August 31th, 2001.  Friday
 

    So it's friday night, and I've got the apartment to myself.  So I'm sitting here, putting a dent in a bottle of Jameson's and listening to the air conditioner.  I was going to put on some music, but at this point that'd be a little much.  I just watched the movie Il Postino.  An Italian flick.  I don't know why I was surprised when the movie started playing and it was subtitled.  I mean, it's an Italian film. I don't know what I was expecting.  It was a really enjoyable movie.  About a guy who takes a job as a postman delivering mail to Pablo Neruda, living in exile on an Italian island.  All the womenfolk love Pablo, being the writer of love poems.  So the titular postman gets into the act.   It was sort of a downer at the end, but I guess it would've been more unsatisfying had everything tied up neatly.  What I liked about it, and what made me really notice it wasn't an American film, was that even though it's about the postman trying to get this girl, the female lead doesn't show up until 35 minutes into the movie.  There's a lot of build up and actual story before the guy gets caught up in this quest.  He's trying to learn from ol pablo just for the sake of learning metaphors and whatnot.  Of course, he's just learning so he can go to Naples and impress the girlies, but that gets forgotten quickly.  Anyway, it was noticeable because it wasn't done in the usual romantic comedy way, where the entire movie is about getting the girl.  Did i ever mention i got a Master's Degree from a program that was about criticism?  Can you believe I don't have a job in the field?

    So anyway, the reason I'm sitting in my room by myself is that James is in the Carolinas, and Jed and Matt are on their way to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.  I was supposed to go with Jed and Matt, and we'd been planning the trip for months, but I decided last week that I just couldn't go. I'd probably decided a while before that, actually. I don't know, it just didn't sound like a good idea to me.  While swimming and hanging out and a long drive all sound good to me, I just think it'll do me a lot more good to just sit around by myself all weekend long. Or at least part of it. At least, it seemed like a good idea in theory.  But now I'm kind of bored and lonely.  then again, subconsciouly I probably knew that'd be the case, so this must be what I wanted all along.  And right now, it's okay.  Just some time to sit around and watch movies and read and play the guitar and write a little bit.  I had my last day of work today, so now there really is nothing to do.  So this extended weekend is really more of a portal into an indefinitely extended weekend.  I'm planning on being a substitute teacher this fall, and from the sound of it from the schools I've called, I could probably have pretty steady work.  Again, this sounds good in theory.  But when I really think about it, the prospect of standing in a classroom and writing my name on the board and seeing myself through those kids eyes, and telling them they have to call me "Mr. Chow" is both laughable and terrifying.  But we shall see.

    I'm having a renewed love of Park Slope right now.  Sort of.  I went to drop off my certificate at one of the schools down on 6th Avenue, and after that I made a trip down 7th Ave, buying just about everything I could want. I ducked into the comics store, bought some books to read, went down to the street to the video store and rented a movie, then went next door to the Prospect Wine Shop(pe) and bought a fifth of whiskey.  Then I came home, grabbed my bike, and went for a ride around Prospect Park.  It's really beginning to smell like the late summer/early fall.  The smell reminds me of soccer practice, even though I haven't actually had soccer practice in ten years.  But it was a wonderful sunny evening in the park.  And refreshing.  And I couldn't have done that if I lived in Manhattan, or even many other areas of Brooklyn. Then I came home and went down to the Met for a bag of popcorn, then to one of the fish markets for some fresh, cheap but quality sushi.  And really, I can't imagine being that much better off, given the circumstances, then I am right now.  Realistically, anyway.

    Got a call from Nora when I got back from the fish market. Said she was reading the Nouns page and laughing, so she decided to call.  That's probably the best thing about Nora being back in California.  One more person to talk to on the telephone.  She reminded me again that the Nouns page was seriously outdated.  I've been planning a major overhaul for a while, which was one of the reasons I took down the site for a while.  though nothing came of that. But now that I've got all this time on my hands, maybe I'll get around to it.  I spent a good amount of time today researching the affects of certain colors on the psyche. I'm trying to figure out what color to paint my room.

    And the Jameson's is going down fairly easily.

DA&R home
Past Aggravations and Regrets
previous| next
South Pole Home

©2001 Three Match Breeze