I loved the first movie, it got me into the books, and then I loved the books.

The major drawback of this sequel is simply that the main love interest of the books and first movie is no longer around.  He’s been written off, probably because they couldn’t get that actor back or maybe because they just didn’t see how they could explain the complexity of Michael and Mia’s relationship in only two hours.  Plus, they left it pretty set-in-stone in the last movie that they were a couple and couples with issues don’t really make Disney sequels (well, okay, Mulan, but that was special).

I found a way to enjoy it, though: pretend it’s not a sequel.

That’s it.  Just pretend it’s a random princess movie using actors you’ve seen elsewhere.  Pretend it has no affiliation to The Princess Diaries and I promise that makes it perfectly enjoyable.

If you can ignore the really bad special effects and the scenes that are supposed to be serious but actually made me laugh, the pilot is a lot better than I thought it would be.  The previews made me nervous, to be honest — somebody up at the CW was like “Let’s showcase the episode’s worst parts.  That sounds like a great idea!”

I’m expecting a few of the actors to grow into their parts — or at least the writers to get used to their actors’ strengths and weaknesses — but a few have already blown me away.

(more…)

We’re leaving in 2 weeks and should be in our new place halfway across the country on October 1st or thereabouts.

In preparation, we’ve been getting rid of junk and things we don’t use, sometimes in the trash and sometimes at Goodwill.  We didn’t have a chance to do all of this before we moved to NJ, so it’s nice to do it now.

I’m particularly happy that I took the time to clean out my email contacts and update my groups.  :)  I split my contacts into 4 groups:

• People I talk to often and regularly.
• People I talk to less often but really like.
• People I rarely talk to but still want to keep at hand.
• People I have no reason to contact ever again except that we have very minor history so I can get away with notifying them when I get published, otherwise I’d just delete them.

Anyone whose name I don’t recognize but belongs to a mailing list I’ll continue to get (like the one from church) I left in my contacts with a note explaining where they’re from.  Anyone extra after that (like my aunt’s friends when I hit reply-all that once) got deleted.

It’s a really nice feeling.  I doubt I’ll keep everything tidy and updated, but here’s hoping, right?

First, there’s a kid next door that used to practice pop-goes-the-weasel way too early for us.

Second, there’s this phenomenon where, sometimes, when I’m in a dead sleep and Alex comes to bed, I’ll open my eyes a sliver and see his black silhouette looming over the bed.

And I’ll start screaming.

It happened twice in college. The first time was worst, because I didn’t recognize him even when he started talking to me and trying to calm me down. He had to turn on the light so I could see him.

Since college, things have been perfectly quiet . . . until last night.

Once Alex calmed me down (quickly enough), he had this dismayed look on his face and said “I was this close to just sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Then, after a long shaky pause: “Take that, pop-goes-the-weasel kid.”