Laughter and Relaxation

One of the things I decided to do while I was down in Houston this week was to try to do something positive and fun for myself each day. Yesterday, that was going with my Mom and some of her friends to see the new Will Ferrell movie, Stranger Than Fiction, also staring Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. I went in search of light entertainment and laughter.

As a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of Will Ferrell movies, as they tend to be a little bit too idiotic for my tastes. However, there are a few of his movies that I've loved, including Anchorman (Christina Applegate was fantastic!), Wedding Crashers (hated Will Ferrell's character in that movie but Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Isla Fisher, and Rachel McAdams were all great), and Elf. The funniest part of Elf was when Will Ferrell gave his Dad a Christmas present which turned out to be women's Christmas-themed lingerie. Omg, it was so funny and it made me laugh so hard that no sound was coming out, the way my Dad laughs over British comedy.

Stranger Than Fiction is the story of a boring and bored IRS agent, Will Ferrell, who suddenly, on a random Wednesday, starts to hear a woman's voice narrating his life. The mysterious voice is the voice of Emma Thompson, a writer of tragedies suffering from writer's block and Will Ferrell is non other than the main character in Thompson's evolving book. As Thompson, with the help of Queen Latifah struggles with writer's block and tries to figure out out to kill off Ferrell's character, Ferrell becomes smitten by Gyllenhaal, a baker with anarchist tendencies and a dislike of the US Government's military expense budget.

I've always liked Gyllenhaal (check her out in Secretary and Mona Lisa Smile) and thought she did a great job in Stranger Than Fiction. She was wonderful, although I was hard pressed to believe that any sparks would have flown between Gyllenhaal and Ferrell's characters. Not to say that Ferrell didn't look decent in the movie, because, surprisingly, he did. Stripped of his usual deliberate stupidity and/or sleaze factor, he was actually fairly attractive and quite endearing. All in all, I enjoyed the movie and found it pretty entertaining. It made me laugh, so I got out of it what I wanted.

Today, I went for relaxation as opposed to laughter and had a hot stone massage and a manicure. I've been wanting to try out a hot stone massage for a while, and I was not disappointed. The hot stones against my skin felt like they were melting away stresses, and I left the spa after an hour feeling more limber and relaxed.

Other than that, I've been getting ready for Thanksgiving. I'm spending it with my mom and two brothers, and am looking forward to all of us being together. I'm baking an apple crisp and a pumpkin pie. I'm not big on cooking, but baking is fun. Speaking of which, the kitchen is calling.