This week felt packed to the gills but then, upon reflection, very little got done. Maybe it’s because I had a follow-up to a doctor’s appointment (don’t worry, everything is good inside me, at least physiologically), which threw off my week's regular shapes and patterns. Maybe it’s because the week before was ACTUALLY very busy and I was just feeling some busyness residuals? Maybe it was because I had to cook something and take it to another person’s house. Maybe it was because of so many holidays converging in one week? WHO KNOWS HOW THIS DUMB BRAIN WORKS? Obviously it was a combination of all those things or else I wouldn’t have thought of them (I know how this dumb brain works a little). Anyway, here’s some stuff from this busy in the mind but slow in the body week.
ROSES AND THORNS
When I got to college I heard about kids who would sit down to dinner with their parents and name three good things and three bad things that they saw or experienced that day, they’d call them Roses and Thorns. This sounded like a nice way of communicating as opposed to my childhood of spending dinner hoping that we’d sit late enough to miss the boring syndicated episode of MASH and be dining just as the awesome syndicated episode of Night Court was coming on. So now I’m stealing this idea for what may or may not be a running feature!
ROSES:
We went with some friends to see the D&D movie, which was GOOD! Seeing a fun rollicking movie that felt free of any lugubrious continuity was nice, it felt like a very well-executed but slightly dumb magic trick. There was a distinct 80s sword and sorcery air to the whole thing, complete with very hair metal epic theme from Tame Impala on the soundtrack. Chris Pine maintained his place as Best Chris and I think it had enough nerd shit in there for the nerds to stay chill about it. Please keep making these movies but do not make a big deal about it.
I got a little bit stoned for the movie and it was great.
I’m almost done with a book I do not like and I’m so excited. I’m a habitual book finisher, even when I do not like the book I’m reading, and when I finally finish a real stinker I feel a sense of joy that’s very different from the one I get when I finish a book I like. When I finish a good book there’s a little bit of regret, a melancholy joy, but when I finish an annoying book that’s been mocking me from its place in my backpack for weeks it feels like I got out of work 3 hours early. Right now I’m merely tens of pages away from being through with this book about alien encounters and religion that has lots of cool ideas but is also driving me nuts.
THORNS:
We failed to get to a theater that was selling the d20 popcorn bucket (pictured above). I have enough self-awareness to know that I would’ve purchased this and been excited for about a week (or until the next time I played D&D with my online D&D friends) and then consigned it to whatever corner of the apartment holds all of my batting helmets and I ate nachos out of over the years. This self-knowledge does not soften the blow of missing out on a thing that is currently selling for almost one hundred bucks on ebay.
I was very pleasant if slightly under-stoned during the movie so I made the classic error of having a little bit more of the edible that was in my pocket about 2/3rds of the way through. This didn’t really affect my viewing experience because things didn’t really kick in till the car ride home, but once we got back to the apartment it was real paranoia hours. It wasn’t as bad as the time I got so high that I got under the covers in all my clothes (including my shoes) at 7 pm and could only listen to old episodes of Fresh Air on my third-hand all-white Macbook till I was able to pass out, but I definitely had to watch some old sports highlights to bring myself back to earth.
I often have to overhear rich people talking; it is a bummer! The most recent depressing thing that crossed my ears was when a late 20s dude told his late 20s friend that he “really wanted to get into pickleball this summer.” UGH! Yikes!
SOUND OF THE WEEK
This could be a song or just like a sound I heard or something. MY SUBSTACK MY RULES!
I’ve been watching The Knick, it’s been bubbling up in conversations both actual and internet-based recently and I’ve always been a staunch Clive Owen supporter so it makes sense. While the sound of the week should be the excellent soundtrack provided by Cliff Martinez, I’ve chosen to go in another direction (slight spoilers for a show that’s nearly ten years old). In the third episode of the first season, there is a character who wears a kind of funny nose and glasses thing but like steampunk. It was obvious from the moment she appears on-screen that there is something deeply wrong with her face but that didn’t prevent me from saying “Oh, she don’t got no nose” to the empty room as she removed her headwear. This has been your sound of the week.
CELEBRITY SIGHTING OF THE WEEK
In case you didn’t know, I LIVE IN NEW YORK and there are a lot of celebrities here. I often see them and now I’m going to tell you about them.
Nothing this week my friends! I will say that I complained about a customer’s order a couple weeks back, they wanted a bunch of martinis to go even though we don’t have to go cups so we had to put these tiny drinks into quart containers which certainly ruined said martinis, and it turned out that customer was a famous model/actress! I did not recognize this person so it doesn’t really count but I’ve got to put something in here every week!
THAT’S IT!