Christmas Eve in New York

Well, it’s Christmas Eve, which has always been a strange time for us Jews. (Or for this Jew, anyway.) I often want to get all thoughtful and holy and familyish on Christmas Eve, but it’s not really my place to do so. So instead I wind up being totally banal, and I feel all lame and disrespectful. I just got back from Chelsea/the Village/Union Square. The bars and the streets were pretty empty. Even in multicultural New York, Christmas Eve is apparently different from all other nights.

(Maybe the bars get busier later. Or maybe the Upper West Side would have been busier: all those Jews in the Chinese restaurants.)

Playing in the background right now is the movie score to “The Lord of the Rings.” So beautiful. This afternoon I saw the movie again. This time I saw it at the UA theater off of Union Square, where I originally wanted to see it, and the theater was packed. I liked it even better this time around. Damn, those Ringwraiths are scary!

The only problem was offscreen: I was sitting next to this gooey-lovey-dovey starry-eyed young couple. The guy was pretty cute, actually — jet black hair, pale skin, small body frame, wearing a gray ribbed turtleneck sweater. Sort of looked like a vampire-in-training. But he was pissing me off, because he kept explaining things to his girlfriend, and they held each other during the whole movie, and I could see them out of the corner of my eye. Occasionally I’d hear a slurp as they sucked face. I swear the guy spent less than half the movie looking at the screen.

By the way, thanks to Dlevy for pointing out that when I described the cave troll as a cross between E.T. and a bantha, I actually meant the Rancor. You’re right, Dave.

(And Emily — what about Galadriel’s feet? I paid close attention to them this time around… and… well… they looked like feet.)

Before the movie, I had a lunch date with a guy I met online last night. He was a 31-year-old 5’5″ Jewish doctor! Would have been my type, too — he had a really nice voice on the phone last night, and we seemed to have a pretty decent conversation. He didn’t have a picture last night — but while we chatted online, he told me he was attractive. He typed, “You won’t be disappointed.”

I was disappointed. I was totally not attracted to him. And our lunchtime conversation was dead. Oh, well. Win some, lose some.

I’m all congesty and scratchy-throaty and stuffed up again. This is getting to be a real pain in the ass. Is it allergies? Is it a sinus infection that just won’t go away? Meanwhile, I’ve been taking Allegra D, and I think that’s what’s been causing my insomnia. I barely slept last night, and, having watched six hours of “Buffy” in a row earlier that evening, I had Buffyish hallucinations all night. I didn’t really imagine any narrative — but images of Buffy, Xander, Willow and Spike were running through my head all night. (By the way, isn’t there anyone on that show with a normal name?)

‘Tis the week of movie-going. As I said, I’ve seen “Lord of the Rings” twice now. And on Friday night, Mike and I saw “Vanilla Sky.” I liked it — but it sure was bizarre. Apparently, 2001 is the year of psychological-trauma/displaced-identity movies. That was the third one I’ve seen this year. Kind of reminds me of 1987-1988, the year of the adult/child body-switching movies: Vice Versa (Judge Reinhold switches bodies with Fred Savage), Like Father, Like Son (Dudley Moore switches bodies with Kirk Cameron), 18 Again! (George Burns switches bodies with Charlie Schlatter, yet another teenager), and, of course, Big (a boy gets put into Tom Hanks’s body). Why do these things all come out at the same time?

Tomorrow I might see “The Royal Tennenbaums.” Who knows. Christmas is a big movie day for the non-Christians.