Insomnial musings

Earlier today I was dead tired and couldn't wait for my daughter to lie down for a nap so I could do the same. Unfortunately our evil cat (his picture on mycathatesyou.com) foiled that plan by constantly trying to either curl up on my neck or, after I attempted to avoid him all together by pulling the covers up over my head, wriggle his way under said covers to stick his nose in my ear. Most annoying.

Now for whatever reason it's 11 o'clock at night and I can't sleep. Funnily enough my wife doesn't respond positively when I roll over and whisper in her ear all the random thoughts that I'm having when I can't sleep, so I'll just humor you with them. Lean closer.

Closer still.

I make no promises as to any rhyme or reason to all this. These are truly just some things I was thinking of as I was lying in bed.

First a quick thanks to my sister-in-law and mother, both of whom took pity on my feet after reading my blog and gave me foot scrub and gel socks respectively for Christmas. The scrub is nice because it doesn't have a girly smell, and the gel socks rock because when I walk around with them on I feel like I'm stepping in goo only its a good feeling goo. Plus, the socks aren't made to cover your entire foot, just the heel and around your ankle. In spite of the fact that my toddler referred to them as tights when she saw me putting these on, they really are a unisex item. They're a bit macho in fact. Kinda like that super hero who wore the wrist bracelets. Who was that? Oh yeh, Wonder Woman. Well, never mind. They're not really like those bracelets. They're way cooler.

In the meantime, I've thrown away the foot shaver not because I won't ever use it again but because my old one's rusted. I'll probably use some Christmas monies to go get another one. Even as hardcore as I am, I won't bring myself to use rusted gear.

I had a most bizarre dream last night. In it I was supposed to go meet someone I used to know about a real estate deal. This particular someone died almost ten years ago, which incidentally was long before I started doing real estate. I wasn't sure where the house was and I was driving through this neighborhood at night and couldn't see the houses very well. I finally came across a 70s looking split-level with wooden stairs leading up to the front porch. I knew this was the house because a blown up copy of the picture I used for my business card (it's on the Flickr badge on the right side of the page) was hanging on the mailbox.

When I got in, the guy wasn't there but his roommate was. The roommate was a kid who lived in my neighborhood when I was growing up. These two people most likely wouldn't have known each other in real life, but in my dream, which ended rather abruptly, they were roommates. Just weird.

On a somber note, it just occurred to me while I was typing this out that while I do know for certain of only one person who died since I got into real estate five or so years ago, there is likely at least one other if not two or even three people I worked with who may have also died. One person I'm thinking of was terminally ill at the time I met with her and her husband to talk about selling their home, and the other two were an elderly couple. When I say elderly I mean elderly as in he was 87 and she was 93. Whenever I stopped in to visit with them the ninety-three-year-old woman would refer to me as her ray of sunshine. On two occasions the husband fell asleep while I was over there chatting with them. Not really surprising I guess, huh?

My wife and I enjoyed a movie from Netflix this evening which we watched in bed on the laptop. The movie was Flannel Pajamas and it got very mixed reviews from other viewers so I didn't know what to expect. I really liked the film but my wife wasn't at all crazy about it.

Netflix allows you to rate movies you've seen with anywhere from one to five stars. This movie had an average customer rating of 2.6 stars but of "viewers like me" it got 3.5. That Netflix keeps a profile of me that is detailed to the extent that they feel they can compare me to strangers is a little bit creepy and often I find the "viewers like you" ratings are way off base, but in this case I agreed. In fact, I'd give the movie four stars.

I do face a small dilemma though because my wife most likely would have given the movie only two or maybe even just one star. Since she and I generally watch movies together part of me feels like I should give the movie a crappy rating, or at the very least compromise and rate it three stars. In all honesty though, I'm not likely to do either of those things. I'll probably give it the four stars I think it deserves. That's what I usually do. If I write a review of it though, I'll make note of the fact that my wife thought it sucked.

On a side note, of all the 1311 movies I've rated with Netflix I've only given 131 five out of five stars. That's perfectly ten percent. Weird huh? That it's exactly ten percent I mean. Weird kinda like that dream I mentioned earlier.

Here are a few of my favorite five-star movies to add to your rental list:

Little Children
The Mudge Boy
The Corndog Man
Hard Candy
Everything is Illuminated
The Chumscrubber
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Fat Girl
Dummy
The Station Agent

Some of those are funny; some are dark; some are more mood pieces. A good portion of them my wife would think are crap. But I don't feel guilty because also rated five stars in our cue is Sex in the City: Season 4. Whaaaaatttt? It was a good show and all, but five stars?

Miranda was my favorite character, but I was disappointed when the actress who played her came out of the closet. Same goes for Jodie Foster. The fantasy was just ruined. I guess I still have a chance with Sarah Jessica Parker though.

Really, what's with those three-name celebrities? Anthony Michael Hall? Edward James Olmos? Nat King Cole? Julia Louis Dreyfuss? Please, celebrities, pick two names and stick with them. Unless the name has Spears in it. Then just please do us all a favor and fade away.

In the last three weeks, a 16-year-old coattail riding celebrity gets knocked up by her nineteen-year-old boyfriend and the first woman elected to lead a Muslim nation state was murdered. Which one of these two women will the American public remember two weeks from today?

We did not put up a Christmas tree this year because we feared fragile ornaments and hooks would be too tempting for a toddler. My wife did a great arrangement of some Christmas things on the mantle though and we also have an indoor-outdoor resin cast of Buddha that we like to put a Santa hat on this time of year. We're not Buddhists or anything, not that it should matter to you. I just happened to see the thing at Target one day and thought it'd look cool in our living room. Santa Buddha comin' down the chimbley tonight.

Other religious articles we have in our home are a replica of the infant Jesus of Prague, a novena of same and a lunch box with Gonesh on it.

Oh yeh, and the Sesame Street Giggle and Go Garage.