New Experiences for the Season

I'm trying out new experiences for the season this year.

Since I haven't been feeling very social, I managed to rebuff any invitations to participate in Christmas dinnners or réveillons, although I used to be the person who took in strays and cooked all day. I suppose that I am not really dealing all that well with my neo-hermit status.

So this year, I did what so many of my Jewish friends do on Christmas Day: I went to see a movie with a friend. And we took it up one notch by seeing TWO movies!

First up was Queen, a very good film about how Elizabeth II and family reacted to the death of Princess Diana. Helen Mirren did a wonderful job of portraying a monarch trying to understand irrational change in her subjects. (I, for one, will never understand these new phenomena of depositing decaying plant matter at sites of tragedies or points of interest or becoming emotionally overwrought in connection to tragedies to which we have very little connection.)

Then we had an amusing experience of discovering what a little goodie-goodie I continue to be, as I made us exit the cinema and pay again instead of sneaking in to see movie number 2. I went so far as to accuse my friend of trying to make me spend Christmas in jail like Myriam Bédard!

Number 2 was Volver, Pedro Almodovar's latest, with Penelope Cruz. Considering that I don't get a lot of sleep at the best of times (we can thank one of my HIV meds for that, but that's another story), it may not have been the best idea to see a subtitled movie as the second part of a double-header. I am reasonably sure that I missed a few lines near the beginning, but that is really no reflection on the film itself, which was most entertaining indeed. Almodovar is always kooky and entertaining, and Penelope Cruz seems to have recovered from her close call with the fate of Katie Holmes.

My next new experience of the season will come this afternoon, should I manage to shower and dress, when I venture out to participate in the madness of Boxing Day sales for the first time in my life. I am not actually desperate to buy anything, so it should remain entertaining for me. I'll let you know.