TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!

Okay Babies...It's game time! Brett Favre goes for the all time pass record.
He COULD......GO.......ALL......THE.......WAY!!!!!!

Feast of Love more like a Famine

I am loath to put this in the category of the level of disappointment I had regarding the movie Evening. But there's no way around it. First, it was badly shot. Jump cuts used this terrible fade to black followed by the sound of thunder and rain multiple times, which was neither artistic nor particularly poigniant or funny. I tried hard for this movie which really needed to decide if it was a tragedy or a comedy...it certainly wasn't a tragicomedy, that perfect blend of wit/morose. The voice over and the dialog tell us what we're supposed to know rather than the scenes allowing us to infer meaning. I don't know if this is a problem inherent to screenplays from books, but I don't think so. The Hours is a good example of book, screenplay, excellent movie. There were some beautiful lines about love, but most of them were in the realm of trite, overdone, or already been done before. I loved the idea of Morgan Freeman and Jane Alexander in this movie, but their story line didn't allow for great chemistry. The young couple, their love so aptly described in terms of Romeo and Juliet, were rather naive and after school special-ish. Bradley and his search for the perfect partner in love is initially not very likealbe/clueless, and turns out rather okay. The biggest problem is that at a point in the movie it is stated (in a voice over) that Bradley is friends with his previous two wives and their respective partners, one who left him for a woman and one who left him for a man. The final scenes show all these people together as friends with the exception of the lesbian couple so prevalent in the first third of the movie. They disappear completely from the narrative while all the other couples add to our understanding of love and the human condition. If this is a feast of love, where are my lesbians at? There was too much dark and not enough light in this movie, or if it needed to be dark, then let it be so, complete story lines, illuminate the demons a little more. Something. So while Feast looked promising, another misleading trailer, I found nothing to sustain me.

A quick list of movies I want to see posted here so that I don't forget that I want to see them...will likely add more.

Feast of Love
Martian Child
August Rush
The Jane Austen Book Club

Reviews to follow.

Also, movies from the Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival I want to see.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee (This is on Netflix as well.)
Nina's Heavenly Delights (Also available on Netflix when it comes out.)
Finn's Girl
Shelter Me
Vivere

Though I love living in the city, some days it would be easier to see it from the passenger side of a car. On the way in to work I saw a woman, clearly intoxicated and screaming about "that Bitch" at the top of her lungs, nearly get mowed down by a car as she weaved off the sidewalk and into traffic. I was at my second bus stop at San Mateo and Central. My first, Central and Yale, yielded students, homeless or semi-homeless, recent parolees, and a smattering (okay there were three of us) of commuters. What is it with criminals who haven't been caught yet and criminals newly released that make them participate in bizarro bus ride confessions to their buddies sitting next to them, or loudly to some girl on the phone they're desperate to impress? This a.m. a current criminal and new parolee discussed their various and sundry incarcerations, criminal describing two warrants he knows he "has out on his ass." Then once the parolee jumps off at Nob Hill, the criminal phones his girl, asks her to hook him up with a job...his main question, "Does it require a drug test?" I sat at San Mateo and Central completely blanking on any number I could call so that someone could come out and pick the drunk woman up before she really did end up roadkill. After work, I ran over to the bus stop at the VA and as I was approaching I noticed a short stocky man and the driver in a heated altercation. A man in a wheelchair needed to get out of the bus and Shorty tried to hop on before that man had exited. The bus driver asked him to step off and let the man out. Shorty completely blew a fuse and had a full on meltdown. Central is tricky for a variety of reasons, bus patrons might be some of the most diverse of all the routes and the most populated. San Mateo, particularly on the end I travel is often full of veterans, and any number of mild to serious issues they might be rehabbing. I'm a veteran and I've seen the tragedies written in their bodies, the texture of their skin, their walk, the way they hold themselves upright as we bounce along, proud, but stiff, like they're made of metal. The smells make me think of hospitals, nursing homes, a city street at night, piss and vomit beneath neon lights. In all of that there is something hopeful, even beautiful about them. Whatever Shorty's issue, it wasn't about stepping back, the guy in the wheelchair, or the bus driver. He turned and walked back in the building.

I walked Chloe on campus this evening before dusk. We just caught the Sandias in their pink and purple glow. Campus walking isn't unlike taking the bus. I encounter patterns, young women and men (sometimes older) who want to stop and talk about Chloe, or who pause long enough to say, "Cute dog!" And people who walk past us like we're invisible. I hate to put a face on this but sorority sisters, you know it's you, though there is the occasional sideways look of disdain, but hey, I'm not dressing for you. I saw a bevy of dachshunds tonight and Chloe loved them all because she is a traitor and only loves small dogs. To be fair their owners were nice and they were very well behaved and cute. I also saw what could only be described as late 90's prom hair topping off what looked to be typical flip flops, jeans and double layered tank tops. And there are always those caught up in what ever it is they're doing, playing music, skateboarding. Tonight it was a painter set up by the duck pond. The other night it was a couple of musicians singing a Brian Adams song (I think it was Brian Adams), only I didn't know they were really playing it, I thought it was a radio. They were siting in the Center of the Universe art piece, and their sound was amazing. On a sad note, what's with the trash people? There was so much garbage in the grass around the duck pond. If I didn't have my hands full with Chloe I would have done a little trash duty tonight. It makes me sad to see it like that. Hell, the school kids over the summer do a better job picking up after themselves. Still, an enjoyable walk.

I miss Steph. I miss the car, the two of us driving on a Saturday, a slow morning before errands, a splurge trip down Rio Grande to catch the sunset (we're never up early enough to see it rise.) I like riding with my left hand tucked under the edge of her right thigh. I like listening to her sing along with the radio or whatever cd we have in. I like it when she sings unguarded. I miss walks in Old Town after dark, catching the tail end of whatever music is playing in the gazebo, letting Chloe lead us to all her favorite places.

The neighbors downstairs are having a good time. Boyfriend and girlfriend, occasional shrieks of laughter, muffled music, the smell of popcorn wafting through the shared heating ducts. I don't begrudge them their happiness. He took the trash out. Steph would be ecstatic, though she would wonder why I have been able to get him to take it out once in awhile, when she could not (what I will forever call Trashgate.) But I am not myself without her. I'm not as nice. I want to tell them to shut up, and to stop burning the popcorn.

"Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better." William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night (Act III, Scene I).
I've watched Sense and Sensibility, again. Also Serendipity (my love of the Cusacks knows no bounds.) I cry every time I watch S &S. The quote above is not from either film. I came across it today. I've been writing, and of course there are loves won and lost in the pages. Well planned love, I think, leads to an ultimately unplanned mess. It seems fairytale-ish to find love looking up at you and as luck would have it, it is the love you'd hoped for. Still the machinations leading up to planned love, the gaze, the pursuit, the variety of staged accidents does love an injustice. It's fun, yes, but what does it really mean? Is it really love if you have to go out there and get it, pursue it like a lioness after a gazelle, go for the jugular? What's left after you've won your prize? How do you strike a balance after all that forward momentum? It's funny to me that love is the one thing I didn't pursue actively. We were good friends first, and for quite awhile. The love part felt very much like looking up one day and seeing it there, right in front of you. I think it's why I love these movies. They illustrate not just something that represents how we found ourselves in love, but something that I thought didn't even really exist. I like that it felt like an accident, like something divine.

Twelve Year Old Window Repair Guys

I would like to believe that the window repair guy is not twelve. Evidence suggests that while he may not be twelve, he still hasn't quite gotten real facial hair. He's too skinny, wears the kind of clothes all the kids wear, he calls me Ma'am with more respect than he should, the kind of respect you show your elders. When did I become an elder? Y.T. talked about it today, she in Boston having lunch outside but away from pesky pigeons, me here in the living room waiting for my twelve year old window repair guy. He called this morning. I told her he sounded like he was twelve. She said maybe it was a woman. I said no, I'm pretty sure it was a guy. We didn't need to go over my expertise on the subject, my love of women was well versed in the hours we spent playing scrabble and eating Indian food, the time we spent doing anything but the writing we needed to be doing. I told her I would fill her in after he fixes the window. I said, when did we get so old? How is it possible that twenty somethings seem impossibly young now? She agreed. Remember when we thought teenagers were impossibly young. Yay, like when we were twenty and so full of ourselves and our big lives. I did so many stupid things when I was twenty, I said. I should be dead. She said, Me too! Now I'm afraid to leave the house without a jacket so that I don't catch a cold. I laughed. She said, It's not funny! I spent the entire time my friends visited offering them sweaters and jackets until they asked if I was geriatric. That's it, I said. Wait until we're forty and thirty seems impossibly young, and instead of lives and loves and twelve year old window guys, we start talking about bunions, arthritis, and 401Ks. The twelve year old is efficient, works well with his hands. I wonder if his hands are scared from working with cut glass, but I'm sitting in the living room and can't really see. It's all quiet and so I think he must be nearly finished. I guess I better go write a check and pay the man.

The Friday from hell

I came home from work on Friday to find Chloe outside of the house, indeed, out side of the fence waiting for me on the corner of Yale and Lead. She smashed through a window. There's not a scratch on her, though I don' t know how she got out and through the security bars without spearing her self. I came in the gate panicked and feeling her all over for cuts, because there had to be some somewhere. I could see some blood droplets on the ground and blood on the sash. She squeezed through a jagged opening in that window that was surely smaller than her body. And then I saw the flowerpot below the window with large shards sticking straight up out of the dirt. The window is high. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to get through the window over the flowerpot of death and down onto the patio with nothing more than a little nick on her tongue which looked okay. I watched her walking all evening thinking that she must have injured her legs at least jumping out like that...she is a long low dog with thick stout little legs and a very basset hound like body (more so every day I think) so I was worried thinking that once her adrenaline wore off she might be gimpy...nothing. I was devistated because we worked with her to be alone in the house. She was breaking off her teeth in the kennel and so we thought, finally, after some work, we could safely leave her in the house. Now I know I can't trust her. She could have died. I also don't know how the cats didn't get out. And since it's a holiday weekend there is no one available to repair this window until Wednesday. She'll be back in the kennel from now on. I broached the subject of putting her down with Steph because we have been dealing with Chloe's extreme separating anxiety for years and years (thanks to her three previous owners), but we can't do it. I guess medication is next as we have tried everything else. I don't even know why she did it. I was home well before any thunderstorms.

This was part of the rottenness of my Friday which really started late Thursday night. I found out late Thursday night by accessing my Hollins e-mail, that someone from VA training (at my work) sent an e-mail on August 21st stating that I and several other employees needed to complete this cyber awareness training by August 21st or be terminated. Again, the email was sent August 21st at 3:45 in the afternoon. I got this mail on August 30th. So I got in to work stressed on Friday and called the appropriate people to find out what was going on...then I spent THREE HOURS taking online exams on cyber awareness...whatever the heck that is. Then the dog and the window. She had been doing so well. This morning I watched her fly hunting and she was really very agressive and hit the window more than once. I thought, for a second, hey, maybe she crashed the window going after a fly. No matter. It is the kennel for her, and a holiday weekend at home alone waiting for the window guys to come.

Home alone isn't such a bad thing after a Friday like that. I really didn't want to be around anyone. I know I'm doing okay here on my own, and hate the doubts that creep in. Steph is better at handling the home front. She's the rock, and I'm the one who flits around. I miss her. I'm okay, but I really really miss her. After I told her what happened making sure to lead off with the fact that Chloe and the cats and I are all alright, she immediately looked up flights home, and was prepared to fly out that night. I wanted to say yes. She is rarely spontaneous, and is always concerned about the budget. I talked her down from the ledge. We were all fine. There was no need. But I felt so happy that she wanted to take that flight, and so lucky. We are never going to do this again, this living apart, because we both know that we are always better together.