Our hearts pump dust

We're goin' down the road towards tiny cities made of ashes
I'm goin' to hit you on the face
I'm goin' to punch you in your glasses
--- Modest Mouse, "Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes"

I did a few errands (got the Dog her shots, went to the library and post office, etc). I've been reading a lot of fluff. Not total junk, but light reading like historical mysteries. I'm finished with the audio version of Frankenstein and now I'm listening to Of Mice And Men in my car. Gary Sinise reads it --- quite well, though as an actor he naturally puts great inflection and vivacity into the lines of dialogue and much less effort into the (to him) less important narration. He starred in a movie version that was pretty good, along with the amazing John Malkovich.

MA called me and I went to her place. We watched the 2005 version of House of Wax, the one with Paris Hilton and starring her opposite, some girl who was extremely attractive and could actually act. (MA and I like to appreciate hot girls together).

I can't help but think that Paris' death scene in that movie is an in-joke parodying her sex tape, or at least her well-known proclivities. First, the way she dies is a sort of grotesque mockery of fellatio --- she ends up kneeling, head down impaled into a pole --- and then the killer picks up a video camera and films her, and we see Paris' head in that position in a grainy, pale hand-held shot. Total dis!

"If I were in a movie with Paris Hilton," I remarked during a scene where she kisses some guy, "I'd demand a no-touching clause in my contract because of how she's a burbling, scathing cauldron of STD."

Anyway, it was a truly awful movie and horribly gory --- not in the least my cup of tea --- but I must admit the waxy effects at the film's climax were pretty cool.

I bought MA some fries and grilled cheese sandwich at a burger place and we ate them on her bed and then I left.

"How helpless a man is against a direct attack by a woman. As soon as she leaves the schoolroom a girl learns to fend off, ward off wild love; it becomes second nature; it offends noi code; it is commended not only by the world but by those very men who are thus repulsed. How different for a man! He has no such accumulated depth of armour; and the more delicate, the more gallant, the more 'honourable' he is the less he is able to withstand even a remote advance."
--- Patrick O'Brien, Post Captain