I’m sitting on the sofa watching TV, switching back and forth between Star Trek: The Next Generation and some Denzel Washington movie about a bank robbery. Cowgrit comes into the den and asks me to come on to bed. I’ve been up late a lot lately, and she thinks I need to catch up on my sleep.

She has a point. I look at the clock on the DVD player: it’s 9:14. She asks if I’ve written my post for tomorrow. No, I haven’t.

I turn off the TV and get up from the couch. I head into my office to do my duty.

I sit down at the computer and surf to a few web sites. I can’t think of anything to write about, and I’m just distracting myself. I blow away 15 minutes.

I close the web sites and sit, staring at my blank post page for a couple minutes. I still can’t think of anything to write. I want to go back to the TV. Instead, I get up and go into our bedroom.

Unfortunately, Cowgrit has already turned off the lights. But when I turn around to leave the room, she whispers from the darkness, “What is it?”

“Give me something to write about,” I say.

“Huh?” she says.

“I can’t think of anything to write about. What’s happened funny lately?”

“Um,” she says.

I plop down on the bed, in the dark. “Come on,” I urge, “give me something to write about.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything funny. Did the boys do something funny today?”

“Um,” she says.

“Oh,” I say, “I’ve got it.” I get up off the bed, in the dark.

“What?” she asks.

“This,” I say.

“What ‘this’?”

“This situation.” I walk out of the bedroom and back into my office to write all of this. Then I get up and go back to the bedroom.

I ask Cowgrit if I can include the part of our conversation — the risqué funny part — that I haven’t included here. She denies the request. Understandable, actually. Probably best for all concerned, really.

I go back to the computer and note that I’m not allowed to include the funny part of this whole post.

I sign my name

Bullgrit

and click “Publish.”

Damn, this sucks without the funny part.

Viewed: Theater

My friends asked me if I was going to see Transformers 2, and I said, “No, Hollywood has struck out with me.”

Hollywood had what should have been three easy slam dunks for me this year: Wolverine, Terminator: Salvation, and Star Trek. But they completely failed to entertain me; they bored me. Me, a member of their core geek demographic. So I decided to not bother with anymore Hollywood in the theater this year.

But then later in our conversation, I mentioned that my family was going to see UP this weekend. “I thought you weren’t going to anymore movies?” They said.

PIXAR is not Hollywood. PIXAR has never made a bad movie. I’d go see a PIXAR movie even if they made a movie about talking cars or the life of a bug. PIXAR is exempt from my theater boycott.

So, all the Grits went to see UP Sunday afternoon. This was Calfgrit4’s first movie theater experience, and Calfgrit8’s first in at least two years (he didn’t like it when he was younger). I’m happy to announce that all Grits seemed to thoroughly enjoy this show.

It’s a real tear-jerker in places, completely silly in other places, and totally entertaining throughout. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised I liked it as much as I did. It’s a ridiculous romp, but it was up front and self-admittedly a ridiculous romp. It didn’t wrap itself in a cloak of realism or believability. There was nothing serious about this movie other than some of the emotions it pulled out of the audience.

In the beginning of the movie, there’s a series of scenes with no dialog at all, and Calfgrit4 asked, “Is this a commercial? Is the movie going to start soon?” These scenes laid the emotional groundwork for the old man character, and made me want to hold Cowgrit’s hand.

Later in the movie, both Calvesgrit were laughing out loud. The theater was filled to near capacity with whole families, and all the kids (and many adults) were laughing fully out loud through much of the show.

After the movie, during our walk through the parking lot back to our van, our boys were repeating lines and scenes from the movie, and laughing all over again. It does a parent’s heart good to see their kids so filled with humor and joy.

Bullgrit