interesting things happening Thursday, February 21 2002
The weather was so warm and pleasant this morning that I thought the day stood a good chance of becoming a perfect one for me. But perfect days don't just happen on their own; they require a little effort on the part of their participants. So I did my part to help it towards its perfection. After walking Sally in the park, I washed the dishes as I waited for my coffee to finish percolating. Then I made a fateful blunder, hanging Gretchen's doggy mug on a tiny hook above the sink. Gretchen bought that mug in Boulder, Colorado when we were driving across the country to New York. Unfortunately, the mug has an unusually wide handle, too wide for the hook.
Misery comes in many forms. My misery this morning came in the form of glue dried uncomfortably all over my fingertips as I fumbled to find tiny chips of broken ceramic. There's something about the reminder of mortality implicit in every breaking dish that confers an ominous portent to the occasion. It's doubtful that a day that begins with the breaking of a dish can ever rise above its imperfection. (Jewish weddings not withstanding.)
Olympic women's figure skating was happening tonight. Young women were sliding around on artificial Mormon ponds of frozen water, periodically jumping up into the air and spinning around, eliciting great oohs and ahs from the audience. Some of these girls were much bigger and clunkier than others. None of them seemed to have quite the human exclamation mark quality of an Oksana Baiul, but the only one I really hated was Michelle Kwan, overcommercialized corporate slut that she is. How many million dollars from her commercial value did she lose when she fell tonight?
I asked Gretchen what was the difference between a triple lutz and a triple axle but, like 99% of people in America, she didn't know. I saw one particularly hot skater and commented that perhaps she was about to do a "triple slut." "I can just tell you're going to be a dirty old man some day," Gretchen responded.
At around that time I actually managed to get interesting things happening in Flash. This is only 14K, so indulge me for a moment.
Every now and then Gretchen convinces me to cook us a meal. Though I love to eat, I've never been an enthusiastic cook because I dread the idea of making "art" that can't survive an evening. Despite such feelings, though, tonight I agreed to cook dinner. I went all out on my classic dish: pasta stir fry. This time I had to make a special run to Key Foods to get key ingredients. It even featured straw mushrooms, those little slimy guys who taste like chlorine. Everything turned out great: the pasta was perfectly al dente (what's that?) and the broth had the perfect amount of salt. I always downplay my cooking talents and gustatory fussiness, but Gretchen suspects I'm better than I say. How else, she figures, can I consistently prepare food that exceeds her fussy standards?
We'd liked Richard Farnsworth so much in The Straight Story that today Gretchen checked out Misery from the Brooklyn Public Library, and we watched it late tonight. I usually don't like film adaptations of Stephen King novels (let alone find them scary), but Jesus Christ, Misery was one scary film! There was a moment there during the infamous "ankle scene" when the tension was so high I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack. I especially liked the goody two-shoes personality given to Annie the psycho nurse by Kathy Bates. It bore witness to an essential truth: nauseatingly saccharine sweetness (as well as patriotism) is almost always a cover.
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