A Beautiful Mind

I found someone who actually talks like I do. Or rather, I found a character who talks like I do. In this movie, A Beautiful Mind, there is a mathematician called John Nash who is a big genius at the top of everything, yadda-yadda-yadda. Well, ol' John has issues talking to people. He doesn't do small talk. Well, he can't do small talk...at all. He fails so miserably that at an early point in the film, he gets himself slapped. I don't recommend the following pickup line:

He walks over to her, and after a long uncomfortable moment of silence, she finally says:

"Maybe you wanna buy me a drink?"

To which he replies:

"I don't exactly know what I'm required to say in order for you to have intercourse with me. But can we assume that I've said all that? I mean, essentially we're talking about fluid exchange, right? So could we just go straight to the sex?"

She sits there for a moment with the original smile kind of held on her face, and says:

"Well, that was sweet." *SLAP!* And she's gone.

How did he ask his wife to marry him? A-hem...

"Alicia, does our relationship warrant long term commitment? I need some kind of proof -- some kind of verifiable empirical data."

And her response, once she figures out what he just asked...

"I'm sorry, just give me a moment to redefine my girlish notions of romance."

What was a phrase that came up early in the relationship between the Queen and me? "Who talks like that?" I could only say, "I do." Apparently, I possess a certain propensity for spouting words that are far too long and/or complex for casual conversation. What is especially unfortunate about this inexplicable phenomenon is that I utilize these lengthy constructions for the simple reason of knowing those words first.

I even got ribbed about this at one point, and yes, I deserved it. I was working with someone who was giving me a hard time about writing a sentence that was six lines long and used six commas, but somehow was not a run on and grammatically correct. I do pride myself on grammatical correctness. So I had said something about trying to make things (um) "less long." And she comes back, "you mean, shorter?"

Heh, yeah, I mean shorter.

So I got a kick out of most of this movie since they guy is fairly stand-offish, remains fairly unemotional throughout, and just doesn't relate to people well. Now, let me follow that up by saying that I'm not a paranoid schizephrenic, and I don't see things that aren't there. And now, the Queen should re-read that last sentence again, because she just disagreed with me.

I'm not saying anything about multiple personalities, though.

And I'm not either.

Hair and Gig

So I've got two things to report at this point. First, I did actually get my haircut yesterday, the 19th. I gave the stylist person the same spiel I always do, and she hit me with the question: "do they usually use scissors or clippers?" Well, I let her know they usually use clippers size 4 or 5 on the sides and back. 

So she started in with the electric clippers and hit the sides and back. I was concerned as she did this, since the hair on the top stayed just as long as ever as she zipped around my head singing (sort of) to the music playing over the speakers. I wondered if she had another soundtrack in her head, though, since she was occasionally singing along to something completely different.

Anyway, the princesses got a kick out of me at one point when she had to answer the phone and had only done half my head. But once she finished with the clippers for pass number one, she started in with scissors on the bangs and top of my head. She moved with great agility over my noggin and did a really good job when it was all over. The Queen said it was one of the best I'd gotten, and it does look pretty decent.

The other update is about last Friday. You know, the Lion King thing? Well, in the end, it went all right. I was still a bit lost on what some songs were doing or were supposed to be doing, but I kept up without a problem. I got a little better at playing with brushes since that was something I had to learn fairly quickly for this one as some songs worked better with brushes as opposed to sticks. Very jazzish.

The actors/singers didn't have to memorize their lines at all and their wasn't much in the way of staging. The scripts sat on stands right there on stage, and they just read through it in some weird costumes. They were all dressed in a sort of jungle toga look with some very phallic-looking tails safety pinned to the back of their waists. It was a little strange to say the least.

But the worst I had to deal with was staying in time with them and the piano, and I survived without making a fool of myself, so that was a big positive.