Sunday, January 27, 2008

No Country For Old Lesbians

37 birthday parties later...

So I decided to chill out by going to the movies. Lucy and I, with a rare night to ourselves - each of our daughters were with their other moms (a perk of separation is you never need a babysitter) - decided to go see No Country For Old Men.

If you're looking to chill out, if people are worried that you're angry and unsympathetic to people who are in psychic distress, if you have a night alone with another adult and you want to relax, if you're two violence-averse lesbians over 40, I highly recommend avoiding No Country For Old Men.

Within the first five minutes at least five people had been brutally murdered and a sad-eyed dog was shot in the stomach.

Lucy looked at me and said, "Let's go buy fuzzy socks."

That was what Betsy said to Lucy 20 minutes into Betsy's first feature length film. "Let's go buy fuzzy socks."

I'd only ever left a movie once in my entire life and that was when I was 16 (some long Monty Python I was too young and American to understand). I had a mouthful of popcorn. Just then someone else was killed with a hose or something.

I started to laugh. Lucy started to laugh.

"This is hell."

Life is short and brutal enough, why spend 110 minutes watching murder.

So off we went. We dodged 20 minutes late into Savages - another form of torture, and yes, I have sat for many many hours in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers with dying loved ones, but how many times can you hear Phillip Seymour Hoffman say, "Wen, he's got dementia. Wen, he's got dementia. Wen, he's got dementia."

Dear me, I've got dementia. I'd spent the day at not one but two birthday parties for six year old girls, negotiated a battle between Betsy and her seven-year old friend Zoe that rivaled the mayhem of No Country for Old Men, and then on this a precious evening out was subject to images of blood and gore that will forever be emblazoned upon my neurons.

"Wen, he's got dementia."

Sheesh.

The two movies always will be entwined for us: men and a dog are murdered in a desert and then siblings have to put their father in a nursing home.

Life is like that of course, non sequitirs left and right, propelling you from an ice-skating party to a fairy princess party, from tuna sandwiches with a five-year old to a margarita with another adult.

Today it snows, lightly and beautifully, all quiet and All is well on this western front.

3 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

This is exactly why I don't like movies for a date with my husband. Drinks and dinner force us to talk and allow us to be a couple, not just two people watching something on a big screen.
Having said that, I think we should go see more movies, though. It would give us more to talk about...

Anonymous said...

Here, here, sister!

My beloved and I were treated to some serious movie hopping come-uppance once when we extended a perfectly fine single bill (American President) into a miserabel double-bill (Seven). The only consolation was that the beloved had once met Kevin Spacey during her acting days in NYC (he was then a relative unkown, and in theater at the time; in the movie he played the serial killer whose identity was revealed at the end of the film). When he appeared on screen, she leaned over to me and said ("It's okay! It's okay! I was at his apartment once: he's really nice!").

We should have stepped over everyone's legs and popcorn and left that movie after the first gruesome murder.

Life's too short, date nights are too few and far between, and bloody movies are too long.

Unknown said...

I noticed that a lot of lesbians I know have been asked if they use a strap on. So stereotypical! Another common stereotype against us is that we ALL hates men and wish they didn't exist. That's another annoying one.

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