French cooking still isn't my bag.

After a massive week of filming for Vampire Diaries (something which I shall likely moon over later) Dave took me to see the film Julie & Julia. Now, I had been dimly aware of the Julie/Julia Project for awhile now. I mean, when you have a book hit the best sellers list and a blog climb its way to the top of Salon (which I cannot say I have ever read, but apparently people do) it's hard to go on completely oblivious. At the time I'm sure I was hardly interested in food at all except when I was eating it; and even then there surely was a passing interest at best. So the idea of sitting down and reading about a project where someone is going to cook their way through Julia Child's cookbook seemed...well...bland.

But things change.

Now when my my thoughts seem to be utterly consumed with food when I am not worrying over one project or another in my foreseeable future the idea of a film about two women who must love food as much as I do seems appropo. That, and I simply adore Meryl Streep and Amy Adams (who doesn't?). It seemed like something I could absolutely relate to. I wasn't disappointed. When Julie threw her hands up to the sky and exclaimed to her husband, "I never seem to finish anything..." Well...let's just say it's a complaint I find coming out of my mouth more than I would like to admit.

The only negative thing had nothing really to do with the movie at all. Apparently everyone in Decatur decided they wanted to go to the Regal 24 to see Julie & Julia so the place was packed. We manged to find two seats together up front only to be joined by this old man. No problem. Plenty of people end up coming to the theatre alone, right? I've done it before more than once. I do not, however, make it a habit of taking up my seat as well as half of the seat of the person next to me (which, in this case, happened to be myself) and spend half the movie pressing down on that person's hip. At first I thought it was an accident or else he was larger so he didn't have much room so I scooted over as close as I could manage to Dave. It was distracting and uncomfortable. When I was at last driven to confrontation (something I hate) the guy ignored me. Dave said he thought he was asleep, but I am unconvinced. He didn't look asleep to me and I had heard him chuckling at several points during the movie. I was going to just suffer through, but Dave got over protective and lost it. Which, in this case, meant that he got up and started looking for another seat. Embarrassed, I decided to go out of the theatre and take a bathroom break. When I returned the old man had left and Dave had reclaimed our seats. This time I sat on the inside away from where the old man might sit if he returned. How odd.

Fandom

I like to think that we all have those things that give us that little extra sparkle regardless of how well the rest of our life is going at a given moment. Something that will give you pause in the middle of a store and send you spiraling into a dilemma of 'I don't really need this but OMG I want it'. I have more than one friend who hide stockpiles of yarn and fabric in various and sundry corners of their homes in an effort to appear normal. Like no one else has this problem. As if having something you are passionate about is shameful.

Only that isn't it.

It's not that people are ashamed of passion, it's that people are ashamed of having particular passions. Guilty pleasures. Vices. Whatever. There are very few people who step forward and proudly declare to the general populace that they MUSH, LARP, collect comic books, read/write fanfiction. . .the list goes on and on. And if people do admit to those sorts of things (unless you happen to be Felicia Day or Joss Whedon himself) you're not exactly regarded as one of the cool kids. Whatever that means these days. It's why I have plenty of friends who say they're going to 'fantasy football' instead of D&D or 'camping' instead of LARPing. Really, though, I guess it's a lot easier than explaining that you're off to a weekend where you plan to play a surface elf on a quest to rid the Southerlands from the evils of the Litch King who has seized the throne. I guess the thing is that I just don't really see why it should matter. Why should there be an embarrassment factor here when people who are health nuts or avid Sox fans are taken in stride?

Then again, maybe someone who is contemplating going to the HP opening tonight as Luna Lovegood shouldn't be making this argument.