helen-louise's journal

Today my stress levels are through the roof, my pain levels are through the roof, and my energy levels are through the floor. What a great combination.

Richard has been a hero over the past few days. Doing two roast dinners entirely from scratch, entirely on his own, including all the washing up two days running. I would not cope without this man. He is amazing.

Yesterday, I spent several hours looking at drawings and photos of topless men, and found it an oddly frustrating and boring experience. I was trying to find the sort of man that *I* find attractive rather than the sort of man which *fashion* thinks is attractive. I never thought I went for unconventional men before, but apparently I do. I was looking for normal men, with a little more muscle than Richard. Instead I found lots of six-packs, and pecs so prominent that they look like breasts despite being made of solid muscle. Ewww. I really do not like the artificially sculpted look.

The reason for this is that I've commissioned an artist to draw my characters Alix & Martin. She's already provided me with one picture, but Alix is so incredibly femme in it that I wanted another picture in which enough of his body is shown to "prove" that he really is male :)

Also, Tim & Peter came round, and we went to see The Hobbit. I would say it is excellent if you like either long-haired beardy men, or New Zealand trees & mountain scenery ;D Personally, I regarded it as severe eye candy for both of those reasons. ( I'm sure some will consider these spoilers. ) Richard was annoyed because I kept stroking his hair and beard and chest hair, but there were hairy men on the screen! It's what happens!

We couldn't be bothered to spend a small fortune on cinema tickets, and we all hate 3D anyway, so we saw the 2D. But it was so obviously intended to be shown as high frame rate, since whole chunks of the film was insanely blurry as 2D. They clearly shot and edited it in HFR, and then just "lost" half the frames. Bah.

Tim & Peter brought us really awesome Christmas presents and I feel guilty that we got them hardly anything. I hate having no money.

Every time I visit North America, I get reminded how impractical European ideas about slowing down global warming are. We think the North Americans should just stop using their cars to drive everywhere, and forget how spread out North American cities are. Because they are not short of space, things there are far, far more spread out than at home. For example, the strip mall - a collection of five or six shops in a single-storey, flat building with a huge amount of parking at the front - that simply does not exist in Europe, as we don't have the room. I made rmjwell fall over laughing when I admitted at alt.polycon 11 that I'd thought a strip mall was a place you went to see strippers.

What really brought this home to me was going to the drive-in with futabachan & Amanda. This North American custom does not exist in the UK, or in any part of Europe I've visited. Of course we have cinemas, but never outdoor ones, except occasionally during summer music festivals. It was cool to be there, but weird - it seemed very wasteful to have each individual car blasting its own sound system rather than the cinema using a single one. And drivers were advised to switch on their cars occasionally to prevent their batteries running out. Because electricity generated by non-hybrid cars' petrol engines is so energy-efficient...

Anyway, the movie, Ratatouille, was cool. And seeing it in Canada means that I can go home & see it with Richard, and thus fulfill my desire to see a Pixar film twice within a few weeks. (I always come out & want to see the film again). Nonetheless, it was a surreal experience for me.