Feeling better

All right, the pissiness in my last post has dissipated, mostly, although the underlying sentiment is still there. I was the bigger person and apologized to DH for being so difficult, esp. since I knew he was trying hard.

Did I mention I was on vicodin when I wrote that last post? I had a root canal on Wednesday, and ibuprofen just wasn't working on the pain yesterday. I called the endodontist, and he phoned in a prescription for vicodin. I was on vicodin all yesterday afternoon and last night. Good stuff. I can see why it's addictive. I'm making a point of not taking it today, since the ibuprofen actually is working on the pain now. The vicodin did mean that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open when DH and I went to see The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. I managed it, but it was tough.

That movie was pretty meh, though. I felt like the moviemakers had ripped so much of the battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, not to mention the White Witch's mutant/trollish army, which looked kind of like orcs, if you ask me. There also was no ambiguousness about good and evil in the story, and the feminist in me was asking, "Why is it that Peter, the oldest boy, is basically the top king/warrior/etc. of them all? And why is it that the bad character is female?" I haven't read the book in ages, but my friend mentioned that C.S. Lewis refers to the Queen as a "daughter of Lilith," which opens up a whole other feminist can of worms. Sigh. Since I haven't read the book in so long, it's hard for me to tell whether the flaws in the movie were actually from the movie, or if they were there in the book too. I suspect the latter, personally.

I also learned that my DH seriously, SERIOUSLY knows nothing about Christianity, despite whatever his mom did in taking him to church when he was little. I had to explain to him last night what Jesus's death and resurrection really meant, and how yes, in Christian tradition, this vanquished evil b/c Jesus conquered death. In a nutshell. Sigh. I seriously need to get him a "Christianity for Dummies" book that will spell everything out to him. I am far from a Bible scholar, but I could see how the story of Aslan had a few more parallels than just Aslan dying/coming back to life. Susan and Lucy, for instance, were the parallel of Mary and Martha.

I also thought there were some vague similarities between LW&W and Harry Potter, although I think that may be b/c LW&W, Harry Potter, and LOTR all have similar grounding in archetypal mythology (just like Star Wars, although from what I remember, Lucas was very, very specific in following Joseph Campbell's description of the typical hero story), so in that sense, the stories are going to be similar, at minimum.

Next on my list of movies to see is Memoirs of a Geisha. I hear it's also meh, but I liked the book a lot. We're going to see Walk the Line first, though. Tomorrow, in fact. I've heard so many people say how much they loved that movie... and then there was my mom, who said, "That story is just SO trashy!" LOL. My mom has no patience for drug abuse, violence, or infidelity, so it's no wonder she thinks that people like Johnny Cash and Elvis were trashy.

Also, on the subject of John Spencer's death, which I mentioned in my last post-

I've been reading a lot of Television Without Pity's West Wing boards today, just to see the reaction. There are a lot of really, really sad people out there today. John Spencer was only 58 years old- too young, in my opinion. (younger than my dad!) What I didn't know until I read the New York Times obituary was that John Spencer, like his character Leo, was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Sadly, alcohol and drug abuse really take a lasting toll on your system, and I'm sure that it contributed to his too-early demise. I'm not really shaken up by his death like some are, because I've experienced the death of a close loved one, so the death of a television actor that I didn't feel that passionately about doesn't affect me much. I was neutral on the character of Leo- I prefer C.J. and Toby, myself, but even I can see that if there was any question that this was the last season of West Wing, this has pretty much answered it. When The Powers That Be make the decision to put a major character in what I think is the extremely unrealistic position of vice presidential candidate, it's because they are saying "The future of this show lies with this character." And now he's gone. I think it's safe to say that the show will be too, after this season.