So let’s say there’s a movie that includes both the Scottish yummy-ness that is James McAvoy and the saucy, Kohl-eyed Angelina Jolie, who — as you may or may not have noticed — is also far from unattractive. Now let’s add to the attractive cast lots of guns, knives, butt-kicking, sports cars, general fight scenes, and… well, derailed trains… it’s okay, stay with me. Now, just for kicks, let’s throw in an R-rating that suggests that you may or may not get to see one or both of these assassin hotties all nekkid. (Spoiler: you get to see Angelina’s bare butt, but only one brief bare chest shot of a beefed-up James… to which I say “What the hell-crap is up with that?!?” I can only assume that the director had absolutely zero idea that there would be any chicks going to see this movie, and therefor left out any gratuitous male skin.) Truly, the R-rating is for insane head shots with spurting blood, and a bunch of exploding rats that will have PETA all up in arms, and a boat load of F-bombs… but, sadly, not for any hot nekkid-ness.

The director, Timur Bekmambetov, is the same guy who did the screen adaptation of the Russian vampire book Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor), a movie that frickin rocked the socks. T’was the bee’s knees. Night Watch also had over-the-top violence and some of the action sequences and camera angles from Wanted were very reminiscent of Night Watch.(Anyone who saw Night Watch will recognize that “Anton” is also in Wanted, and plays none other than “The Russian”.)

For the second time this year, James McAvoy assumes an American accent, which sort of annoyed me. They could have kept him Scottish… he could have had the assassin call-name “The Scotsman” or something. (As a side note: I’ve always wondered if it’s hard to learn an American accent.) He spent a large portion of the movie getting pummeled as part of his training. Magical “healing pools” allowed for quick recovery from broken bones and severed limbs and whatever else the training required… so after a few hours he was always good as new to be re-pummeled. Angelina Jolie was, you know, hot and stuff. She could curve a bullet with rest of the boys. She was a man’s woman. Hot and skilled at fighting, and you just got the sense that she probably also knew a lot of stuff about sports and wouldn’t care if her man went out to party with his friends, but none of that was ever actually addressed in the movie. As a woman, all I could wonder the whole time was “I wonder if this movie was filmed before or after she had her kid…?” because girl was hot. And skinny. And could lie down on top of a train going through a tunnel without her gut hitting the roof of the tunnel. (In retrospect, Angelina Jolie movies aren’t the best for chubby pregnant chicks to see…)

This movie isn’t a “thinker”. If a thinking man’s movie is what you are looking for, check out The Love Guru or something. Wanted is a movie for people who like exploding heads, exploding rats, exploding trains, exploding buildings, more exploding heads, and Angelina Jolie looking hot. Though the last scene in the movie is James McAvoy (sadly, fully clothed), shooting someone through the head asking the final line of the movie: “What the f**k have you done lately?” And that did make me think… And I had to answer him honestly. “Umm, some laundry, the dishes…” And my answer seemed kind of lame.

So I’m Googling whether or not the world needs a pregnant assassin. I’m pretty sure with some training I could balance myself in a horizontal position on the top of a train.

Just no tunnels…

My BFF, Diana, is moving.

2,000 miles away.

In 5 days.

You’d think that with me being a grown up and everything, I would be okay. You’d think I’d be all “Yay for you! This will be such a great adventure for you and your family!” But no, I am crusty and rude about it. Instead of being supportive, I’m all like “Hey, I have a great idea that primarily benefits me! Porter (husband) can move, and you and Byron (son) can stay here and live in our basement! I mean, Porter’s the one getting his PhD, not you! Let him move, and you can stay and live with us, like a big sleep-over that lasts for, like, two years! It sounds fun, right?!” But then she tells me some load of crap about how it’s important to be supportive of her husband, and — after all — they are married and they’re, like, a family and stuff… which all sounded like a basket full of weak-sauce excuses to me. But whatever.

My heart is heavy. I already miss my friend. Who will listen to my constant whining? Who will go out with me to chick movies and laugh at my quick one-liners? Who?? WHO??? And who is thinking about ME is all of this??  I was virtually left out of the school application process, which, as the spouse’s best friend, you would think I would have been an integral part. But no — not so much. And when I was told it was between Michigan and Maryland, I was all “What’s wrong with University of Utah?” And they gave me all sorts of bull about how one does not receive all the different degrees from one school. Which I think is dumb because — hello! — I live by the one school, so that should be a factor. But I guess it’s not. So then I worked it from the angle of trashing the two remaining schools. Michigan is cold, so they could not move there. My BFF doesn’t do well in the cold. (Yeah, I’m totally looking out for her.) And Maryland, well… Dude, I grew up there. I am a product of Maryland. Clearly my friend does not want to raise her child in a state that cranks out the likes of me. Plus, there’s the whole “Maryland Accent” that took me a good two years to lose after I moved out here (and I still sometimes say “arnge juice” or “harrible” on accident, just because some words are coded that way in my east coast genes). My sweet friend will start talking like that! She will start calling people “ig-nernt” (which means rude), not to be confused with “ignorant” (which means “stupid”). Ig-nernt is a Maryland-only word. We Marylanders invented it. And my dear, sweet, smart friend will start down that Maryland path. And then what?? Where will the madness end??

I’ll tell you where it will end: it will end with me being 2,000 miles out west, being all lonely, going to movies on “girls’ night” by myself, making jokes to myself, having people throw popcorn and Junior Mints at me, telling me to shut up, and then I’ll cry because I miss my friend. And I know that I’m being selfish and ig-nernt about the whole thing, but I can’t help it.

Or maybe I will find another reason to go back to visit Maryland; a reason that isn’t a wedding or a funeral, which are currently the only valid reasons I go back anymore. Someone has to die or eternally hook their cart to one horse for me to drop $500 on a plane ticket. (I’m that cheap.) But no more. Now I will fly back to Maryland every Tuesday night just so Diana and I can go to a movie and eat nachos and talk about life and laugh together and cry together. Okay, maybe not every Tuesday. A girl could pick back up an accent being there on a weekly basis. But I will go more often.

And for those of you in Maryland, especially around U of M campus: if you see my friend, be kind to her. Be her friend. Take her out (she likes Sour Patch Kids at the movies). Make her laugh.

(Just try not to be funnier than me, or she may forget me all together… and that would be really ig-nernt of her.)

Sure, I have lots to tell you about. Sure, I still haven’t posted pics of Jachin’s birthday (which was several weeks ago, but I can’t get the pictures off the camera). Sure, there’s all kinds of TMI I could be giving you about my pregnancy thus far, because tons of weird bodily things have occured in the last 13 1/2 weeks (not the least of which is that I’m in that weird limbo where I don’t quite look pregnant yet, but I just look like I’ve let myself go and I can’t button the top button of my jeans anymore). But no, I’m skipping through all of that and I’m just opting for a no-brainer Meme. Stephanie (known in the blogosphere as “Bad Mom”) tagged me for a Meme… and, well, it sounded easier than writing a real post. (But Yay for me! Because I have been steadily working on my book. So as my blog whithers, the novel grows stronger.)

So the rules for this Meme are:

1. Pick up the nearest book. (which I didn’t. I cheated and looked through several nearby books for which one had the best sentences.)

2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.  (yeah right, I don’t know 5 people with blogs anymore.)

The winning book: Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus, by Dave Barry

“Overseeing a modern wedding is comparable, in terms of complexity, to flying the Space Shuttle; in fact, it’s worse, because shuttle crew members don’t have to select their silver pattern.  This is done from them by ground-based engineers:

Command Center: Okay, Discovery, we’re gonna go with the “Fromage de Poisson” pattern, over?”

Ahh, yes, Dave Barry. You can trust that man to have three great sentences on page 123 every time. Other books lying around my bedroom that also have at least 123 pages (that weren’t chosen for the Meme, but nonetheless they may be worth your time):

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis

The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you’d like to play along, go for it. All two of you.

You Are Megara!

Charming and witty. You are always the first person to come up with a wisecrack. Sure, you have an attitude, but that’s why people love you. You keep them on their toes. Sometimes you can be misleading, but always end up doing the right thing for the people you love.

My kids have a new favorite word: random. They use it all the time, everyday. And while they actually use it correctly (sort of…most of the time), it’s still been bugging the crap out of me… just because of the sheer frequency in which it’s used.

For instance: We will be in the car, driving along, talking about swimming lessons, and Jachin will suddenly blurt out “Taco!” To which Zoe will say, “Wow, that was random.” (It’s not really all that random, though, because Jachin has taken a shine to yelling out “taco!” in the middle of conversations lately. Kind of like Tourette’s syndrome, only more obnoxious and without an actual medical basis.)

At least five times each day, the kids will come up to me and ask, “Hey mom, you want to hear something really random?” And then they’ll tell me something that — to them — is completely out of left field. Or they will say, “You have to see this random thing I created…” And it will be an interesting Lego/Playdough/MyLittlePony sculpture.

Here are some random things I’ve come to learn about randomness:

1) You can say random things… they just have to be weird. Even if repeating it over and over in an annoying fashion makes it mathematically less random. To my children, this is “random”.

2) You can do random things. Again, it helps if the things are weird or appear out of place… like when Jachin does an armpit fart to the pharmacist at Target, and then immediately segues into the Chicken Dance. To Zoe, this is “random”. (To me, this is just obnoxious and rude, and calls for Wii privileges to be revoked.)

3) You can act/say/do/make/create/destroy things in a random fashion. This one is too lengthly to explain. Just come visit my house this summer. We’ll show you a random good time.