Kat with a K

And where was the graffiti, anyway?

Just to keep us updated:
Days until Thanksgiving: 34
Number of phone calls with parents about Thanksgiving in past two days: 4
Number of neurotic e-mails to roommate about Thanksgiving in said time period: about a dozen
Number of hysterical conversations with said roommate about said topic in said time period: It's kind of hard to say. Since we live together and work together, he has a kind of hard time getting away from me.

Conversational highlights:
Dad: "No, really. It's not like you're going to be missing anything fun."
Mom: "It's a holiday. Someone might as well have fun... Maybe I can tell them I'm on call?"
Roommate: "I had no idea Thanksgiving could be this complicated."
Me (e-mail): "One more thing and then I promise I will shut up about Thanksgiving until at least, you know, November."
(In my defense, I kept that promise for several hours until my mother called me at work to discuss - say it with me now here - Thanksgiving.)
After witnessing said phone call:
Roommate: "You know, I'm starting to be surprised you turned out as normally as you did."
Me: Hysterics. Sort of unquotable.
A bit later:
Me: "So now do you see how I'm not really being unreasonably obsessive about this? Just being prepared for the inevitable?"
Roommate: "It certainly does seem to be a learned behavior."
A bit later still:
Me: "I'm driving myself crazy. I must be driving you crazy."
Roommate: Did not exactly reply. Did watch a movie with me so I could, as I put it, just stop thinking for a while.
Yes, he's a very patient man. Yes, he will be getting a darned good knitted Christmas present. (No, let's not discuss my family's Christmas plans yet. Thanks.)

So, to help me Just Stop Thinking, we watched American Graffiti. Great soundtrack. Interesting seeing the actors (especially Dreyfuss and Ford) so young. Loved Harrison Ford singing "Some Enchanted Evening." But. WTF?

Problem A: The plot. Let's just say that I was not surprised when George Lucas said in the "making of" documentary that the original version was almost twice as long. I definitely felt as though a few of those deleted scenes would have been helpful for figuring out, you know, what the heck was going on.

Problem B: The message. Let's review what we learned:
1. How to get your boyfriend back: Don't sleep with him. Do get into a potentially deadly car crash with another man.
2. How to control a man: Threaten to accuse him of rape. Alternately, threaten to rape him.
3. How to control a woman: Threaten to rape her.
4. Women ruin everything. The boy with the girlfriend did not go away to college. The one without a girlfriend did.
5. Get in cars with strange men. Really, what could possibly go wrong?
6. How to be a good teacher: Chaperone a school dance. Smoke with one student and sleep with another.
7. How to find your soulmate: Hook up with your ex-girlfriend. Join a gang (okay, it was somewhat under duress). Get a message on the radio to "the blonde in the white T-bird," because there could only be one of those.
8. Or: when you respond to his radio message, make sure you don't tell him your name.

It also really bugged me that, at the end, there were little notes of what happened to the four primary male characters, but nothing about the women. Presumably they all got married and lived happily ever after. Or, you know, went insane from dealing with these men.

I also did not notice any graffiti in the movie. Huh?