I'm not sure how, but on Friday night, I was coerced into going to see The Dark Knight. Sean has been looking forward to it for months, and since I've dragged him along to such cinematic masterpieces as Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2, I figured I probably owed him a favor or five.

Some days ago I attended a party for the launch of the American version of lastminute.com, at which pink cupcakes and pink lemonade were served (if you click on that link, you'll see why.) We were told that if we ourselves wore pink to the party, we would be entered in a drawing to win a vacation, and since I don't need to hear the words "win" or "vacation" twice, and since roughly 80% of my wardrobe is pink anyway, I obliged with a Pepto-Bismol-colored skirt I bought a few years ago in Singapore, and which has served me fairly well over the years for s

Hmm, Jake Gyllenhaal or Mark Ruffalo---which one would I choose?
Well, which one would I choose in this movie? I mean, if this is how they actually looked in real life, Mark Ruffalo with his extra 20 pounds of weight and his mutton-chop sideburns, and Jake Gyllenhaal with his---well, actually, Jake Gyllenhaal pretty much looks the same. I suppose I'd choose Jake Gyllenhaal then. If I had to have Mark Ruffalo with those sideburns---I mean, if it was absolutely non-negotiable.

So the movie was fairly enjoyable, providing you were willing to suspend disbelief entirely, overlook several large plot flaws and loopholes, and admit to yourself that you were basically watching the poor man's Adaptation combined with the Cliff's Notes to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but what I really loved about Stranger Than Fiction---aside from the fact that it landed in my mailbox with minimum effort on my part, thanks to whichever handsome geek invented Netflix---was Maggie Gyllenhaal's hair.

"Hey Hol, did you know that both 'indexes' and 'indices' are correct?"

"Uh, yes. Actually, I think I did know that."

"Well, don't you think that's kind of unfair?"

"Unfair? What do you mean, unfair?"

"Well, say you use 'indices' in conversation. Then people know that you know a little something, right?"

"Right."

1. We live on a fairly busy city street, in an apartment on the first floor, and the bedroom is in the front of the building. As such, we fall asleep to a certain number of fairly expected noises: high heels tapping on the pavement, ambulances whizzing by, pimps shouting at their prostitutes, you know the sort of thing. A few nights ago, however, my slow slouch into sleep was curtailed by a weird, breathy, lilting sound, as if someone was playing a bootleg record of a Jethro Tull concert and kept getting the needle stuck.