Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Still in Mourning

Even though I gave myself a good manicure and wore a pretty ring today, my poor right hand still looks maimed and horrid. And I can't stop looking at it! When your nails have been long for a while, your finger-ends become extremely sensitive, so even if I didn't look at my poor middle finger, I can still feel it's degraded state whenever I type or touch anything. It's too sad for words.







Nicholas Nickleby was wonderful. I laughed, I cried, I drooled! Charlie Hunnam is sooooo tasty! Christopher Plummer is sooooo sinister! Jamie Bell is sooooo sweet! Nathan Lane is sooooo funny! And Dame Edna was sooooo delightful (and even had a cameo as Barry Humphries)! The whole film was utterly lovely. This production, which left rather big holes in the plots and characterizations, in interest of time, did a fabulous job of balancing the comedy and the melodrama of the story. Other productions I've seen focussed on one or the other, this one had just enough of each, laughter and tears, hurrahs and hisses, joys and sorrows.



While researching some of the holes in the story (such as what, exactly, the Cheeryble Brothers did for business and how they employed young Nicholas) led me to this lovely searchable online version of the Dickens novel. I think I might just get around to reading this one. I've never really read Dickens before, not a whole novel certainly, I find him generally a little to rambling in style; but the bits and pieces I've read today, and the admirable casting I can now visualize when I read it (I mean, Charlie Hunnam is just dreamy!), I might just manage to wade through it.



I keep wondering though, after seeing the last two versions of the novel (the film and the A&E miniseries), just how much of the homoeroticism that I've spotted is actually in the text. I mean, little suggestive phrases like "Dotheboys Hall" and the rather passionate friendship of Nicholas and Smike, these set little bells ringing in my head. It's always easier to read something if you're keeping an eye peeled for homo-naughty bits.



So between mourning my nail and wallowing in the haunted memory of Charlie Hunnam, and between mourning the current state of affairs in regard to our fair nation and its relationship with the rest of the world and worrying about my much-dreaded dental appointment tomorrow, I somehow managed to have a fairly nice day. I've been in a quite lovely mood, except for when I accidentally got into an argument with my Grandmother about the war (she said something stupid about France and I launched into a tirade before I could stop myself... we both got all wound up and had nothing to show for it but a sense of ignorance and incomprehension of the other person's point of view); so long as I'm not thinking about things that make me sick to my stomach, I feel quite light-hearted and cheerful.



It's a very strange place to be in, terrified and amused at once. I don't know whether or not to like it. But at least I know I'm alive.



Well, off to bed with me... I have to get up at 6:30 in order to get myself and the Grandmother to the dentist's by 8 (they put our appointments adjacent so he could clean the Grandmother's teeth while taking breaks from whittling my top left rear molar to a post and taking molds for the crown and the temporary. It ought to be grand fun. Though I don't think it's really necessary to get a good night's sleep beforehand; afterward I am coming right back home to bed, having arranged for the day off work. Then I'm going to fix the toilet (though I can't even describe what's wrong with it, I think I may've figured out how to fix it... it's a matter of buying and installing a new Part, disregarding the fact that I haven't the slightest idea what that Part is called nor how to install it).



I hope your day is super! And if it isn't, I wish you someone wonderful to console with.



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