On Thursday, we had a friends Thanksgiving get-together; Tristan cooked a lot and I ‘helped’ by supervising and getting underfoot. My sole contribution was the vegetable tray, and while preparing this contribution, I discovered that I had purchased a demonic red pepper.

Not often in the history of time, space, and Brothers Grimm lore is evil conquered by being eaten, but I’ll have you know that on this day, good did prevail in just that manner.

After a game of Bang! (which is fast-becoming a holiday tradition), we then split up into three teams for the world’s closest game of Cranium. I experienced what might go down in history as the proudest moment of my life when Tristan guessed ‘tea bag’ from my incomprehensible eyes-closed scribbles that honestly looked more like a shovel being plunged into a steaming turd than anything else. If I ever contract glaucoma and go blind like my grandfather, clearly drawing pictures to communicate is not my best option.

To close out the evening, we watched the Rifftrax version of ‘The Room’, which deserves every bit of negative criticism it has received; it deserves it because in turn, it hurt me so very, very deeply inside. It is unfathomable to me that this movie cost six million dollars to make, in light of the fact that it had all of two sets, five ‘actors’ (I use that term very loosely), and clearly no one was paid to clean up the storyline or even edit it into a coherent piece. But you shouldn’t take me at my word–you should watch it for yourself. In fact, you should probably watch the trailer now. And then watch the related videos. I’ll wait.

Once you’ve experienced the torture that is The Room, the rest of life’s challenges will seem mundane by comparison. Public speaking? Not a problem anymore, nothing you do or say could hurt you more or be less coherent than The Room. Picked up by terrorists for torture for fun and profit? Waterboarding will be a BREEZE compared to The Room–it’s just a few seconds, compared to an HOUR AND A HALF of the worst sort of nothing happening! You can take up slap-fights, death-sports, eating glass, and recreational furniture made out of nails; nothing will hurt you more than The Room.

Yesterday, I took the bus to Southcenter and did not get stabbed; I wanted to get some present-shopping done before Thanksgiving because, frankly, if buying gifts for the people I love convinces them to hang around for another year, then gifts they shall have. Also, I really, really, really wanted to see Precious.

On my way through the mall, I got stopped by a fabulous man who cried out “I LOVE YOUR HAIRS!”. I knew immediately that we were going to engage in a time-honored practice: he was going to tell me beautiful lies, and I was going to give him money. I sat in a chair, and he began to style my hair, telling me he ‘love the natural colors’ and that I shouldn’t change it (HA! HA HA HA!) and that when my hair is curly, it makes me look ‘all the time innocent’ and that when I left the mall, I would have no less than six new boyfriends. He gave me a hug, I gave him money, and I probably would’ve thrown in an extra twenty if he’d thought to comment on all the lovely qualities of my diminutive yet sassy rear end, or the firmness of my single chin or how my boobs were absolutely so perky they defied nature. That level of contracted lying would probably run me another fifty, though.

Armed with my new hairs, I went up to the movie theater, bought my ticket, and proceeded to be punched in the gut six or seven times by Precious. Which isn’t to say it isn’t a very good, worthwhile film; it just hurts to watch it. I think everyone in the theater cried. Theater employees came in to watch us cry. The stranger sitting next to me reached into her purse to get a tissue and passed one down to me when she caught me wiping my cheeks with my sleeve. And maybe we weren’t all even crying for the same reasons, but for even a brief moment, it felt like a profound connection between hundreds of strangers, a shared powerful experience. It’s rare for me to see a film in a theater by myself; maybe it shouldn’t be.