Then I got up and made some Indian tea with breakfast. I decided I needed a change from all the coffee I've been drinking. I called Mom, and told her that I wasn't coming today.
While eating, I found in the guide that Bad Santa was coming on. This is another movie that h
as been on my list to see. I didn't think I would like it, but my friends did. I wanted to be able to converse intelligently about it, even if the mystic allure of Billy Bob Thornton continues to elude me - but I was wrong. I really enjoyed the movie, with the exception of Bernie Mac, but his part wasn't large enough to really bother me. I also was finally able to see what it was about Billy Bob Thornton that attracted Angelina Jolie. He turns in a very nuanced performance as a completely reprehensible man at rock bottom, about whom I nonetheless found myself caring by the end of the movie. There has to be more to him than there appears to be in order for him to tread a line so fine with the role. Plus, even as a drunken lout, he manages to be sexy. It's not his body or his face, it's just him. He has something that still remains sexy despite everything. But then everybody likes a bad boy right?While I was watching the movie, I flipped through my Indian cookbook. I had to make something for lunch next week, and since I have been craving curry like a madman lately, I thought I'd go to the Indian market today and try my hand at making one. But nothing appealed. Then I checked the book, and online for a samosa casserole recipe. I love samosas with the red-hot intensity of a thousand suns, but they are very complicated to make. At Saffron, they do a samosa casserole for the lunch buffet that seems that it would be less labor intensive, and bit healthier. But I couldn't find a recipe for anything like it. I toyed with trying to adapt an existing recipe, but it just seemed like a lot of work to put into something that might not turn out the way I wanted. Additionally, the forecast was spot on for this weekend. It is rainy, cold, drizzly yuck outside. The last thing I wanted to do was actually go out in it, plus the recipes seemed very convoluted and complicated, and not something I really felt like fooling with.
Since the computer was on anyway, I spent a good bit of time watching videos on youtube. I was looking for the Carol Burnett spoof of Double Indemnity (called 'Double Calamity'), but couldn't find it. Eventually, I went to the cabinet to see what was here.
I have all these tons of food put up that I have no idea is here. I found some white beans I bought, and some lintels that Michael had bought, and a partial package of Golden Curry, which I decided to use to make a bastardized dal. I'm sure any good Indian woman would be horrified, but it should be tasty, and gets some stuff out of the cabinet. Golden Curry is this heavenly stuff that is kind of like Indian Hamburger Helper. You just cook up whatever you want, melt some Golden Curry into it, and it becomes a delicious curry before your eyes. The problem is that the mix is suspended in coconut oil and all this nasty fat that makes it shelf stable without refrigeration and makes it tasty. Unfortunately, it is also fairly high in saturated fat. 48 grams per package, to be exact. But I rationalized tonight. On a 2,000 calories per day diet, I am allowed to have 7% of those from saturated fat, or about 140 calories. Divided by 9, that's 15.5 grams of saturated fat per day. If I get at least 5 servings out of this batch of curry, that's only 7.5 grams of sat fat per serving (I had already used a quarter of the package). I can live with that. And maybe not feel bad about picking up a package every now and again. I put my beans in to soak with a clear conscience.
I didn't eat out today, which was good. For the most part, I ate things that were here that needed to be finished up. I decided to catch up on the blogs I follow. While I was reading Ms. Red's blog, I found an entry that fascinated me. It was about women who describe themselves as objectumsexuals. There was a link to a program in a series called "Strangelove" called "Married to the Eiffel Tower". It showed the stories of three women who fall in love with inanimate objects. Apparently primarily buildings and public structures, although one woman detailed her relationship with an archery bow (apparently a productive one, as it lead to her becoming a world-class archer), and a past relationship with a samurai sword was mentioned also. She was married to the Eiffel Tower, but apparently had dalliances with several fences, the Berlin Wall, the Golden Gate Bridge, and another bridge of less note in Germany. These women are polygamous. Another woman was in love with a carnival ride called "1000 Nachts", although she was also having an affair with a church railing, and had an ex called Paul that was an organ in the same church. If the first part of the series was unusual, the second part was absolutely surreal. They went to Germany to visit 1000 Nachts with the woman who loves him, and basically showed her making out with the ride, and lying beneath it, continuing to kiss and caress it while covering herself in "his fluids" - axle grease. They also followed the Eiffel Tower's wife to Germany to visit the Berlin Wall - staying with the Wall's wife of 30 years - they are both also apparently conducting an affair with the same bridge in Germany. She then went on to France where she was able to finally consummate her relationship with the Eiffel Tower.
The fact that they did these things didn't surprise me too much at this point. If you followed their mindset, what they were doing was a natural extension of their orientation. What shocked me was that they allowed themselves to be filmed doing it! Can you imagine allowing a camera crew to film you making love with your spouse or significant other and putting it on television? I really can't. A video for your own amusement is one thing. Broadcasting your intimacy on television is a whole new ballpark. Needless to say, the prior lives of these women were unusual. One woman had been taken from her parents by the state for neglect, and then passed from foster home to foster home, being abused and assaulted sexually several times. She was able to defend herself from an attack (while she was in the military) with a sword with whom she was having a relationship at the time. The other woman apparently had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome a type of autism which her mother believed had contributed to her condition. But she herself was convinced she was born this way. You could see, even in pictures of her childhood though, that her father had been very distant when she was a child. That was uncomfortably close to home.
Nicole had made it a point on her blog that the objectumsexuals were all women, but I had already seen a documentary called "Love Me, Love My Doll" about Real Dolls - silicone sex dolls that weigh about 100 pounds, and can be customized with hair color, eye color, facial features, and of course breast size. In the documentary, men were living with these dolls as life partners. They cost between $8k-10k. One man had 8 of them. I didn't find anything about them on veoh.com, but on the same website, there was a link to a program in the same series called "My Car is my Lover", about men who were sexually involved with their automobiles. There are only about 12 of them in the world, but the producers were able to find two who would appear on camera. This also was fascinating to me.
Both these guys were in the US, and so they decided to let them meet by taking them to a big auto show in LA. The footage at the auto show was actually pretty hilarious if you could overlook the underlying pathos. The older guy was walking around pitching a tent. He acted less cool than I would in a room full of naked men. He also had sex with the rental SUV the camera crew was following him in, and with the other guy's Trans Am (called Todd) after they met, in the middle of the night in the hotel parking lot.
Ultimately though, both programs just depressed me in the end. It is documentation (to me) of the increasing isolation we confront in our increasingly mechanized and emotionally distant society. For some people, it is just easier to form relationships with inanimate objects than it is to reach out to fellow human beings. But then I thought, well who am I (as a good liberal) to judge? These people aren't hurting anyone. They seem happy enough. The women, in particular, seemed to be fulfilled in their relationships (they claim that their partners share their feelings by communicating with them telepathically). If you follow the logic that the psychological benefit of a relationship is primarily subjective, then these people are getting many of the benefits of a relationship, and have made a comparatively healthy adjustment to deal with their intimacy issues. I mean, at least they aren't out drowning children or carving up hookers right? Still, I found it vaguely sad. I was glad that I was chatting on Bear411 with Chip in Columbia, a nice guy whom I have met in real life, and with whom I have actually shared participative and reactive sex.
After watching those specials, I watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy online to hopefully clean out my mental filters and keep me from having Kafka dreams. I then pulled up an episode of Monster Quest about the Loch Ness Monster on Charter On Demand, and went to sleep. Yeah, and I'm looking askance at others and their intimacy with inanimate objects?
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