Remember that time?

There are many conversations one might have with one's mother that are fairly universal. If I told you I had a conversation with my mother about my posture or about my marriage prospects or getting enough sleep, you might say, "Oh, lordy. My mother said just the same thing!"

The conversation we had yesterday wasn't one of those. All right, look. I was going to be too polite to say it, but here it is: the conversation we had yesterday makes my mom cooler than yours. Sorry about that.

Me: I saw this cool movie at the Roxie yesterday. It was an Othello adaptation, but set in the jazz world. Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus are in it as themselves. They're just playing at a party.

My mother: I told you about that time I went with Aunt Dot to hear Charles Mingus in the Village, right?
She listened really intently the whole time and said, "That's so interesting."

When she said jazz was interesting, she meant it. She knew a thing or two about music.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aunt Dot.

Is it summer yet?

I think it must be summer. For one thing, the tourists are out in full force. Even at the late-lunch hour of 2pm*, the Haight Street Market was overflowing with people ordering sandwiches in interesting accents; some lady mistakenly went in to browse in the shoe repair shop; and everyone is wearing brightly-colored sneakers and meandering slowly down the [filthy] sidewalk four abreast.

Also, I can't stop thinking about my vacation as though I needed to pack tonight when, in fact, it's a month away. A whole month! A month during which I will worry constantly about what shoes to pack. This has become my latest preoccupation though, sadly, it is largely irrelevant which shoes I pack because my feet seem to have deteriorated to the point where there is no such thing as a comfortable shoe. Every morning I wake up with aching ankles, which seems like a rather esoteric malady, but no less concerning for its exoticism. Yesterday I walked about four blocks and there is still residual throbbing nearly 24 hours later. Not good. Usually, I do a great deal more walking in New York than I do at home, but maybe not this time. Taxi drivers, things are looking good for you.

Tomorrow, in an act of reckless hope, I'm going to a foot clinic at a local pilates studio. In addition to the class fee, I have to buy a "foot kit" for $25 though I believe it is comprised of quite ordinary balls of various sizes (I'm thinking tennis ball, super ball, etc.) that I could get elsewhere for much less, but since I haven't actually seen them, can't. Sigh. The pilates people are very clear that "there will no foot kits for loan!" Slightly disappointing, but since we're supposed to be rubbing our bare, flawed feet all over them, it's probably just as well. What if I got someone else's foot cooties? Maybe someone else has leprosy or something. The last thing I need at this point is more to be wrong with my feet/ankles/knees/hips. It's already a festival of ow.

If the Rub Your Foot on a Ball cure doesn't work (an outcome that seems very likely), I think I'm going to hire four strapping men to carry me around on a litter. If I'm going to be infirm, I might as well be glamorous about it. Surely someone in this town has already constructed a litter for Burning Man or their burlesque show or something. I'll bet I can rent it cheap for the off season.


*I really shouldn't wait till 2pm to eat lunch, particularly since I seldom eat breakfast. When I get that hungry, I can't resist the sultry come-hither of the chocolate milkshake. I know this. As I greedily hoovered it in while waiting in the deli line for a more sensible lunch option, three tourists asked me where I got it. I do appreciate knowing that I'm not the only one afflicted with milkshake weakness. However, by the time I'd gotten my sandwich, the milkshake was gone and, unsurprisingly, I was (and am) no longer hungry. My sandwich, fully wrapped, is hurumphing beside me even as we speak.

I'll be honest, this week hasn't been so hot. It's been all falling asleep fully clothed on the sofa, unauthorized hotdogs and milkshakes, general slovenliness, and crazy leg-aching. I have high hopes for next week, though. See you there.

Slow learner

Why do I go and say things like "tomorrow I'll tell you a great story about pee" when I know I might not? And now I'm a big liar? I'm not a completely pathological liar or anything. There really is a pee story in your future; I'm just busy of late and weirdly exhausted. (There's this thing happening where I stay up too late, then have trouble falling asleep, despite my enthusiasm for the project. In the morning, the Upstairs Baby wakes me an hour or more before my alarm [not cool, UB] so I put in earplugs and continue sleeping, but have vivid dreams about the Upstairs Baby. This has been happening every day for weeks. It's not restful, is what I'm saying.) Still, I didn't want to flake out completely. So here I am. Hi.

Last night I went to see All Through the Night at the Roxie. Have you ever seen a Humphrey Bogart movie that you never even knew existed? It's very exciting. It's a helluva picture. The one-liners don't quit. Plus, a bunch of hoods take down a bunch of Nazis in New York. One of them, of course, is Peter Lorre. It was my idea of a large evening.


On my way smilingly back to my car, some guy slightly ahead of me on the sidewalk, riding a scooter (the kind you stand on and push with your foot, not the kind the belle regazze putter through Rome on) said to me, "They were really letting that guy get into it." "Who?" I asked. "That drummer back there?" "No. The guy at that table. They were all leaning in and he was going, 'I mean, the universe is relative.'" He went on imitating the guy for a bit. "Usually I notice stuff like that," I told him. "But, I missed it." "I find the scooter is really good for that. I listen really intently--and then I'm gone." "Yeah. That sounds like a good eavesdropping strategy," I agreed. "Plus," he said, "I'm a stand up." He swung his scooter around. "I'm going to go back there and hear some more." And off he scooted into the night. If you frequent the comedy clubs, stay tuned for that bit. It'll knock 'em dead.

Tonight in an effort to Be a Grown Up, I addressed myself to the slowly expiring vegetables in the refrigerator. I sauteed a pound of mushrooms with some garlic and red pepper flakes. I steamed some asparagus and topped it with meyer lemon juice. I put on the water to boil for the pasta that would bring the whole thing together and...had no pasta in the pantry.

And so, as circumstances dictated, I had two hot dogs and a glass of cabernet.

Speaking of knockin' 'em dead, I am killing it over here--seven days a week, y'all.

Promises, promises

Oh dear lord. Here it is Tuesday already, which means I'm a day behind on my entirely arbitrarily self-assigned blogging schedule. Egads!

The good news is that tomorrow I'll have a long story to tell you. It's about urine. You'll love it.

For now you'll have to content yourself with the knowledge that I saw the Blog Bully on Friday, which is always a delight, and we saw a really brilliant play, which, when it happens, is also always a delight. You know what else was delightful? The post-show gin I drank. On the whole, Friday really exceeded my expectations, which was fortunate since Pee Saturday wasn't that great.

Do you live around these parts? Are you amenable to Scots swearing a great deal? If so, you really ought to get yourself down to see Black Watch while it's playing at the Armory. It is theatre that takes full advantage of its own genre in a way that is very satisfying. By this I mean that the best plays could only be plays--not novels, not movies. They make full use of a theatrical vocabulary that requires a sort of collaboration between the audience and the performers to give it life. I realize that this sounds disgustingly pretentious while also being almost entirely unclear, which is not an ideal combination for any sentence, but it's the best I can do at the moment.
Short version: it's a great play. Go see it.

Now I'm off to the Roxie for a Noir double feature. Because, hey, I like movies too.

Tick tock

This morning, barely awake, the alarm penetrating the foam of my lousy drugstore earplugs for the fourth or fifth time, I had this conversation with myself:

"What time is it?"
Open one eye, squint at clock.
"It's not a tragedy yet."

Huh. For me, "it's not a tragedy yet" is a legitimate answer to "what time is it?" This is a thing I had not fully articulated before today. It made me realize that I employ a whole different time vocabulary from night to morning on weekdays:

Bedtime
Past my bedtime (when I usually go to bed.)
Insomnia (This spans many hours for which I am, thankfully, usually asleep, though not always.)
What the f*ck is going on with the neighbors (an hour or more before my own alarm goes off.)
Not a tragedy yet (from the first to, say, sixth time my alarm goes off.)
Tragedy (when I actually get up.)
Late

I'm not saying it's a great system, and I can't really recommend it, but there it is.


******


Oooh. Bonus. Breaking news.

NARROWLY AVERTED DIASTER
Just this second I realized that there is a glue stick on my desk at work in the same approximate position that there is a chap stick on my desk at home. While I am sorry to deny you the almost certain slapstick results, I am putting the glue stick in a drawer. Right. Now.

May your Friday be tragedy-free.

Life lesson

Here's a little something I picked up from an old movie last night. I'm not saying it will necessarily come in handy for you; indeed, I hope it won't. But imagine you did find yourself in this situation and I'd never warned you? I'd never forgive myself.

If you come to suspect that your fiance has killed two people (or three, depending on how you consider the unborn child of your sister), do not share these thoughts with him while the two of you are ALONE at a MASSIVE QUARRY.

Can I get some angst with that?

Before the alarm woke me, I had a dream in which I was abandoned by a famous blogger (who was very dressed up) and a successful artist (who briefly left some personalized plates for her wedding on a table next to me) in a hospital basement where I was looking after a baby who was in the so-called care of her alcoholic grandmother.

To this I say: WTF, subconscious? Give a girl a break, whydontcha? I realize that I have neither a thriving career, an imminent spouse, nor a baby, borrowed or otherwise, but do we need to trot it all out at once?

So, I'm exhausted, which is a nice way to begin the day. If you need me, I'll be under my desk, freaking out about my empty shell of a life.

**********

In other news, the fog is decidedly back after such an unusually long absence that I think we are obliged to greet it cordially, whether we want to or not.

As I was leaving the house, a Scandinavian nanny passed by with the requisite stroller. It was like spotting the last polar bear in the arctic--a formerly robust species, now nearly extinct. Who the hell does she talk to at the playground one wonders, when everyone else speaks Spanish?