Holding hands.

I guess I knew it was over when he tried to hold my hand. Not that the act of handholding in and of it's own was so atrocious that a break-up needed to be instigated, but the way it was done sorta, well, sucked.
We were sitting in a bar and he decided that there was a good chance of running in to somebody he knew and that might know his family.
Therefore it seemed prudent (to him) to cover this incredibly debauched act of contact with his coat. A coat he had already checked when we entered the bar. A coat that therefore needed to be gotten. With the ticket I had in my back-pocket. Which required that I'd stand up in an already a bit too crowded bar to fish around in the backpocket of a baggy pair of jeans to get a small slip of paper so he could safely hold my hand without being seen as "gay". The fact that he was sitting on a squishy loveseat pressing about 60% of his body into someone that could only be described as his boyfriend, cause why else would he be breathing into this persons neck and fingering this persons hair, was apparently ju-u-u-ust straight enough to pass under the incredibly sophisticated radar of whatever friends of his provincial parents would be hanging out in a newly opened bar in the centre of the city at about twenty past one.
But, not to be seen as the bitchy bf I went fishing. Not that I knew WHY it was so gosh-darned important that he'd get his coat right then and there, that sort of information was apparently on a need-to-know-basis and I did NOT need-to-know.

So he gets the coat, comes back (with HIS coat, mine, that was on the same hanger was now hanging forlorn and lonely in a cold cupboard somewhere) and drapes it over our laps. He waited for about three minutes and when still no shrieking image from a forgotten family gathering had come to drag him home to straightsville he decided to fill me in on some of the most top secret information that he had ever divulged in his entire life...

"I want to hold your hand."

I still maintain that at that precise moment something interesting happened outside. Surely the entire bar did not look in our general direction just cause I had a sudden and urgent need to laugh real loud...
But, all merriment aside, If someone decides to stage an entire production just so he can hold your hand it is considered impolite to refuse, and so he was allowed to do so.
Not that we didn't hug or greet "enthousiasticaly" in the street (sometimes) or had our share of quick kisses in front of sundry shop-windows (oft) but holding hands for him was a big deal, which had therefore not happened yet.
Which makes it all the more of a shame that he truly and righteously sucked at it.
I like holding hands. I think it's a sweet thing to do. Something that can create a slight feeling of "MINE" combined with the feeling of "HIS/HERS". The ability to walk hand in hand, or sit, for that matter, comfortably is one of the prime indicators of compatbility, as far as I'm concerned.
Kissing is mechanic, kissing can be thaught, but hands...
And everytime he held my hand he managed to jam his index and middle-finger between my index and middle-finger. Which hurts cause there is only about enough room for one finger there.
I like holding hands, but it should be a general "my finger-his finger-my finger-his..." type of affair. And that can't be thaught.
So when he held my hand the first time and it hurted, I tried to fix the configuration of fingers. It held, then. but next time, again, pain.
So I started to develop a distaste for holding his hand. And from that, more problems sprang. Tiny things, but tiny things amount to a great deal in the end. Shame, really. The entire end of the affair doesn't need telling, nothing very different form all the others.
But the anecdote above did. I've been walking around with it inside me since I watched the cristmas episodes of "the Office" which ended with two people walking off-camera with their hands held in the right way... It sparked a few memories..

Next time, perhaps, about a movie again.

It was an honor just to be invited

Not that I was, I weedled my ticket from a coworker (the webcamwielding one, Krijn, luv ya) who in turn snagged it from our marketing-department, but still.

Oh, right... information... a good thing right? We (coworker, me and friend of coworker) had tickets to go to the dutch premiere of "Chicken Little". And it was surprisingly fun, actually. Now that may have had something to do with the celebs, who up close and personal tend to be more than old and righteously wrinkled (whereas I was as fresh as a dawn kissed meadow, off course, didn't have to get up at 6 am or ANYTHING) but the movie was funny as well.

Not great, but fun, loads of side-jokes and characters who had really no business being there but still managed to add a bit of humor to the proceedings. Shame to say that Disney has definitely lost it. Or perhaps I'm a bit too old now (all of 24, afterall).

In other news, last friday i went to see flightplan. Hmm. Well. Could've been better. Since it is virtually impossible to review this without giving off spoilers, I won't. Live with it.

My life is actually going allright, I guess. I have to very good candidates for a roommate-position, about two-ish candidates for something approaching dating-status, and a weekend coming up where I can dress up AGAIN, and spend my entire weekend with attractive women in my arms (since I'll be ballroom-dancing)

As you may have noticed I'm not that regular, updating this, but I'll try to do better, honest. Still need to find out whether movies are the way to go or I should jsut write about my pretty much dissastrous relationship-score, but we'll see after the two-ish people.

Let me know what you want to know, please, can't maintain this thing without feedback (I'm whiney, I know, please forgive me)

Corpse Bride & Lord of War

Corpse Bride...welllll....Gorgeous, obviously, the puppeteering is astounding, the visuals are great, the bride's legs are great (for a puppet...truly, check them out). All nice and well, obviously, but I was expecting a bit..more... somehow. Danny Elfman's musical score is as usual a very Elfman affair, but I couldn't really escape from the impression that his genius stretches itself all over the general "instrumental" side but as soon as actually singing is involved it sort of..bombs. I couldn't understand most of the lyrics well, it was muddled with to many voices, to many lines, and it was just very tiring to be listening AND trying to comprehend.
But over all, it was a nice movie. Go for the visuals, stay for the bride (who is really well done, and has the only moveable outfit in the entire film, always a good thing) and don't think about the storyline too much, cause that will leave you perhaps a bit unimpressed.

Lord of War on the other hand.. Grand.. Darkly comic, very well written and shot, good casting and ocations..everything was right there (except for Ethan Hawke, but he hasn't been really all that right since wel,, Before Sunrise, I guess)
Nicolas Cage is really the only actor who would be able to put down the center of morality that well, and with center I mean center. Not good, not evil, just in his own very limited world of morals. Money, the beauty of his wife and house, and the "sale" is what he cares for, and very little else. At a certain pooint in the movie a bit-character tells him he has a beautifull everything, and she is very, very right. About the only unattractive things in the movie are the parents and mr. cage himself, and these are more or less not all that there. The parents because we only see them for about 30 seconds in total, and the main character because he is an illusion, a sales pitch given life, one has a problem seeing him for real f he isn't doing what he does best.
I kept thinking about the character WAR from the novel "Good Omens", one of the horsemen of the apocalyps, horsewoman, in this case. She doesn't start wars, she is just always there where wars are. She imbodies everything worth fighting over and the spirit of the fight.
That, for me, is the character Yuri Orlov, he isn't a weapon, but he is the impersonation of why people pick up guns, he isn't what is wrong with the world, he isn't what is right, he just is, and around him, you buy a gun and fight. You don't kill him because he really isn't there, he is the grey figure that tells you how things are, deep inside your head. And he does tell us how things stand, he is right, almost always, and you can't hate him or like him. A well written character. Truly.
Go see this movie, please, please. It WILL give you somehing to think about, even if War and suchlike isn't really your thing (it isn't mine, I was there because of Jared Leto mostly, and the preview had a couple of good lines)


Reading the above gives me the distinct impression it's all a bit disjointed. I apologize. I'll do a better job next time.

Vacation & Johan

It's nearly over... Seven days (and two weekends, but I'm usually off in weekends anyway) of blissfull, no priorities, no hassle vacation. Ah well, I was starting to get bored anyway, so I'm actually not really unhappy to get back to work.

Anyway, I've been to see the movie "Johan" this week, which was, though not great, surprisingly entertaining. It's a dutch movie about a family of soccerplayers, 11 boys, most of whom are in some kind of major-league team. All, actually, apart from the youngest, Johan. He prefers music to mud and is, understandably, a bit of an outcast.
All in all, the movie was entertaining. The plot is a bit predictable, and the three lead characters are as unlikeable as possible given that both Johan and the girl next door are quite heartwrenchingly cute. But the script runs smoothly, the editing is very good, and music was a great inspiration and guidance apparently in the writing, which you see quite clearly in the way musical interludes are handled in the movie.

Afterwards we (me & Diana, friend of mine) went over to the Tara (an irish pub in the centre of Amsterdam, quite my usual haunt, actually) for our customary after-movie-drinks, she needed to update me in the lives of the rich and famous afterall. All in all, a good movie, a nice evening, and the bartender was real cute, always a big bonus.

Check back tomorrow, I'm planning on going to "Corpse Bride" tonight, should be good..