Salmon

I have a dinner-and-a-movie date with an older gentleman that reminds me of a certain (smelly) person I used to work with. I really need to run the I-like-you-but-not-that-way line by someone before I go on this date!!

Lagaan

I keep waiting for the ideal moment to write my reviews of movies and books, but that moment never arrives. Since I intended this "blog" mostly to document what I've seen and read and to jog my failing memory, I guess I don't need to insist on the ideal writing conditions (which include motivation and time). I just need to document enough to jog my memory...

So I'm starting with Lagaan... I liked it. It was like one of those old Hollywood epic film made modern, with scenes that have wide camera pans across a dramatic landscape in a far away land. The cast is also huge. The movie feels a bit like a fairy tale with a strong moral component to it. And with song and dance. The musical aspect of it is slightly weird at the first musical number, but I think that's true of any musical when the characters suddenly break out into song and dance at a dramatic moment. But after the first song, you come to expect it. The musical numbers also move the plot forward, so they're important to the story.

The acting is great and Amir Khan is wonderful, and the leads are attractive! (The lead female character, Gauri, reminded me of an Indian woman I once saw at the INS office in San Francisco - very pretty, heavily made up, decorated in bright colors and jewelry, and very flirty with coquettish gestures. Her man was definitely smitten). The love song is wonderful. The gender roles are generic, but not insultingly so. I also like how the movie roots for the underdog. Though the Indian characters are in this cricket game ostensibly for their livelihood, it is easy to forget that. Pride dominates the story and it seems like that is what is really on the line for them. The Indian men cry a lot at moments when they might lose, which is interesting and doesn't detract from the pride issue at all. The pride aspect is more compelling than the livelihood issue, especially since the British characters are such arrogant and capricious swine.

I Hate Miss Piggy

I'm depressed. Not the searing-pain kind of depressed I felt while I was dealing with Miss Piggy. This is a more generalized kind of no-joy-in-anything sort of depression, where the slightest obstacle feels impossible to overcome and every little incident feels like a huge setback and hopelessness sets in. I'll never have any local friends or people to hand out with. I'll never have another relationship. I'll never have sex again. Work sucks. I can't be happy here. This was a total failure. At these moments I want to send Miss Piggy an email telling him how much I hate him for putting me here....

My purse is heavy

The mobile pharmacy I carry in my purse:

Excedrin - for headaches, of course
Tylenol - for other aches and pains I seem to be afflicted with as of late
Claritin - I need to take every day to help ward of evil allergies
Hydroxizine - I take as needed when my face blows up
Epi-pen - I hope never to have a need for this
Tums - For just in case moments - if I didn't have it with me, I'd have heartburn all day every day. But simply carrying it around seems to keep the problem at bay.

I've also got Flonase and Penlac at home, among other things.

Sigh.... Frontier life can wear you down....

Therapy

I had a first meeting with a "behavioral health" specialist -- that's what they call them at Kaiser. It sounds so much like a surveillance term that it is very difficult to reveal anything about yourself in the therapist's office, which at Kaiser is a small, cramped office with old, dirty chairs that resemble the kind they have in the medical exam rooms. Needless to say, the surroundings are not conducive to therapeutic feelings of any kind. The woman I was assigned to (I did not get to choose her) was perfectly nice and competent seeming, but alas....

Marlene

http://www.suzannevega.com/lyrics/w54lyr.htm#marlene

Since I talked to B about J (aka Miss Piggy) the other day, and since I recently heard this song, I thought I'd share... J burned Suzanne Vega's first album for me, presumably because I once mentioned liking some of her music, but that may be giving him too much credit. I would listen to these lyrics and figured that he burned the CD for me because of this song...

After the breakup (I will call it that even though it's not quite the right word) I asked if he gave me this song for a reason or if he was saying something with it or how it might be relevant. He was bewildered and had no clue what I could possibly mean. He asked me to explain (I did not). I left thinking I must be so far gone, making these connections where none exist.

Though I threw away the Suzanne Vega album he burned for me, I recently came across an old mix CD that I made long ago with this song on it. I considered throwing it away because it contains music he gave me, but then figured it had nothing to do with him and the song was totally incidental, so I kept it. I don't think it's merely the teenage narcisist or romantic in me (which does in fact exist, I learned these last two years) that feels like every song was written about her life. Now that I am sober and recovered (mostly) from the J-illness, I still hear something in the lyrics that are applicable to my relationship with him. So... mostly sober, and mostly in my right mind, when I listen to this song, the lyrics are still about me. And I wonder at the varying levels of thoughtlessness he has demonstrated during the course of my relationship with him, and at what it was that blinded me to it so.

Sigh....