Stayed up far too late last night reading two more Sujata Massey books. Mike caught another one of the squirrels scrabbling about in the walls and we drove it up to Camel’s Back Park and let it out. Then ran up to the airport to change the freebie ticket into Steve’s name. Now I need to finish the assignment for my writing group, mail Steve’s ticket and then buy Christmas presents. Every year, say NO MORE PRESENTS, but alas, it never seems to work out.
Saddam Hussein has been caught, which brings up the issue of how to treat war criminals, and I’ve just finished reading Sujata Massey’s “The Samurai’s Daughter,” which centers around reparations for wartime atrocities. Funny how things always come together like that. It was a pretty good book, and I really liked the main character because she’s a bit of a brat. Should come as no surprise that I related. Especially the part about being a vegetarian for long after she really wanted to. Next on the list is “Nickel and Dimed.”
Looks like Steve will probably get up here for Christmas. Makes me happy. I was getting very lonely thinking about the holidays without him.
Been on a movie kick this week. Saw “I Captured the Castle” last night. (I would post the link, but it’s not working.) Never having read the book, I enjoyed the movie, but it was eminently forgettable even though it was populated with bizarre characters. Tara Fitzgerald was amazing as Topaz, the career muse who disrobed in the wild for “release.”
If you haven’t already seen Sylvia, don’t bother. Half an hour into it, I was fervently praying that she would go ahead and gas herself.
To be fair, I went to the movie fully expecting to hate it. The last movie I saw Gwyneth Paltrow in was Possession, my absolutely favorite A.S. Byatt novel. She was lousy in that too–but at least some of the onus was taken off her by an awful script that took terrible liberties with the story. But I had to go to Sylvia anyway. And then, having paid for the ticket, felt compelled to stay until the bitter end. And bitter it was.
Singlehandedly, Paltrow managed to turn Sylvia Plath into a whining, self-indulgent woman I just wanted to smack. She cries, stares mournfully into space, rocks back and forth at her desk, and doesn’t brush her hair. But at no point does she manage to portray mental illness or depression in a way that gained the audience’s sympathy. I came away thinking, “Wow. And all that for the breakup of a marriage? Get into therapy and get over it!”
One of my main objections to Paltrow is that she always seems to be playing the same character: herself. She also shows stubborn unwillingness to be anything other than pretty on the screen. With any close-up, the glint in her eye seems to say, “And don’t I look nice playing this role?” Indeed the most powerful scenes in the movie were those in which she allowed herself to be ugly. Unfortunately, these were few and far between–and believe me, I was counting the seconds.
“Winter Laps” returned with a form letter rejection. Now to send it out again. Got a groovy little freeware app, Writer’s Database, that tracks submissions. It’s a little clunky, but works fine for my purposes.
Much as we would like to think our tastes change on the boyfriend continuum, the fact of the matter is that they don’t. I went over to Chris’ again last night (night 2/2), and after Dana and I walked dogs, went into the kitchen to make tea. Opened the silverware drawer for a spoon… and realized it looked EXACTLY like Steve’s. The silverware was perfectly sorted into compartments. There were outsized implements to the right. And there, tucked into the very front, were the fortune cookie extras, in exactly the same place Steve puts them.
Maybe everyone keeps their chinese takeout extras in their silverware drawer. Personally, the fortune cookies never last for very long with me around; I munch one after the next, and then choose the fortune I like the best.
Chris and I ordered three dishes and two appetizers in a restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This was very early in the relationship, and we felt like celebrating, translating our happiness into a largesse we could put in our mouths, swallow. Our waiter said nothing at our extravagance, but his lips thinned in a disapproval we didn’t understand until our table was groaning with steaming platters larger than anything we’d ever seen. Even the extended Chinese family next to us looked over from their round table, the grandmother pointing, the mother looking up from serving the chattering men, and the two pretty daughters sipping Coke through dark, dark lipstick.
We hardly made a dent in the platters, but we laughed. And later that night, tucked into our hotel on the hill, we would wish we had taken the leftovers, because we were hungry again. We ate and ate, and at the end of the meal, the waiter whisked the dishes away and presented two fortune cookies and the bill. I reached for them both.
“No,” Chris said. “Let me. I want the air miles.” He slid a card out of his wallet, and I let him because I was 23, had no money and was moving to India on my savings. But I took a fortune cookie in each hand and held them behind my back.
“Choose.”
He chose the right and cracked his fortune open, the future yawning wide. So I took the left, and did the same. We had the same fortunes. “You will marry the person you are with, and lead a happy life.” We put them in our wallets; it was a sign.
I moved to India two months later, moved back six months after that into an apartment where he let me rearrange all the furniture. We got a dog from the pound and split all expenses right down the middle. Congratulated ourelved on our fortunes until they crackled with self-righteousness and we landed on a therapist’s couch.
Finally, I carted my possessions carload by carload into a huge, cold apartment, the fortune tucked safely into my wallet until I threw it on a canvas of other lost objects: frayed string and bent nails, my old mailing address and expired Marigold seeds, the key to our apartment.
Steve had the Seattle interview yesterday. Called me from the airport, utterly puzzled by what he said was the weirdest interview ever. He flew in and drove to the site. Two guys, no time, pinging questions at him for about fifteen minutes. Then they left, and he spent more time filling out all the mandatory paperwork–yes, you can drug test me, yes you can check to see if I have a criminal record–than he did with them. But they talked salaries, moving expenses etc. His take was neither positive nor negative. We’ll see. I’ve allowed myself to start thinking about Seattle realistically, but might have to reel myself in a little.
Trundled over to Chris’ house last night to dogsit Jenny, and staying there was a better option simply because Sadie has her food out here and nibbles all day. With the pancreatitis, Jenny has to be on a very low fat diet and gets awfully sick if she eats regular food. In any case, it was strange. His new house is SO beautiful, but it was still weird staying at my ex-boyfriend’s. Told Steve the plan yesterday, and he, naturally, responded with, “I’m going to kick his ass.”
Okay, so it finally seems like it’s working. Which is amazing.
