harbinger of doom

Tonight, I hung out in the apartment that I am supposed to move into in about two weeks; we ordered pizza from Dominos, and watched 'The Bourne Identity'. I've seen 'The Bourne Identity' multiple times, and in fact own it, although we were watching someone else's copy. Jason Bourne is about as hot as it gets--it's a classic assassin-with-a-heart-of-gold story, and as I've said before, the great thing about him is that he is intelligent about what he does, rather than just using brute strength to win the day. And, as every heterosexual female under the age of eighty must feel, the scene where he dyes and cuts Marie's hair is about the hottest thing one shall ever see--his muscles are bulging, he's hacking away at her hair with a pair of desk scissors, and the end result is impossibly good, better than the expensively stylish haircut that I got in LA a couple of years ago. So freaking hot!

However, what was *not* hot was that, during the movie, mice (or rats?) were hanging out in the apartment with us. They're rather brazen; the best was when one of them scaled the entertainment center and disappeared into the air conditioning vent above the TV. Since we were watching the movie at this point, this definitely did not escape our collective notice. My first confirmed rodent sighting has greatly increased the possibility that I will contract the Black Death, thus fulfilling one of my fondest imaginings. I took my malaria pill tonight, mostly because I don't want the malaria to take me out before I have the chance to develop the classic buboes associated with the plague.

I woke up around ten this morning, none the worse for my prolonged interaction with the Old Monk last night, and went to the Taj Krishna hotel for a pedicure before joining the rest of the expats in the restaurant for brunch. After brunch, I came home and read most of a Georgette Heyer romance novel, since it was too hot for extended shopping (the high today: 44 degrees Celsius, or 111 degrees Fahrenheit). I was desperately in need of some tammy time--the correct name would be 'sara time', but 'tammy time' has better alliteration, and I stole the phrase from her, so I might as well keep the name of the grand tradition that Tammy has started. I really like the other people who live here, but it's nice to have a short break from the madding crowd. Anyway, I got sick of sitting in my room around four, so I procured a car and went to a bookstore. They have a surprisingly good selection, and I was able to pick up some classics that I've been meaning to read, as well as another Georgette Heyer novel. The ordering scheme threw me off until I realized that the fiction section was (mostly) alphabetical by first name, and then I got along swimmingly. On the way home, we stopped at Baskin Robbins and I got ice cream for me and the driver; they claim to have 31 flavors here as well, but it seems that they are perpetually out of most of them, so I think that it is false advertising. Also, the tragedy of an ice cream cone is that it is oh-so-satisfying through 98% of the cone, but then the last bite leaves you just as thirsty and unquenched as you were before the first taste of ice cream hit your tongue. The last bite is almost always mostly cone, despite how you try to ration the ice cream and push it to the bottom--so while the strawberry ice cream was delicious, I was annoyed at the end of it. Luckily we pulled up to the apartments at that point, so I was able to find some water.

In other news, I shouldn't have taken my sari out of the box; it's beautiful, but I am too short to be capable of easily folding nine yards of brocaded silk mesh. I am also completely out of my element when it comes to draping a sari; I can understand that nine yards is more than enough fabric to cover myself in all modesty, but I don't understand how to wrap it in such a way that it manages to look elegant and stylish, instead of just like an elaborate bedsheet worn to a college toga party. I hope that some latent ability to wear saris manifests itself, or I will have quite the uncomfortable time at the wedding I'm going to this summer.

Now, time for bed (and dreams of Jason Bourne...and more importantly, a stylishly short haircut).