Everything's sort of falling into place these days. Not all necessarily in a good way. More of a "let the chips fall where they may" kind of way. Or like sediment settling in a stream. But for the most part things are fairly hunky-dorey. Among the good and/or interesting:
Older brother Garrick was up in the city last week for the annual Flash Forward conference. After work on Wednesday I met up with him and we caught the late showing of Pirates of the Caribbean. It looked like a fun movie, and indeed it was. Johnny Depp was quite fantastic. And Geoffrey Rush pulls off a surprisingly convincing, non-ironic "Arrrrr!" The movie was over two hours long, but I didn't mind at all. In my opinion, it was the best pirate movie since The Pirate Movie, which, again in my opinion, was way ahead of its time and way underappreciated. Thinking about it now, The Pirate Movie was kind of a Spaceballs-type spoof meets the time-displaced was-it-a-dream-or-wasn't-it fantasy of Black Knight, mixed with a dose of campy musical kind of affair. Sort of. And it came before either of those movies. Anyway, there have been quite a few medievel knight movies the past few years, so I'm hoping this starts a spate of pirate movies. Actually, now that I think about it, I hope not, because they'll all inevitably be pretty bad. Come to think of it, I think Russell Crowe is in a movie coming out this year that may or may not have something to do with pirates. If I were one for bad jokes (and I am), I would say it could be called A Bootyful Mind. Ha!Anyway, on saturday I tried to play tennis for the first time in a few years. I collected my racket from the Park Slope apartment and dug out the tennis balls I've been keeping for about three years, and went up to the Williamsburg courts with a girl from my nightjob. Apparently we needed a permit or pass or something to play, but after a little begging the woman working there let us play "just this once." The first few hits were pretty awkward, but I got back into it pretty quickly. My forehand was actually better than it was when I last played. Though that's not saying much. Anyway, after about 25 minutes I was really enjoying, so naturally a broke a string. I guess that's what happens when I leave the racket sittining in a closet for a few years. Grooves in the strings and whatnot. Bollocks.
In the evening, I went out with this lady Vallarie, whom a dated briefly my freshman year in college. She tranferred after sophomore year, and I didn't hear from her again until last year. Little has changed between us during the past eight years. We still have little in common and not very much to talk about. But we both find myself mildy amusing. I met up with her and two of her friends. They told me to pick a place in the city, and the first place that came to my mind was the Black Star on 2nd ave. Not a great bar, but there's a pool table in case conversation runs out and there's usually ample seating. So that night I was rolling with the Asian posse, Vallarie and her roommate being Thai and her other friend being Chinese I think. I never hang out with other Asians, and to find myself in a group of four was actually sort of uncomfortable. But all in all, it was sort of interesting.
After drinking, we walked down the Katz's deli, since I was in the mood for a very large pastrami sandwich. Hadn't been to Katz's in quite some time. So it was terribly satisfying. Toward the end of my half-sandwich, something came flying over Vallarie's shoulder and onto my plate. Closer examination revealed it to be a finger nail. I saw the direction it came from, but I couldn't nail down any definite suspects. Not that I would've done anything anyway. But I just wanted to know. It was neatly trimmed off too, and it came with such velocity that I thought maybe it was just an accident. Then maybe I thought there was some meaning to it that I didn't know about, like in the Arab world how hitting something with your shoe is a terrible insult. Or shaking someone's hand with your left hand is also insulting or something like that. I got mildly paranoid and started thinking "This never happens when I go out with a group of non-Asians." Anyway, not surprisingly, disgusting as it was, it didn't really affect my appetite and I finished the remainder of Val's bratwurst sandwich.Then on Sunday, I took the Metro North train up to upstate New York to visit Miss Charming Melodee, who'd been camped out at her parent's house since Wednesday. Despite the fact that I have quick access to seven different train lines from my new home, it was nearly impossible to get to Grand Central on Sunday, with all the construction delays and rerouting. The half hour trip took me three times as long. Luckily I'd brought a good book with me, Moneyball, which is a great read if you like baseball, statistics, and several good stories wound into a common theme. So I got up there and we drove around a little, went in a few stores looking for home wares, and ate a bunch of food her grandmother had prepared. Pretty damn tasty. And a gorgeous day to boot.
In the evening, we came back to Brooklyn, organized what will be the rumpus room a bit, and baked chocolate chip cookies. It was already hot as Hades in my apartment, and the baking of cookies certainly didn't help, but they were tremendously tasty nonetheless. I acquired a few new toys over the weekend- a new white keyboard and a new 17'' flat-screen monitor, so the rumpus room/office is really starting to take shape. Once Miss CM moves in, we'll move the bed out of there and into the smaller bedroom, and move in our guitars, my drum set, and her various arts and crafts stuff. And it'll be a very nice home. I'm loving this apartment, by the way. In terms of cubic feet, my entire last apartment would've fit in the living room. With high ceilings, great space, and a dishwasher, it's my ideal mix of comfort, cleanliness, and laziness.
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