Quodlibets

Try a Little Tenderness

Last night, my sis and I took my mom to see Michael Buble for Mother's Day.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I enjoy reasonably well his CDs--they're nothing I would push on people, or rave about, but sometimes you just need some good ol' crooning.  I also have never really been to a show with this kind of performer, so when I imagined it in my head, it basically consisted of Buble at the microphone, singing.  Orchestra behind him.  That's sort of accurate, except for the entire Buble part.  He doesn't just stand at a microphone.  He's a crazy-pants, all frenetic on stage and dancing and sliding and making wild arm movements.  And his voice is nice.  About what you would expect.

The audience though was clearly insane for him.  I was shocked by the sheer electricity in the crowd.  These people love them some Buble, I'll tell you what.  At one point, my sister told me I should take off my underwear and fling it on stage, and she wasn't far off the mark.  The women in the audience had that sort of hysterical feeling going on.  And I mean, Buble IS charming.  Make no mistake about it, he's smooth as silk and he knows it.  That sort of hyper-confidence is accompanied by lots of self-depracating humor, and it works.  As Buble broke into the third song, my sis turned to me and said, "I think I love him."  And I know what she meant.  He's loveable in that way.

It was pretty interesting all around.  Chris Isaak came onstage to sing with Buble at one point, which was surprising and interesting.  Unfortunately for Chris, Buble's voice is just too good for Isaak's to compete with.  But it was neat, anyway.  Buble kept singing parts of "Wicked Game" before other songs, which was interesting too.  I guess Buble and Isaak toured together (Buble opened) years ago, and became friends, which is how Isaak happened to be at the show.  That, and he's in the area, having tour dates in Milwaukee tonight and tomorrow. 

So yeah.  I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.  More than I thought I would.  (Which is pretty much what Kate and my mom said about it last night too.)

Peaches

I don't wear deodorant.  Have I mentioned that here before?  I don't really know how common this is, though HSBF says she doesn't wear any either.  I don't smell.  I'm almost 100% positive I never do, because I think if I did, my sister would never let me hear the end of it.  Katie's nose is incredible--she can smell if a restaurant serves truffles the minute we walk into it, and it repulses her.  Personally, I can't smell truffles like that, though my dad says he can too, so maybe it's inherited.  Suffice to say, her sense of smell is strongly developed, and I don't think she'd consent to being in the same room with me if I always smelled of BO.

But because I don't wear deodorant, I almost always wear perfume of some sort.  I prefer sharp, clean scents.  One of my favorites is Demeter's Gin and Tonic, which is sharp and tonic-y, just like an actual gin and tonic, though I think it has a really strong lime component.  In general, I do stick with food scents--cookies and cakes and candies--like vanilla, which is one of my favorites.  I've had the same bottle of Fresh brand vanilla cologne for years and years and years, and it never gets old.  It's actually rather heavy, though, so I wear it sparingly.  The other scent I'm crazy for is peach.  I can't get enough of peach perfumes.  I'm always hunting down new ones, and looking for something unique.  My newest perfume (and most favoritest now) is a vanilla peach perfume, which is absolutely perfect in its combination of peach and vanilla, my two favorites.  I think I might need to go get a few bottles to have on back-up, because what if the maker (can't think of it now, would know it if I saw it) stops making it?  Quel horror.

I do switch it up though, and on Sunday past, I decided to finally try a spray or two of the Vanilla perfume I bought when I bought the vanilla peach.  It was instantly a mistake.  I don't know if it's because it was cheap (Demeter's perfumes are cheap, though, too, and those are fine.), but it was awful.  I think it wasn't a pure vanilla scent; it must've been cut with some cheaper floral.  I cannot abide anything floral.  Certain scents in perfumes--roses, gardenia, lavender--go so far as to make me nauseous if they're too large a component of the perfume.  Other floral scents just mildly bother my nose.  But in general, any floral scent is enough to give me a mild to severe headache.  (And actually, though I love fresh flowers, I don't like them to be strongly scented.  I much prefer flowers with no scent, like my lovely late summer brain flowers.  Can't wait!)  So anyway, this vanilla perfume, which I think was one of those frenchy-named brands, had a rather strong background scent of flowers.  Indeterminate, though it was one of those that really annoys my nose and head.  Also, and this is possibly the greatest testament to my avoidance of floral perfumes--it gave me a rash!  A rather itchy, red bumpy icky thing on the spot I'd sprayed it the closest.  Yes, even my skin rejects floral scents.

I think the moral to this story is that if you're going to buy me perfume, stick to peach, citrus, or fresh laundry scents, with no HINT of floral anything.  If it's got a floral undertone, I won't go near it.  (Consequently, by the way, this leads to my near total avoidance of those perfumes that are sold on department store counters.  I know those are very nice, very expensive perfumes sometimes, but I can rarely find one that doesn't have some hint of a floral.  I end up mostly wearing esoteric brands, things you find in specialty beauty stores, or European things I find at small, indie shops.  But don't think that equals cheap.  My last two perfume finds, besides the cheapy icky vanilla/floral one, were expensive as hell.)

Here's something else, unrelated.  If you're on the Ike, and you want to reach Mannheim in the time allotted by the little signboard at the start of the expressway, you better drive like a bat out of hell until traffic seizes up.  You gotta go at least 15 over the speed limit to make those times.  Seems like they might want to up the times by a few minutes every morning, just to make people's expectations more realistic.  And by people's, I mean me.

On a break

Every time I hear the phrase "on a break", the voice of Ross Gellar screams "We were ON A BREAK" in my head.  That's how you know I'm a pop-culture whore.

And although this is probably a little bit evident due to the scarcity of posts, I am in fact on an organized blog break.  Two weeks, at the minimum.  I have nothing to say, and I feel like unless you're Dooce, the blog is getting sad when you start talking about farting.  So until whenever.  Have a good midsummer and 4th, people.  I plan to.

A night among the hipsters

Sam and I went to see the Kings of Leon tonight.  He really likes the new album (I think I prefer the first, if I can be said to prefer one or the other), and he got on the guest list tonight, so we were able to attend the sold out show.  The crowd was about half hipster, and half frat boys.  Afterward, Sam pointed out that there is a dearth of cock rock right now, and those guys will latch onto anything that sorta sounds like it.  Anyway, it was an altogether annoying crowd.  Some observations:

• Dude, if you have a dress on, take off the pants.  It's a dress because you don't need to wear pants with it, and if it's too short to be a dress, honey, get a shirt that fits.  And take off the fucking leggings.
• On the same note, if your shirt is so long it covers your short shorts, figure something else out.  Because you look ridiculous.
• The full body shakes?  A seizure?  No, an inventive new dancing style that made me want to find some leather strap to shove in his mouth, just in case he swallowed his tongue.  Keep still, frat-loser.  Nod your head, or move slightly back and forth.  Otherwise, you look like you got a disease.
• Okay.  Neon pink, green and yellow nikes with no socks, a button-down work-style dress with a wide emerald green belt, HUGE neon pink plastic earrings, and a hairdo that probably took three hours to make look like it took five minutes do not an attractive combination make.  Look, hon, you're trying too hard.  It's okay to like some hipster/trendster clothing choices.  I myself am carrying a purse that is more trendy than classic, and I have a nose ring.  But when trendy throws up on you?  You just look stupid.
• Dude, holding up your phone at a concert makes you a giant tool.  I know, we've all done it, but that doesn't make us any less of tools.  Have you ever received a phone call from a jerk at a concert?  You probably feel one of two ways about it:  a) you asshole, you're at a concert I want to be at, so fucking leave me along or b) what?  I can't hear you.  Is that clapping?  What's that noise in the background?  Where ARE you?  A subway tunnel?  Seriously.  Do your friends a favor and leave them alone at 10:15 on a Saturday night.  If they wanted to hear the Kings of Leon, they'd be at the concert.
• Shit, don't bring your mom to a concert at the Riv, no matter how much you love her.  I guarantee she'll hate every loud, uncomfortable minute of it.
• Are you the kind of person who claps along to songs?  Screw you.  I'm so against crowd concert participation it's ridiculous.  I don't even clap if one of the band members is onstage exaggeratedly clapping his hands over his head to try to involve the audience.  Anti-effort?  Maybe, but also anti-lameass, and since concert crowds are nothing but lameasses these days, I'll keep my hands to myself, thanks. 
• And look, after the show, I don't care how drunk you are, you idiot, but you should really learn how to tell if a cab is occupied.  It's like, the easiest skill on the planet to pick up.  Number lit?  Free cab!  Number not lit?  Occupied.  If I had a dollar for every time some drunk loser tried to flag down an occupied cab tonight, I'd be able to at least treat Sam and I to a meal at Fogo de Chao.  It's so not hard, it's easy.  And while you're at it, drunky, how about NOT harrassing the people who legitimately hailed those cabs?  How about not sticking your head in the back window and trying to bribe them into letting you jump in?  How about NOT attempting to open the back door of the cab and jump in while there is already a passenger in the car?
• And finally, I was saying this to Sam earlier:  every time I start to think drinking = not so bad, I go to an event like this, where I see asshole upon asshole being drunk and assoholic.  I saw one girl practically drag her falling over, slurringly embarrassing date out of the venue, while he bumped into random strangers.  Another guy RAMMED into me on the street, while we waited for the bus.  There were countless drunk idiots trying to catch cabs.  And then, right as we were almost home, we walked by a couple of people--a belligerantly drunk male, yelling at his sober-seeming (compared to him) lady-friend, telling her how awful she was, and how she was accusing him of lying and how dare she and he wasn't a liar, and she just sighed and said, I wasn't calling you a liar, and I thought, girl, get out of that relationship now.  Belligerant drunk = bad bad bad. 

Anyway, the Kings of Leon were fine (through my earplugs), if slightly too loud for my taste.  I couldn't see a damn thing for 99% of the show, but I'll say this for Caleb Followill--he's got a niiiiiiice voice.  It's dreamy.  You don't even have to see him to think about doing bad things with him.  For all I know, he's ugly as a toad.  But he sounds delicious.

Things Improve, Because They Couldn't Get Worse

Day 6
We attempt to undo Mayta damage (which actually began on the night before, with a very delicious dinner in Campo de Fiori) by seeing lots and lots of stuff.  We stop in S. Ignazio on the way to the Forum, where we rent audioguides and learn learn learn.  We also wait in line for a bathroom with a bunch of people on a day-trip from their cruise, and their tourguide is pushy and attempts to get his ladies in the bathroom before everyone else in the line, even though we all waited a really long time and they were behind us.  He asked me if one of his woman could go in front of me, and I said no.  I'd already waited a good 10 minutes for that damn one stall (a hover-pee, as it were), and I really really really had to go.  And I didn't feel guilty about it at all, because what a pushy jerk. 

It was really hot at the forum, in the beating sun, with nary a breeze, and so after we were done, we walked down the shady street towards Circus Maximus and into the Jewish ghetto.  We popped into a restaurant with no wait, instead of hanging around Da Gigetto, and that ended up being a mistake, because that meal ended up being subpar.  After that, we went to S. Maria Sopra Minerva and Il Gesu (my first visit to Il Gesu, because the hours are rather restrictive), and then I think we might have had some gelato.  Surprised?  We ate dinner at 9 and then ate more gelato and then went to bed.

Day 7
We had Borghese reservations for 9, but unfortunately for all of us, we didn't quite understand how the reservation system worked, so ended up getting there at 10, which only left us an hour in the gallery.  It was fine though; we saw the Berninis and Caravaggios, which was S and my primary aim anyway.  And I get sick of museums and art galleries really quickly these days, apparently.  Because I was ready to leave.  Don't get me wrong, the Borghese is great--awesome setting, nice pieces--but it's weird.  You can't bring any bags in, so you have to check EVERYTHING.  Which is fine, until you have to go collect all those bags at 11 along with every single other person who was in the museum from 9-11.  It was not cool, that part of it.  Worth it, ultimately, though, just to see Bernini's Hades and Prosperina.  Look it up, and then if you can find a picture of his hand on her thigh, examine.  Amazing.  I don't feel like doing the work right now to post that here.  Sorry.

Right, so then we walked through the park down towards the Spanish Steps, and then walked down the Spanish Steps.  Incredibly half-hearted shoe shopping was attempted, and then lunch was procured.  Next....we went to St. Peter's again, because M wanted another go.  It was at this point that I decided if I never go in St. Peter's again, that would be a-okay.  M and my dad then left to get the rental car, S and I attempted to procure sandwiches, and much later, we reconvened for an earlier dinner at La Sagrestia, a place just off the Pantheon with great pizza but questionable service.  It happens to be right next door to a jewelry store I frequented often when I lived in Rome, and I never ate there once.  Just goes to show you that something new will always turn up.  Or rather, something old will always turn up new?   Either way.

Day 8
We get up at 5:15 am for a 6 o'clock on-the-road time.  We're on our way to Pompeii for a 9 am tour (which we make perfectly on time, even though we ended up taking the long way), which is lovely.  Our tour guide, Agostino, is clearly passionate about Pompeii, and it's enjoyable to listen to his take on Pompeii.  It was a little disappointing that the House of the Vetii was closed, but how many times do you really need to see a statue of a man holding his penis on a hanging scale?  Hang it all, you're right, you can never see that enough times.  Oh well.

After that, we drove along the coast to Sorrento, ate lunch and shopped a bit there, and then drove down to Positano.  When we arrived, we all slept a bit.  This was the day that both S and my Dad got colds, so they were a bit miserable.  S and I procured some Italian cold meds, and then we all walked down to the beach for dinner at Chez Black, a restaurant my family had eaten at twice in our three nights in Positano on their trip to Italy in 1999.  It was as good as we remembered it, and then we ate gelato, and then we had to climb back up to the hotel, which anyone will tell you is the absolute worst part of Positano, the climb back up to your bed.  It's steep, and frankly, it's pretty darn miserable.  It's a lot to put up with for a freaking view.  But totally worth it, in the final accounting.

Tomorrow:  days 9, 10 and 11, which brings us right up to the end of the trip.

Home again, home again

I'm back.  I've been back since Tuesday afternoon, but I've been pretty freaking useless since then too.  Tuesday was particularly bad, as I struggled to stay awake amidst the ruins of an Italian cold.  And actually, the cold laid me pretty low yesterday too, though I was at home all day to do things like wash clothing, and acquire edible food.  Now, S and I are both back at work, and it's okay.  I like knowing that I only have to work two days, and then I get to be at home again for a whole two days before I have to jump back into five-day weeks, and then it's only two before I have two four-day weeks in a row. 

I could say five bajillion things about the trip, and I've been trying to think of the best way to go about regurgitating all the experiences I had in Italy, and what I think I'll do is just go day-by-day.  I think I can essentially remember every day as an individual day.  But I don't think I'll start that in this post.  So what I'll do is leave this post up for a few hours, and then later in the afternoon (oh, who am I kidding?  Later this morning.) when I'm bored and caught up with all my work, I'll start at Day 1, in Florence.  I think I'll be able to get at least two to three days in every entry, unless I run really long on any certain day (possibly the second day in Rome, because, well, it was quite a day), which probably won't happen, since most days will probably just be dining descriptions.

Yes, I ate my way through Italy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I gained five and a half pounds.  I also walked excessive amounts, but I seriously ate THAT much.  I think my insides are made of prosciutto, mozzarella and gelato.  Not such a bad thing, I guess, and anyway, we all ate excessive amounts of food.  I think we only had two really bad meals, and that's pretty freaking good. 

What else?  Yeah, I got a cold.  So did my dad, S and my dad's wife.  I feel like I was lucky, as mine only hit two days before we left, and my dad and S came down with theirs the day we arrived in Southern Italy, which seems to suck a whole lot more.  I also got tan, because the weather was unseasonably warm--80's most of the time.  It's a freakish tan, because it has sleeves, but still.  I have a tan line from my watch, and I can't remember the last time that happened.  Also, the beating sun did nothing for my complexion, which is mottled, bumpy, and completely disgusting.  The roseacea isn't getting better; I think I need to see the derm again, because this is really absolutely awful.  If I'm not careful, and I don't get help, I'll end up as a loser who has to carry an umbrella in the sun.

Anyway, it was an awesome time, and I'm so glad that S and I got to go back, because I can't imagine the next time that it will be a possibility.  It really was a great trip.  (And is it bad to admit that I'm pretty relieved to be home?  Travel is HARD work, people.  I missed my hairdryer and my bed, and I missed my car.  I missed my people here, and I missed guacamole and diet coke without caffeine and I missed the familiarity of a regular schedule.  I love Italy, but wow, coming home feels good.)

In Which my Education Comes in Handy

My major in college was a pretty unique one, as far as I can tell.  Humanistic Studies--an invented discipline in which women placed literature within the context of cultural history.  A pretty fancy way of saying we read lots of "great" books from the canon, and studied about the things going on in history from the eras of the books.  Legendarily light on courses (2 required courses each semester Junior and Senior year, and I think...three required electives in two years plus those.), it gave you plenty of time to take other courses, which I gleefully did.  And I didn't even manage to rack up a minor, because I sort of just picked and chose, and of course, the year in Rome really did limit what you could do. 

Anyhow, I loved the major, and I'm glad I did it, though of course there is little practical application for it.  No one's quizzing you on Pascal and Voltaire and Decartes and Diderot and so on in a library.  I don't think I've ever even discussed any of those writers with anyone save the women in my classes back then.  Maybe it's a weird view of things, but it seems like the kids on this college campus aren't reading these authors, and it seems like maybe they should be--or maybe it's that if they are, they're not using the library.  Which come to think of it, makes a lot of sense, because I can probably count on one hand (two if I'm being generous) the number of times I used the libraries at SMC and ND.  Honestly, I don't remember ever looking in an academic database.  So maybe I don't see the kids who are reading Freud and Nietzsche and Goethe.  Either way, the point is, the education I got was definitely education for education's sake.  I really enjoyed every single thing I read (and I read every single thing I was assigned) even if I really didn't like the book.  I basically enjoyed the process of reading and learning, and if I liked the book, bully for me.

But the other day, I made an astounding connection that I simply never would have made were it not for my expensive, useless education.  I'm listening to Jane Smiley's Ten Days in the Hills right now, and I'm really enjoying it, but I have to tell you, it is full of sex.  Just chock-a-block.  I was telling S how sometimes I feel embarrassed to listen to it, even though I'm in my car, all alone.  I was telling him how weird it was, how the sex was so explicit sometimes, and how none of her other books were like that.  And I was explaining the book--ten characters, ten days, lots of stories--and suddenly it popped in my head.  This book is a modern Decameron.  I mean, it was like a shaft of light broke through the clouds over my head.  I knew that I was right before I had any confirmation of it, because it fit SO perfectly.  And frankly, it's making me enjoy the book even more, knowing the Decameronic background of the book.  It's also making me want to read the Decameron again, because that was a pretty enjoyable read.  I don't think I've ever re-read one of the academic books from my college days, so that would be interesting.

Either way, mom and dad (and grandparents) aren't you glad you helped subsidize an education that's finally showed some use?  Yep, I'm using my education to provide the background for a popular fiction title.  Totally worth the 100 grand or so it probably cost.

Bullet Thoughts

1.  S sold his car yesterday.  We've decided very firmly that we're staying in the city, at least for the forseeable future, and we just don't need two cars if that's the case.  We're talking about buying, which I think I mentioned, and we can't afford two garage spaces, and he doesn't drive anywhere anyway.  We couldn't store his car in my mom's garage indefinitely, and a buyer basically fell into our laps.  (The girlfriend of a friend of my little brother.)  He got an okay price, for the car, considering it has no driver-side mirror, and it's a basic Honda Civic that's seven years old.  It kept half its value, though, and there were so few miles on it, people think the odometer is wrong.  (It isn't.)  It's money he can really use, so it's good.  He told me he felt a little weird about it, last night, after the transaction was complete, and I can totally understand, because I can't imagine living without a car, even in the city.  But I mean, he has a car.  He has mine.  And if he needs it, he'll mostly (unless I'm at work) be able to use it.  It was a leap, and I'm really proud of him for taking it.  I can't imagine but that in the long run, it will be seen as a good move.  Now we are a one car household--and a one hybrid car household.  I couldn't have imagined a better scenario two years ago if I tried.

2.  My best friend from high school is getting married.  She just got engaged over the weekend.  And I'm happy for her, I really am.  But the feelings are more complicated than just happy.  She was my first, closest friend.  I probably have only had two other friends as close, if you don't count S.  And I'm not in touch with them anymore, so she is this weird little chunk of my past, and whatever is between us now, I did clearly love her very intensely once upon a time.  Regardless of the fact that I don't love her like that now, those sorts of feelings don't ever really go away.  Anything I ever felt for her is muted now, but still there.  So when I say I'm jealous of her now, I want you to understand that it's a very muted jealousy, a jealousy that owes more to the past than the present, and a jealousy borne out of the knowledge that the life she is living isn't for me anymore than my life is for her.  Still.  I can't help but feel that little frisson of passionate longing for the things she's having now.  But it's the high school me that's longing for those things; it's the high school me that's still in me; it's the high school me that I sort of become when I'm reminded of us. 

I was certainly jealous of her, painfully jealous, in high school.  It's taken me a long time to see our relationship like that, to see it as very unequal in terms of what the two of us had.  I can't say for sure, but I imagine there were some things about me that she was jealous of.  I don't know that she would call it painful jealousy, but mine was, so that's that.  Quite a few of my relationships with straight women have involved jealousy, and I think it would be mutual jealousy, and that's not to diminish the friendships, but it's just the dynamic I've most often found.  It's definitely due to my nature as a jealous, envious person.  Like is drawn to like?  Either way, I'm not jealous now, and haven't been for quite a long time.  Somehow, you're allowed to develop some slight bit of perspective when you leave high school, and that's definitely happened to me.  I don't want what she has, and I know it.

But this is new, right?  This whole one of us getting married thing.  I'm currently pretty ambivalent about marriage, but the high school me wasn't.  The high school me saw that as a major part of her life--a big dress, a man, kids maybe--and the fact that I don't now doesn't diminish that little spark of jealousy.  Jealousy that she's doing it first, and that no doubt she will choose an absolutely gorgeous dress and look stunning in it, and that the whole thing will be as perfect as she can get it to be.  This whole thing, of course, is utterly at odds with my own vision of any wedding I might choose to have now, but...I can't get away from it.  I'm 100% sure it will fade quickly, and I won't feel green for very long, but it's where I am right now.  And to say that I don't like feeling like this would be an understatement.  These are very uncomfortable feelings.

Le Roi est mort, Vive le Roi!

S and I watched Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" last night.  I recently read Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, so I was keen to see how accurate Coppola ended up being with the history.  It ended up being fairly accurate, and I didn't spend too much time saying, "Oh, that didn't happen."  Mostly, I ended up clarifying things for S, because there was no sense of TIME in the movie, and I think that's possibly one of the more important aspects of the Queen's story; it's important to understand that she spent millions of francs, but it's even more important to understand that she did it for 20-something years.  Knowing that can certainly shed some light on the fact that she was so hated, and for so long.  It wasn't just her fault that France went broke, and the people starved, but you can't deny she had something to do with it.  And time doesn't just affect her profligate spending; I think it's also hard to gain perspective on how hard her early life at court was unless you understand just how long she and Louis went without doing anything that might produce an heir--and then after they timidly began the consummation of their marriage, just how long she went without bearing a child.  Her position was incredibly tenous, and Coppola is trying to get that across, and I'm not sure it worked.  I'll say this:  I didn't feel half as much for Dunst's MA as I did for the book's version of the Queen.

The other thing that really bothered me was music.  I'm not against rock music in a period piece, if it's used right.  I enjoyed the use of modern music in the actually horrible (but who cares?  I still like it.) movie "A Knight's Tale", because I thought it gave something interesting to the film.  Coppola's use of punk rock is so spotty--I don't think that we heard punk for the first 50 or so minutes of the film, and that bothered me.  I believe that Coppola, in those first 50 minutes, was making a very conscious decision; the music only got loud and modern when MA's life at court began to flower.  And it's interesting to see a decked-out Queen running through Versailles (I will say, Versailles and the Petit Trianon shine in this movie; it made me want to go back to France, and I don't even really like France) to the strains of the Strokes, but it somehow turned this film into two separate pieces, and it didn't work for me.

The accelerated pace of the end didn't work for me either.  I don't think you can really understand WHY the crowds are rioting at the end.  I don't think you get a sense of just WHAT the problem actually is, and why Louis and Marie and their children are forced into a carriage and forced to leave Versailles, forever.  I did spend a few minutes after the film ended explaining just how dire things were to S, because I'm not sure the film displayed that urgency.  I did admire the last scene, and how Coppola ended the film.  At first, I thought it was a weird choice, to not show the year or two of degradation that the royal family would endure, but then, reconsidering, I decided it was actually brilliant to let a degraded room stand in for everything that would eventually happen to the family.  Sadly, though, I'm not sure that the majority of persons viewing the film do know what happened eventually (the imprisonment, the beheadings), and so I'm not sure how effective it was for everyone.  It worked for me, but I knew in detail what was about to happen. 

And actually, one of the most memorable and provoking scenes in the book, for me, is when MA, imprisoned with her young son, the Dauphin, and her daughter, the Madame Royale, hears the crowd cheering and understands then that her husband, the King, has been beheaded.  There are no courtiers around, no subjects anymore, and so it is left to MA to echo the phrase that has always been--"Le Roi est Mort, Vive le Roi!"  It is the phrase she and Louis would have heard years before, and it is a phrase that sums up her entire life.  And she said it, and short months later, the young pretender would be dead, and she herself would be dead.  She never let go of who she was, even in awful circumstances, and I'm not sure we get a sense of that from the film, either.  Which is too bad, because it's stuck with me for a few weeks.

But the film is beautiful, and lush, and it's not unpleasant to look at.  It wasn't a wasted two hours, but rather feels like a two hours that could have been so much better.  If only the movie was a little better.

Enough with the snow already

Things seem to be exeedingly normal in the Efromano household at this moment.  I know I am dooming myself by writing this, but we seem to be in a period of little to no upheaval, which feels pretty nice.  This past week was supposed to be crazy and filled with things, but ended up being empty and moderately tired-feeling.  I'm quite sure that I got nothing done, even though we grocery shopped and did some laundry last night.  I still feel like we've sat on our asses and pissed time away.  Which we have.  And which is sometimes nice.  But it's slightly disgruntling this week, because it was supposed to be dinner out 3 nights, and ended up being dinner out none, and culminated with a slight food binge yesterday that included a delivered pizza.  I cracked.  I felt the need to eat something bad for me to make up for all the lost bad for me food that was promised with the excitement of three dinners out.

Suffice it to say, I feel guilty today, and chastened, and plan to renew my vigilance towards the diet on Sunday morning, after my planned dinner out on Saturday.  I'm sure I'll be good today too, since I feel mostly satisfied by the pizza.  Though I can't promise I won't eat a piece for dinner tonight.  We're also going to a party tonight, which is a rare thing for us to do, and for some people, that would mean danger.  (Drinks = extra calories.)  To me, the danger is that there just might be nothing there for me to drink.  Because this is sort of an odious party, in that it is thrown by S's younger (oh christ, much younger) co-workers.  He mentioned the possibility of puking, to which I say, "No thank you."  I'm too old for parties that end with puking.  Or that include puking in the middle of the party.  Parties that encompass puking in any form.  I am too old for that, and anyway, I found that distasteful even at 20. 

Also, I am not good with the drunkenness.  It reminds me too heavily of those bad bad bad college years with my alcoholic ex.  I've been known to get extremely uncomfortable in the presence of extreme drunkenness, unless I am drunk myself, which I can tell you right now, isn't happening tonight.  Not my style to get drunk at a party like this.  I prefer upscale 'dos for the drunkenness (re: my dad's wedding, my dad's annual Xmas party), and upscale drinks that I don't have to pay for.  Just about the only thing I actually can drink is hard liquor, due to the migraine factor, and something tells me there won't be Amaretto Stone Sours or Fuzzy Navels tonight.  Thus, I will be sober.  And quite possibly recoiling in horror at all the youthful drunkenness.  I'm just hoping to avoid a panic attack or a panicked command for S to bring me home.  We'll see.

The other big news in the Efromano home is the Sun Times report (actually, I think it was DeRogatis' report, and I find him horrible, so I'm not actually linking to his report, but Greg Kot's from this morning) that Pearl Jam will headline Lolla(palooza).  We didn't go to Lolla last year, because the good bands were too spread out, but you can bet PJ will be reason enough for both of us to buy tickets.  We're just going to have to decide if we want a whole festival pass or what.  Maybe I can lay out some dough and get us VIP passes or something.  Because if it's 1 million degrees out like two years ago, I'm going to need something more than a purse filled with frozen water bottles to get me through.  I kind of hope they do play Lolla, because that might ameliorate some of S's insane need to see PJ 10 times every summer they tour.  Anyway, it's all a rumor right now, so no hard and fast decisions will be made until we know more.  However, of the 50 or so words S and I exchanged this morning, the Lolla/PJ rumor took up about half.  We'll be following the Lolla news hard now.

Sigh.  Done.