More cruise thoughts... I think Eryn put it best: "People who like to _vacation_ take cruises. People who like to _travel_ don't."

I think I'm a traveller. I don't appreciate being pampered the way some people do, and I think I'd rather buy lunch at a cart by the side of the road from a local fisherman than go to a fancy restaurant. I don't really like meeting new people. I'm terrible at making smalltalk with strangers. I don't like shows with audience participation. In short, I think I'm not a cruiser. I don't mean to sound like I'm above it or anything... it's just not for me.

Me and D and Iwan and Sara saw "Brokeback Mountain" yesterday afternoon, and then they joined us for dinner at our place afterwards. Always fun to hang out. The movie was definitely above-average and worth seeing. Pretty thought provoking. Fourth-graders that we are, Iwan and I couldn't resist making various gay jokes afterwards.

The whole gay thing really fascinates me. I remember being 12 or so, and being friends with boys, yet somehow knowing that girls had some sort of magic spark about them. It wasn't a conscious choice, it was just there. I suddenly cared what they thought about me, and tried to impress them in any way I could. But clearly there are little boys who feel that spark for other little boys. How weird would that be, especially knowing that most of their peers were different? Crazy.

I so much don't buy the "being gay is a choice" theory, by the way. And that's perhaps why I think I liked the movie. It wasn't a movie about two cowboys who fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together in homosexual bliss. It's about two tough guys in a time and place when being gay could literally be a death sentence, wanting so desperately to be straight, yet finding themselves unable to resist their own needs, very much in spite of themselves. That inner struggle was really well portrayed.

Heath Ledger did a great job, too. Any award nominations that go his way are well deserved. And what a piece of ass!

:)