there’s a man in my house. as a general rule, men inhabit my house, but this one is a man i know only slightly: a friend of my mother’s from work who fixes the plumbing. right now he’s tackling the faucet in the kitchen downstairs, which i didn’t know was broken until he called. my mother is racing for the cure, my father is shlepping my little brother to a chess tournament, so i’m upstairs alone resisting the urge to the lock the door. when did i get so paranoid?

lana came over yesterday and we got to catch up on bonding. feigning normalcy, as we wandered around bethesda, i managed a can of diet coke and half a chai. we returned to my house for fucking amal, and lana patiently endured my comparing/contrasting daneland and swedeland. actually i never got to visit sweden; that’s on my to-do list for when i return.

finally saw empire strikes back last nite, which i liked most of all. considering i’ve now seen the series (2 – 4 – 1 – 6 – 5) i have a better grasp on the whole thing, if not the phenomenon. my little brother sniffed at the movie box and threw over his shoulder as he ascended the stairs, “star trek is better.” if trekkies are trekkies, what are star wars-ians?

liz came over to keep my feet warm as we watched the final sequence, full of stories of how much fun the girlz had at the lake. naturally i didn’t make it to the i.g. concert, although i did manage to stay up half an hour later than usual. and now dearliz is off for her three-month stint as a fledgling artiste in nyc. i don’t have the energy to be jealous, though it goes without saying i’ll miss her immeasureably.

another day of nothing, though miraculously it hasn’t gotten old yet. i accompanied (really, that word looks like it should have a ‘g’ squeezed in there somewhere) my little brother to a midday showing of insomnia. like jonah, i was impressed but not over-so. the unfortunate part of going mainstream is that so often one’s films no longer have real impact. my favorite example of this phenomenon is tim burton who in his indie days produced damn clever memorable flicks: beetlejuice, edward scissorhands, nightmare before christmas. then he got glossy and big-budget and has lately produced nothing but forgettable fluff. planet of the apes for god’s sake.

not that i want to draw an equivalency. just, as interesting and as gripping as insomnia is, it’s a far cry from how original memento was. i left the theater thrilled after memento. memento doesn’t bother with morals; if there’s a lesson to be drawn from it, you have do that drawing yourself — it isn’t coughed up to you from the throat of a contritely dying man. i liked insomnia but i don’t expect it to stick with me. a more apt comparison actually might be to aronofsky whose first pi left me ecstatic and whose second requiem for a dream was good, more generally palatable, far less unique, and burdened with a lesson. what is it with hollywood and morals? ironic, don’t you think, that the moviegoing public has to be lectured by the pious preachers of that desert of depravity?

in response to tinka’s recent declaration, i’ve been compiling a list of Non-Boring american authors. simply from scanning my bookshelves, so far i’ve come up with: steinbeck, salinger, miller, poe, vonnegut, morrisson, marrion zimmer bradley, ntozake shange, mark twain, ken kesey, sylvia plath, and michael cunningham.

must be well enough for indigo girls tonite. mild relapse last nite convinced my mother i have a parasite. if i name it, is it more likely to stay or leave? liz once said you only name the things that die. maybe i should name it henry james — two birds with one stone, init.

sickness also simplifies. the key is to give into it. you have to love your sickness: the going to bed at 9 p.m., the inability to conduct phone conversations (hey, you never really liked them anyway), the fact that it requires you an hour and a half to eat a plain bagel, the fact that if all you have the energy to do is lie around you may as well catch up on all that tv and all them movies you’d been starved for in copenhagen. you have to love that you can read without guilt (presently, as sir don, tho as amusing as i remembered, was a little heavy — literally: the only edition we have is a super-hardback, which is why i couldn’t lug him to europe — , the history of danish dreams by peter hoeg. oh, i can’t do the little slash-o anymore. oh i may cry.

the point is, sickness has perks. i can’t remember the last time i went four days eating so little. while in some respects it’s killer seeing the container of oatmeal raisin cookies my mother bought specifically for me on my return and know i can’t indulge, i also feel very buddhish. maybe that’s just the malnutritioned lightheadedness talking, but who’s to say? the doctor thinks i have a stomach infection; various nonessential parts of me are undergoing tests. meanwhile i’m just floating around. i watched jedi yesterday — there was one terrific line that now i fear i’ve forgotten. oh! i remember (and am grinning again): “now you will pay for your lack of vision!” genius.

sickness complicates the simplest things. sleeping, eating, leaving the house … more particularly, in my case, escaping to a pretty lakeside cabin where ilana schemed to take six of us. only now five cuz even if i did feel up to task by tomorrow, i’d be afraid of an encore and of making my friends play nurse and being in yet another strange place while i shiver and suffer. it’s unfortunate but i’m trying not to think about it. my friends also surprised me with tickets to the indigo girls concert thursday nite so i’m focusing energy on being well in time for that.

reacclimating to family is an interesting process too. i talked to my wacky brother in australia this morning, who complained that the weather there has reached arctic levels (“in the forties!”) i examined my conscience thoroughly and decided i was justified in having no sympathy for him at all. otherwise we bantered pleasantly. it’s easy from a distance. my little brother, much closer by, is much as i remember him, only with an alarming hint of a mustache. he rented me jedi and oceans eleven, the second of which we watched with ari when he graciously came over to return my bag. i left liz’s house, where a group had gathered yesterday, in such a state of distraction that i’d forgotten it there. in return, i fed him watermelon and tea, sprinkled with his contribution of fresh ginger.

after four months in F-706, my bed and my room felt comically large. but i’m lying in it, reading (about to pick up don quixote where i left off in january), trying to making it mine again.

my last hours in copenhagen were adrenaline-driven and episodic. there wasn’t time for anything else. one last walking tour around the downtown, including nyhavn to make a reservation for that evening’s last group dinner. packing preparations. souvenir shopping — buying amber brooches for my mother and grandmother with much trepidation: i have no experience with jewelry — followed by one last excursion to UFF. one last fancy dinner, enjoyed by all, and then one last period of chilling at DIS. then farewells. then i got sick, and had to pack anyway, and managed to snatch a couple hours of sleep before rising at 6:30 to finish packing. andrea the ubersweet met me at my dorm, cheerful despite the hour, and between the two of us we managed to lug all my luggage (really, do you think that’s where the word comes from?) to the airport and get me on a plane. 12 or so hours later, i was home, dc was muggy, i was still a little sick, but safe. since, my parents have been hovering lovingly and fretting over my inability to eat without becoming queasy. i’m seeing a doctor on wednesday.

how does it feel to be home?

more on clones: alex has an intellectual take, some parts of which, i feel, are more respectable than others. (jar jar = sartre? come on). clearly he has the creds (“i stopped counting how many times i’ve seen star wars when i hit 100″) and i respect his analysis. but i will not back down from my position that h. christiansen simply is not good, at least in this movie. as though he graduated from aaron spelling’s skool of acting, his range extends from Sulk to Throw Tantrum, from Quiver to Smoulder. the times when he’s acceptable are when he’s downplaying. to his credit, his delivery of “yes, master” was excellent.

four word film reviews, via kat, produces these priceless capsules. my favorites: “lucas poops, everyone applauds” “‘dawson’s creek’ in space” and “yoda’s diability benefits withdrawn.”

almost all of today had a Last feeling to it. Last final. returning books. graduation ceremonies (speeches and fake diplomas followed by cheap champagne). picnic in bakken — bread, strawberries, cheese and chocolate. rides, including a hands-on haunted house where we were groped in the dark and screamed for real. lots of pictures. sentiment. maybe the Last time i’ll see these people. anne and krissy, for example, leave tomorrow on their two-week tour o’ europe. stories told, laughs relaughed, a bottle of wine shared between anne and me and i’m buzzed and content.

technically i still have all of tomorrow, even if i will spend it packing. my plane doesn’t take off til 10 a.m. saturday.

it’s late but i’m on an adrenaline rush. CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD and ignorance, for which i hope you’ll pardon me. could some self-identified geek please endeavor to explain the following:

1) if the clones were the product of the evil bounty hunter, why are they fighting for the good side?

2) if the clones *are* essentially jango fett, how are they possibly fighting for the good side?

3) how did amidala fit so many different outfits into that one tiny (and abandoned) suitcase?

4) why is she so important anyway, aside from the fact that she will eventually be luke’s mother?

5) why was george lucas allowed within a light-saber’s distance of the screenplay? never have i witnessed such horrific torture of words. it was heartrending: every cliche, no matter how aged or overworn, was thrown mercilessly into the arena and forced to stagger around, borne up only by the feeble efforts of hayden christiansen. can we all agree he was awful? granted it’s not an easy job, showing one man’s subtle struggle with his character and eventual descent; and george lucas wouldn’t know subtle if it chopped his arm off, so hayden’s pretty much feeling his way in the dark. the desire for power came through. the distrust of democrary — right, not a good sign. but i just didn’t buy that this pink-lipped blue-eyed mamma’s boy was going to end up a fearsome dictator. maybe episode III will make everything clear (and if lucas is smart, he’ll bribe peter jackson into directing it.)

i enjoyed the movie when i wasn’t sent into convulsions by the dialogue or john williams’ score (the bastard is responsible for the equally overblown music in a.i.). r2d2 had some good lines. somehow, impressively, ewan mcgregor managed to remain cool even with a beard and a distracting haircut. (in what century do mullets come back into fashion?) the action sequences, the last quarter, was by far the best part. you could sense how relieved lucas was to drop the blood-from-a-turnip attempt to create credible romance, and focus on what he’s good at. exciting jedis, lights flashing, yoda kicking ass.

largely it was fun. i don’t regret going. now i just have to see empire and jedi straight through so i can have more than just fuzzy notions of how everything fits together.

how big of a snob are you? (via mefi). i know, i know, internet quizzes are so passe (or lj) but this one merits extra attention because i was clicking happily through half the questions with no idea what they meant. yay for the inscrutable british!

for the record, i was 67% snob, which is not beyond redemption. considering i spent the last couple hours browsing dollar-store-equivalents, i feel like i should get more points. maybe enough to balance out my predisposition to judging people by their shoes (but what else are shoes for?)

star wars tonite (again that’s prioritizing, not procrastination). tinka supplied me with english definitions for the scroll so that i can get the gist of the opening sequence in the language god/george lucas intended. i can’t say i’ll try to be excited … but i’ll try to try.