Monday, May 28, 2007

The Start to Summer

Happy Memorial Day (and my dad's birthday, which he claims is a national holiday)! I'm sort of working today because I have stuff to do, but I'm not treating it as a full work day. My holiday weekend so far has consisted of watching movies (Dinner at Eight and Bringing up Baby on DVD, Over the Hedge and Because of Winn Dixie on HBO), reading and going to the theater.

Last night's production was Camelot, with Michael York as King Arthur. I felt a bit old seeing him now and remembering when I was a kid and had a mild crush on him in The Three Musketeers. The Lancelot in this production was the one who really blew me away. He had the most amazing voice, and I swear it got warmer in the theater when he sang "If Ever I Would Leave You." It turns out that he's Mr. Rochester on the original cast album of Jane Eyre, so it looks like I'll be getting that. He was cute, funny, and had that VOICE, totally swoonerific, and I may have a new theater crush. Guinevere is one of those roles I'd like to play because she gets the funny songs and some lovely ballads, plus she gets to have "If Ever I Would Leave You" sung to her. Sigh.

It's still raining off and on, which means it's cool, which I like, but it's also so humid that everything seems waterlogged. Even paper feels heavier, and my hair is a total disaster, frizzing up to epic proportions. Good thing I don't have to go out in public until later this week.

The combo of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars and Memorial Day weekend has made me kind of nostalgic for the summer of 2002, back when episode two came out. That was the year I got laid off from the day job, and then one of my best friends got laid off a few months later, so while there was some stress and financial anxiety, it ended up being kind of like the adult version of a childhood summer for us. We were free to play during the workday, so we went to a lot of afternoon matinee movies, hung around, went out to lunch, went on short road trips, that sort of thing. We went on opening day to see episode 2, during the day. Then on Memorial Day weekend, we got together with some other, less free (and more employed) people to see it again at the DLP theater because we wanted to see what the fuss was about digital projection. We included a friend of ours from our book group and a friend of mine from work, and that ended up being a great combination. The four of us got together for some other things throughout that summer. And then in the fall the group kind of fell apart as people started moving away for work, but we did have that summer, and that's what Star Wars and Memorial Day makes me think of.

And yeah, though I'm not a huge fan of the prequels, I actually liked Attack of the Clones. It's not a bad movie if you ignore the Anakin and Padme parts (very easy to skip on DVD) and focus on the Obi-Wan hunts down the clones plot. Plus, it's the one time in the whole saga when we really get to see the Jedi Knights in action, en masse, and see what a force they could be (no pun intended). That battle scene in the arena was awesome. And it all looked very, very pretty in DLP.

However, I'm not really in the mood to watch it right now, so I won't be commemorating the occasion that way. I started rewatching The Office from the beginning yesterday, and that seems to be my kick for now, along with a few more screwball comedies I checked out of the library. They also have season one of Supernatural on sale at Target this week. I only got into the show midway through this season. Is buying season one worthwhile?

And now I guess if I'm going to pretend it's a work day, I'd better pretend to work.

No comments: