Ilk

"Ilk (ILK) noun
Sort, kind, or nature, as in 'I refuse to eat
pumpkin, zucchini, or anything of that ilk.'"

Last night The Boyfriend and I went on total Nerd Alert and sat through 3 hours and 42 minutes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" at a special AMC movie theater showing. The small-ish theater was sold out, and we got two of the few seats left — on ground-level, as the stadium seating was all gobbled up. In my tote bag, I had sneaked our food court dinner: his Arby's roast beef, mushroom, and swiss sammie and my Rocky Rococo's pepperoni and sausage Super Slice. Not bad for a food court dinner. Throughout the movie, from time-to-time, The Boyfriend would mumble something here or there about being thirsty — how all that salty food made him crave a beverage, how the Ents releasing the waters (spraying-splashing, gushing-rushing waters) of Isengard wasn't helping. Each time I muttered something like "Well go get something then." He would ask me if I was sure I wasn't thirsty, and I would just shake my head. Hello, I'm far too busy watching Legolas and Aragorn's totally endearing elf-man-love to think about thirst — don't you know me at all?

And while yes, of course, The Boyfriend does know me and was not, in fact, at all obnoxious about his lack-of-liquids (and also did not, in fact, move from his seat for the entire 3 hours and 42 minutes), it still made me realize that there are few out there who are of my same ilk. Yes ilk. This particular ilk is the Lord of the Rings 10+ hour "extendzies" marathon sort of ilk. Maybe The Boyfriend could handle it. Maybe. But there are only two girls I know for certain that are of my same caliber of Lord of the Rings, total nerdom ilk. Rachel and Rebecca were (dare I use this term?) "besties" long before I came into the picture — and yet I'm so glad I found them. They know that it's hilarious when Orlando Bloom spouts lines like "They run as if the very whips of their masters were behind them!" They get that it's tear-inducing when Treebeard the Ent says they lost the Ent-wives and can't even remember what they look like. They understand that things like "There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo — and it's worth fightin' for" is not so much corny as it is true. These girls of my LotR ilk would deal with tummy rumblings and parched tongues for the sake of Middle Earth (and by Middle Earth I mean... for the sake of sitting through a 3 hour and 42 minute movie without a bathroom break or trip to the concession stand). I love that there are people out there, like Rachel and Rebecca, who still look for magic and believe in their dreams. As Tolkien said, "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities." If that's true, then I'd say our ilk has got some pretty powerful stuff.