I woke up feeling incredibly ill this morning, so I decided to dedicate my day to movies (as I usually do when I’m either ill or incredibly stressed.) I didn’t realize it until this evening that I had a slight Western theme going. I woke up around eleven, which is getting slightly better. Thanks to Levi for the support – I can’t imagine anyone not doing this if they didn’t have to wake up for any particular reason at a reasonable hour. I get my best work done after midnight.


Anyway. After rolling very slowly out of bed, I toddled downstairs – still in my pajamas – and pulled up the Tivo menu to see what it had to offer me. Over the course of the night it had recorded ‘The Rainmaker‘, not really a “Western” with Cowboys and Indians, but it was set in a small Western town and there were lots of cowboy fights. It starred Katharine Hepburn, Lloyd Bridges, and Burt Lancaster. Although Katharine Hepburn was obviously too old to be playing the girl in this film, it was pretty good. I was entertained, at least. Not sure what to say about Lancaster – I think this was the first movie of his that I’ve ever seen and he seemed so… enthusiastic. Which, admittedly, matched the character, it just caught me off-guard when compared to Hepburn’s cool, subdued acting style. She had spirit, but it wasn’t as boisterous as Lancaster. Regardless, just as a sign of how incredibly tired and out of it I was, as I was curled up on the couch under my new favorite blanket, I started crying at the end of the movie. Not all-out bauling, just some silent hot tears rolling down my cheek.


It seems that lately, when I’m extremely tired and/or not feeling well, I’m overly empathetic. Hepburn’s role in the film is that of a girl who believes she is plain and will never marry because she’s never granted any attention by men. At the end she’s told point-blank by her brother that she’s plain and that she’ll die an old maid. It was at that point that I started crying. No idea why. Am I afraid of becoming an old maid? I honestly have no idea. But that’s what happened. It was then that I realized exactly how tired I was. And yet, here I am again, wide awake at 3:30 in the morning.

The other Western I watched today was “Flaming Star“, a goofy old Elvis movie. Not much to say, really, except that it was fun to watch all the classic Cowboy Vs. Indian fights, and it was actually pretty good at not just portraying all the Indians as savages. They mostly showed both sides because Elvis is supposed to be half White, half Kiowa. Heh. Who knew Indians sounded like good ole’ Georgia boys? 🙂 It had no real plot with a definite purpose, it just kind of happened with a loose theme of “The moral of today’s story is… Indians are people too!” A nice surprise was seeing Barbara Eden in regular clothes, rather than her usual famed Jeannie outfit.

There was only one venture outside of the Old West tonight. Instead, I went to Edwardian England with Gregory Peck, in the movie, “Man with a Million” – a film adaptation of one of Mark Twain’s classic short stories about a penniless man who is suddenly handed a genuine bank note worth one million pounds. This is all part of a bet, but I won’t spoil what the bet is, because that’s the cutest part at the end. Basically, the whole movie is Gregory Peck unwittingly playing the Tiffany’s Game all over London. I think it’s fairly obvious that, because of that, I loved this movie. 🙂 Plus, it has Gregory Peck in it; what could be better? 🙂 Out of all three movies that I watched today, you all definitely have to see this one. It’s darling. Really. It was so darling, in fact, that it’s given me a rather grand idea for a TV show. 🙂

You see, when I’m ill – especially with stomach problems – movies are the only things that take my mind off of being sick. With my brand of stomach aches, I don’t have any medication to take for it. Hence why I’ve watched way too many movies for my own good (and why no one on earth will play ‘Six Degress of Kevin Bacon’ with me.) When I had my toe amputated, none of the medication the docs gave me worked at all, so instead I watched forty-eight movies in only two weeks time. Of course, I only remember half of them, but it was the only thing that helped. That’s also why I’ve seen Lord of the Rings so many times – I get so engrossed in that movie that I forget practically everything around me. That’s tough for me to do usually.

*sigh* Almost four in the morning now, and only slightly tired. And pretty dang hungry. But I’ve already brushed my teeth and I just can’t be bothered to go downstairs. Pretty silly, eh? That’s my life today. I’m really hoping that I’ll feel better tomorrow because I want to go to the gym, and I’m also in the mood to go horseback riding. Gee, wonder where that came from… 🙂