Note: this covers the events of 12/29/19.

We have a case of the blahs. Mom took me to her gym and got me a guest pass today, mostly because Roger was playing pickleball at 10 a.m. and she wanted to peek in at him. I feel like I can’t judge because I’d do the same if I could (though in all honesty, even when I’ve been in his family businesses I don’t go looking for him if I don’t see him, and I don’t ask or text to let him know I’m in. It’d be Too Much if I did that, I think). I really haven’t gotten to go walking or work out for SHIT since the time change, plus I ate like, a ton yesterday, so I was really happy to go exercise for a change. I got in an hour and really wanted to do two, but I had to go on what Mom wanted. She didn’t even get to see him much.

After that, we didn’t want to go shopping or to the movies or anything, and it’s raining to boot. So I was making baby Yodas in my Hallmark Channel watching sweatshirt and watching guess what, and Mom was blahing it up and sleeping. I thought about joining her, but I think I’d just lie in bed in the dark not sleeping if I tried. We actually went BACK to the gym in the afternoon, and worked out for another hour and a half, so yay there.

While at the gym the second time, I ended up watching a show called “Flirty Dancing,” which I guess is new and I thought was fucking brilliant. The show has one person go on two blind DANCING dates, in which the prospective dates are taught some romantic awesome choreography separately, taken to some fancy LA location, and then have one “date” during the day and one “date” at night to do their dance routines with when they meet. Then the lead person picks which one to go out with. As someone who watched Dirty Dancing quite a lot of times, I am absolutely down with this idea and the dances are adorable and both times I rooted for both partners to be picked (alas, television still won’t do polyamory) because the chemistry in both cases was so cute.

I admit that part of me really wants to consider applying for the show, except they require Instagram and Facebook when applying so obviously I won’t be doing it (though to be fair, the first episode features three people of size happily dancing away and they say they cast a variety of folks, so otherwise I might not be ruled out for my looks). Their questionnaire seems quite reasonable otherwise, other dating arenas should use it. They ask about your history and what you go for and whether or not you can deal with dating outside of your type, which is sensible. Scott would be all “I can’t dance” about it... but sometimes I consider just trying to find someone else who would actually want to date me, and this idea appeals more than goddamned Tinder.

I feel bad that I am keeping Mom from her beloved by hanging around for two more days. (Well, kinda, since I’ve seen him frequently, but she’s not exactly getting laid here. I said I’d be fine if she overnights, mind you...). I am somewhat debating going back home only for the 31st so I can (a) drop things off that won’t be hidden in my trunk for a week well (trunk was full before I got a few boxes of gifts), (b) get more yarn for other projects, and (c) see if karaoke is going on and if anyone else is going, since Meg says they are doing nothing at her house that night. But I am trying to talk myself out of it because it’s a lot of driving I don’t absolutely have to do, it’s shorter to leave for SC from here than from there, and I doubt karaoke is going on, and let’s face it: given the nature of our not going there, is it a good idea to hang around the dude on New Year’s Eve? No, it’s not, too much pressure, etc.

I keep telling myself that I have to hold off and hold back and don’t fucking scare him and be Too Much and all that shit. And while he may miss me, he probably misses his ex (and Cameron, though she works literally down the street and is in there daily) more, so what does it matter? It would be dumb to haul ass back home for a day to see if anything is going on at karaoke and if he’d go so I could see him. Maybe it’s much too early in the game. I need to go with the receding energy of winter, life, and lack of opportunities, and back the fuck off, etc.

I told Mom to talk me out of it but she kind of wanted to talk me INTO it....maybe she’s about ready for me to leave, hah. She is also giving me shit about the lack of gifts and told me I should make him some baked goods, to which I was all, “there are a ton of reasons why that is a terrible idea, NO.” When we got home she handed me dairy free recipes and I was all, uh, how the hell do you have these since you didn’t know he had a food allergy (or more specifically, I highly doubt she remembered my mentioning it to have this printed out before tonight)? She basically said it was coincidence.

Anyway....off the topic of WHINING, because SHUT IT JENNIFER, we did go see some Christmas lights after the gym. This turned out to be a good time to do that since it had been raining, and the rain stopped, and thus the lines aren’t too long at Deacon Dave’s. This year’s theme, Pointsettia Village, was my absolute favorite ever, go figure. It was gorgeous. There is now a GIANT POINTSETTIA on his roof. There’s a giant grow room with conveyor belts of pointsettia production. Mrs. Santa has a “She Shed” (he went there!)/”Pointsettia Palace” to do her hobbies. And in the game section, there’s a Percy the Pointsettia in there, with the song playing! I briefly got to give my compliments to Deacon Dave and he said that (a) a lot of people have said this is their favorite one, and (b) “I hear that song in my dreams.”

We went by Knottingham and that was nicely decked out, with wall projections, a whole penguin hill, and of course, that California snow we all love paying 25 cents for. But sadly, the “inflatahouse” had everything down and the “boozeberhood” only had a couple of lit beverages left on their lawns still. Sheesh. We would have gone by Widmer World, but their website said they’d closed for the night due to water damage. Maybe tomorrow.

As for Hallmark movie reviews, I kinda feel like the ones I watched today were very lackluster. I may be hitting the point of Hallmark overload though.

A Wish For Christmas: It’s a Lacey Chabert, who somehow never really does anything for me. Santa shows up at her office party and gives her a wish of anything she wants as long as it lasts for 48 hours, to which her character Sara is all (a) why don’t you give that to someone else? (no, it’s for YOU) and (b) well, I’m gonna wish for some courage because I’m a pushover. Santa is all “what, you don’t want a million dollars? That would be easier,” and then grants her wish, so Sara tells off the coworker who steals her ideas in front of everyone. Then she plans on quitting her job, but the boss says he fired the other guy and takes her along on a business trip to Seattle to schmooze some millionaire who keeps ducking them for 2 hours. They end up having to hang out with the boss’ family, who he’s estranged from, and man, I was bored stiff. Seriously, Hallmark, you need to have charisma in both the guy and the girl. Dull interchangable guys = me bored watching this. In the end, Sara tries to track Santa down and finds out (gasp) he wasn’t invited to work the party!

My Christmas Dream: This one’s a bit better because it’s Danica McKellar running a department store, bucking for a Paris promotion. However, she fails to stop the Christmas firing of a single dad artist who we’re told is hot (again, boring interchangeable dude so I don’t care) and a good artist, and then she feels guilty, and then she hires him to do art. There is a plot moppet, Cooper, who somehow gloms onto her and becomes ridiculously attached (after being mad at her for “firing” his dad, which is reasonable) . Christina (her character) has to come up with a window display for the 25th anniversary of the store and enlists Boring Artist Guy for the art, but is told it stinks because it’s not personal and therefore (gasp) we’ll just use last year’s instead! Even though Christina certainly had enough information to do a display based on the store’s history, I...confess I have no bloody idea what the hell her display was. It was a cluttered visual mess. I did feel for her when she started crying and said that Paris was the one place that felt like home to her, because now she’ll never get to move there. In the end, the store owner finally realizes she shouldn’t have passed up love for her career, and somehow Christina gets some local manager job instead and can just fly to Europe a lot or whatever.

Notable for quotes like “Christmas IS business!” and “And you fired him? No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend!,” a suggestion of a Hawaiian Santa display (I would have been down with this) and a Santa in space with reindeer shooting lasers out of their antlers, and a kid shaming her for not having a husband or boyfriend and when she says she doesn’t have time, says he’s busy but he can still have a girlfriend in kindergarten. If a small child ever asks me why I’m single, which so far has never ever happened because even tiny children can figure out why, I will tell them the truth: “Nobody wants me,” and then see how they handle THAT shit.

Christmas At Dollywood: I should have liked this more because of Danica McKellar (who I guess is working there for the month doing event planning or something) and vague hints of Dolly that don’t actually happen until the end of the show for some reason (note that I’ve watched some of Dolly’s TV show and she’s more in that....), and the fact that Dollywood looks fairly well like Country Disneyland, with an Electric Light Parade and everything. But again, the generic Hallmark dude bores me, and I kept zoning out until the end when Dolly showed up, even though I did enjoy the brief line dancing scene.

Finding Santa: This wasn’t too bad, in a weird sort of way. I wish I’d been taking notes, but I had to wake up at 8 a.m. to check on something, ended up watching it in bed and didn’t. Anyway, Jodie Sweetin is Grace Long, who runs a Christmas store and is way too invested in Christmas all year long to keep her parents alive in her heart or something. There is Much Drama about Santa Claus breaking his arm and even though there is a Santa School being shown in the movie, I am utterly unclear as to why any of those people aren’t recruited as a replacement. Somehow in the movie, the only options are (a) Santa’s son Ben, who has moved to Boston to be a writer/Uber driver/do his own thing, man, and (b) Clint, the mayor’s son, a poor man’s Chris Elliot who is obnoxious, “putting his own flair” on, and continually complaining that he just wants to watch the game. Why in God’s name did we need a poor man’s Chris Elliot when Chris Elliot is so awful we did not need another of him?

Grace drives up to Boston to recruit Ben, then forces him to spend time with her by using his Uber skills (and leaving her car in Boston for a week, I guess?) and they hang out and go to an ugly sweater party and blah de blah. The guy playing Ben plays the jerkass cop on “The Rookie,” and I give him credit for being a bit more interesting than I would have expected, and also less noxious from what I’ve seen on “The Rookie.” Eventually Ben can’t stand how awful Clint is and says he’ll do it, there’s a slight Big Mis about how Grace will do anything to get a decent Santa (prostitution?), but...y’know, it was better than I thought it was going to be.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry