Quitter

It's been over 6 months since I wrote anything here, but I figured this is a good reason to come out of my blogging hibernation. You see, while the "Hairspray" part of my blog title hasn't been true for a long time now, I never expected that the "Coffee" part would also become false. Yep, you read that right. For the time being, I am not a coffee drinker. Let me explain.

About this time last week, I was dreaming that I was a super cool detective solving some sort of supernatural mystery. Think Veronica Mars crossed with The X Files. Suddenly Dream-Miranda feels an intense pain in her side, goes to the bathroom and starts peeing blood. This freaked me out and woke me up. Awake-Miranda was somewhat relieved that the peeing blood part wasn't real. Unfortunately, the intense pain part was. I don't know if I can possibly explain how much pain I was in. It was INTENSE. I was asked at least three times to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10 and I yelled "TEN!" every time. Although this really is a better Pain Rating Scale.

Long story short, I had a Kidney stone. Now, I haven't given birth, so I can't deny or confirm this point, but I'm told that the pain from a kidney stone can be worse than labor pains. I was also severely dehydrated. So dehydrated, in fact, that when ER Nurse Jamie was trying to draw some blood for tests, she said that my blood was coming out like "sludge." They poured a bag of IV fluids into me and then came back and took some more blood, because my Sludge Blood wasn't very good for tests. And then I got a second bag of IV fluids.

So what does this all have to do with giving up coffee? Well, you see, coffee is a diuretic. All caffeinated beverages are. Diuretics make you pee a lot, which can make dehydration worse. I've also given up soda completely, because sodas can contribute to Kidney stones. I didn't go completely cold turkey off caffeine. For a few days I allowed myself to drink enough coffee to get rid of the headache (usually about 1/2 to 3/4 a cup). Now I've moved on to drinking a cup of tea in the morning. Today, since I don't have to work until noon, I let myself sleep in a little, and so far today I've just been drinking water. Although I think I might make myself a cup of tea before I go in to work.

The effects of going caffeine-free have been pretty much what you'd expect. Tired. Irritable. Trouble focusing (although this may just be an aspect of my real personality). Every day I feel a little bit better. And I'm not saying that I'll be caffeine-free forever. Once I'm healthier, I may ease in to having a cup of coffee now and then.

It's funny, if you had asked me two weeks ago if I could ever give up drinking soda, I would have probably just laughed at you. But now, I don't really miss soda that much. Coffee, on the other hand, I miss so much. It's not just the drink itself, but the social aspect of it. How many times have Abby and I gone to Barnes and Noble to drink coffee and browse the bargain books? How many times has my mother invited me over and promised to "buy" me a cup of coffee? It's for these reasons I don't expect that I'll ever stick to being completely coffee free. As for soda? Maybe I'll just keep that for the occasional Jack & Coke.

I'll try and keep you posted as I continue to overhaul my dietary habits. As long as I can stay awake.

Celebrity Deaths and the Mourning of

I get it. I do. I was very saddened by Patrick Swayze and Heath Ledger. And Brittany Murphy. Don't Judge Me!

I was sad when I heard about their deaths because they had all been involved in films I love. Dirty Dancing. 10 Things I Hate About You. Clueless. Yeah, that's pretty much my entire adolescence. And they were all still young. Ledger was obviously on his way to becoming one of the greatest actors of his generation. Swayze, or "The Swayz" as he is sometimes called, was generally awesome. And, hey, Brittany Murphy could have cleaned herself up and gone to Broadway. Girl could sing, as seen in this video (skip to 2:38). My point is, there was a real chance that they would do more in their careers and lives.

Today JD Salinger died. And people are really upset. They're upset that an author has passed away who hasn't published anything since 1965 and hasn't given and interview since 1980. He was 91 years old. Why are these people so upset? Unless you're a member of his family or social circle, this in no way negatively effects you. You're not going to miss his personality or opinion, because he wouldn't even come to the door if a reporter came a knockin. Were you thinking that after FORTY-FIVE YEARS of not publishing anything that suddenly he was gonna pop out a new novel? Hey, maybe his widow has some of his unpublished manuscripts lying around that she'll have published now that he's dead. So maybe his death positively effects you. Or maybe there are no manuscripts and instead of writing he's spent the last several decades of his life playing canasta. There were no new books and no new interviews coming. My point is that the level of JD Salinger in your life would not be any higher if he were still kicking. Not that he would be doing much kicking, what with the BEING NINETY-ONE. The Onion sums it up with a nice bit of satire: Bunch of Phonies Mourn JD Salinger.

Also, I read Catcher in the Rye. Underwhelming.

I'm going to bed now.

How I Spent My Snow Day.

This past Thursday we shut the 'brary down for the day due to the weather. I had just gotten the dvd Moon in at work, and I had Choke at home from Netflix. So the obvious choice as to how to spend my day off: Sam Rockwell Movie Marathon.

First Up: Charlie's Angels.

I remember actually liking this movie at one point in time, but, much like Coyote Ugly, I've recently discovered that some movies I liked in high school are actually terrible. The only reason this movie is allowed to exist at all, let alone on my DVD shelf, is Sam Rockwell as Eric Knox. He rocks it. All of the following video is quality, but the best bits are of him dancing at 2:38(Hey Ab, can we play that song at your wedding?) and DOING THE SPLITS at 4:40, but there's a tiny bit at 3:50 where he bites at Drew Barrymore's face that I love. Really, every line he says is golden, and there is absolutely no reason for such an awesome character and performance to exist in the motherfucking Charlie's Angels movie. It's truly heartbreaking that his character doesn't win.



#2: The Green Mile

"Wild Bill" Wharton is at least 100% less sexy than Eric Knox. But Rockwell brings this kind of ridiculously gleeful insanity to the character that makes it hard not to love him. Well actually, by the end of the film you really should hate Wild Bill. For lots of reasons.



PS- The Green Mile is a truly fantastic movie. It clocks in at 3 hours, but it honestly doesn't feel that long. There isn't a minute of the movie I can imagine being cut out, which is definitely more than I can say for the next movie.

#3: Choke

You know it's bad when you're watching a film adaptation of a book which you haven't read and you think "Wow, this is a bad adaptation of the book." I could just tell. There is so much in the movie, and it all kind of works, but... I think there's too much. There's a whole bit with Sam Rockwell's character Victor's best friend collecting rocks that really does not need to be in the movie. It's obvious that the writer-director tried to fit too much of the book into the movie, which isn't necessary. Film is a different storytelling medium than novels. He needed to pick and choose which parts of the story to focus on, and he didn't. What really saves the movie are the performances from Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, and Kelly MacDonald. It's not a terrible movie, but something seems sort of... off. This line from the Pajiba review pretty much sums it up: "It's like watching two brothers kiss each other in a hello greeting. They're family, so I guess it's natural, but it just seems bizarre."



And finally: Moon.

LOVED it. But, I really like science fiction and obviously Sam Rockwell is one of my favorite actors, so it would have to be absolute shit for me to hate it. It's a really wonderful, relatively small sci-fi movie. Sam Rockwell absolutely carries the whole film, although I did recognize Douglas from the IT Crowd as one of the corporate guys Sam Bell communicates with. I won't tell any more about the plot, but watch the trailer and then add this movie to your Netflix queue!