One more thing

Just a note about the friend's wedding -- she had twins coordinating it. Both of them tall, gorgeous, and everything you would want in coordinating twins.

I highly recommend that everyone planning a wedding or not yet married look into this and find a pair. They were wonderful.

recalled to life - if you call this living

(to paraphrase Daffy Duck)
(actually, my favorite Daffy line is "I would like? I would like a trip to Europe.")

Another friend married off. It was an open bar wedding and that made all the difference. Met a resident surgeon at Columbia University and we both liked vodka. E stato bene. I wasn't overly impressed with the town of Ft Collins, but I guess it could grow on you if you lived there long enough. There seems to be plenty to do. The combination of jet lag, allergies and altitude probably killed any interest I could have generated in the town, but that's not necessarily the fault of Ft. Collins. Or it is. Or not really. Or it's too soon to tell.

What I'm really saying is ... erm ... HELLO EUGENE! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?

No, that's not it. But it's good to be back in familiar surroundings: rain, other allergies, Cat trying to pull the catnip down from the windowsill... etc... it's good to be back in the comfort zone.

So, who else thinks that Shakespeare has centered Hamlet on the spindle of male bonding and trust, as illustrated by the father-son dynamics of Polonius/Laertes, Ghost Dad/Hamlet, Claudius/Hamlet? (It's due on Friday and this is the best I've come up with. I blame jet lag.)

Friday

The bathroom is mine

This doesn't mean that I don't share the bathroom, because we only have one in the house and the cousin/roommate's got to go somewhere. What I mean ... actually, here's a little story about what I mean.

I used to work for a company that made water heaters (someone's got to). I worked for the Vice President of Engineering. Jack, being an engineer, followed distinct patterns: he wore cowboy boots with everything and at 10:35 and 2:15 every day he was in the men's room. Every day.

One afternoon the Vice President of Sales called for Jack. He needed him right away and told me to go find him. It was 2:15.

Me: "You know what time it is. I can't get him out of there."
Sales VP: "Sure you can. Go on! I've got to talk to him now. I'm on a plane in 3 minutes."
Me: "But, the bathroom is Sanctuary."

Sales VP: "You must not be married."

Thursday

No culture-merge

There are 2 distinct stages of relationship culture-merge:

1. You agree to like what the other person likes just to stay in the sunshine of their admiration. Sometimes you end up with an appreciation for the other person's cultural icon ("I love Jonathan Richman."), but sometimes you're just saying you do ("I love Hal Hartley films.").

2. You've decided to cement your lives together and you're combining the collection:

"We both have copies of 'Rain Dogs'. Let's take this one" (your old, ratty lp) "to Goodwill."

I'm not saying all books, records, cds and movies have significance, but the idea that one person has a collection of more significance than the other ... well, it's a slippery slope. Maybe it was the first time you heard Tom Waits and you remember how it took over your head, and, sure, the cd is going to sound a lot better than the lp, but it was the scratchy sounds of the lp that changed your life, not the superior bass and treble of the cd.

I'm just saying that when it comes to the point where you have these decisions to make and you're faced with the need to justify your feelings about a record/book/cd ("But that Warren Zevon record really did cure my migraines") you end up feeling both selfish and ridiculous, and, honestly, who needs that?

Wednesday

I am not subjected to Day Care Diseases

Another business day ... Junior and Baby go off to the babysitters or the day care ... you pick them up at 5:20 -- wait! what's this! Junior has beri-beri and Baby has cholera? Oh no! Now you have beri-beri and cholera at the same time.

I don't.

(The realistic, non-exaggerated afflictions are, of course, pink eye, ear infection, virus A, B, or C, and the flu of the day.)

Tuesday

I control my own checkbook.

If I want to go to Vegas with my mom and throw a $20 in the slot machine or buy a personal electronic or unnecessary fashion accessory I only have to answer to myself ... and maybe the government when student loans come due ... and credit card companies, but not spouse or partner, who can argue with a lot more fire than credit card companies can (although they're on par with collection agencies, I guess). I don't have to worry about what will happen to junior's college fund or baby's future wedding. It's all mine, mine, mine.

mine.

Solo mi e la amo

In honor of yet another friend's wedding this weekend, as well as for all of those friends and family members (and random people living on my street and hideous people at the Walmart) with children, every day this week I'm going to blog at least 1 great thing about being single.

Monday:
I set my own bedtime

This came to me on Friday when I fell asleep around 8:00. Not much of a Friday night, sure, but the point isn't that I have nothing to do on Friday, because if I did have something to do on Friday I could do it. It happened that this particular Friday I had nothing to do and I was tired and I went to sleep. I don't have to answer to anyone, be responsible for bathing kids, feeding men -- nothin.

I'm my own bed cop.

Slept in until 10:30 on Saturday too.

go ahead, call me a big eejit

I don't know why this is in my head, but it is. So I looked up the lyrics and as poetry it's not bad -- even better if you put Richard Harris's voice with it:

Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed
In love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants
---
I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees
---
There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why

-- what's missing is what makes it kind of silly and made us laugh as kids:
MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
Oh, no
No, no
Oh no!!

-- yeah ... cake as a metaphor for love and all ... that kinda ruins it. I also like the line about love's "hot fevered iron" being "like a striped pair of pants." That one kills me.

armes de destruction de masse

Today is the big day in Shakespeare class. THE SCENE. I'm not in the scene, because there were only 3 characters and the other people in the group wanted it more than I did -- they lobbied hard, using ads in both the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. So, in the end, I came out as director, which appears to be a glittery name for the prop-chick.

Things I have to tote on my bike today:
1 wooden sword
1 cudgel
1 real leek
2 eat-leeks

whoa, what? leeks? Act 5, Scene 1 of Henry V: Pistol's Farewell in which the Welsh guy, Fluellen, makes the scoundrel Pistol eat a leek, the symbol of Wales. Rather than subject my Pistol to a real leek, I set out to create an edible leek made of cookie dough. The color was fantastic, but unless I made it really, really, really small it would cook out flat. And the really, really, really small version was breakable when picked up. What to do? What to do? I spent 20 whole minutes walking around Fred Meyer (checking out the sales on clothing, but mostly thinking about the edible leek) when it came to me like a vision: String Cheese wrapped in tissue! No photo available, but it looks just like the leek, God pless it.

Now I can get on with my life ... although it will be hard to get "I will peat thy pate" out of my head.

Finally, not to state the obvious, but it's freakish how Henry V has changed in reading it now from reading it about 10, 12 years ago. Let's see ... party boy Henry becomes king after his father (who usurped the crown) and decides to prove his manhood by invading France, on the justification that unverified papers (and officials with outside agendas) say it's his.

Party boy George becomes king after his father and decides to prove his manhood by invading Iraq ...

I've lost all romantic respect for King Henry. He is dead to me.

feck, but not feck

As it turns out, I don't know much about Indonesia. What I do know can be summed up as follows:

- The Dutch were thrown out in the 1940's (this I know because I dated a Dutch guy whose family was thrown out of Indonesia in the 1940's ... he was older than I was, yes)
- Krakatoa is east of Java

That's it.

So I worry when this tops the headlines:

Thousands Flee Rumbling Indonesia Volcano

For the benefit of those who are as unknown to the territory as I am, I've provided a map of Indonesia.




The light green piece on the end is where the brother is going. If you follow that island chain all the way down to the wee blocks at the other end you'll find Java. That's where the volcano (and political unrest and so on) is. Granted, for all I know this map is scaled 1" to 20 miles, and going from Java to Aceh is like driving from LA to Orange County (Portland to Eugene, Philadelphia to DC, San Francisco to Sonoma), but I'm going to look deep into the sand and believe that this is not so.

There was also this hopeful note in the Wikipedia (for what it's Wiki-worth):

This (the earthquake in 2004) led to a peace agreement between the government of Indonesia and GAM, mediated by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, with the signing of a MoU on August 15, 2005. As of February 2006, the peace has held.

whew. and a good thing too.

Indoneedsya

The brother is going to Indonesia on his 40th birthday.

He's part of a group called Build Change (http://www.buildchange.org/), which rebuilds homes hit by earthquakes. (The brother's professional gig is engineering and he's done a lot of work on earthquake safety.)

I can't even begin to get around how totally floored I am by this. It's really, really wonderful, and I'm absolutely jealous, because I would never have the opportunity or the nerve to do it. Jaysis, I thought doing the Aids Walk was a big deal, but it's pretty pale by comparison. (Although walking through Los Angeles may, in fact, compare with walking through Indonesia -- apart , maybe, from an absence of strip malls.)

I'm also worried, sure. Indonesia is a little shaky, but not like Pakistan, where Build Change is going next. If he was going to Pakistan, I'd be a less inclined to jump around for it, because fear would tip the scales a little more the other way. Although Angelina Jolie can visit Pakistan ... but apparently so can Osama Bin Laden. Anyway, Indonesia has it's problems, but it also has vacation resorts, so I'm not as worried as I am excited and proud to have Tim for a brother.

Better Red Than ...

Many moons ago, before the silver bird drove me across the border into Oregon, I used to have red hair. It was, arguably, a monthly pain in the a** to dye it, and the damage control is outrageous, but the benefits were great. So much better than the brown hair. I mean, Betty is a betty, but she doesn't have streaks of white, if you know what I'm saying. "And let me be even more frank," as Woltz would say in The Godfather ... Dark brown doesn't get me play.

Once I hit 35 (ish) I decided it was time to put away childish hair color and be the woman that God intended me to be.

Subsequently, I have been moody, depressed, perpetually irritated and, overall, not much fun.

Yesterday I was feeling daffy and set myself down to be cut and colored (20% off at Hair Masters - act now!). Since that time I have been brighter (it's really brassy), happier and only marginally worried about how my eyebrows don't exactly match. But, this morning was the true test: "What's that movie where Julie Christie is naked?" - Black and white or color? - "Color and it has Donald Sutherland." - If he's psychic it's Don't Look Now directed by Nicholas Roeg. -

Children, I have never seen this movie before in my life. I double-checked in the Video Hound and was pleased to see that with the return of the red there has been a spike in my obscure (to me) movie memory knowledge.

Hail red!

Disney's Death Penalty

Mom was right. I don't know how she knows, but she knows. She saw this one coming and warned me about it as far back as yesterday.

I think there's small print on the contracts that if you break the law on ABC or a Disney-owned entity they have the option to kill you. I mean, honestly, does it really comes as a surprise that this happened to both Ana and Libby? No.

But to drop them both at the same time was just plain obvious and bad story-telling. Come on, ABC. This can't be the same channel that gave us the complex plot twists of "Fantasy Island". What have you spiraled into?

I swear, if they touch Mr. Eko or Jin, that's it for me. I'm barely holding onto this show as it is.

(Kinda makes you wonder what Boone and Shannon did...)