Weekend of the Plague

I had all kinds of plans for the weekend, and we had glorious fall weather. And I came down with the plague, so I spent the weekend on the sofa, coughing and whimpering. After my remarks a few weeks ago about the Lord of the Rings movies, that ended up being what I watched because I didn't want anything that would make me cry -- the sinuses were draining enough already -- and I didn't want anything that would make me laugh -- laughing made me cough. This was about the only thing I could come up with, and it meant I could go for nearly (or more than, in one case) three hours without getting up to change DVDs. The movies are less silly when they're in context, though I still think they went overboard with earnest speeches and close-ups of weepy eyes. They work especially well when you're on cold medicine and using them as background noise while reading Terry Pratchett. My experience pretty much consisted of enjoying the music, glancing up from time to time to enjoy the New Zealand scenery, and wishing I could jump into the screen with a bottle of shampoo and a pair of scissors. I can understand not having shiny, bouncy hair while in battle, but all that long, flowing hair just doesn't seem practical in those circumstances. They all got bad cases of helmet hair, all that hair would be uncomfortable under a helmet, and it seems like it would make a nice handhold for the enemy, or was there some warriors' code that forbade hair-pulling, and how did they get the Orcs to sign it? There is a reason the Marines go for the buzz-cut.

Yeah, that was pretty much my thought process while watching the movie. And I kind of want a Hobbit house. They look so cozy. Watching the movies made me want to re-read the books again (I've still read the books more times than I've seen the movies), but I'm a little afraid to. When I first read them in sixth grade, I plowed through them. They seemed so fast and exciting. I re-read them a year later and still loved them. I re-read them in college and found them to be an awful slog. I'm worried that I'd really spot all the flaws now, and that might diminish the memory of that time when I was eleven and thought they were amazing. Or I could discover depths I never noticed before.

I did get a slight vicarious taste of some of the weekend plans. We were going to go to the Lebanese Food Festival, and my very awesome friends brought me a baklava from the festival.

Now I'm in the annoying state where I'm well enough that I don't have an excuse for not doing the things I should be doing, but I don't feel well enough to do what I really want to do.

Meanwhile, I need to contemplate Halloween costume ideas. This will be something I wear to a party, where the main point of the costume is pretty much to show up and show it off, maybe get a few pictures taken, and then you go on to enjoy the party. So, nothing too elaborate or uncomfortable for sitting around, and I will likely have small children climbing on me, so probably nothing that might be damaged by sticky or greasy fingers. A couple of years ago, I did the Generic Urban Fantasy Book Cover, which involved pleather pants, and that worked well, as I could sponge off the little handprints. The costume catalogues stuck in the newspaper advertisements remain depressing, as all the female costumes for anyone older than about eight seem to essentially be French maid outfits, just in different colors and with different accessories to convey various characters. Whether you're a witch, a princess, a nurse, a vampire or a Viking warrior, you'll be wearing a corseted top, thigh-high stockings and a full skirt short enough to show the tops of the stockings. It's enough to make me want to see if I can find a costume idea that is as un-sexy as it's humanly possible to be (without actually being ugly -- I'd rather not buy into the idea that if you're not sexy, you're ugly).