriously, most times my smile is genuine, especially when that gift box is getting filled with things like “Jingle Balls.”)

To be fair, I’ve not been overly into the whole thing since I was about… oh, 15. I’m not a religious person, so that whole bit of the season is lost on me. And you know, getting presents is nice (and actually I’m one of those weirdos that really loves *giving* gifts - back when I was making more moolah in LA, I really enjoyed it), but I’ve just not really been in a holiday mood for a long time. In fact, since I moved out from the parental shelter, I’ve not had a Christmas tree of my own (despite the fact that I have several boxes full of ornaments that I’ve collected over the years that have moved across the country with me twice now) and the closest I’ve ever come to decorating for Christmas was in the form of several strings of lights that hung on my wall in my LA apartment. Of course, since those adorned the wall year round, I’m not sure that counts.

The erosion of the family traditions I think is partly to blame. As a kid, the holidays were all about spending time with the various factions of my family and those were the days when I was blissfully unaware of how jack-assed much of my family is. (These are stories for other days…) But as I grew older, and the jack-assed-ness began to show through, I started to dread the family gatherings. Then I lost a few of the more dear members of my family (the ones that made the gatherings tolerable) and I started finding ways to avoid them altogether. I worked at the Charlotte airport for several years, which gave me a built in excuse to miss these things, as working on the holidays meant double pay, and really, who could blame a poor working girl for that? I followed that with a stint working for a company that made software for hospitals - meaning another 365 day-a-year working situation - and kept my excuse. Then I moved 2500 miles away. They weren’t about to send me the money for the travel expenses, and thus I was able to avoid the familial insanity.

Of course, once I started dating David, his family took that spot. Mind you, his family isn’t nearly as insane as mine. Well, ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but they at least put up a better front during the holidays. Then I went and uprooted him, taking us 2500 miles away from his family, and far enough away from mine that holiday visits are more or less impossible, and again the family traditions were broken.

Yet this year, even as I am nearly sick to death of Christmas music and the mass marketing around the holidays, I’m starting to feel a little of the spirit thing. It seems a little odd to me that it’s happening now, seeing as how this year is the one that I don’t have the money to buy gifts for all of my friends (though I did make everyone homemade fudge!), and David and I really can’t afford to even exchange gifts ourselves. So if Christmas is all about the presents - as many of the warped animated holiday features I love have pointed out - why am I starting to enjoy the season?

I think it’s that we’re starting to make our own traditions that I’m really looking forward to. This will be our third Christmas in Cleveland, and for the third year we’re hitting the Chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner. The idea was originally crafted because our first year here I hadn’t yet discovered that I like to cook, we couldn’t do the family thing, and one too many viewings of A Christmas Story. (Though there isn’t really a restaurant called Bo Ling and there’s no singing or roast duck, I still feel we’re paying homage to that classic.) That is usually followed by board games at Marshall’s house (They all get another chance to beat me at the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture edition - no one’s managed it yet.), along with the mass consumption of far too many sugary confections. Though I’m sure this sounds incredibly boring to many people, I think it’s the most fun holiday tradition I’ve been involved with.

It could just be a sugar-fueled mental breakdown, since I’ve ingested MASS quantities of pie, cookies, fudge, candy, and freaking Krispy Kremes in the past few days. It seems like everywhere I turn there is a sticky sweet lovely confection awaiting my attentions. And I’ve been giving them my undivided attention.

Then again, maybe it’s that I got some money for Christmas from my parents, got to go shopping for clothes that I desperately needed, got a gift card to Maggiano’s that will actually cover the cost of the meal, and got the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition 2 from David’s mom… you know, the presents.

Whatever it is that’s causing this craziness… I’m actually kind of looking forward to the complete lunacy that tomorrow at work will be. Christmas Eve is always a big day for us anyway, and since it’s Saturday and damn near everyone is off work (except for us retail slaves), we are expecting to be inundated with last minute shoppers. (And it’s hard for me to decry crass commercialism too harshly when it’s paying my paycheck, ya know?)

Sadly, I fear the spirit won’t be with me too long. Damn December 25 had to go and fall on a Sunday. That’s my normal day off anyway, and since the day after Christmas is still a busy day, I don’t actually get an extra day to relax for the holiday. I’m pretty sure on Monday I’ll be full of bah humbugs.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday - whatever holiday it is that you happen to celebrate - and enjoy your extra time off work. (Bah humbug.)

P.S. Dear Mr. Faggoty-Ass Faggot: I know you think your tree is gay, really I do, but c’mon. You’ve seen the rainbow tree in person. You have to admit, that’s damn near the gayest it can get…

One thing I’ve learned working at Diverse Universe: there are many, many, many straight people who are still quite unaware that the rainbow is a symbol of gay pride. I know this because even though the front of the store is decked out with rainbows galore (not to mention the giant banner advertising Gay Fuel in the window), there are lots of straight people who wander in the store without realizing what sort of store they’ve entered. They usually make it to the middle of the store before it starts to sink in that the pictures they’re seeing feature women with women, and more shockingly, men with men. A few of these people continue to browse with curiosity, many quietly turn and walk out the door, but a few (mostly straight men) freak out a little bit and dash out the door in fear of catching “the gay.” This happens at least once a week, and I’ve learned just to take it in stride.

Yesterday, in the midst of all the Christmas shopping madness (meaning we had a store full of people), a straight couple walked in the door and separated as they browsed. The girl was in the middle of the store, the guy was still near the front, when suddenly something clicked in his head. “Oh SHIT!” he exclaimed, and hightailed it out the door. She noticed this, but she was still looking around. She continued to browse for a minute or two, then she quietly left.

I was bouncing back and forth between the stores putting up all the cute new stuff that showed up just in time for the last minute shoppers, and as I made a trip over to City Dweller to take an armful over there, I saw her reading him the riot act. I only heard bits and pieces because I didn’t want to be obvious about listening, but I heard him say, “That was a perfectly normal reaction,” to which she replied, “You think that was acceptable? I don’t. I think that was rude and ignorant.” He was still sort of laughing it off as a joke, but man, she was pissed. From inside City Dweller I could hear them continuing to argue. She was getting louder - and though I couldn’t understand what she was saying - it was clear she was giving him absolute hell.

This alone made me love her. I went back to Diverse and told Marshall about it, and we both agreed that she was awesome. But we had no idea how awesome she was until a few minutes later, when they both walked into the store. Marshall was ringing up a customer and I was working on some stock, so they patiently waited for Marshall to be free. As soon as he was, the guy spoke up: “I just wanted to come back in here and apologize for the way I acted earlier. That was rude and completely inappropriate, and I’m very sorry I did that.”

Seriously, it was all I could do to not yell out, “You GO girl!”

Because he does the same to me.

Recent conversations, and the circumstances surrounding them:

1. Video Game Vixen? He’s been playing a video game (and I don’t even know which one) a LOT recently. Like, we walk in the door, the first thing he does is sign on to this online MMO. He barely talks to me while he’s playing this, and he’s zoned in on it for hours at a time. I frequently notice him laughing at something, I’m guessing at the chat in the game. I commented a time or two about him having a girlfriend in the game, someone he’s hooked up with online. Finally, in response, he quipped, “You know, seeing that I’m playing a girl character in the game, you ought to be worried I’m hooking up with a guy.”
2. No, Honey, That Doesn’t Make You Look Fat At All I’ve been eating nothing but crap recently. No, seriously. All thoughts of being good and eating healthy have just gone flying out the window. At least for this month. I figured that 2 years of eating really healthy stuff and being good deserved a break, plus, there’s just sooooooo much new candy and junk food out there I hadn’t tried yet that was calling my name. I, like thousands of other people in the country, will be going back to eating healthy as soon as the new year begins. No, really, I will. I feel like total crap and I’ve gained a bit of the weight back that I’d lost… and it shows. I was lamenting this the other day while looking in the mirror. I remarked that my double chin was starting to come back, and I was whining about it to David. I looked at him with puppy dog eyes, and he started to say “No it’s -” but then he cut himself off, looked at me, and said, “Oh, you’ll lose it again. Don’t worry.”

Incident #1

Recently a couple of middle aged women came into City Dweller, one of them yapping non-stop as they walked in the door. The talkative one looked like an aging schoolmarm type - knee length beige skirt, clunky loafers, a woven straw handbag, graying hair pulled into a loose bun, no make-up to speak of, a dark blue jacket mostly covering her nondescript white blouse. I wouldn’t have noticed her at all - she was that plain and normal looking - if she hadn’t been talking so much. She spoke with a high pitched, very nasal, abrasive voice, and it was hard to not eavesdrop as she was also quite loud. I gathered that she had recently been slighted by a beau, and was rather in a huff about the situation.

In the course of conversation, I picked up these two quotes (exact quotes in fact, because, yes, I am so geeky that I actually wrote these down):

“My only weapon then, is to be unavailable to him…”

“I so want to call his wife and tell her…”

I found it sort of odd that this plain Jane was not only a game player, but an adulterous one at that. And you know, there is just something about those statements - especially taken together and coming from a middle aged woman - that really run a stake through my hope for humanity.

Incident #2

I stopped at the Lakewood Giant Eagle (a grocery store chain for those of you not in the area) to pick up a couple of things on my way to work on Saturday. Apparently, Saturday morning is quite the popular morning for grocery shopping. I honestly had no idea, given that if I’m up before noon on a Saturday it’s only because I have to work.

At any rate, I was only buying a few things, and the lines at all the registers were long (this is one of the last GE’s that doesn’t have the self checkout lanes), even the express lane. I still figured that would be my best shot, until I actually got in the line. There, with one person between me and her, was a woman unloading her filled cart onto the express lane belt. She had way more than 12 items - I didn’t even have to count it. (And what’s with the higher express lane counts these days anyway? Didn’t they used to be like 5 items or less or 8 items or something?)

She actually took a look around her for a second and let the lady just behind her go ahead - seeing as that lady was buying one whole steak, as opposed to this lady’s full week’s grocery shopping. I gave her a teency bit of credit for that move, but I was still steaming a bit, because me and my 4 items were going to have to wait behind her 30. I quietly seethed as the little old lady (who is a sweet little old lady) working the register rang up her stuff without a word (previously I’d had a GE employee explain to me that they are not allowed to turn people away even if they violate the express lane rules.). That seething overflowed when, after the little old cashier handed the lady her change, she proceeded to simply stand there and watch the little old cashier bag her full haul. (They don’t usually have baggers assigned to the express lanes for a reason.) I couldn’t take it… I leaned over and said, quite loudly, “You know, if you’re going to be so rude as to use the express lane for all of that crap, you could at least help the lady bag it instead of just standing there watching while we all wait.”

She jumped a little and then started putting stuff into a bag, but while she did so, she pulled her shoulders into this sort of “eh, whatever” shrug, which just put me over the edge again.

“Yeah, shrug like it’s no big deal. You know, that’s just plain RUDE. And that’s what’s wrong with people, so inconsiderate and rude… we all have to stand here and wait because you can’t be bothered to care.”

A guy behind me muttered a “Yeah!”. She mouthed a half hearted “sorry” (though the look on her face seemed to say something altogether different), then high tailed it out of the store as fast as she could. The cashier looked at me with a grin and said, “Thank you,” as she rang up my purchase, and though I was still seething a bit, I felt some justice had at least been dealt in the form of embarrassment.