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theories explaining parents Sunday, April 8 2007
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This evening Gretchen and I picked up Penny and David at their cube-shaped midcentury modern house in Marbletown and drove to High Falls, where we had dinner at Chefs on Fire (in the basement of the big stone house that used to have an enormous American flag on the outside of its east wall). In the past I'd only been to Chefs on Fire for brunch (usually sitting outside), and so wasn't really aware that they're not much more than a gourmet pizza shop. Sure, they have appetizers from a wide mix of cuisines, and (most strangely of all) they've recently added a sushi bar, but if you're looking for a proper entree, pizza is pretty much the only option. Mine was a somewhat imperfect pie consisting of spicy calamari suspended in an oily sea of cheese.
After dinner, back at the midcentury modern cube, we watched Infamous, a pseudo-documentary of Truman Capote during his research and writing of the book In Cold Blood. It was a fun movie, and what made it that way was the quirky performance of Toby Jones, the diminutive dwarflike actor playing the star role. Daniel Craig, who played the deeply damaged murderer Perry Smith, was also great.
The movie seemed to set the mood for a discussion of troubled childhoods, so afterwards everyone except me took turns telling stories showcasing the flaws of their respective parents. Some were pathological liars, some were emotionally cold, and one was fond of offering help but then never carrying through. It was obvious that everyone had spent a lot of time thinking about and developing theories explaining their parents and their reactions to them. I don't think it was a coincidence that, I, the only one not interested in contributing to the conversation, was the only one in the room who had never been to a therapist (not a good thing, in Gretchen's view).
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