Bleh

Did I say Baby E was on the tail end of her cold on Monday? I was wrong. She is still sick, and I am sick, and really this has been a crappy week. I feel awful and Baby E has been so cranky, wanting to be held almost constantly, crying if I put her down so I can eat. Uuuuuugh. I have been sleeping incredibly poorly, waking up frequently to cough. I am so thrilled Dh is coming home tomorrow, because I am just about on empty here.

The best part of the past few days was Bunko on Tuesday. (I had a slight sore throat that I attributed to allergies. Oh, that I had been correct.) It was lots of fun as always and it was nice to be out of the house surrounded by my friends. And the babysitters refused payment because Baby E was asleep the entire time! I'm sure their mom told them to do that, but I still give them props. They live just down the street, and I think they are my new faves! They are two sisters, 14 and 12 I think.

I put a few ridiculous movies on the queue for while Dh is gone. I watched Rent (see below), John Tucker Must Die (dumb but funny), and am in the middle of Just My Luck (kind of painful).

Rent...annoyed me. I knew practically nothing about it, not being into the Broadway scene (Blubabe, I guess you can smack me later). Normally I would have just dismissed its simplistic message (mainstream baaaaaad, counterculture goooooood), but I know that my sister E loves it. Now granted, she is 19, and when I was that age, I had some lingering existential angst about the horror of being born a middle-class American. (Listened to a lot of OK Computer in the mid-90s.) But it bothers me that she loves the movie (her angst is active, not lingering - and she is going through some really tough times right now trying to figure out who she is). That she revels in its premise - "We're cool because we are tr@nssexual, smoke pot, and don't have paying jobs!" I really don't think those things make you insta-legitimate. Just because you "buck the system" doesn't mean you're a free thinker. I suppose everyone has to decide where they're going to stand on these issues. I just hope she realizes eventually (sooner rather than later) there are consequences to relentless self-indulgence, the characters in Rent were miserable, and those of us who are happy can't be dismissed as self-deluded self-medicating followers - we actively choose our lives just as 'rebels' do and we are truly happy. Being good and morally clean come with benefits.