"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says different is trying to sell something"--The Princess Bride
Dreamed of a boy from the 1970s British TV series Black Beauty having to outrun a fire in a tunnel; telling John how odd it was that John F. Kennedy's mother Rose Kennedy became an icon of American motherhood when by all serious accounts she was a terrible mother [I do think that]; climbing up to the flat asphalt roof of a large building and going dangerously close to the edge.
Saw Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (for the second time) at the Revue. It was my last movie before the pass I won in that contest expired, for a total of 35 admissions saving $210. On the cute side. Robin Wright reminded me of sister Eve in the comic strip The Heart of Juliet Jones. There were a lot of kids there.
Started reading The Phantom in Menomonee Falls Gazette. It's an old-fashioned comic strip about a masked superhero in the (African?) jungle. For me it's a guilty pleasure.
Dinner was takeout Chinese food. I ate a bit too much and later got sick.
On Six Feet Under they had a funeral for someone with no friends or family and Brenda got to watch a hooker at work.
"The best way to find a needle in a haystack: burn the haystack"--Oz
And so to the New Year. My resolution is to do sit-ups every day. (That and maybe get out of bed earlier.) I plan to do it twice a day, so even when I weaken I'll do it once. [Didn't last long.]
Dreamed of playing Monopoly; a book about early fur trader Etienne Brule trying to start a colony in the future Ontario; entering a British railway station and not knowing which train to take; entering one train and seeing passengers in straitjackets; going to an opera (Billy Budd, which I've never seen) with my brother John, but being unable to find our tickets.
Read some Johnny Hazard adventures in my Menomonee Falls Gazette collection. (Frank Robbins was a clever writer, and an efficient artist.) I also started reading a Dragon Lady Press reprint of the superb Secret Agent X-9, one of several I bought in the post-Christmas sale at Dragon Lady Comics.
Saw Taylor Hackford's bio Ray at the Paradise. Unsubtle drama but great Ray Charles music. It was so long that I was late getting home for dinner, which was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Saw another episode of the prison drama Oz (I'm watching the whole second season on DVD). LL Cool J played a prisoner who claimed he'd sold crack to the state's loathsome governor.
Moira and I saw Maria Full of Grace at the Revue. (It was a special matinee for people with babies, so the place was a bit noisy.) It's a really powerful drama about a Colombian girl who flies to New York as a drug-smuggling "mule." The War on Drugs makes me angry!
Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked).
Got another Menomonee Falls Gazette issue.
At choir practice we did the Weavers version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and Pietro Yon's "Giesu, Bambino." [After this entry I took a break from my diary, resuming in the New Year.]
