2004-01-27 - 1:16 a.m.

I finally saw Return of the King which is of some relief as I can now stop cupping my ears and shouting la la la la whenever people bring it up. Even though they don't anymore 'cause it's been out for long enough at this point that people aren�t really talking about it anymore.

I'll admit to never reading the books. I'm not ashamed of myself, though--it's not like I don't read books, it's just that I hadn't read those ones.

Aside from it taking forever to end (we had bad seats, which furthered the length of the ending), I really enjoyed the ending and how it wasn't all nicey-nicey. I guess that comes out more in the book, which goes to show you, but at the same time I got the point and it took five minutes for the Roommate to explain it to me which also goes to show you.

I actually liked the second installment the best. I usually do. First one always sets the rules and builds character via small adventures, taking forever to assemble the major characters into one cohesive unit.

Third one is where everything that had been building gets tied up and then everyone can go home.

But the second installment in a good trilogy--that's where most of the good stuff happens. You've been with the characters long enough to notice some of the not-so-appealing traits. You get surprised at times, but on the other hand there's still a ton of time left to introduce something outta left field and mix it all up again. That's it I guess--during the first part the tone is being set and during the third part there's so much going on that it's too late to really sneak one in and still be able to tie it up in the end.

There's about eighteen billion people in the world, myself included, and smart people too, who are living their lives wondering what the hell is going on. All their lives, all my life, there's been a beginning, middle, and end. We're taught it in school, writing letters and papers, and we learn it in school--if we don't like what's going on, wait it out and it'll all change soon enough. If we screw things up, hope for the best, take the grade, and start fresh soon enough. When we graduate college, and when I graduated college, there's what? Get a job? Do new things? There's no time frame to go by. There's no reference points by which to mark the progress of the plot, and there is in fact no plot. After all the great books absorbed, when the brilliant film ends and the lights come on, we wade through the spent popcorn and get adjusted to the new world outside and greet a bunch of little stories of indeterminate duration that may or may not have anything to do with each other and which may or may not turn out have any relevance.

But that's okay, though, right?

Really, when it all comes down to it, most of us have the privilege of being in the middle--the second installment. Where it gets darkest or most funny. Most interesting, I guess. Where there�s that elaborate party scene that accounts for a quarter of the budget. Where there�s still enough time left to have almost everything completely change for seemingly no reason, or every. Where everyone does all the stuff that they do at the greatest level of intensity.

Hackneyed, I know, but it�s true that we haven�t read the books that the movies of our lives are based on. Childhood is over and done with. The rules are set. Some of them are permanent. Some of them we can break just to see what happens. Or we can live it nice and quaint and family.

When it�s the end we�ll know it �cause it�s the end. Then we can wrap things up as best we can.

Okay--that had nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings. So I�ll bring it back. If Frodo had never left the Shire, in the book or the movie, crazy crap still would have happened to him. He had destiny going for him throughout the story because he did leave the Shire. But he could have stayed and he would have had a story to tell for staying and he never would have known the greater one.

Fortunately for us (or most of us?), the fate of our planet does not rest in our ability to do what we know we really should do but which we also know we don�t really feel like doing.

We can do whatever we want.

That sounds nice. But it means something too. It also means that we shouldn�t judge people when they give up and just watch TV and aren�t in the mood. There�s probably a reason.

We can do whatever we want and the world is not at stake. We�ve had a Kennedy and we�ve had a Ghandi and we�ve had an MLK, and the world is still the world. At the same time, we�ve had a Hitler and we�ve had a Mussolini and we�ve had an Ashcroft and yet we still have Kennedys and Ghandis and MLKs.

But for every Bush and for every Mother Theresa, there�s folks out there who have had everything in the world thrown at them and maybe gave up or maybe could care less or maybe who tried everything in the world back and got beat down each time.

The point is 1)it�s okay that I didn�t read the Lord of the Rings books but I still saw the movie and 2) I kinda widened the scope a little too much, eh? and 3) Hitler was a very bad man.

And 4) It�s okay to be hackneyed and clich�d �cause it�s okay to do that if that�s what you wanna do. So in that case it�s okay to say that 5) the point is that there is no point, or at least one I can come up with and that makes me no different than everyone on earth when you boil it all down and finally

6) It�s okay if the number of points you list doesn't total three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty, or any multiple of one hundred.