I had hoped that the house would be all mine Christmas Day, and it was.  Not since I moved into The Seven Hills Orphanage nearly two years ago have I been this pleasantly alone here.  And, truth told, if I can't be with intimates at Christmas I would rather be alone.  I'm sentimental like that. 

What I like about these lonely Christmases is how quiet out it is.  And it's not an eerie, oppressive quiet.  It's a kind of pristine, peaceful quiet.  Like early-morning-after-a-big-snow quiet.  The absence, for one day a year, of the incessant busy-ness that most of us call a life. 

I had only the vaguest and purposefully tentative of plans for the evening, and nothing on my plate for the day except a little date with a Porterhouse steak I'd made a special trip to McKinnon's Meat Market Christmas Eve for. And they don't call it a meat market for nothin': that dead sexy little midget rang me up.  Go in there and tell me he is not smokin' hot.  He's about ten times hotter than Peter Dinklage. Seriously. I'm considering posting a Missed Connection.

So I fired up the grill  around noon and grilled my steak, and ate it.  Just the steak.  In a little pool of blood.  Because, you know why?  It's Christmas, and when you're alone on Christmas you can do whatever the fuck you want.  No pansying around with baby greens and russet potatoes.  I like it caveman style.  

As long as I was indulging myself, I wanted to take some of my quiet time to do some personal grooming.  I know I seem like I'm anti-manscaping, but I'm really only against excessive manscaping.  I'm a big fan of proper and prudent grooming.  Just don't throw the baby out with the bath water, boys. 

Myself, I'd been needing to tweeze some stray eyebrow hairs.  I'm not ashamed to admit it's coming to that.  And I understand that tweezing is labor-intensive and time-consuming.  But that doesn't make it OK to shave your eyebrows, does it?  In fact, the only parts of a man that should ever see a straight razor are the space from his neck to his nose, and his nuts.  And then, only on special occasions.  

Whether or not Christmas constitutes such an occasion depends on your religious beliefs, I guess.

I also whipped out the flowbee and gave myself a buzz.  What I like about doing it myself over going to a barber is you can give yourself a little fauxhawk, crank up Never Mind The Bollocks, and totally punk out in front of the mirror before finishing the job.  Try asking them  to let you do that on your next trip to Supercuts.

After that I was pretty much done for the day.  I'd made all my phone calls, assured family and friends in all four corners of the globe that I didn't mind spending the day in isolation, high on Vicodin, watching Alvin and the Chipmunks (love that Jason Lee — he plays Dave, the Chipmunks' manager here — and talk about excessive manscaping — he looks incalculably better as Earl, in flannel with a stache). 

I have to say, even Schedule III substances could not save Alvin and The Chipmunks.  I channel-surfed away once I realized the movie was not a clever metaphor for Dave's mental illness, and stumbled onto Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, which I had seen in the (nearly empty) theater with one of my regular movie buddies when it first came out in '06.   


I was immediately transfixed.  You either get this movie or you don't.  And so far, I think it's been me and, um, Darren Aronofsky that have gotten it.  When I first saw it I wept.  I mean, I WEPT.  It was embarrassing.  I couldn't leave the theater even when the lights came up I was so wobbly.  My movie buddy was utterly unmoved, which made it even more awkward.  Watching it again, I have to say it still resonates deeply with me. 

You've got to open your heart chakra for this one.  Vicondin helps.  But even without it, the film is powerful.  Lavishly emotional.  Shamelessly human.  Flamboyantly unironic.  It's less a tale than a tone poem about love and death.  Anyone who has ever encountered either will understand the imagery immediately. 

Oh, to be loved like Hugh Jackman's Tom loves Rachel Weisz's Izzi in The Fountain.  He must have shed gallons of tears in this picture.  They must have had him hooked to an IV off-camera.  His performance is just staggering.  Elemental.  Intuitive.  Brave. True.  Love me, Hugh.  I'm right here.

Does Aronofsky go overboard?  As I said when I first saw it: emphatically.  But, have you ever been with someone when they die?  Have you ever loved and lost?  But really loved and lost?  Did you go overboard a little?  I know I did.

So that was cathartic.  Nothing like a bloody steak, some prescription analgesics, and The Fountain on HDTV to clear out those sinuses, lemme tell ya.

It probably packed an additional punch because I haven't been to the movies lately.  Haven't even been watching TV much ever since I finished my Six Feet Under jag.  I've managed three or four episodes of Mad Men, but can't seem to get too into anything right now.  You have to admit, Six Feet Under was something special.  And some of the guest beefcake they had on through the years — Mama Mia!


I was living abroad the first three years of the series, so I totally missed the zeitgeist on this one. On the other hand, thanks to the wonders of Netflix, you can watch it from start to finish, marathon-style, and evaluate it on its enduring merits.  Happy to report, the series still feels fresh. 

I started it back in August, following Michael C. Hall backward in time from Dexter.  It took me about three months to get through all five seasons, during which I forbade friends and family to tell me anything about the show or the fate of its characters.  And having just finished it a few weeks ago, I feel I can bid adieu to the Fischers with a sense of relief. 

In truth, I was not as moved by the last episode as by the next to the last one.  The final segment, while in keeping with the structure and theme of the show, felt gimmicky and ended up distilling the show down to its barest essence, when it was actually the soap opera qualities that kept me coming back. 

There were other issues with the finale. 

Would a middle-aged gay man ever let his hair go like David Fischer supposedly has in the final montage?  Never mind a gay man in LA.  And Brenda's old lady hair?  I had a problem with everybody's hair in the final sequence, frankly.  A real problem.  As if a hallmark of being old is having some tangled rat's nest on top of your head, when anyone who knows any old people at all knows that they have nothing to do most the time BUT sit at the salon getting their hair done all day.  Seriously.

How to show the aging process on film has been one of cinema's enduring conundrums.  I'll be interested to see how David Fincher handles Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button.  It already looks like bad hair will be playing a prominent role, though....


Another point for The Fountain.  Hugh Jackman didn't have any by the end.  And he was, like, a million years old, or something.

Anyway, my Christmas was anything but harried.  Could very well be that my subconscious was expressing some poignant wish for it to be so in it ending up so hairied.