Presto

Presto is one of those words that doesn't mean what we think it means. For some reason it has come to be something we associate with magicians, as in, "Presto! The bucket is now a duck!" but it actually means "soon," as in, Presto, vado in Italia. Actually, soon I'm going to Switzerland and then soon thereafter to Italy, but in any case, I'll be far away. Some of you (rightly enough) are thinking that it will hardly matter where I am in that I never write anything anyway, and to you I say: shhhhh. I don't see the blog bully so much these days; he's got his hands full. I miss him. And so do you. This just in: I do not enjoy Bryan Ferry. At least not the song playing right now. I actually thought it was Roy Orbison, which, if you're me, is not a good thing. I realize that most of America comes down on the other side of the Roy Orbison question. Ditto Neil Young. I don't want to hear about it.

I leave in a week. Before I go, I will see three plays and a circus, because that's the kind of girl I am. I will also do various more typical pre-trip things like wondering if I secretly hate all the clothes I'm planning to pack; making all kinds of lists of international phone numbers; trying to figure out how to use my so-called "mobile devices", which I never use at home; practicing lifting the Too Many Books I am taking with me, making a last-minute trip to the pharmacy. Things like that. Also, I think I may need to buy some more socks. I know they have socks in Switzerland, but I imagine they are about $250 a pair. Switzerland? It costs a lot there. Consider yourself forewarned.

The importance of trifles

I made toast from two slices of the newly purchased loaf yesterday. I think I'm safe in saying that it is the worst bread I have ever eaten. Is it made of recycled paper? Possibly. And I'm not saying that that wouldn't mark an exciting advance environmentally, but I don't think it does a hell of a lot culinarily speaking. Only this morning did I notice that bread bag is proudly emblazoned with the words, "No Salt!"

I would not have previously thought that salt was a critical ingredient in bread, but I'm older and wiser now.

Friends, do not let this happen to you.

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Constant vigilance is required. Be careful out there.

Phew

Right now, there is a flatbed truck parked directly in front of my building. On it, are six huge, unmarked wooden crates, approximately the size of elevator cars. They come up to the middle of my bedroom windows, which makes for a startling beginning to the day. There are three squabbling guys with crowbars fussing around and I waited anxiously as they pried open the first crate. I was afraid it might contain one of several robot overlords, here to take over the human race starting with my block. But it appears to just be some guy's furniture. I don't know where he's moving from, but apparently normal moving trucks can't drive from there to here. Welcome, exotic neighbor. Thanks for not orchestrating the end of civilization.

Buongiorno

The blog bully has lately been otherwise engaged and, as you can see, without the tsking, things go all to hell. But here I am. To be honest, I am still not feeling all that chipper. Meanwhile, I feel that all the world is Getting On With It and being all self-actualized and proactive. I secretly feel sort of small and glowery and envious instead of "Go Team!" about the whole thing. I'm not pleased with myself. There also continues to be a fair amount of tearfulness and hand wringing. All in all, it's not been terribly amusing chez moi of late, and I do my best to spare you the really bleak bits. Still, there are sunny moments.

1. I cleaned the apartment. Now, I know that this doesn't seem very noteworthy, but when you are suffering from a sort of tedious malaise, things can get rather untidy. The revolting dishes have been washed; the bathtub is gleaming; the seven wigs' worth of hair that seems to routinely fall out of my head and strew itself around the house has been vacuumed up; all the shoes have made their way back to the closet. And you know what? It's an awfully pretty apartment when given half the chance. It makes me happy to come home to its clutter-free surfaces in the evenings when, during daylight savings, actual rays of sun come into the living room at about 7pm. Sono fortunata.

2. Italiano! In my new class, I am the dumb one, but at least I'm also the funny one (in English, at any rate). I am ploddingly making my way towards an understanding of when you use avere and when you use essere in the passato prossimo. Soon I will be able to tell you what I did yesterday. Actually, let's give it a whirl now. Ieri sera sono stata in classe. La lezione è cominciata alle 19:30. Or (hold onto your hats now) La professoressa ha cominciato la lezione alle 19:30. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I have no fear of your direct objects and their crazy corresponding verb changes. At least not if we stick with cominciare. I feel pretty good about cominciare.

3. Yesterday I managed to do one of my very favorite things: get a phone service rep to talk to me like a normal person and (bonus points) to laugh. If the person is a native English speaker, I usually succeed, but it never fails to please me. Yesterday, while I was talking to a very pleasant woman at my credit card company, she was explaining the benefits of upgrading my reward-earning card to some other reward-earning card. I told her that I didn't see any difference between them.

"Oh no," she said. "There is a very significant difference. Right now, you're in a tiered redemption structure."

"A tiered redemption structure?" I repeated. "I'm pretty sure you're describing Catholicism. That's what I got out of Dante, anyway."

That got the best laugh I've probably ever gotten from a customer service rep. Fortunately, she was Catholic. I think it works better if you're Catholic. So that was a good day. Plus, I'm no longer in a tiered redemption structure, so I'm pretty sure I can do whatever the hell I want. With my credit card, at least. It's a start.

Collectanea

I am often compelled to entitle these posts "miscellany" in that, well, that's all they can accurately be said to be. Today, I thought I'd see if there were any useful synonyms on offer. (Hi, Thesaurus!) And so it is that I have been introduced to collectanea. I don't think it's altogether accurate to use it here, as I believe it implies a collection of writing by various people, not just a rambly assortment by one, but is it not a lovely word? Might it not be derived from the Greek goddess of collections? May Collectanea bless your baseball cards and bobble-head dolls, to say nothing of your depression-era glass pitchers.

1. I know I have mentioned this to you before, but I don't know whether you behave like proper minions and go look at things merely because I have told you to. Just in case, I'm telling you again. Letters of Note is fascinating. Fascinating, I tell you. And it will make you wish that people wrote you real letters. Sadly, today the first thing on the home page is a letter from Axl Rose, which makes the whole thing seem slightly less elegant than usual, but then, I am a snob. Perhaps Axl Rose is the very person you most desire for a pen pal.

2. Will I ever stop needing to blow my nose every three to four minutes? Ever?

3. Will I make an ass of myself in Italian class today in that I missed the whole first week and perhaps everyone else has totally mastered the passato prossimo? I intended to turn my attention to it in quite a serious way last night, but what with one thing and another, I pretty much just watched more old episodes of a show about FBI cases being solved with math. I did also pause to put some rotten chicken in the compost (Monday night is trash-collection eve) and that incited a lengthy bout of sink-scrubbing and window-opening and regret. These things take time, Italian. What can I tell you?

4. Why is "color-blocking" seen as a good thing while "matchy-matchy" is seen as a bad thing when, to me, they are the same? (And, what's more, I like to have things match. Secretly, I think many street-fashion blogs feature people who look as though they're homeless and only have access to a dumpster from 1986. So there.)

There really is no number 5 unless you would like to hear a long story about how awful the parking is on Tuesdays, and I'm sure you'd rather not. Anyway, I'm in dire need of a Kleenex.

Lest I forget how to write

April sort of passed me by. I spent, what? four days in NY? and then spent the rest of the month recovering from it one way or another. But now it's May and I will try, try again. A week ago I did a rather shabby job of telling a story at a show put together by my delightful friend Katy. To be fair, I was running a low fever at the time. I did wear a new dress and difficult shoes; under the circumstances, that was about as much elan as I could bring to bear. Now, solidly seven days later, I am suffering from a particular malaise entitled "Will I EVER Stop Blowing My Nose?" I walk around feeling such an enormous amount better, but not actually well. I think you aren't really well until you stop noticing your incremental improvements. I go about my tasks slightly dizzy and with a perpetual congestion headache, but encouraged that I am able to get off the sofa for long stretches of time.

Today, for instance, I managed to do the laundry which has been sitting in a heap on my bedroom floor for a week. It was (and is) an extravagantly beautiful day, so it felt quite Cinderella-esque to be at the laundromat while the rest of the populous wandered up and down the street--closed to traffic--enjoying some kind of Cinco de Mayo festival (though why they would have it on the 6th, I couldn't tell you) and, one imagines, eating organic ice cream. Still, it is a great relief to have it done at last and to boldly face a new tomorrow with a dizzying selection of clean underwear. Though I haven't the slightest doubt that I will face tomorrow morning with the traditional dread, please rest assured that my loins shall be most hygienically girded for the work week to come.

Meanwhile, as I lay feverish and depressed (sternly forbidding myself to cry for fear that the resulting supplementary congestion might actually cause my head to explode), my upstairs neighbors had a baby. The simultaneity of these events strikes me as Philosophically Meaningful in some sort of way, but perhaps I delude myself. Maybe it would have only been Meaningful if I had actually been dying, rather than merely very sad with a bad cold. I leave it for you to ponder. Currently, while he is extremely small, I feel quite big-hearted toward him. Obviously, history has already shown us what it will be like when he gets big enough to be audible. I am hopeful that I will be madly in love and Elsewhere by then. It is always possible. Weirdly, last night at a restaurant I used to frequent, I encountered the manager as I was leaving. "Ah!" he said, "You look gorgeous! I didn't recognize you!" [I have been puzzling over whether to be flattered or insulted by this.] "Are you married?" Generally, in this sort of exchange, the next question is, "How are you?" not "Are you married?" but perhaps it's different in France. I said,"No. But someday. Someday." and he said, "I am sure." And, really, he looked sure. So that makes one of us.

Just now, as I gazed out the window full of poetic resolve to enjoy my lovely apartment as long and as fully as I can [read: before the tyranny of the infant upstairs takes hold], a veritable flock of skinny jeans weekended their way down the sidewalk opposite. Ah, boys. However do you get your big feet through the ankle holes?

So many philosophical questions for one day.

Live and in person

Dear blog,
It's not you. It's me.
Love, Kari

If you live here and would like to see me wearing a dress and pretending to be a functioning member of society, please come to the Red Poppy on Sunday night for a 7pm show. The delightful and very talented Katy Stephan, has asked me to tell a story as part of her show. By Sunday, I should even know what that story is.

Spring break

I was just sitting here, compulsively checking my email in case my future spouse has just selected me among thousands of internet strangers (have you tried internet dating? It promotes all kinds of super healthy habits), when I suddenly remembered--hey! didn't I claim to be a writer somewhere along the way? Maybe I should give that a whirl. Now, before you get all excited about my new leaf, let me state for the record that I still haven't A) reviewed my Italian, B) set foot in the gym , or C)gone to the grocery store. But at this point, I'm celebrating all small accomplishments. To wit: I folded several sweaters that were strewn about and I put them...in the closet! Hooray for me!

New York!

The Algonquin was closed for renovations, which thwarted me from crossing a Dorothy Parker salute cocktail off my Life List, but I did get to meet Winnie the Pooh, so I think it all evens out. (It's true. The real Winnie was at the NY Public Library along with Tigger, Kanga, Eeyore, someone I didn't recognize who was wearing a string of pearls (who is not in the pictures, I note. Perhaps she was their chaperone), and Piglet, who is a good deal smaller than I imagined. No wonder he was afraid of Heffalumps. I got all teary-eyed immediately upon seeing them, but that is hardly surprising. I love those guys.)

If you go to New York, I would highly recommend that you do so in April during a week when the weather is perfect and everything is in bloom. When you stand waiting to cross the street, a flurry of petals from nearby trees will swirl around you in the manner of confetti and you will be the star of your own constant Easter parade. I further suggest that you stay with a terribly beautiful, funny, generous hostess who lives on Central Park West. I was fortunate in that I already had one of these, but you should take the necessary time to find one of your own. Truly, it makes all the difference: high ceilings, deco details, an expansive view over the treetops of Central Park to the East Side skyline beyond. It was like being on Fantasy Island. I had a delightful time.

Things I Meant to Do, but Didn't
1. See the Noel Coward exhibit at the Performing Arts Library.
2. Go to a museum of any kind, but notably the Tenement Museum (and apologies to the Blog Bully who wanted me to go to the Whitney)
3. Go out to tea
4. See 4,000 Miles at Lincoln Center (which was only about four blocks from the apartment). It was sold out.

Things I Meant to Do, and Did
1. See several friends, including Talya who came all the way down from Amherst, and two former students I hadn't seen in years. (Everyone's doing well; thanks for asking.)
2. Have dinner at Cafe Habana, as recommended by my friend Bill. Cheap! And delicious.
3. See a play. I knew I'd be sad if I didn't go to the theatre, but I kind of blew it on the half-price ticket booth, so I bought a last-minute mezzanine seat for David Ives' Venus in Fur. I liked about half of it very much.
4. Walk along the High Line. I am a very vocal fan of the High Line. Particularly in springtime. I can't overemphasize this enough: springtime.
5. Go to Smalls jazz club in the Village. Marvel that you can arrive somewhere at 1am on a Thursday night (Friday morning for all you sticklers) and have it be packed. Damn, New York. You're not messing around.

Things I Hadn't Particularly Meant to Do, but Did Anyway
1. Injure my foot with all the walk, walk, walking such that I was limping pretty significantly on the last day (and indeed well into last week).
2. Get completely lost in the Village. Again. Argh. Why is West 4th next to West 10th? Why is the Hudson River where I was pretty sure I'd find Washington Square? Damn you, Village. Damn you.
3. Have Pimm's cups in a sunny restaurant with Talya.
4. Eat an entire sea bass at a fancy restaurant with flocks of waiters.
5. Get in a taxi driven by a man who could not get me from 63rd Street to 53rd Street. (Before all you fitness champions get all "serves you right" about my taking a taxi a mere 10 blocks, I'll remind you that my foot was basically broken at that point.)

Things Many People Told me I MUST Do, that I Narrowly Avoided
1. See the Cindy Sherman show at MoMa. It's not that I didn't go to the show; I did. So did hundreds of other people. My feet hurt so much by the time I arrived that I couldn't imagine standing in line. I went into the lobby, mostly to sit down, but also to take a look at the gift shop. I perused a book in there that allows me to tell you this: as it turns out, I absolutely hate the work of Cindy Sherman. Hate. I couldn't be more thrilled that I discovered this before buying a ticket. Would that I had known before I limped my way to the museum. Should have gone to the Frick. Ah well.

I loved it. I'm wondering if maybe I should move there, even though springtime is not its natural state. I'll let you know what I decide. My upstairs neighbors are going to have a baby sometime this week, which may impact my thinking on this front. Meanwhile, in case you wondered, I have continued to check my email compulsively during the past many, many minutes it's taken me to write this, and my future spouse has not written. This may also impact my thinking on whether or not to move. Possibly my future spouse does not live in San Francisco. This would be inconvenient, but explain a lot.

To answer your question...

No. I did not die in New York.

I've been home for a whole week and yet I have said nothing to you, my faithful reader. Do I feel bad about this? Naturally, reader. Of course, I am assailed by guilt. Pretty much every lazy, inertia-based thing I [don't] do assails me with guilt. There is, therefore, a lot of guilt hovering around me, Pigpen-style. My aura is guilt-colored, which might make amends to some degree, but is hardly the same as actually going to the grocery store, now is it? Or the gym. Or reviewing my Italian. Or reading a book instead of watching television. On and on it goes.

I had a really delightful time in New York and I'll tell you all about it. However, I seem to be having a rough re-entry. Mi dispiache. (Ha! Look! Italian review! Things are already improving. I'll be back here soon.)

Chop chop

I got an email this morning from the blog bully with the subject heading "chop chop" and I steeled myself for some stern words about blog slacking, but that's not what he meant. Yay! It was a joke about the speediness/busy-ness of New Yorkers and how I'd better step up my game because I'm headed to NY in the morning. Don't worry, I had been planning to tell you: Hi. I'm going to NY tomorrow. I have to be on my way to the airport at 5:45AM, which is a time of day I generally opt out of, so please wish me luck. I hope to have stories to tell you when I get back.

Meanwhile, I'm in a dither about packing. April is a tricky time weather-wise. Will I be too hot? Will I be too cold? Will I look like a country bumpkin? (That has nothing to do with April. That has to do with New York.) What to do? This is also the inaugural journey of the very light suitcase I got for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and I have discovered that its lightness may very well be related to its smallness. It is worryingly small. This doesn't concern me so very much for a four-day trip, but I am less confident about this summer's three weeks. Tell me, little suitcase, do you have the capacity for me to be consistently lovely for three weeks? On second thought, perhaps that is too much to ask of a suitcase. Have I mentioned the acne? It's true. My skin has been worse over the last month than it has at any point in my life. Why? Why, O ye gods? Whatever the reason, there is nothing the suitcase can do about it.

Something for you to ponder in my absence: why do pears rot from the inside out, so that you bite into their firm outer flesh without the slightest sense of trepidation, only to spit out a mouthful of mush? It seems odd for fruit to enjoy practical jokes. I win in the end though, because it's Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry's (a mere block away). Ice cream! Take that, fruit.

(And don't go ahem-ing and raising your eyebrows toward the acne paragraph. I'm sure ice cream has nothing to do with it. In fact, I may apply an ice cream compress directly to my chin. Perhaps that will clear things up.)

As I keep saying...

Thank you, Married to the Sea.

Life-Changing Cinema

Last weekend, in a rather pleasing downpour, the blog bully and I went to see The Sound of Noise at New People Cinema, which is the year-round programming home of the San Francisco Film Society, located in San Francisco's Japantown. I had never been there, largely because the films deemed worthy of being shown all seem to be relentlessly depressing. I may be mistaken. After all, I have not seen them, but I do read about them and I cannot say that the descriptions fill me with yearning to hand over twelve bucks.

This time, in an exciting departure, the film was one I'd seen at last year's festival and loved. It's clever and funny and also inspiring of foot-tapping, which is a thing the blog bully seems to enjoy. I was quite excited to see it again and to share the joy, since I had seen it alone the first time around. Before the feature we were treated to what seemed like approximately three dozen (though I think it was just four) previews of capital "F" Films that, true to form, seemed ...anyone?... relentlessly depressing. There was one that was supposed to be "erotic" and "visually stunning" that seems to involve a great many extremely miserable (though lavishly dressed) prostitutes of a bygone era. Then there was one that made me feel like maybe "cinema" as such is just an elaborate joke and that perhaps no one really enjoys it at all, but smart, fancy people pretend to enjoy it just to see if we'll play along. I call this one The Freezing, Freezing Horse. There were others, but really The Freezing, Freezing Horse is sufficiently emblematic.

Voila:
(This is apparently the official trailer, a fact that makes me almost weak with mirth, but I will try to find something more akin to the preview we saw, which is to say longer and even windier. I know, I know. I am a Philistine.)
Ah, here we go.

Look. I'm not saying the thing is devoid of austere beauty and the like, but it also makes me want to kill myself in less than two minutes, which, I suppose one could say is an artistic accomplishment in and of itself. I just feel that if I want to be exceedingly depressed and meditate on bleakness, I could, say, spend an evening alone lying on the concrete floor of my garage. For free.

Just to cheer you up, here is the film we actually went there to see: See? Delightful, no?

But here you are waiting to hear what changed my life. And I'll tell you. The bathroom, that's what. Are you female? Do you live here? You should go to a very depressing foreign film (because, really, in spite of it all, hooray for art) and avail yourself of the ladies' room. The toilets look as though they may have the power to transport you back to your house after the final credits. So many buttons! I am not altogether sure how I feel about a heated toilet seat in a public restroom, but how I otherwise feel about a heated toilet seat on a cold and rainy night is A) surprised and B) good. And if I had a toilet that was equipped with bidet technology featuring heated water? Well, let's just say I would be well contented and very clean. I suspect that Japan is awash with high-tech toilets, but I've never been to Japan. By all means, if Japan is convenient to your home, just go there. Otherwise, you might find it easier to go to Japantown. Among other benefits, the buttons are identified in English.

Oh! I almost forgot. The movie theatre is also very nice.

Present and accounted for

I won't go so far as to call it depression, but the general malaise has continued apace and since I don't like to put all my "oh woe is me" nonsense here [read: did you just spend another evening in your filthy living room watching TV while consuming whiskey and chocolate chips?], it makes me quiet. But it's Friday! And tomorrow a trained professional will attend to my roots such that I may live to be carded at Trader Joe's another day. Also, I have plans this Sunday, which means I will not have the opportunity to sink into the morose, shuffly, sweatpant-clad inactivity that tends to befall me on most Sundays. So, see? All is well. And here I am to entertain you with miscellany.

[Overheard in the hall just now. Girl: Do you want to hear my poem? Boy (with no hesitation): No! Not at all.]

1. I have spent much of the week trying to prepare clues and endless other documents for upcoming scavenger hunts. I am remarkably bad at this. While trying to sort out the order of clues, I thought my brain might actually burst into flames.

2. The blog bully created a small sign to dissuade the oft-mentioned Urinators in the corner by my garage. Our trial run was St. Patrick's Day on a Saturday night, which was kind of a lot to ask of a very small sign, but, to be fair, there was only evidence of one voided bladder. We'll see how it goes this weekend. Also? The blog bully actually undertook this project entirely under his own initiative. He came by my house on the sly last weekend and posted the sign in Pee Corner. He is like a super hero. It may be because he eats so many vegetables.

3. It is a curious thing when you decide on a whim to go to a 9:30 movie on a Thursday night and emerge around 11:15 to find the lobby positively brimming with people. I mean, film festival levels of crowdedness. Wha...? Oh, right. Hello, Hunger Games. Dammit. I was so close to being on the cutting edge. And yet, so far.

4. Lionel Ritchie apparently has a new album out. You can't be more surprised than I.

5. For the record, I have a horror of men who, when not employing them to shield their eyes, put their sunglasses on the back of their neck. Seriously, men of the world, this is a choice that makes you look like a yahoo. Do not do it. Please.

And with that, I wish you a pleasant last weekend of March.

Disappointing fact

An email from NPR links to an article, but has a little paragraph to get you started:

People who consumed about one serving of red meat (beef, pork or lamb) per day had a 13 percent increased risk of death, compared with those who were eating very little meat, a study found.

I hate to bring this up, and I certainly don't think we should dwell on it, but actually we are all going to die. Even the vegans. I was pretty sure NPR already knew that. But since they apparently don't, I kind of don't want to be the one to tell them. You do it.

********
Bonus Unrelated Fact:
Yesterday I accidentally hit someone with a viola. True story.

In which I discuss television for lack of better options

I'm pretty sure I just heard a kid ask his friend, "Why do you want to learn about The Bible? Do you want to learn about, like, Hercules?" I hope that she says no. Otherwise she's in for a big disappointment.

People, it's already Wednesday and, despite what I like to think of as my improvements vis a vis actually writing things here, I am behind this week. It's only a matter of time before the blog bully starts scolding me. Why have I written nothing? Mostly because I have nothing much to say. I am grouchy and today has been a cavalcade of petty mishap. Also, I barely left the house all weekend and during the depressive shut-in festival, I ate a great deal of pasta. I enjoyed the pasta (I always enjoy pasta), but I do not enjoy its seemingly immediate roly-poly results. While skulking around feeling sorry for myself and adding to my girth, I watched two whole seasons of an English show called "Skins," which is kind of like "My So-Called Life" only with nearly continual drug use and a great deal more sex. I liked season one more than I ought to publicly admit, but in season two things became absurd. This seems often to be the case with second seasons; all the plausible dramatic territory has already been covered, so you have to move on to kidnapping! and comas! and stalkers! and hallucinations! and lots of death! I know it's uncool to ask this in a show about teenagers but, why doesn't anyone have any parents? I'm struck that parents would have come in handy in many of these situations. For instance, if my roommate suffered some kind of brain hemorrhage and died in front of me, I'd probably call my mom.

I also have watched several Miss Marple mysteries (more have suddenly become available on Netflix, which is excellent news if you are me). In the opening sequence of one, Miss Marple is in a taxi making her way through London. She passes many charming buildings and then the car turns a corner and a massive industrial building heaves into view, rather marring the landscape. "Oh dear." I said aloud. Almost immediately afterward, Miss Marple utters her first line: "Oh dear," she says.

So there you have it. As I have often suspected, nay, feared, I am secretly an elderly English lady in the 1940s. This may bode ill for my romantic future (and yes, I persist in believing I'll have one).

Opinionated again, but nicer

I recently wrote about a nameless, grandiose, yet still silly play. I cautioned you that the Wrong Response was to think "Ew. Plays. Blech." But in case some of you are feisty renegades who went ahead and thought "blech" anyway, I want you to know that last night I saw a great play. Generally, I would exhort you to go see it, but I got an email today announcing that the run is totally sold out. (In fact, the tone of the email was just slightly "nyah nyah nyah-ish," but one can forgive a small theatre for wanting to say, "See? We've been TELLING you to come." when they have the chance.) Still, for the record, The Aurora Theatre does good work and Body Awareness was a play to make me proud of plays. I laughed; I cried; I thought about human folly and feminism and sex and our eagerness to reject the different and our need to be seen and valued. All that in just 90 minutes. Hooray for the theatre!

Unrelated. Most mornings on the radio, I hear a publicity announcement about the upcoming celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary.

Dear copywriter, About this phrase:

A big bridge deserves a big party.

Really?

Pitfalls

This morning I went to the gym. AGAIN. In the MORNING. I amaze myself. I even ran into a colleague in the locker room who said I had inspired her to get back into the exercise habit. I find this far more hilarious than I could ever explain, but whatever works for her. I had put on my bathing suit under my clothes so I could be a time-saving swimming superhero, but I have once again been reminded of the perils of trying to do clever time-saving things in the morning. The thing about wearing your bathing suit on the way there is that you cannot wear your bathing suit on the way back. And while I'm proud to say I did not forget all my underwear, I do find myself accidentally braless at work. Fortunately a) the students are not here this week, b) I am no Dolly Parton, and c) I have a very bulky sweater. Still, oops.

As a somewhat untraditional breakfast treat I am eating a mango popsicle (a thing spell-check feels I am spelling incorrectly, but if that's the wrong way, what could possibly by the right way?) Why? Because there is no milk for my tea, it seemed like it might be more fun than drinking water and, mostly, it was in the staff freezer with a note that said "help yourself." As I raise the popsicle to my mouth, I am disturbed to find that it smells exactly the same as the lotion provided at the gym. The sensation, therefore, at least from an olfactory perspective, is not unlike sucking on my own hand. I do not recommend it.

Opinionated

Have you ever seen something (heard something, read something) that is hailed as sheer brilliance that you found to be...um....not good? Well, of course you have. And if that thing was Titanic we should be friends. Why do people love that movie so much? Why? It is the worst casting and possibly the worst dialogue in memory. (And while that would seem a weirdly out-of-date example, apparently it so beloved that it is being re-released. Nooooo!) However, that's not the bad thing we're here to discuss. We are here to discuss a play I saw recently. A play that shall remain nameless because I don't want anyone to say "See? Plays. Blech." On the contrary, I have a great love of theatre and I want more people to go see plays, so do that. However, I keep getting email that tells me this play is "shocking," "engrossing," and "not to be missed." When, sadly, it is none of these things.

Let's just say that a major plot point hinges on a Greek tragedy style recognition (think: "I too have half an amulet. Lo! You must be my brother"). Only, in this case the critical object is a clown nose. A clown nose that was tucked into a infant's blanket as he was carried off to an orphanage within, like, twenty minutes of his being born. In the Middle East. Through a war zone. A clown nose that we are meant to believe he somehow still has--in pristine condition--about 30 years later, despite having been moved around constantly his whole life to avoid slaughter. I have trouble even believing that bright red, foam clown noses are likely to be available in remote rubble-y Middle Eastern villages to begin with, let alone that the orphanage personnel would be all, "Do we have all the babies that would otherwise die in a fiery explosion? Great. Oh! Do we have the clown nose that came with that one baby? All right then. We're good to go." This is not, alas, the only problem with the play, but it is a major one. When you hit the big gasp-inducing climax of your very serious drama, you don't want anyone to think, "Are you kidding me? Is there a dramaturg in the house?"

But then, when the lights came up, I saw people in tears and a bunch of people gave it a standing ovation. So what do I know? Thank you, audience, for supporting live theatre and making it satisfying for the artists to perform and for generally being nicer than I am.

Also,we should definitely let those people know about the Titanic 3D re-release. They'll probably be super excited.

On the other hand

Yesterday I was all fired up to Take Advantage of the whole magical extra day phenomenon. I started strong what with the breakfast and the letter-writing and all, but the big Wednesday night extravaganza that I had in mind failed to come to fruition. At all. And that's why I've decided to recant and to let you know, belatedly, that the point of the 29th of February is that it doesn't really count as a real day.

That means that the fact that I got home; watched idiotic sitcoms; shed a few lonely, frustrated I'm All ALOOOONNNEE tears; had dinner comprised of chocolate chips, a glass of whiskey and then later, begrudgingly, some leftover rice; and, as a finale, fell asleep on the sofa fully dressed at 10pm while watching some show involving sorcery is all perfectly fine.

Welcome, March first. I am ready for you.

P.S.

About twenty minutes ago, I mailed my last letter for February. I did it! The challenge was to put something in the post every day in February that there was mail service. Somehow, I sent 25 pieces of mail, though with 29 days, four Sundays and one holiday, I think it ought to have been 24. I hope whoever got the bonus "my math is terrible" missive was extra pleased. So, 25 things mailed, 9 pieces of personal correspondence received. I liked it. The fact that I brought more dedication to this project than anything else I can think of (eating breakfast every day, going to the gym, keeping up the blog, doing any "real" writing, studying Italian, on and on and on) perhaps begs some kind of examination, but, with your kind permission, let's leave that until March and allow me this one bonus February day to bask in my accomplishment. Thank you.

Feeling rather pleased with myself for having written a six-page letter over breakfast (breakfast!) while the sun broke dramatically through the rain clouds (though, frankly, we need a great deal more rain), I drove to work quite smiley (a highly unusual occurrence, I'm sorry to say) and when "A Whisper to a Scream" came on the radio [which a quick Google search informs me is not even the title of the song. Apparently it's called "Birds Fly"], I turned it waayyy up. And that's how I came to discover--yet again, as I do every time it comes on the radio and I turn it waaayyyy up--that the only lyrics I know, or indeed can understand, in the entire song are "a whisper to a scream." The rest of the singing along is more like rhythmic mumbling, but I came in very solidly on the chorus. For those of you keeping score, I have a similar, though slightly less mumbly experience with "Shadows and Tall Trees."

Happy magical extra day of the year.