Also, the movies. . .

Right, the movies.


You weren't thinking I forgot about this aspect of the blog, were you?


To be clear, I have seen plenty in the past two years.


I've also been told by countless friends that I'm a bad film geek. Much as I'd like to, I can't say they're wrong. After all, I'm still making my way-slowly, really slowly-through the works of Robert Altman. I haven't yet explored Douglas Sirk, though I want to. I think Bette Davis may have expressive eyes, but, to be quite honest, I really just think that she should've perhaps gotten some medical attention. And, I think that [gasp here] Casablanca is hugely overrated. Yes, I have seen it on a big screen. Mostly, I just don't buy into the story. Get over it already.


Don't get me wrong, I still love the idea of film criticism. The picking apart scene by scene, seeing the film as a text, delving into the themes, etc. To me, it's no different than the critique of literature. And, you all know how much I enjoy that.


Mostly, though, what I love about going to the movies is the sheer sense of decadence of it all. In fact, since I joined the ranks of the working class, one of my favorite activities has to be the midday, midweek movie. There's something to be said about emerging from the theatre when it's still light out and you should be at your desk. In all cases, the film is almost irrelevant. It's the two or so hours where nothing else matters. It's just me in a dark room, surrendering to the story, forgetting myself in the process.


And, on that note, I leave you with this courtesy of the lovely Frank O'Hara. Read it. Live it. Love it.

Sunday Morning

Spoke to my father this morning; he's still sick, and there are still no answers, although plenty more tests to come, it seems. He sounds marginally better, and says he's improving, but I worry that he's not letting on how bad it may be, as he did six years ago when the first round of serious health scares came.

It was only when it was all over--and his prognosis so much better than we had all initially feared--that I truly realized the severity of it all. Perhaps I just wasn't capable of processing it before then. After all, I was barely capable of talking about it. Just saying the words was too difficult, made it too real. I don't know that it ever really gets any easier.

There we were, many months later, driving back from my college graduation to pack up my house, and he started to tear up because, for a time, it didn't seem like he would be alive to see any of that day. The light was red, and we both trained our eyes on the street ahead, afraid to break our gazes, afraid to say more. It was a hard moment, but one I'm glad we had.

A few years ago, I told a friend of mine, a doctor, about my father's diagnosis from six years prior. He breathed in slightly, looked down at his feet, and said, that's not good.

Yes, but it could be so much worse.

And so, the altering of expectations continues. The trying to make sense of it all.

I wanted something different, but this is what I got.

You'll have to forgive me. This time of year always makes me far too reflexive for my own good.

Cleaning out the house

Cleaning house this morning, I found these two [somewhat old] poems. Of course, the real issue is, what am I doing up so early on a Saturday?

Herewith:

It was one of those nights
that wraps itself up—
your red shirt that
turns all my clothes to pink
and I wouldn’t mind
but all you offer is some strangely named drink
ordered just to impress
our waiter. Cuban margaritas this time—equal
parts rum lime amaretto
no tequila or salt.
Not even a margarita, really,
So, what is it that you call love? Last week
it was a dirty martini, which tasted of
oceans and gulls, circling above
and gazing too intently
to see what they could scavenge.
Well, take it all.
I’ve nothing left to give
save myself, which you have not seen
and there are names for that too.


still life with blue

You will remain
forever changing, forever
remaining consistent in that. It’s comforting,
in a way. In the same way our collective silence is
provided it’s punctuated by the sound
of a garbage truck moving up our street
slowly making the week’s refuse smaller and
smaller until it's gone. There’s some solace in that
as there is in Sunday mornings in winter
in air that tastes of embers
and in you sleeping late, allowing the garbage
to remain uncollected, allowing birds to sift through
it for the perfect length of blue yarn to make
their nests home.

Beckett Redux

Found the actual quote that I referenced a few days prior.

These are important things.

Really.

Or, not.

At any rate, here it is:

Be again, be again. [Pause.] All that old misery. [Pause.] Once wasn't enough for you. [Pause.] Lie down across her.

__
That is all.

In the aftermath

Dinner and drinks with PP last night, followed by a show. We got to talking about this fall, lessons learned, all the stuff that comes when you're sharing a bottle of wine.

She filled me in on more developments from across the city - telling me something which made me feel awful, although in this case, at least, the fatal blow had nothing to do with me.

The thing is that despite everything that's happened, I still feel like I made the right decision back in October. At least the right decision for me and the one that I could live with.

So, there's that. Which is good, I guess.

A while back, during a conversation about all of this, I told NK that the worst part, I thought, was how quickly one gets used to things. The hurts fade and current reality seeps in, and in a flash the current shape of things passes for normal.

I'm discovering now how very true that statement was.

So, I was right, as I am about a good many things . This isn't arrogance. Truly, I wish I wasn't.

Oh, well.

Walking in the rain

Had drinks with TK last night, who earlier in the week had offhandedly joked about how I should move back to Boston. Which, of course, got me thinking about being back in Boston this past May, and how being there made me fall in love with New York afresh. Maybe it was that Boston was too small, and too much a part of the past for me. Who knows, really?

What I do know is this: walking in the rain, today, in Central Park, I realized that I'm still very much in love with this city. Even with the tourists, and the crowded streets, and the chance encounters, and the--at times --paralyzing loneliness. In fact, I think those are some of the very things that make me love it. Strange.

I'm remembering when I was much younger, and I'd go to visit D. He'd mock me mercilessly for being a tourist, because the minute I stepped off the grid, I'd be helplessly lost.

I still get lost off the grid, all these years later.

I think that I secretly like it that way. Perhaps it's the feeling of weightlessness that comes with being lost on a city street, or the thrill of not knowing what I might discover (after all, I found Bedlam that way in London).

There's always something to look forward to if you look hard enough.

Besides, finding my way back is never harder than hailing a cab.

Begin Again, Begin Again, Lie Down Across Her

Yes, I'm quoting Samuel Beckett [badly].

Krapp's Last Tape to be precise.

I never said I wasn't pretentious. It's just that it seems oddly fitting given the circumstance. To paraphrase further: strange now to think of that young whelp I once was.

So, yes, it's been quite some time since I've written, here at least. Which is not to say that much hasn't happened. Quite the opposite.

To wit: in the past two years I've moved house, watched several good friends leave the city, made some fantastic new ones, changed jobs, at times felt surrounded by sickness and the eventual recovery there from, even had my heart broken a few times.

It's the last point on that list that I'm stuck on at the moment, perhaps because the latest one is so fresh and was so hurtful. But, I think that it's important to take something from each experience - however unpleasant it may be. So, in this case, here's what I can take away: a cold water faucet that now works properly and the knowledge that, actually, I am quite capable of being in a relationship and not losing part of myself, as I had so long feared. Not a bad trade, really. The rest, of course, will take time. Luckily, that I have.

So, onward, to the next adventure. Hopefully I'll stick with the writing this time. I feel good about it.

I think.