Friday

Oct, 26, 2001

Friday's no relief

I woke up feeling fat and stupid and useless and I had to be at work and conscious for a 9am meeting. A phone call with folks seven hours away. Yeah, what else is new?

I forgot to write that we watched Flawless last night. Robert de Niro is pretty good as a tough guy who had a stroke. But Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a transvestite and would-be transsexual as if he means it. You want to send money for the operation. If you hadn't seen him be equally convincing as a sweaty heterosexual voyeur in Happiness or a convincingly cruel and care-free right boy in The Talented Mr. Ripley then you'd believe it all. But, of course, this movie is two year old and made its way to cable so you all knew that. I meant to see it at the movies. I read reviews. I knew I'd like it. But I never saw it until last night and then I forgot to write about it.

What's with the pix today, you ask? Oh, I just keep seeing flags everywhere. Decals, flapping tattered out of car windows, drooping on flag poles at houses, lashed to buildings with ropes. Most are improperly displayed (although I don't know if there is propriety for the lapel pins, ribbons, etc.). Chick Filet has always had its dwarfed flag pole. They show proper respect there. And close on Sunday, too.

Oh, I don't know. It just reminds me of the irreverence we had displaying an old (48-star?) flag on the sick green wall of the ratty kitchen in our apartment in an old house near campus in the late sixties, early seventies. But people don't mean it that way. I know that. They are serious. United we stand, the billboard, says. Freedom, freedom, freedom, we chanted. Symbols mean different things.

I have to start my day not really earlier but in a different way. I usually fiddle with mail drinking good coffee at home. Then I go into the actual office when I feel like it. Anyway, there is the 9am phone meeting as I said so I have to pay attention to the clock which I don't really like doing.

While looking at e-mail at home, I delete a message with the subject line 'Krispy Kremes in the project room.' I've been eating too much junk. I don't like Krispy Kremes. And I'm still at home. I forget about it. (No, I do like donuts. Plain, glazed donuts from the grocery store nearby, big, fluffy, lighter than air but with hundreds and hudreds of calories. But I haven't had one of those in ages either.)

At work I check out the location of the meeting. I walk by the project room and there are...Krispy Kreme boxes. I don't look inside. But I think, "I bet I look inside and, if there are some left, get one when I come back by here to go to the meeting."

But I didn't. For all I know the boxes were empty. Or contained only iced or filled ones that I can't abide. But I forgot and didn't look. We are...what we don't eat perhaps.

I managed the whole morning without having candy from the office of my pal the support guy. (He has candy I like in three varieties. SuRu did have but I ate it all and she switched to caramels. I keep coffee candy myself. The good news with it is that sometimes it really hits the spot but I can usually avoid eating it.)

I don't eat any potato chips or tortilla chips as I pass the kitchen either.

I just drink coffee. So when lunch comes I have stayed the course, done some useful work, dug into the psyche of that customer far away, etc.

I send SuRu a note suggesting a random list of possible lunch spots. Schlotsky's, Chinese, barbecue, cheese steak, Edge, Brick Oven, Indian, others. Indian leaps out at me.

So I have a couple of trips to the buffet. Those marinated onions and tempura spinach and a spinach salad and saag paneer. Spinach all ways. Some meatballs, a chicken curry, some Naan. Buffets are dangerous.

But...I am thinking in the afternoon that I still haven't had candy or chips...when a buddy walks in from outside. They were having an ice cream social to kick off a fund-raising walk for Juvenile Diabetes (go figure, I know, I think they offered sugar-free ice cream, too). Anyway I didn't go out there or anything but a buddy came in with an example of my favorite cookie. A white cookie with a just right dollop of chocolate on top. So, of course, I eat it. Right then and there. And later a handful of chips as I walk through the kitchen. Thus it is that I eat...randomly and not always healthily.

I have a meeting that goes over and over a tired issue that seems to have no resolution. Worse, several possible resolutions portend, if not doom, some undesirable outcomes. Maybe.

I rush home after the meeting to dress up for the ballet.

We are invited to a green room reception. Maybe because we are on the board. Maybe because Good Right Arm is a sponsor of the evening. Maybe just because. As always, we are pathologically punctual.

The bubbly (a Chandon from California) looks good and doesn't disappoint. There are little passed tiny sandwiches and canapés. I eat a few, not too many. I let my glass be refilled a couple of times, maybe three. "Just a little," I say, not always getting them to stop.

We visit with friends, hear a few words about the ballet.

At the first intermission, I want a coke. But I don't find a line short enough until the lights are blinking. So I don't get it. It's OK because the walk around has revived me so I don't fall asleep. At the second intermission, I don't bother.

After the performance (Romeo and Juliet it was...ended badly as usual but a great performance I thought), we skipped the back stage party and headed to Four Seasons.

I had the coke. After the coke, I intended a night cap but never ordered one, drinking a glass of water instead. FFP ordered a pizza and I ate several pieces (goat cheese, pepperoni, sun-dried tomatoes if you must know). I eat a few of the snacks, too. Some candied pecans and a few bites of the spicy, salty stuff. No olives, though.

Rebecca plays. A friend of hers sings a couple of show tunes with her. Rebecca is in good voice herself. We are visiting with some friends (Paul and Paula) who were at the opera. They are talking about a trip to Sonoma. That sounds a good idea.

It is late when we get home, after midnight. I'm very tired. Bed.

The Chick has always had a big flag, but it is dwarfed by the power line girders. And it's just an accident that I caught a Jag in the picture. Normally, you'd expect a Suburban, odds are anyway.

No wind but the flag is all properly displayed and I think they take it up and down and everything.

as are the scooters

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

John Lennon, "Imagine"

Meta:
We'll just be keeping Lennon's radical lyrics here indefinitely until I have the wherewithal to look for quotes. What do you want from me?

JUST TYPING
Friday.
Usually holds lots of promise.
Not today.
And yet I have almost zero responsibility.
Everything is done for me.
Is that the problem?