movie love

Just caught the last half hour of The End of the Affair--the Julianne Moore version--on PBS (Thirteen shows bare breasts! Highbrow New York public television!). I saw it in the theater when I was 19 and had pretty much the same impression of it I had tonight--terrific ideas, awkwardly assembled. But I was still so excited to find it airing at all, and impressed by the movie's intentions and storyline (too much to review here, but let's say it's a struggle between aggrieved adultery and reluctant faith). Here are real, meaty screenwriting challenges: to communicate faith, that most interior of feelings, through character and action, without making the character seem crazy or zealous; to counter that faith with desire in equal measure, and to figure out how to tow the line between melodrama and thinkpiece. Not that the movie is always successful at meeting these challenges, but it makes a concerted effort at them, and that's bold.

I forget how much I love movies. It's strange I don't watch as many as I used to--I guess I feel guilty these days for wasting time that could be spent more productively. But I spent a full day today putting off a writing project by answering e-mail and perusing menus before hunger finally drove me out of my room to fix a snack and turn on the TV, and it's only now, at 1:30 in the morning, that I feel inspired--though too tired, and too afraid of a worsened cold, to stay up and do so. If the feeling has dissipated by tomorrow, I'll finally have excuse to watch that Netflix movie has been sitting on my desk all month.

blessing count: one

Morning light is so rejuvenating for me. My crappiest nighttime mood is almost always remediated, not even really by sleep, but by this acute and insistently warm emergence of sun when I wake up. I'm grateful for whatever nocturnal amnesia prevents me from foreseeing its effect, because it allows me to be caught off guard in the morning. Maybe I should be going to bed earlier.

space matters

I moved my desk a foot away from my wall, and then I brought the lamp over from the other side of the room. It's like I'm in another universe!

Should I be worried that this is my revelation of the week?

produce blues

On Saturday, I picked up Karen's half farm share, since she's out of town and mostly not living in Brooklyn these days. I also picked up her out-of-town friend's half farm share. In addition to the half share Karen got last week but hasn't been around to eat and the ample groceries I picked up at the coop this past week, the fridge is full of fresh produce, some of it neglected and rapidly aging. I've been eating it and cooking it, but there's just so much one person can do. I tried inviting people over for dinner, to no avail. The abundance, in contrast with lonely old me being the only one around to appreciate it, really makes me question some of my life choices. How did I get into this situation? There is irony in the fact that I have just put out traps to kill the mice and fruit flies who are willing to give me company in enjoying the food. Maybe I'm living my life wrong.

preach

Seen this morning at YMCA on t-shirt:

HARD WORK
BEAT TALENT
WHEN TALENT
DON'T WORK

I count as evidence of my mounting uncoolness and progressive ossification that I found myself only thinking, "Good for him. Good for him." Hard work, man. So true.

greed is good

My low-rent iPod Shuffle came in the mail today. I am very satisfied to have gotten all the features of the Shuffle, and thensome, while bucking brand supremacy and paying so much less than anyone wearing trendy white ear candy that is liable to be stolen or to break anyway.

Bittersweetly, the smugness I am now able to feel is literally the best thing that has happened to me in months.

Project: Happiness

I think I might have returned some time ago, without fanfare, to long-term depression, or maybe anhedonia, or at least complete neurotic hypochondria (but the point is that there is pathology at work). I've been really reluctant to seek treatment, and I'm still reluctant. I don't really think there's a reason for me to be unhappy right now except that I'm not doing things in my life that make me happy. So! I am going to make a list here of things that make me happy, and then I am going to try to do them more often, and find ways of institutionalizing them in my habits.

1. bike rides. I need to invest in my bike. New helmet, reflectors, lights, tune-up. Need to adjust the seat, too. These are tiny things that I never do but which would make me more prone to take my bike out.
2. cooking for other people. The catch is that I want to spend more time outside my apartment. So maybe I can invite myself over to other people's houses to cook for them, like on weeknights, with whatever they've got available.
3. board games. I need to find people who want to play board games with me occasionally.
4. group memberships. I want to join more groups. I just signed up for a short improv class. Maybe there is a food-like group I can join. Maybe there is some sort of collaborative art project or class I can join, too.
5. exercise. I want to take a swim class. I want to go to the gym more.
6. movies. I want to see movies in the theater. Not all that often, but sometimes. And I want to go with friends.

These are really mundane! But I'm not doing much of any of them right now, which means I'm not doing much of anything. So starting here is important. But also, these are all pursuits separate of two primaries: meaningful occupation that I love doing, and people to do things with whom I love being around (and who live nearby, and who are okay with me needing them). But I don't think I have much of a fix on either of those right now, so the list is where I'll start.

metro malevolence

This morning on the C train the dude next to me turned toward me and exhaled a long, foul and stale breath in my direction before exploding into coughs ONTO MY FACE. I turned away too late, and reluctant to give up my seat or react in an alarmist way, I stayed put and just seethed at his disregard for other people. Seething proceeded for ten more minutes, until he leaned over and squeezed out a long, sonorous and potent fart. Realizing this was not just an inconsiderate person but an ill-meaning one, I got up and quickly moved to standing near the doors. Now scowling, I looked over to find said person smirking at me, apparently proud of himself and his victory over me.

When I got to the office, I washed my face and downed a packet of Emergen-C. Even if I do catch whatever he shared with me, the worst part will be how he infected my sense of goodwill toward others.

dreams expose area man's New York City lifestyle-based concerns

Ari convinces me to visit the gourmet grocery near my house. I am bowled over by their selection--fresh neem leaves! fresh lemon thyme off the branch!--at prices that are well below those of the regular supermarket, also near my house. This visit somehow meshes with one I am taking with Joel, Amber and one other. Amber and I connect when we realize we are both singing along under our breaths to Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On, playing over the PA system. From here we head to an acquaintance's new digs in Bed Stuy. It's a houseful of seven women, one of whom is Seung. The house is enormous and modern. We are first agog at its size and the claim that it is cheap (quick mental math in my head says $700 a head), and then bowled over by the presence of a) a hot tub; and b) a full-sized swimming pool. I cannot believe this much sprawling real estate exists in Bed Stuy. From here, my hosts turn into Jodie and her husband, who lead me toward the next door neighbor's house. Someone feeds me a treat as a clue to the neighbor's identity. I correctly guess that he is the heir of the Skor chocolate bar empire. His digs are also lavish, and he and his twin brother are goofy guys who make some sort of movies about their lives. Later, Ari and I go to an cocktail event at a dinner club and are persuaded to stay at least through the cake. Naomi joins us as we sit on the large balcony and dig in. It is the best cake I have ever eaten. Creamy, not too sweet. Naomi is equally impressed. We were going to get dinner elsewhere, but now I want to eat there. I check out the menu: each dish is at least $58. We cannot stay. I wonder how they made this cake.

Later still, my roommates and some jobless, maybe homeless folks are being picked up by a bus to head to an event. Karen has spent the morning in the bathroom while I have had to make small talk with a boring planner person who wonders aloud why the Simpsons have never done a plotline about waterfront redevelopment. I have seven minutes in which to get ready, and entering the bathroom, realize that Karen has scrubbed the floor aggressively, and there is beautiful chartreuse detailing in the tile that I've never seen before. It is a revelation.

like the ice cream truck song

I have played "Banjo in the Hollow" approximately one bajillion times now. It is now my interior monologue, voice of reason, serenity mantra and private theme song, having edged all other aural matter out of my consciousness. It's too bad it sounds just as bad replaying over and over in my head as it does when my fingers trip over it during practice. Can't wait to diversify with "Cripple Creek."

On a related note: Look ma, I'm folksy!

busy morning inside my head

A good friend just wrote to tell me she's engaged. To some degree, it always stings when my close friends couple up for good, because it means there will be less attention for me, but I'm getting used to that as I get older. Somehow, this particular friend's news feels more like a punch in the stomach. Part of it is that her fiance is someone I don't know and am not sure I would be friends with--because we're similar in some ways and dissimilar in some bigger ways, and I am an envious prick. And I think part of it is also that I liked having the ability to occasionally entertain the fantasy of getting together with this friend; over the ten years we've known each other, there has always been some mutual attraction that made our friendship slightly titillating. Never an actionable attraction, at least on my side, but always present and buoying. And now it won't feel that way when I'm around her, because she'll have committed to someone else, and there won't be the same sort of vague potential to swim around in.

That lost potential makes me panicky. As I spent my fourth consecutive Friday night at home watching Internet TV last night--in the case of this particular Friday night, to eat garlic, sleep early and stave off a cold--I wondered if I was on the path to becoming my roommate, the doughy, solitary 34 year-old who rolls around in her desk chair above me, swallows most of our internet bandwith downloading movies and leaves the house only to fetch more frozen meals. I feel like my life might be escaping me.

In less existential news, I had a dream that I played an accordian-like instrument whose keys-side was connected to the base by ten lengths of magnetic tape--like audio cassette tape, but wider. The instrument was adjustable to your armspan by turning a dial to wind in the tape, and I had unwound it too far, and one of the lengths of tape had fallen out of its wheel, and I struggled and struggled to reconnect it with the hole (under which there was affixed a picture of the lead singer from Yo La Tengo), but was unable to. I felt sad but hopeful that someone would soon help me. Cool instrument, though--like a mixture of an accordian and a typewriter.

Now, more garlic. Vampires, stand clear.

we are all babies

A friend told me that when her husband is in a bad mood, she asks him to check and see if he: a) is hungry; b) is tired; or c) has to go to the bathroom. Now that she has small children, these are questions she ponders all the time. It occurs to me that I don't think about them enough. Right now, I'm tired enough to lie in bed and fall asleep within moments--but here I am, awake, resisting sleep. And thinking that maybe I want a snack (though I have recently eaten a pile of risotto the size of my head). I'm so bad at intuiting my actual needs and serving them! Or maybe I just have a limited number of means to satisfy my dissatisfaction, and a hierarchy of preference in employing those means: food; media; sex; sleep. These are unfortunately often insufficient tools to satisfying simple needs like that for physical exercise, or more complex needs like identity validation or connection to others. But they are accessible! I guess this is why I eat so much at work.

Anyway, I'm amazed that I've never really gotten good at identifying what's making me dissatisfied and acting to resolve it. It's so easy to go to bed! Stupid will power.

apocalyptic dreamer

Had a dream I was being given a group tour of Brussels. All the major sculptures and fountains were encased in thick crystalline plaques of yellow-white salt. The reasoning given was that the water's salinity was so high that fountains became encrusted within days, but this did not explain the statues that seemed to be bleeding salt from the face. It also didn't explain the volume. The streets were blanketed in salt, and it sprayed in the wind like snow. I opened my mouth to shout and ended up with a mouthful. In the thickest part of the spray, we had to form a human chain so as not to lose one another along our way.

Our destination was a small medieval room suffused with a dank, earthy smell. At the center of a small stage was a pit of dung being feasted on by rats. The rotting carcasses of rats, seagulls and gray long-haired cats were littered on the floor and walls approaching the stage. Other tourists found places at the foot of the stage, but I couldn't bear to set foot on one of these dead animals, and I floated, anchored laterally on the far wall, hopping from place to place in search of a safe and proximate berth. After almost landing on a gruesome seagull carcass on the right-hand side wall, I gave up.

End of dream.

the things we do

Today I woke up late, showered and dressed and listened to another segment of the 'Ghost of Bobby Dunbar' episode of This American Life, which is the most compelling thing I've seen, heard or watched in months. For some reason, I never listened to the entire thing the first time it aired. I steamed some broccoli and seared some fake meat for my lunch while I popped in and out of the bedroom, sipping on my morning smoothie (strawberries and pumpkin seeds and goat's milk yogurt in this one) and pausing and restarting the podcast so as not to miss a savory detail. What a thing to confront an event that is equal parts family history, national incident and identity crisis! My family has little recorded history, so to me, the concept of tethering myself to anything that happened before my birth--even if it were the origin of my family name--would be a bit more of an academic exercise than anything. But for the people in the story, history doesn't just live in the past. That's what's so compelling about them, I guess.

I spent the day being mostly ineffectual at work, alternating between drafts of an earmark request for congressional appropriations and desperate email checks in search of distractions from said request. I did enjoy my lunch, though. In fact, I enjoyed so much food during the workday that during my subway ride home, I realized that I was full. At 6 pm. I think I have taken to eating as a distraction, too. Must I turn every pleasure into a drug?

Well, apparently I must not, because I don't. Feeling low when I got home, I thought I would try having a drink to cut the tension, but all my two glasses of red wine did were put me to sleep. So, alcohol: an middlingly sastisfactory indulgence. Sleep, however is the one drug about which I have no qualms or doubts, and now I am wide awake at 1 am, feeling more positive and more capable than I did at 8 pm. If not for my utter adoration of sunlight, I might guess that my natural clock were shifting toward nocturnalism, but I know it's more just having had the gift of sleep and being able to feel like I can put the day, and my concerns, safely in the past, before sleep, where they have no way of accessing me in the present.

how things go

This morning I slept in until 11 am. I had two glasses of water and got dressed. I went to the gym and spent 20 minutes on the elliptical at a mounting scale of resistance while watching "Mean Girls" on ABC Family. Wondered when 'bitchy' became a word appropriate to air on a television network aimed at family audiences. After sweating all over a series of leg muscle-oriented weights machines, I came home. I quickly made some black bean soup, showered and ate the soup while reading the Sunday Times. I chatted online with three friends and made plans to see each of them, then I relocated to Outpost Cafe to give K and B the house to themselves for the day. I read two stories from Raymond Carver's "Will You Be Quiet, Please?" and decided that I must have stolen from one of them for a short story I wrote in 2005. Had a cup of peppermint tea. Moved to a table near a power outlet in the back, had another cup of tea and an almond croissant, reformatted my resume, sent some e-mails, scoped the nearby movie listings.

my dreams are always pitching

One of last night's dreams involved an American Idol contestant whose father was Walter Reade, who in this dream was not a movie theater mogul but a workmanlike film director of the 70s and 80s, perhaps like Walter Hill. The host of the show requested a stagehand play a DVD of Walter Reade's film "Big," which was not a Tom Hanks dramedy but a shaggy dog story featuring Walter Matthau (lots of riffs on 'Walter' here) as a large, lumbering and coarse police officer. Looked funny.