Pär and I saw Da Matrix the other night with Mary Anne and Arthur. God help me, I can't pronounce it any other way, sorry. It is so completely Da Matrix (intonation much like "da Bears"). Anyway, I'd expected to hate it but guess what? It's good. No, really, it's charming, and if you know me in person you know I can say stuff like that and mean it sincerely, which I do.

I begin to see why Keanu is so successful. He's got an androgynous beauty; he'd make a great sculptor's model. His face is so devoid of expression that instead of inviting you to wonder what (if anything) is going on in his mind, it forces you to look at the surface, turning him into basically a very dynamic piece of decorative art. And he always plays his roles straight and seriously instead of having to smirk ironically at himself like most hip young actors do, as if to cover their asses in case someone doesn't like their movie and they'll need to tell Dave Letterman, "oh yeah, well, I was just doing that movie for fun, 'cause I thought it was cool to do something that sucked."

So I liked Da Matrix. I'm a big softie for subjective-reality movies, anything where if you just free your mind in some way, you suddenly see that everything around you is merely a construct and you don't need to buy into it or play by its rules... I love 'em all. They make me feel so alive.

Pär liked it too, although I think it was mostly the first two minutes of the film that did it for him. (For those of you who might not know, I'm talking about the love of my life here. He's from Sweden, is 6'5" tall, and is in all ways wondrous.) Pär really enjoys that area where science blends into magic so that tech elements create people who are practically wizards.

He also enjoys watching kickass women running around, don't we all. After those first two minutes he was less thrilled with the movie, but still appreciated the gleaming f/x and stylish action sequences. Is it very obnoxious to write f/x? "Effects" can mean many things. "f/x" is specific.

I come back to bed to wake him on a sleepy morning. I snuggle up to him and cuddle the round bulge that is his butt covered in four layers of blanket.

K: ooh you have such a cute little bubble butt!

P: *incoherent mumble*

K: Was that Swedish?

P: I said, it is a lean mean fightin' butt.

K: Yes, that's right. It's a lean mean fightin' butt alright.

P: It is Da Matrix butt.

K: Yes. Not a cute bubble butt. It is Da Matrix butt.

P: Da Matrix butt. Da Matrix butt. *mumbling becomes incoherent*

K: I'll just let you sleep some more, then.