Mr. and Mrs. Smith go to Washington

The free advance showing of Mr and Mrs Smith that mr. ben and i attended last night attracted all sorts of irritating showbiz types and started over an hour late. It meant that for the third night running I got bare-minimum sleep and contributed to my general daziness today and lack of balance. But: it was worth it.

The onion av club agrees with me, for the record:

There’s no denying the high-concept gimmickry that has summoned Mr. & Mrs. Smith into existence, but what sounds in principle like a pitch for a TV pilot instead plays like an old-fashioned romantic comedy with updated hardware. Always better as an unhinged goofball than as a bronzed demigod in period garb, Pitt gives a loose-limbed performance that ricochets nicely off Jolie’s cool, unaffected sultriness. The knowing glibness occasionally spoils the fun—a problem that also plagued Liman’s Go and Swingers—but it’s rare that an action-comedy succeeds so swimmingly on both fronts. Rarely does a word like “deft” come to mind when viewing any film released between May and August, but Liman and company make it all look easy.

In case you were wondering, or because you have a genetic weakness for hearing the obvious stated, the hottest man alive and the hottest woman alive do indeed together equal supreme and unparalleled hotttness. Interestingly, this formula should have applied to the clunker original sin and did not – perhaps because m.andm.s has the HMA and HWA playing exactly to type and not bothering with funny accents, costumes, or plot devices.

In addition to showcasing supreme and unparalleled hotness, the movie manages to be clever, smooth, and refreshingly old-fashioned (in terms of movie conventions, NOT in terms of treatment of women. In fact, there are tons of awesome feminist throw-aways throughout). Yes, people, you heard it here first: this movie is better than the Sith. Don’t just stand there gaping at me – go buy a ticket! Seriously. It took my mind off the job-search and that’s saying something.

“We represent this guy’s voice!”

Soon I will no longer be uttering such sentences. Hopefully my compensation will be my new ability to utter such sentences as “I am a happy, fulfilled person.”

The Tonys last night were some kind of ridiculous. My brain wrangled with the idea of Wolverine and a 400-lb. Aretha Franklin singing, without any apparent irony, a sentimental love duet, but my brain couldn’t cope and decided to fold in on itself instead. Other aspects of the show were less painful. Not the dresses though. WTF, Broadway? Can’t afford stylists? No time to even raid costume shops? There should have been ugly contests — then everyone could have been a winner!
But largely the ceremony was entertaining, I thought. I enjoyed the musical numbers with the bittersweet knowledge that they’re as close as I’ll probably get to the shows, as they cost for one ticket more than I spend in a week.

Inexplicably, the MTV movie awards seemed to be hit with a wave of fugly as well. *shudder*

This reminds me that when I was in Seattle, people kept stopping me to admire my boots and ask where I’d gotten them. “New York,” I replied, which shut up those stupid nice people pretty quick. In New York, no one ever compliments your boots, unless they’re trying to distract you while they steal your library card or put roofies in your drink. Chalk one up for Seattle.

short version

Well, I succumbed to the urge of unemployment. Or something like that. I’m actually looking for a new job while I finish up at the old one — and knowing that the old one now has an expiration date on it makes it that much less wretched. Like being forced to eat a bowl of something bottomless-seeming and gross and then finally, blessedly, getting a glimpse of the ceramic below the food.

Mr. Ben, my companion, has started his summer job and it affords him, as law school did not, weekends. Weekends! So exciting. We celebrated by doing various touristy New York things, some of which we’d never done: crossed the brooklyn bridge, strolled through lower Manhattan to Ground Zero and all the way down to the Staten Island ferry. Took the ferry, peeked through our fingers at Statan Island, then dashed back to Manhattan and walked up through Chinatown, with a stop for dinner, to the Sunshine theater back in our old East Village stomping grounds and then to a new thankfully unpretentious wine bar.

It took us 12 hours and it was exhausting and wonderful, especially since the weather, after dilly-dallying for months, has finally decided to grant us warmth. It seems fitting after a day like that that the NYT should offer something cool and new yorkish like an interactive literary map of the city like so.

It feels a little funny to be looking for work again and dealing with the question of What Shall I Do again a year after I dealt with both for the first time. But I have two interviews in the next two days and I’m keeping my chin up.

there must be some way out of here …

While rifling through my bag at work today, I found a crumpled and unfamiliar fortune-cookie fortune. Instead of winning lottery numbers, it offered advice: “A hen tomorrow is better than an egg today.” What should have seemed straight-forward perplexed me. Why choose the example of a hen? One doesn’t need to choose between a hen and an egg; one can easily have both. Wouldn’t it be better to say “A cow tomorrow is better than beef today” since live cows and beef are mutually exclusive?

But perhaps there’s a depth to this message that I have yet to plumb. Feel free to help me out.

I’m back from Seattle. Oh Seattle. Oh the coast that is not mine, where buildings are short and modern, where air is plentiful and clean, where trees make their presences felt. My favorite couple has an apartment right in the middle of things and we were graced with excellent weather by which to appreciate it all.
We rode the ferry one afternoon and I spotted two seals cavorting in the Sound. I said, in my next life, I’d like to be a seal — funny, since I don’t even know what I’d like to be in this life yet. (Although I would like to note that I agree with little adam: there are no false starts.)

I keep having vestigal, quiet moments of panic upon realizing that it’s almost June. June has always meant change. Now for the first time it doesn’t, necessarily. I’m not finishing a skool year and embarking on a summer. Summer is in fact no longer distinct from any other season, except that it has the prettiest, most consistent weather, and that’s how it will be, unless I think of something reasonable to go back to skool for. I do have this transgressive yearning to be unemployed, just for the summer … to wander around and see friends and sit in parks and try to let go of this crazy year. I’m trying to keep that impulse under control, for what it’s worth. But it’s so tempting. You know?

exclamation points

I leave the East Coast for five minutes, and what happens? My alma mater slaps my face (and my tiny little shoes) on the front page of their website. Oh mercy.

Appropriate it should happen now, I guess, since I’m visiting long-lost college friends. But still eerie for someone as photo phobic as I am.

Seattle is wonderful. I’m letting the unseasonable heat wash over me (“avoid prolonged exposure to direct or artificial sunlight” be damned) and help me forget the utter madness that was last week. The buildings have less character here than they do in New York but the natural beauty of the surroundings compensates. I’m trying to decide whether natural beauty is enough to make me, personally, happy without character buildings and I haven’t decided yet. I have a few more days to make up my mind.

Also, what should I do with my life? I’m very, very open to suggestion.

Same old shit. I mean ‘sith’! ‘Sith!’

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Whatsits may or may not have been the cause of my vomiting what looked like pomegranite juice but felt like battery acid this afternoon. Who’s to say? (Or as Yoda would put it, “To say, who is?” That wacky Yoda.)

You can blame me for thinking that because I felt well enough this morning to attempt such a rousing and ennobling cultural event, I should go. I blame myself. I just blame George Lucas also. How has he managed to forget so entirely and completely that what makes the old Star Wars movies enjoyable is the humor? I know that’s what kept me watching: Harrison Ford bantering with Carrie Fisher. They’re so cute and badass at the same time! Who cares about sissy Luke?

Well, George Lucas cares, that’s who, enough to make two humorless, self-serious disasters and now a third that’s, frankly, pretty mediocre, all about sissy Luke and how he got here. Ugh. And I tried to like it! Unfortunately, as the Jedi say, “Do or do not: there is no ‘try’.” So I did: I disliked the film, right from the supposed climax where Anakin bends to the dark side — except it’s not so much a climax as as the point where you grab your hair and squint at the screen and splutter, “What?! WHY?” That scene, which had such potential, was so poorly thought-through as to be insulting.

Sigh. I hope Sissy Luke’s happy now that his family’s dirty laundry is waving in the breeze for 120 million to goggle at: his dad’s schizophrenia and creepy yellow eyes, his obsession with cutting off hands; his loony passive mom, her hairdos, her stilted delivery.

In the end, sadly, I just didn’t care. I liked Ewan McGregor and the other Jedi. But as my mother would say, “These are the smart ones?” How come they were so surprised that the scary old guy right in front of their noses was the scary old guy they were looking for? Why didn’t any of them put together that Padme might be pregnant by the stud she was shacked up with and that the pregnancy — and its “secrecy” — might be messing with young Skywalker’s mind?

The word ‘sith’ reminds me of that joke from the Muppets movie where Kermit goes, “That’s a myth! Myth!” and a woman next to him replies “Yeth?” Yeah. That’s a way better movie than this one.

My visit to the emergency room

When I said this weekend that I had an infection, I was just kidding. Or I thought I was. I was bitter about feeling sick; I wanted whatever symptoms I had to subside. They did! Great! Good symptoms – have a cookie.

I didn’t realize that, over the next few days, the symptoms hadn’t as much subsided as much as recoiled so as to strike a blow with the greatest possible force. pow! Right in the kidney, all of a sudden, while I was at work. I had no idea what to do. My doctor couldn’t see me, another doctor I tried wasn’t even allowed to talk to me. And I’d never gone to the hopsital before. Hopsitals are scary places, places for people with their noses hanging by a shred of skin or gunshot victims.

It took Human Resources to convince me to go — in fact, I guess because I looked pretty wretched, someone from HR ended up accompanying me to a nearby emergency room and staying with me through the whole ordeal. Luckily, as ER-visits go, mine was short and sweet. I was diagnosed within minutes by the coolest doctor I’ve ever worked with: “So, what brings you to the ER today? … Okay. You probably have a kidney infection.”

Fifteen minutes later: “Yup, you have a kidney infection. It’s a good thing you came in. Left untreated, they can kill your kidney. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I have to go sew someone’s finger up but I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shortly thereafter I was out the door again with a prescription for Cipro, some other pills that caution they may discolor my soft contact lenses, and an official “doctor’s note” in case I needed verification for my job or school (little did the nurse realize I had one-third of my company’s HR department waiting for me in the lobby).

I never even had to put on a gown. I did get one of those white plastic bracelets like they slap on your wrists at amusement parks. It says my name and birthday in soft purple letters. I feel somewhat better already, though still week. At least I have the weekend to recooperate.

an awful lot of trust

Jeffrey Tambor kissed my hand. That is all.

… Well, no, it’s not all. My life continues, otherwise. I was just giddy about that for a bit there. And his show got picked up for another season! Amazing.

no more food, i promise

My life is no longer about food. Those couple moments were anomalies brought on by passover. At this very moment, in fact, my life seems to be not about food at all. Food – feh! No, my life is about infection. Cuz I seem to have gotten one. Yay! Three cheers for infection! Also: sigh. Why is this necessary?

At this very moment, my senior friends at Swarthmore are braced for the final throes of Honors exams. My parents are toasting my father’s birthday on-board their ship in the mediterranean. My brother is at home taking care of our increasingly uncontrollable dog and preparing to leave for China. My home is on the verge of no longer being mine: in fact, my parents have put down money on a new apartment. When they return from their three-week jaunt, both they and I will really have to deal with that, I guess. What a thought.

As that home, my home, drifts away from me, Mr. Ben — done with his first year of law skool! — and I are decorating this home at long last. We will hide the shame of our bare walls. I am very excited. And you should come see the results, our 300 sq. feet of glory. Really, do. Brooklyn Heights is lovely in the springtime.

still recovering. need more french toast

actually i have yet to enjoy any french toast. i dream about it. actually that’s not literally true either: lately i’ve been having dreams about fire. in one, i was so badly burned up and down my back that i couldn’t get out of bed — the silver lining being, of course, that i couldn’t very well go to work. but i think my dreams are trying to tell me to eat some goddamned french toast, not become some.

the best news to come out of the past couple weeks is that two of my loveliest and oldest friends have decided to move to new york city. that fairly doubles my count of people i could call in the middle of the night to rush over and comfort me if mr. ben the overstressed law student decides to become mr. ben the happy wanderer of the earth, leaving me to cry into his black’s law dictionary and blame pulp fiction for planting the idea in his head. also: twice as many people with which to have weekend brunches, talk nonsense late at night, or venture to far reaches of the area. three cheers for the magnetic capabilities of nyc! and how glad am i i didn’t stake my claim to kansas.

i have to go do laundry now, and i have to do it alone, which seems infinitely sad. i am spoiled from having gotten to do laundry as a couple for the past 9 months. at least laundry’s in the building, here, and while i’m sulking my way to the machine i don’t have to put on a sweater or anything, or make myself look presentable.

oh – i wanted to add one thing to my list of things i wish i could have told my 15 year old self. when i was 15, my gut instinct, when i met a cute guy, was to be a smart ass. i thought they might admire my tartness and thus see past the glasses, braces, and occasional zit to the sweet, sensitive romantic within. alas, that dream was not to be realized. although people tell young girls all the time that when a boy teases them it’s cuz he likes them, no one remembers to tell boys that too. or perhaps i was the only girl stupid enough not to realize that when you tease a 15 year old boy, his fragile, superficial self-confidence flees like an antelope, leaving only his skin behind, and/or you solidify yourself as a Friend forever after.

the thing is, when i’m confronted with a cute guy, my instinct is still to be a smart ass. now i don’t care if he likes me more or less because of it, cuz i’m not in desperate need of male attention the way i was at 15. interestingly, though, i think it’s as much a defense mechanism now as it was then. at least now the boys seem able to handle it better.