I'm flipping through channels and just found a movie version of Annie from 1999. Alan Cumming is playing Rooster. His accent is painful. "I remembuh the way ah sainted muthuh..."

Alan Cumming is playing Rooster.

I much prefer Tim Curry.

I much prefer Tim Curry.

Definitely.

Yay for balloons and cake. So, what were the tasks?

Um, "buy [meara] a shot", "compliment [meara]", "buy meara a drink", "get the DJ to announce meara's birthday" (sadly that one was popped too late to be possible), and then one balloon I popped at the end because I couldn't bear to pop all the balloons because they were pretty and fun, and it was "ask meara to dance" and it was after the country music stopped at the techno started so I was like "OK!" and danced with myself to techno for a second. Heh.

Then we went and hung out at the leather social (it's some big leather event weekend so they were out in force) and one of my friends was selling leather gear for tiny people (ie women, especially who are smaller than a size L), and asked if one of my friends wanted to model stuff, and we flirted and laughed at her wearing it, and my other friend loved it and bought it for her. It was awesome.

It's also got Kathy Bates as Miss Hannigan. She seems to be having way less fun with this role than she could be. She just seems grumpy. This part requires all-out falling-over bitter drunk.

Belated birthday wishes, meara!

(...Hil, is that the version of Annie that features SpyDaddyWarbucks?)

Went to see Mamma Mia this evening, and am of the opinion that it is one of The Very Best Movies In The History Of Ever for sheer entertainment & feelgood factor. It was like mainlining sherbet and sequins and salt sea air. I loved it!

(...Hil, is that the version of Annie that features SpyDaddyWarbucks?)

Yep!

It also stays much closer to the original script than the first Annie movie did.

I want to see Mamma Mia. There's a sing-along version opening, too -- they put the lyrics at the bottom of the screen so that the audience can sing along.

And I can't undo it. Damn it damn it damn it.

Fay, my goodness. When you stop beating yourself with that fine handcrafted guilt flail, can't you mail her a card? Even if it's late, if you write a note saying "So sorry this is late; even if it may not seem like it, I think about you all the time, etc., and by the way, there's political turmoil in this country," (maybe leaving out the last part), I would think a grandmother would love it.

Mine always did, as she was Queen of the Guilt Trips, and I was ALWAYS late. Just getting a physical card with a handwritten note, even though it was late, was (1) still a lovely thing to receive, and (2) indicated that I *knew* I was late and therefore busted, so she had some satisfaction over my Guilt Card, though we never spoke of it.

If I were a Grand, I'd *love* a card from Thailand! (Hell, I'm not a Grand, and I loved the Christmas card from Thailand.) So...can't you send a card?

My Mum already sent a card with a forged signature on my behalf, as it turns out.

It's not that there will be guilt trips or repercussions or whatever - and, to be honest, my grandmother doesn't seem particularly interested in what WeeSisterJay or I are doing/where we are at any given time (we exist either to be an audience to her vague rambles about her carers, or else to be boasted about in an impersonal and rambling way to said carers, but what we're actually like as people, or what we're doing with our lives, is of very little interest to her. I think she babysat for me maybe ten times in my life, despite living 3 streets away - but she's fairly convinced that she helped my mother raise both of us, took us to school and generally had some kind of relationship with us.)

I'm just disappointed in myself, you know? I realise that's a fairly pointless emotion to some extent, but, Jesus, it's all of a piece with so many other things where I let people down/fail to communicate/generally suck at being organised or thinking about other people. I mean, sometimes I can be thoughtful, but I can also be just terribly self-involved and feckless, and I do hate that about myself. I've managed to lose the best friend I had in Thailand because of this over the summer - because I sort of curled up in a ball for a week and dropped off the radar, and she freaked out and then felt humiliated for giving a damn, and decided that she couldn't be doing with someone so unreliable. Which is fair enough, but rather gutting.

I don't know whether my Nana even noticed that I didn't phone - she's losing the plot these days. But I'm ashamed of myself, regardless.

Ok, Fay, you screwed up. You are a flawed person. Love you anyway. You are still fabulous, and you still love your grandmother. And she still loves you (to the extent that she is capable of, in her own flawed way).

Is it possible to reframe the self-involved, hedgehog-like fecklessness as Stewing In Your Own Juices, or something else productive and yet needing-the-alone-time? Perhaps as you feel yourself needing to do that, you can send out warnings to friends that it is coming on, and that you will come out of it as soon as you can, but for them to not be too worried about it? Or, even if you can't send up a warning about imminent stewing, at least as you get close enough that it could become an issue, you can let them know that it does happen now and then, and they should not take it as a reflection of you not valuing a friendship?