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December
30, 2005. The woman who cut my hair tonight remembered me. Remembered where I lived, and remembered that I used to work at the bookstore down the way. I was feeling a bit flush from an additional overtime check I deposited in person at my bank today, so I tipped her nearly 100%, because even though it's one of those chain salons that do haircuts for really reasonable prices, they've never ever goofed up my hair at this place. 'Course, I never do give them anything complicated. "Part it down the middle. Cut it all one length. Nope. No layers." I usually get a shampoo, too, because hey. It's nice to have your hair washed and scalp massaged by another person, isn't it? And it's also nice to know that you're not making that person then have to wet down your sweaty, polluted, possibly smoky/perfumed/gelled head for twenty minutes. She told me a little secret as she opened the drawer and pulled out a second pair of scissors: "People with washed hair get the nice scissors!" Well, well. I told her I was taking myself out to see Narnia, right down the way at the multiplex, and she was telling me how her and her girlfriend went and her girlfriend fell asleep and was sort of snoring, and so even though she didn't want popcorn, she took her snoozing friend's popcorn and ate it all and loved the movie and loved Lucy very much. She started to gush about how the Christian station was really promoting it, and I smiled a small smile and diverted the conversation back to Lucy. "She's so important, you know? And did they really do the fur coats into trees, and mothballs into snow?" And she was nodding excitedly. She'd never read the books. So it was kinda cool to touch on something that seemed really important to the story, and she was right there with me. As I was paying her, she offered that if I got out of the movie when she was closing up shop, I could catch a ride with her. So, with a few minutes until the previews were to start, I took the escalator up to the second level at the cinema and got my ticket at one of those little automated terminals, and I got me some Junior Mints, and I made two people stand so I could sit in the middle of a row where there was less of a chance of a gaggle of children sitting near me, and I settled in to watch. I drowned in memory. I am not going to say that The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was any sort of cinematic masterpiece, although it really was well-presented and quite gorgeous. The thing is, that book held so much for me as a kid, and the beauty of this movie was that it pretty much left me alone. It brought up all the little things that had always charmed me about this particular book, but it never bashed me over the head with them. I liked that Aslan was formidable, but not huge in size. I liked that the kids looked so normal, but fell right into a mythical and magical posture when needed (like oh, when they put on the fur coats, and then there was that overhead shot of the three children traveling in a line with the Beavers? oh oh!). I liked the mothballs and the snow. I really, really loved Tumnus, who was presented as much younger than I'd imagined, but I think his relative age worked much better for me in the movie, after all. Jadis was evil (and with crazy dreads, which was a really cool choice) and cold and so, so empty. I wasn't sure as I sat there that I liked this interpretation, but now, I am ever so glad that they did not go with a standard Disney Evil Queen Mother Figure. Her swordwork and killing pose was wicked and mean and just right. My eyes got misty more than a couple times, I admit it. So many pieces of exposition were picked up very nicely by the visuals. I wonder if anyone else liked and picked up on the tree carved into the door panel of the Wardrobe? I thought that was a very graceful and subtly-done detail. Outside after, it was time to play the bus game once more, and so I walked over to the Thai place and got some pad thai tofu carryout. I walked over the river, and waited. And waited. And waited. And then I dug out the plastic fork, and I flipped open the takeout carton, and I ate a few forkfuls of the best pad thai I'd ever had. The sticky starchy noodles clung to each other and I tucked my hair behind my ears as I leaned on the clear plexi wall of the bus shelter, the sleety cold stuff in the air curling my hair and making the noodles steam. I ate just enough until I could feel the heat from the food radiate out from my stomach and my mouth, and then I packed it all back up, with another minute to spare before a bus heaved towards the stop. Another bus heading west, and I am now home. I never did take up the hairdresser on the ride, which might've been wise considering how long it took me to get home, but I've sort of become ridiculously attached to some of these stretches of solitude. It felt good to feel the city around me before the new year arrives, and to let the bus slowly carry me to my door. go
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