Have You Met Miss Jones?

I spent the evening in the UK. It was one of those evenings when you simply don’t want to do anything, go anywhere, or speak with anyone but still have this sense of needing to be entertained somehow by someone. So I curled up in bed with Bridget and Renton.

It’s been a long time since I’ve hung out with Bridget Jones and frankly, I’ve missed her. For years I’ve thought of her as a close personal friend, even though she’s a work of fiction. And of the movies. I popped the DVD into my laptop, curled up in a blanket and munched my way thru far too much junk food while she chased Daniel Cleaver around central London. After she learned the truth and got the good guy, I took a short dinner break and headed to Scotland for a late night rendezvous with the heroin addicts of Trainspotting, which is one of my all time favorite movies. Chic lit to drug addicts. What would Freud think of that do you suppose? I love Ewen McGregor, what can I say?

It was a good evening. I haven’t done this in ages and I’m thrilled I declined the invitation for pints tonight.

One of the things I like best about having my laptop is the DVD player. I love curling up in bed and watching movies. I can be absolutely selfish since the screen is really single sized. Although, in grad school, Ann and I would curl up on the sofa occasionally and watch something together. And on one desperate evening, there were 4 of us curled up together watching movies. Comical does not even begin to describe the site of us. It did require that we were all good friends, since we spent 90 minutes essentially on top of one another trying to get a better view of Pacino and Di Nero stalk one other thru LA.

But tonight, I was alone in my room surrounded by pillows and warm blankets. Flatmate Suzie was in much the same mood and so she was in her room, watching movies on her laptop as well. We cannot watch movies together. For one, she calls them films and she only watches important ones. Me, I watch movies, usually trashy Hollywood types, like Bridget Jones’ Diary and Harry Potter, occasionally several in a row. (I love that I can sit thru a double feature in my pajamas.) I spend my entire day focused on minute, finicky stuff and when I come home, my brain is usually overloaded. The last thing I want is to be confronted and made to think.

She, on the other hand, has had the same job for 12 years and can easily phone it in from a beach in Mexico if need be. So when she comes home, she’s craving cranial activity. So tonight, she watched a film and I hung out with Bridget.

I love that we can spend time together separately.