63 Things I Think While Watching White Christmas

Every year, I watch White Christmas at least once before Christmas. It's a requirement for me to feel Christmas spirit. The war! The nostalgia! The singing! The dresses! The tiny waists! The plot holes! The dancing! The fur muffs!

And this is what I think nearly every time I watch White Christmas.

1. The war looks slightly dirty, I'll give you that, but overall much cleaner than I expected.
2. Who brought their saxophone to war? What did they think that would do for them? Fire bullets in very curvy paths?
3. Oh, let's all get nostalgic for the days when $6.60 or $8.80 was considered a steep price.
4. I mean, there was a war on, so maybe we shouldn't get too nostalgic, but hey, you could bring your band instruments to the front line, so at least band nerds could be a little more nostalgic.
5. Who was in charge of bringing the painted backdrop of New England to war?
6. General Waverly is using a stick as a cane—like, a branch that fell off a tree, perhaps during some bombing. Why doesn't he have a real cane? Is he being sent away from the front in order to find a new cane? Could someone fashion him a cane, maybe out of the saxophone? I realize that's a terrible thing to do to a musical instrument, but it's wartime. We all have to make sacrifices.
7. In "The Old Man," the song the men sing in farewell to General Waverly," they sing, "And we'll tell the kiddies we answered duty's call / With the grandest son of a soldier of them all!" So, General Waverly's dad was also a soldier, or am I being too literal? In any event, someone please explore the Waverly back story. It is ripe for more details. And while you're at it, please explain what he did for the rest of the war after the slam-bang send-off Bing Crosby gave him. More General Waverly all the time. That's all I'm asking.
8. Who else, when Danny Kaye tries to brush off the severity of his wound, wants him to say, "It's just a flesh wound!"? Is it just me?

9. I want to go back in time and write headlines for that Variety newspaper that reports on Wallace and Davis and other entertainment news. Oh, to work for a place that allows such alliteration as "Boffo Biz in Better Bistros."
10. Do we have levels of bistros still? Are there good ones and bad ones? How do I know if I'm at a better bistro?
11. I should work the word boffo into more conversations.
12. I should also start saying, "Mutual, I'm sure," when I'm introduced, just like that vapid, she-can't-even-spell-Smith chorus girl does. It will make people think I'm far ahead of them in the conversation.
13. I always have to cover my eyes when Bing Crosby is changing. Seeing him in his underwear, it's just so risque.
14. For me, one of the saddest lines in the whole movie is right after Bing explains to Danny that he doesn't think he'll find a girl in the music business who's ready to settle down. Danny says that that's the first time he's opened up like that, in all the time they've known each other. It's been 10 years since the war, and they've been singing and dancing and touring together that whole time—and this is the most they've ever shared? I am sad for their friendship and wonder what they do talk about. Better bistros? Where to buy more gray shoes that perfectly match their pants? Try to remember the name of the guy who brought a saxophone to war?
15. I wish we still lived in a world where people got so dressed up to go out to dinner and a show. Those people at the club where the Haynes sisters are performing—did you see the dresses? And the very tall heels?
16. I spend a lot of time while watching White Christmas either being nostalgic for a time I never experienced, or experiencing dress envy.
17. Now I'm looking at my jeans in disappointment: Why can't you be a teal flouncy dress?

18. Not that I want to be part of a sister act.
19. Although my sister and I were dressed alike to perform a few times, but this was at church. Singing about Jesus is a far cry from being a sister act in a nightclub in Florida.
20. Now I want to watch that movie Sister Act. You know, the one with Whoopi Goldberg as a nun and Maggie Smith as a mother superior {really, some of Maggie's best work—I don't know why people go on and on about that Prime of Miss Jean Brodie}. Because there's singing and nuns, it's basically The Sound of Music but without the kids. Or Nazis.

21. I do not agree that the best things happen while you're dancing. I think they happen while you're cooking. Or reading.
22. MY LORD, THAT VERA-ELLEN WAS SKINNY.
23. Also, why does her name have a hyphen? Did she not have a last name? Was she the Madonna of her day?
24. Freckle-Faced Haynes, the Dog-Faced Boy, is not all that bad looking. It seems a little unfair to be so judgmental of his looks, Danny Kaye.
25. That audience that got to see an impromptu performance from Wallace & Davis singing "Sisters" got a bargain: I am sure that tickets to their normal show would've cost $6.60 or even $8.80.
26. A snood, by the way, is an ornamental hairnet worn at the back of a woman's head. {Bing asks Danny if he left his money in his snood.} I am not nostalgic for the days when women wore these, partly because it's a silly word to say.

27. Every time I've travelled on the Amtrak, I have willed it to be like this train in White Christmas. A cafe car serving cocktails and with real silverware and napkins. Cozy beds. But as I sit in the cafe car eating warmed up pizza and drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup, I know that it is not the same.
28. Have these four never seen snow before? Why would you want to wash your hair in snow? Or your face? This all sounds very cold.
29. But I am on board with making models of snow-covered mountains with napkins. So cute! Pinterest-worthy, really.

30. I wonder what it would be like to try to sleep sitting up in a cafe car of a train. I've slept sitting up in a normal seat on a train before—on my way back from Morocco, but that is a story for another time—and of course that's comfortable enough. But the cafe car? What if the bartender kept trying to give you more of those creamy white drinks?
31. Speaking of which, what are those creamy white drinks that the four harmonizers look at so longingly while singing about snow? It looks like a milkshake, but why would you drink a milkshake in the winter?
32. Bing does mention a hot buttered rum—light on the butter. I want to make that happen, except I would double the butter.

33. Oh, maybe the milkshake drinking was foreshadowing to the summer-like temperatures in Vermont. But maybe I'm overanalyzing the movie. Maybe.
34. That lady who plays the housekeeper is in The Music Man. I would like to create a game that's like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but it'd be 6 Degrees of My Favorite Musical. I bet you I can work it in to any conversation. That is how 6 Degrees works, right?

35. BUT WAIT: That lady is also in Sister Act.
36. My thoughts on White Christmas are really becoming circular now, and mostly circling around Sister Act, it seems.
37. Third time hearing the "Sisters" song. I would like to volunteer now to sing it, unless I have to wear a snood.
38. I've never understood the General's finances. I know he sunk his whole pension and all his savings into the place, but it's still early in the ski season and there was snow at Thanksgiving. It's probably mid-December by the time Bing and Friends arrive, so that just a couple of weeks of no guests. I realize that I know zero about running ski lodges, but it just seems that he has a long ski season ahead of him and besides, there were people at dinner during the Haynes sisters' performance of "Sisters" {aka, their only number}. Where did those people come from? Are they townspeople who feel bad for the General and so get all dressed up on a random weeknight to come out an eat Emma's cooking?
39. Once the cast arrives, we enter the part of the movie I like to call: I Wish I Knew the Plot of Their Musical.
40. The title—Playing Around—gives no clues.
41. And don't get me started on "Mandy" and "Choreography." One looks back to the minstrel days and one bemoans the state of current theater. WHEN are you happy, fictitious musical-within-White Christmas?
42. BUT MY GOSH, VERA-ELLEN IS SKINNY.
43. Even wearing that white sparkly leotard in "Mandy" where she looks like she may have, I'm sorry to say, an adult diaper under that leotard {why is it so oddly puffy?}, Vera-Ellen is disturbingly skinny.

44. Where do all these cast members sleep? Exactly how big is this ski lodge? Does Emma do all the cooking and cleaning for this place? Or does Susan, General Waverly's granddaughter, help out?
45. And where are Susan's parents?
46. I still don't believe that the best things happen while you're dancing.
47. Betty's velour dress is pretty cool, though. More dress envy.
48. So much could be cleared up if only Betty would talk to Bob instead of believing all these rumors spread by that busybody of a housekeeper, Emma. Betty wouldn't have had to run away to New York to sing her sad, lonely, love/torch song. She and Bob could've sung their "Count Your Blessings" duet in the show because why not? Any song will fit into that musical's plot.
49. But confronting problems and saying to another person, "Hey, I heard this thing about you, and I want to know the truth behind it" works well as advice in a Dear Abby column; in many great love stories, it would stop the plot cold. What if Elizabeth had asked Darcy to explain his involvement in the twisted tale of Wickham? That would've cut Pride & Prejudice in half and cut out all the drama.
50. But I do love that in White Christmas, Betty learns the truth about Bob and his plan to surprise the General while watching TV on a break from performing "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me." This is proof that TV brings us together.
51. Judging from the number of men at the train station on Christmas Eve, it will be impossible to hide all these men from the General. It's his Inn, after all. Of course he'll notice a much more boisterous backstage crowd.
52. Or maybe there's a secret back road entrance we haven't seen? One that doesn't cross over the horseshoe game?
53. Do Bob and Phil have their Army uniforms with them whenever they travel?
54. Or did they have these sent from home?
55. Where is home for them? Do they have an apartment in New York City? Are they like Oscar and Felix, the Odd Couple, and live together as perfectly opposite roommates? Or do they have separate apartments in the same building?
56. One of my favorite lines in the whole movie: General Waverly tells Emma that he got along just fine in the Army without her, and she comes back with, "Yeah, and it took 15,000 men to take my place!" One million points to Emma.
57. Also, can there be a White Christmas sequel where Emma and the General get married? They clearly need to.
58. In this sequel, Emma can also apologize for nearly permanently breaking up Betty and Bob with her baseless gossip. It bothers me that the never addresses her fault in the whole hullabaloo, but she does have that whole "15,000 men" quip in her favor, so I might forgive her.
59. When the General is walking among the soldiers, shaking hands and looking touched, I like to watch this awkward moment: He reaches out for a soldier's hand but withdraws it before actually shaking. It's as if he saw whose hand he was about to shake and remembered how much he didn't like that guy. Perhaps this guy was a chef and couldn't do much with those rations. Or maybe he complained a lot about wearing a necktie during war. Or maybe he stole the General's cane.
60. Considering that Betty never rehearsed "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army," she is a quick study. She should do this professionally.

61. "White Christmas"! They're singing "White Christmas"! And it's not in front of a painted backdrop that somebody brought to war!
62. Why does Bob throw Betty's present in the tree? He should set it nicely under the tree to treasure later.
63. I applaud the person who was so quick to hitch up the sleigh and the horses when it started to snow. They look like a picture print from Currier and Ives.

if only i were in Little Women: thoughts on cross-stitching

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."

Amy says that in Little Women, and perhaps because I've been re-reading that here and there, I've had a hankering to cross-stitch. {Meg would probably admonish me for saying "hankering," since it sounds so slangish and colloquial.}

This cross-stitch desire has only been intensified by how I'm also re-reading Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet, when staying for several days at Netherfield while Jane is recovering from a severe cold—

Sidenote: Do you ever wish you lived in the time where you came down with a cold and it was perfectly acceptable to lay in your bed all day, maybe even for several days? A person got a headache and down in the drawing room, everyone else was all, "Oh my, shall she ever recover? Shall we take her tea? Have the pillows been fluffed? Can she have a clear broth?"

And then they rang the bell and somebody would take it up to them.

I'm suspecting what is most appealing in this scenario is the part where someone brings me stuff in bed.

I don't actually want to live in the time when medical knowledge involved leeches and bleeding out the sickness; I'd rather just have a lady's maid who brings me stuff. Maybe somebody from Downton Abbey could pop over.

So back to my point: While Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield, she, at times, takes up her needlework. She then has very witty conversations with Mr. Darcy that make him smile as he turns away {lest he betray his true feelings by, gasp, smiling at her}.

You can see the obvious link between Mr. Darcy falling in love with Elizabeth and her doing needlework, and with an example like that, who wouldn't want to go buy embroidery floss right now?

No, seriously, who wants to go? Get in the car, and we'll meet at Hobby Lobby. I'm sure that's exactly like the store where Elizabeth went in Meryton to buy her thread to do her Darcy-attracting needlework at Netherfield.

Before we go, I'll research Little Women and Jane Austen cross-stitch patterns so that we know what we're buying. I'm sure that somewhere on Etsy, someone has made a pattern for that storm quote, and maybe it's on special today since it is Louisa May Alcott's birthday.

But wait.

{I'm going to Internet shout; prepare yourself.}

LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND.

I may love Pride and Prejudice and I may love the BBC production of the story, but never, under any circumstances, do I want something like this in my home.

Also, it would take me approximately 17 years to complete, and don't you think there's something accusatory in Darcy's eyes? It's like he's saying to you, "I'm a classic character from British literature and this is what you turn me into? Why couldn't you have gone for the much more mundane and obvious choice like the one below?"

I bet those eyes of Darcy follow you wherever you go in the room, and that has made up my mind: a Little Women cross-stitch project is the only way to go.

you look like belle, you know

The conversation started innocently enough: with talking about Margaret Thatcher and the new movie The Iron Lady.

Actually, when discussing Margaret Thatcher with people from England and Ireland, the conversation isn't exactly innocent. There are Very Strong Opinions and Reactions from people who were old enough to appreciate or suffer from her policies.

While previews for The Iron Lady have made me want to learn more about Margaret Thatcher, I certainly didn't know enough on Saturday night to discuss it with my boss {the English man} and the girlfriend of one of the surgeons I work with {the Irish woman}.

We were in the bar at The Pines Lodge in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where my company was running a medical education meeting for spine surgeons. The first day's sessions were over, and we were passing the time until our dinner reservations at Beano's Cabin—this rustic-sounding restaurant high up on the mountain that is anything but rustic {as many things in richly quaint Beaver Creek are}. Remember this: Any restaurant where the prices aren't printed on the menu is not rustic.

"When I first watched The Iron Lady, I was shocked at how churned up I got," the Irish woman was saying to the English man as I took a sip of my hot buttered rum. I will order pretty much anything that has butter in the name, and a hot buttered rum sounds so perfectly ski resort-y.

"Is that right? I haven't seen it yet, but how interesting that it would bring that all up in you," the English man responded.

My contributions to the conversation at this point could've been:

• "When he says 'bring all that up in you,' what is he referring to?" Yes, I could've asked an Irish person to explain the complicated relationship of the English and the Irish over a drink with butter in it—all in time for us to make our dinner reservation.
• "I saw the musical Billy Elliot, and there's a song in there called 'Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher.' A giant puppet caricature of Margaret Thatcher comes out on stage as kids dance around it singing, 'Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher / We all celebrate today / 'Cause it's one day closer to your death!' Can you explain the miners' strike and the role Margaret Thatcher played in it?"
• "I love Meryl Streep, who plays Margaret Thatcher in the movie. Did you see her as Julia Child?"
• "I read once that Margaret Thatcher went through some sort of image makeover where she was told to give up her Tory hats. Why are Tories associated with hats?"

None of those seemed like good conversation-producing questions, so I went with the most obvious: "But The Iron Lady just came out yesterday, and I was at a reception with you last night—I know you couldn't have seen it already."

"Oh, I got a screener of it," the Irish woman told me.

"A screener? That means you're part of that guild that gets to vote on the Oscars. I've never known anyone who's in a guild—perhaps because they went out with the Middle Ages, along with chivalrous knights and people dying from the plague. But you're in THAT guild. What do you do?"

I was thinking she looked like someone who could've played a friend of Minnie Driver's in Circle of Friends. She could've been in the circle and the guild.

Maybe the Irish woman would introduce me to Minnie, and then I would say to her, "Oh, hey, Minnie! When Good Will Hunting came out, I was in high school and everybody said I looked like you. Can we be best friends?"

And she'd say, "Sure! And you can be best friends with Bonnie Hunt, too—ever since we worked together on Return to Me, we go out for dinner and watch girly movies and drink red wine together all the time."

I couldn't believe my luck: two new best friends, and I wasn't even finished with my hot buttered rum yet.

The Irish woman said, "I worked for Disney."

Minnie and Bonnie were immediately forgotten, along with how I'd have to change my name to Kaminnie to fit in their group.

I started gauging the Irish woman's age and guessing when she would've worked at Disney. Could it possibly have been during the Golden Age?

I'm sure every generation thinks that the Disney Golden Age was during their childhood {except for now, when Disney seems more focused on churning out laugh-tracked shows of teenagers with crazy hair, houses on beaches, and a lot of free time on their hands}.

And when Walt Disney was running the show probably should be considered the Golden Age of Disney.

But can we all just agree that the mid-90s will never be surpassed when it comes to Disney? They will also, for the record, never be surpassed when it comes to stonewashed and tight-rolled jeans, kinked hair, and shoulder pads. {In other words: no one should ever try to make the mid-90s retro cool.}

The mid-90s saw Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King coming out of Disney.

In my hometown—before the movie theater moved out to the mall from its downtown spot on Third Street—the line for a Disney movie on opening weekend stretched around the block. Considering that all of downtown is only a few blocks long, I consider this major scientific evidence that the Golden Age of Disney was in the mid-90s, at least in Iowa.

Reaching across the table toward the snack mix, I casually asked the Irish woman, "So, did you work on, say, Beauty and the Beast?"

"I animated Belle. Do you know how annoying it was to do that ballroom scene?"

I didn't have a good answer for that because the ballroom scene—when Belle and the Beast twirl around that room with windows as tall as the Eiffel Tower—was how I, as a little girl in elementary school, imagined Prom would be.

Thankfully, I'd let go of that misconception by the time I actually went to Prom, which was held in my high school's gym. Forget soaring windows; this was where I did sit-ups and played dodgeball and where I once refused to rappel down a tower the National Guard had brought in.

"It's all that twirling, around and around with her hair flying and dress going back and forth. Then she smiles and looks up at him. Every little movement, another little drawing."

Oh, yes, every little movement and the twirling and the smiling and the dress with the full skirt. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Belle because:

• She lived in France.
• She lived in a castle that had a library where I'd never get bored.
• She had brown hair, just like me. This was important: both Belle and Ariel {The Little Mermaid} shared a longing for a different life, which, for some reason, as a child in Iowa, I resonated with. But Ariel had red hair {and hung around sea creatures all day}. How could I relate to red hair {and the smell of lobster}?
• She got to twirl around in a yellow dress with puffed sleeves.

The Irish woman stopped talking about the ballroom scene and looked at me. "You look a lot like her, you know, love. You could've been the model for Belle."

And with that—the third best compliment I've ever received—I was suddenly twirling in that ballroom, wearing that yellow dress, and singing about how I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.

I realize it shouldn't affect me so much to be compared to a cartoon character.

I realize that I'm 30 and not a little girl anymore who's standing in line on Third Street in Burlington, waiting to get into the newest Disney movie.

I realize that there are lots of issues tied up in how Disney presents female characters: dependent on men, smart but usually more known for their looks, impossibly small waists.

But none of that mattered at that moment: the lady who animated Belle said I looked like her.

I AM BELLE.

I will now start looking for a cottage in France to call my own, and I'm going to start wearing bows all the time.

Or maybe I'll just watch this over and over: a video of "Belle."

the end: in which my life becomes a lifetime movie

{This is the last installment of a three-part story, so maybe, if you want the full context, you should go back and read part 1 and part 2. Or you could just jump in here and try to guess what's happening.}

What's my boyfriend's name?

I considered my options. Quickly. Lies have to come out of your mouth quickly in order to sound like truth. Otherwise, it sounds like you're trying too hard, which I was.

Two basic lies presented themselves, and isn't it frightening how quickly the mind can think of lies?

We are full of stories, and here I was, about to tell one when I wasn't sure why it was necessary. I've lied before about having a boyfriend, but that's when I didn't want any more attention from some guy in a bar, or in one particular instance, at a grocery store. But this was Mohammed, and hate of Christmas aside, he seemed like a genuine good guy, very interested in my life but not about to suggest that he become part of my life.

Just because you're a pretty girl {or so people, including cab drivers, tell you} doesn't mean every man wants to ask you out. This is an excellent hubris-checker to keep in mind, but there I was, about to lie about a boyfriend to Mohammed, safe on the other side of the plexiglass.

The two lies were:

in which my life becomes a lifetime movie {part 1}

I lied to Mohammed.

He was my cab driver in the early evening on a winter Sunday, and I was going from the North Side to Ogilvie Transportation Center, where a train would take me out of the city and back to the suburbs.

I'd just had one of those particularly charmed city afternoons. Coffee with a good friend: a double espresso at Julius Meinl, the cafe that replicates the European cafe experience so precisely that just seeing the elongated sugar packet and picking up the demi-tasse spoon makes my heart twinge for France.

Jessie and I sat by a big, practically floor-to-ceiling window in these deep, burnt orange arm chairs with a small round table in between us, enjoying the winter sunshine. When the sun shines in the Midwest in the winter, it's that much brighter because you've gotten used to gray days. But then there's a sunny—and usually crystal cold—day, and it's brighter also because the sun is reflecting off all that snow.

As she and I talked about books and people we knew and holiday plans, a homeless man stood outside the window holding up a Christmas tree. Where he got the tree I will never know. Was he trying to sell it? Perhaps, but as I told Jessie about Gone with the Windsors, this book I'd just started that fictionalizes the story of King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, the homeless man lost interest in the tree.

He let it fall against the building and then began imitating me. I'm a somewhat imitable {and yet also inimitable} person, I will admit, when I'm talking. There's lots of swirling of hands and expanding of eyes and raising of eyebrows. And when talking about how the King of England abdicated for an American divorcee, I got especially swirling and expanding and raising.

the sound of music

I came home from home yesterday, the kind of sentence that makes sense at the holidays. I went home for the holidays, but of course my home, the one where my Christmas decorations are and the one where I pay the bills, is no longer in Burlington.

I like to think of myself as a two home sort of person. {Note: It is a dream of mine to one day be able to say "my summer cottage." I guess I could say it now; it just wouldn't be true. My summer cottage. There, a dream come true.}

But before I went back to paying the bills and work, I took yesterday as a last stretch of vacation.

Conveniently enough, ABC seemed to be aware of my plan and showed The Sound of Music last night, which is one of those movies that flits through the back of my memory at all times.

I see a fountain, I think of The Sound of Music.

I sing the solfege {do re mi fa so la ti do}, I think of The Sound of Music.

I wear a pretty dress, I think of The Sound of Music.

It's not that I watched it much when I was growing up; I was more obsessed with the Annette Funicello Babes in Toyland. I really just think it's imprinted in my memory because it's one of those epic, everyone-has-seen-it kinds of movies. It's part of our collective memory, collective culture, collective experience {as Americans pretending we were European, perhaps}.

When I was flipping through the channels last night, trying to find something to watch while I sewed, I came across "16 Going on 17," and I immediately wanted to dance on benches.

Because of that song, I have always wanted to dance on benches, leaping from stone bench to stone bench in the rain.

When I was little, I used to make do in the living room, where we had no stone benches. I would jump up and down on the couch and pretend that I was a very grown-up 16 {almost 17} and that someone was singing about how much he wanted to take care of me.

Last night, at a very grown-up 29, I did not jump on the couch, most likely because it is my couch and I want to take good care of it.

Instead, I cut out fabric and sang loudly, which is like dancing on benches in your heart.

the one date i can't find in my planner

One Friday night, I could've done anything, but I chose—instead of baking or sewing or reading or making anything more complicated than a grilled cheese for dinner—I chose to watch a movie I knew would simultaneously comfort and hurt me.

27 Dresses.  The first time I saw it, I was with a good friend at this old movie theater in my town, the kind with just a few screens and where the ticket and the popcorn are the same price:  cheap.

The movie made us both giddy when we saw it in the theater.  Pretty dresses!  Living in NYC!  Adorable apartment!

For girls who live in the suburbs but feel that deep down inside we're urban chic, 27 Dresses made us forget that just outside the movie theater were SUVs packed with soccer cleats, hockey sticks, trombones, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with having 2.5 children in suburbia.

But the movie also made us upset that the straight-laced girl has to get drunk in order to finally become crooked-laced {or whatever the opposite of straight-laced is}.

They always do that in movies, you know.  There's always the girl who's too attached to her planner and her immaculate order, and there's always the moment she finally lets her guard down and allows Prince Charmant in.  That moment always involves alcohol.

Always.

Ok, maybe it's just always in romantic comedies.  I'll try to be more accurate with my blanket statements, but I’ll back up my blanket with examples.
 

27 Dresses

Guys and Dolls

10 Things I Hate about You

Never Been Kissed {technically, this one involves marijuana, not drinking}

As a tiny side note—hence the tiny font size—I realize that my theory doesn’t exactly hold up.  I can disprove myself simply by saying Meg Ryan.  And I bet there are plenty of other ways to disprove me, so why don’t we move beyond this side note and return to that Friday night when I changed into my flannel pajamas at 7:30.  Yeah, let’s focus on how cool/social I am.

That Friday night when I watched 27 Dresses alone, it comforted me because it's a love story.  It's someone I don't know, and they're having adorable moments in beautiful clothes.  I don't have to deal with jealousy when it's Katherine Heigl.

But the movie hurts because of course it's just a movie and it must end well.  {Unless it's a French movie.}

The girl may be single and denying it hurts in the opening scene {generally takes place at a publishing house in New York}, but by that last scene, she's kissing someone perfect for her.

Someone who gets her.

Someone who cares more about her than he does about himself.

And in between those scenes, she gets drunk and the story turns.

After watching movies like 27 Dresses, I don’t start plotting how to create this shiny, perfect hair, perfect vintage apartment, white teeth world.

It’s not even that I want that life to replace my life.

My life is shiny, too, and while I may not have perfect hair, I have some charming vintage furniture, a closet full of sassy skirts, and very healthy teeth {never a cavity!}.

Movies like 27 Dresses do make me wistful, though.

And then I roll my eyes at myself {a tricky thing to do—try it} because I don’t like this pining after a life that isn’t real.  I don’t like that part of me, even the smallest part, finds comfort in these movies.

I seriously get hopeful when I notice similarities between fictional characters and me.

I have an over-stuffed planner!

I do crazy things such as scrub the stove when I can’t sleep!

I like to cook when I’m angry!

I…well, I don’t actually live in New York, but I like the idea of living in NYC, and I’m sure if I were there, I’d live in a brownstone on the Upper West Side!

I don’t want to admit this, but I must:  movies like 27 Dresses give me hope that I won’t be alone for ever.  If the crazy, planner-obsessed girl on the big screen can find the right man, then maybe this planner-obsessed girl will eventually have a wedding date to put in that planner.

I know it’s silly to take hope from Hollywood.  I know my hope rests in God alone and that he has a much bigger plan{ner} than mine.  I know that I should hold all my dreams loosely as I lift my hands to God.

But that’s the practical side of me.  For the emotional side of me, I sometimes need a Friday night alone, an unexpected one, where I take a little eye-candy comfort from 27 Dresses.