Chaos Attraction

Therapist Talk

2021-11-23, 10:22 p.m.

recently on Chaos Attraction
Encanto - 2021-11-28
Hairspray - 2021-11-27
Wearing Hard Pants - 2021-11-26
Turkey Dump - 2021-11-25
Out Early - 2021-11-24

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Cast list as of November 2019

Hallmark movie reviews!

A Christmas Together With You: Megan and Frank are a coffee shop owner and her customer, respectively. Frank is a widower who finds a picture of his old girlfriend Claire and wants to find out what happened to her. Megan, who's still kinda brooding over a broken engagement, gets the bright idea to track down Claire and go on a road trip. Frank re-meets Claire, who 40 years later is still super devastated that Harry broke up with her. She doesn't know that her father discouraged the whole thing and convinced Frank to break it off. I admit, when Frank leaves her a letter--AND THE HANDMADE RING HE WRAPPED--explaining what happened finally, I was all "awwww!" Less interesting is the weak romance between Megan and inn owner Steve, who mostly seems distracted between inn problems (dude, did you ever fix the heat?) and his concierge(?) day job he still holds down. The movie is far more interested in Frank and Claire (as am I really) and the secondary romance just doesn't have much going behind it. I do think it's interesting that a Hallmark Channel (not Movies and Mysteries) is more interested in the older African-American couple than the hot younger white people one. Not to diss Laura Vandervoort, who I generally like and she's hella pretty and Niall Matter's definitely one of the Hallmark Guys, but Harry Lennix is a show stealer.

From a commercial: there's now a movie called "Time for Them To Come Home For Christmas." I'm pretty sure they have already done "Time For Me To Come Home For Christmas" and "Time For Us To Come Home For Christmas." Seriously?!?! I know these titles are repetitive AF, but...

Five More Minutes: Clara is a teacher who finds out she's going to be laid off at the end of the year (who does this in December? From what I hear teachers get those notices at the end of the school year...every year) and goes home to hang out with her mom and be sad about how Grandpa died. She wishes she could have five more minutes with him. A random young man named Jay comes in looking for a job because Grandpa recommended him and what the heck, he's hired. Jay somehow turns up Grandpa's old journal, which Clara reads. Basically Grandpa was in love with a lady named Martha Tompkins before her grandmother, but they were separated by him joining the military. So Clara literally knocks on all the doors of people with that name. One Martha Tompkins literally has the same first, last and middle as another one who lives out of town, though.... Clara also has a boyfriend in Chicago who's ready to propose and she just seems to have no effing interest in him at all to the point where I feel sorry for him. Meanwhile in the olde hometowne, her old high school boyfriend who ditched her to go into the military shows up. Oh yeah, and Jay is apparently the young ghost of her grandpa. So she got more than five more minutes with him...just didn't know it.

A Kiss Before Christmas: Ethan is frustrated at being stuck in his job and his marriage has gotten pretty dull. When your wife is all "let's not get each other Christmas presents this year" and all he can say is "I gotta go," you know they bored and all they can talk about is the radiator or whatever.

Ethan blames his lack of career progress on "getting into the wrong elevator" and says he wishes he'd gotten into the elevator with the boss man (instead of his future wife) to Santa. "You really mean that? Okay then." AND NOW WE'RE IN A WISHVERSE! Joyce never married him in this wishverse and he's got a driver. Now she's opposing counsel and quite snitty at him. But now he's co-owner and president! With a Ferrari! Ethan is much more distracted by his sudden career success than the loss of his wife.

Santa shows up in his fancy new house. "Being a good guy is what's been holding me back my whole life!" Ethan gloats. Santa has the "You haven't learned anything, have you?" face as Ethan is all "now I can go back to my family and" (be a jerk at work, I guess?). "They're here, but they're not your family." For those wondering about the children's existences, they were adopted and are still alive but with foster families. "You have to figure out why you're here to get your family back," Santa says. giving him a Christmas deadline or else he forgets his family and lives this life forever. "Can I have ...better... hints?"

So Ethan approaches Lawyer Joyce and tells the whole story, proving he knew her in a past life by mentioning the time she got trapped in an elevator (this time without him). I do enjoy Acerbic Joyce here. Sample joke Ethan tells: "Knock knock. Who's there? Anita. Anita who? Anita get out of the elevator." I note that the kids are hanging out at the youth center Joyce is working for and Ethan's company is trying to destroy. So Ethan starts working to save the thing, even though his partner just likes to get property, smash it down and then never rebuild anything.

I do enjoy his rebuilding relationship with Acerbic Joyce, it's actually quite fun. I didn't watch Desperate Housewives, but they seem to have a nice chemistry. When Ethan starts forgetting his former life and she keeps trying to remind him...it's really touching. This is like, also the best movie this year along with the magic gingerbread cookies one. Ethan realizes that nothing else matters and Santa shows up. Is that your wish? Yes. "I totally believed you the whole time," she says.

Princess Switch 3: Romancing The Star: Stacy and Margaret are co-chairing something, with the Star of Peace relic from the Vatican. Of course it's stolen about 7 minutes into the movie. "Please promise you'll get it back before the ceremony," one of them says to the police. "That would be a piecrust promise. Easily made, easily broken," the cop says, to at least one lady who's a baker. The "twins," upon hearing that the police somehow have no forensic evidence(!) and no leads, figure they'll call up the nearest person to a criminal they know about and ask for HER advice...i.e. the third "twin," Fiona, who is doing community service at a convent in the middle of nowhere, wearing the spikiest butterfly-winged(?) heels you ever saw to mop the floors.

Fiona tracks down her hot ex(?)/friend Peter Maxwell, the GOAT, who I call "Poor Man's Henry Golding," who used to work for Interpol before he was framed for diamond theft, and figures out in a minute that a hotel magnate guy who likes to collect the unbuyable probably stole it--so let's steal it back! The thief, Hunter, is some ex of Fiona's, so they set her up to run into him again. Fiona poses with Santa, it's as dirty as she can innuend. She offers Hunter the family estate as a hotel if he likes to get an invite. I'll say this: (a) this is clearly Fiona's movie and (b) her and Peter are quite hot, far hotter than the other twin romances. Peter smoulders, y'all. There's also flashbacks to Peter and Fiona meeting while abandoned at boarding school and IT'S SO SWEET. OF COURSE THERE'S A SCENE IN WHICH PETER CRAWLS THROUGH LASERS. Fiona is clearly imitating Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment.

OH HEY WHY DON'T WE HAVE STACY IMPERSONATE FIONA WITH HUNTER AND THEN HAVE FIONA DO SOME CRIME INSTEAD. "Maggie Moo" wants to! Fiona is all "you don't have the je nais sai quoi," and then Margaret is all "minions, fetch me my champagne," in her best Fiona de Vil impression. OF COURSE SHE CAN DO THAT, SHE'S KNOWN THE GIRL HER WHOLE LIFE. I gotta give Vanessa Hudgens some credit: you definitely get which twin is faking which twin when she's doing these shenanigans. Also you get to watch her tango....with her self. Um, I forgot that Margaret is queen and Stacy is princess? It's been a year. Then the nun calls saying that Fiona has to get back to the convent ASAP for her parole hearing or whatever, so STACY NOW HAS TO BE FIONA.

LOL SIMON FROM ALDOVIA JUST FUCKING SHOWED UP TO TAUNT US ALL. Margaret meows at him.

Prince Edward testifies on "Fiona's" behalf at her parole hearing, for which she is "fashionably" late. Her sentence is commuted. Long story short: Peter ends up with the star, and missing. Kevin, Margaret's dude, has been out of the plot for 24 hours and walks in on all three Fionas and is totally weirded out. Fiona huffs off, finds Peter, gets the star--but Peter is all "This is the end of the line for us" since she just huffs off all the time. He's apparently parent trapped her into seeing her abandoning mother. They discuss their running-away tendencies. Everyone makes up, the star is returned, Peter returns, fireworks go off, everyone makes out. Dance party credits! Seriously, this was actually...rather good? Had surprise depth? The romance was really actually hot? That guy playing Peter is excellent and I hope he has a great career.


Today at work, we had a surprise staff meeting, which was happening in lieu of having one tomorrow. Happily, Luis is back...but not for long, I guess for a few weeks.

We're losing staff left and right again. One of our temps got surprise poached to another area of the office, so they have to get another temp. (As Hope put it, why can't they just get their own temp?) And the two contract staff people are apparently leaving in December. You know what that means, we're on the phones every day again come January. And while they were hoping to hire 14 new part time staff, now that's down to seven, because we want the cream of the crop or...whatever. Sigh.

Oh yeah, and we have to fix something like 1300+ records in like, two weeks immediately, or whenever they get whatever it is set up first. So that's an anvil to hang over everyone's heads. Happy holidays!

On the good news side, InterimBigBoss is permitting everyone to leave at 2(!) tomorrow (not even 4 p.m.! We don't even have to have the phone lines going till 4!), unless some other emergency happens. I politely volunteered to be Person Who Doesn't Leave If That Happens since I have no family or cooking to do and will just sit around watching Hallmark once I get home anyway.

In other news, I got a note from Cameron that was really sweet, saying she was so thankful for all the kindness and support I've shown her this year and she's so glad that I'm her friend. AWWWWWWWWW!!!! blushes Wrote her back about seeing Titanic and getting into the show, but didn't mention more depressing details. I hope her first Thanksgiving without her dad isn't horrendous. Card won't get there before that, but ah well.

Less fun: Mauricio and Karin got Covid despite being vaccinated. He got "some kind of inoculation or something." Mom said he's basically being a macho man about the whole thing.

I wasn't supposed to have therapy today, so I moved my official lunch time from 11-12 to 12-1. At 11:11 (HAR HAR that fucking number) my therapist surprise calls anyway to check in on me after what happened over the weekend, which I was really happy about, but dammit, EVERYONE AT WORK KEPT BUGGING ME TO RESPOND TO CRAP RIGHT NOW and I kept being all "I'm on the phone, this is going to take awhile" to everyone, SIGH. At least I was at home so it wasn't obvious that I was having a personal call I really needed to take.

Anyway: she thinks he's autistic and "on some level he just doesn't get it, I think he's kind of oblivious." I said he was acting like things were normal again last night and she said "for him it is normal." She said I'm making a bigger deal than how he feels and I should recognize he doesn't like me like that and focus elsewhere.

I must admit, my therapist argues a lot more convincingly than my mother not to throw out the whole friendship idea: "He is still a gift. The relationship is a gift." She said I'm choosing to reject it because it's not giving me what I want, and I pointed out the entire reason why I would would be to get over him romantically, because that's the standard conventional advice for that sort of thing and I was abysmal at trying to be friends with an ex the one time I tried it. (Didn't get over him, kept on pressuring him, kept on behaving in a romantic manner and he went along with it to some degree, he stopped talking to me. Oh, age 21.)

She said I overthink it all, which is true. But also "you don't know how to deal with closeness." "When we are open to something different with that person it opens a reallness in your heart" and he opened something in me and I get something from him and should enjoy it for what it is, and he's a person you can have an honest conversation with. "I think he is just pure and caring about you--he has no agenda. He loves you for who you are and is comfortable and happy with you."

"If you choose to be friends, I think it transcends that awkwardness." "I think he's fine with anything you put out there except for romance." He likes Cameron because she doesn't like him (oy).

She said I can tell him that I'm going to be a present-free zone this holiday.

She said I'm lovable and I said "how come nobody has wanted me in nearly 18 years then?" which...hard to argue with the evidence of that. She said that I was taught to be ashamed of loving and I said that's because nobody wanted my love...which, yeah, true.

On a related note, Meg finally got to a computer and wrote me back on the news, saying she told her husband the same thing back in the day about just wanting to be friends and how wonderful that he wants to be my friend.

That said, I think I'm still convinced that dialing back is a good idea. No hugs, no presents, no texting. Leave him be come January 31, only see him in the occasional group setting. Leave him be to be alone like he wants to be. Detach. Maybe not 100% cut off, but just...let it go.


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