Friday 5: We learned more from a three-minute record, baby

(than we ever learned in school)

From here.

  1. Who needs you?
    I’m a single guy who mostly sticks to himself, so I don’t think anyone actually needs me, but since I try to be the here-if-you-need-me guy, the person who needs me changes on the reg and doesn’t come around very often. Similarly, I don’t think my parents need me, but they need me to be ready when they need me. I think this counts. I kept myself away from people for a year in case they should need me. Isn’t this a great Leo Sayer song?
  2. Who runs to you?
    Everyone’s mentioning their pets in response to this question, and it’s a good one. My parents’ dog gets pretty psyched to see me when I go over. They say he recognizes the sound of my car coming up the hill (much to my embarrassment, it’s a very loud car) and runs to the fence to watch me pull into the driveway. Then he meets me halfway down the stair as I’m coming up to the living room. There are worse ways to be greeted than excitedly by a dog, I tell you.
  3. Who forgets you?
    I don’t know what it means that, while people may forget my name, they seldom forget me. There’s a guy on this island whom I run into every five years or so, and he calls my name and says, “You still don’t know who I am, do you?” And I have to admit I don’t, but could he please tell me? And he never does. Whoever it is, he’s known me since we were kids, so I probably haven’t forgotten him: I just don’t recognize him because while I almost never forget a name, I forget a face very, very often. Ohhh I just thought of a good group of people. My students’ parents. Which is more than fair. I think we forget each other. To them, I’m just one of a long string of teachers they met maybe once a year. To me, they’re quite often more types than they are people, which isn’t fair, but I suppose I’m just a type to them as well. It’s okay. We know each other when we have to know each other, and then we forget each other. One parent I have not forgotten recently announced her candidacy for governor of Hawaii. We interacted a lot for a few years when I taught her son — she even sat next to me at another student’s graduation dinner. I had a bit of a thing for her and still do. I wonder if she’s forgotten me.
  4. Who keeps you hangin’ on?
    People are answering this question as if it’s asking who keeps you from losing your grip, which is fine. But I think the lyrics to the song have more to do with keeping someone on the hook. Like, get out of my life, why don’t you? You’re just keeping me on the hook and I’m ready to move along. To which my answer is perhaps nobody. I’m the one who can’t let go of people; they don’t have to keep me hanging on because I can’t seem to loosen my grip. That friend Ali whose text messages helped me get through the first year of the pandemic has ceased to communicate with me altogether, and I miss her, even though I pretty much know it was too volatile a friendship for either of us. I’ve backed off completely, knowing she won’t respond well to my reaching out again, but I still have wisps of hope that we can be friends.
  5. Who’s watching you?
    As one respondent pointed out, when you journal online as I do, you don’t know who’s watching, and I’m intentionally pretty visible on different channels. I keep all my social media accounts wide open too. It’s just a life I want to live, for now, which means I don’t know who’s reading what I write, or looking at my photos, or judging me for the music I listen to or the films I like. I’m sure there are more than a few people who note every error I make in spelling or punctuation, since I’m famously (but really only supposedly) a language snob, taking wicked glee in my hypocritical ignorance. It’s fine. I hope they also see a person who’s trying his best not to reach for that other half of the pizza too.

Friday 5: Accessory to cinema

Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia; praise ye the lord. I’m caught up with work for the first time in nearly a year. I’m not joking. Of course, this was made possible by my boss not giving me anything new until I could finish all the old, which I’m grateful for. I did get a couple of short-notice proposals to work on, but I handled them quickly, so my caught-up status is now two whole workdays old.

I’ve been sleeping better, almost surely as a result.

Wednesday night I felt so good about it I braved Costco for the first time in 16 months. Loaded up on non-perishables and some stuff for the hurricane kit. I dropped kind of a ridiculous amount of money and of course I forgot batteries. Batteries were one of the main reasons I went to Costco. Ugh.

So I went back Thursday night. 8:00 in the evening both nights. It closes at 8:30. And it wasn’t crazy or especially scary. Anyway I’m in pretty good shape heading into hurricane season, better prepared than I’ve ever been.

My coworker who works on Kauai was on island Friday evening, so I went to dinner with her and a few others. My first dining-out experience since mid-August when I went into self-imposed second lockdown (Lockdown 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown). We went to Olive Garden because the coworker’s staying in the Ala Moana Hotel. The meal was aight but the company was nice. It was good to sit down with humans and have a meal and just be together. And Ala Moana wasn’t as crazy as I expected for Friday night.

If you have Netflix and haven’t seen Cooking with Paris, I recommend the heck out of it. Entertaining. Silly. Funny. And surprisingly clever.

I also watched the Arsenio Hall standup special, which was okay. And one of the Tig Notaro specials. It was great. Tig’s comedy is something else. I’m going to watch her other thing and possibly write a short essay on how she does what she does.

Betcha can’t wait for that.

Friday 5: Accessory to Cinema, from here.

  1. What’s your favorite weapon in a movie?
    I actually have a top ten. Posted to Hawaii Threads in January 2008. As I considered my answers last night before peeking at my list, I decided I’m taking all firearms off the list. The last thing I care to do these days is contribute to fetishizing guns. So here’s my list with firearms redacted: (10) The Nude Bomb from The Nude Bomb, that ridiculous wonderful Get Smart movie. (9) Harry Potter’s wand. This would be much higher if the wands in the films were like their descriptions in the novels. (8) Bruce Lee’s hands and feet. (7) Go-Go Yubari’s meteor hammer in Kill Bill Part 1. (6) Wolverine’s Adamantium claws in the X-Men and Wolverine films. (5) redacted. (4) Jason Voorhees’s machete. (3) redacted. (2) Darth Maul’s light sabre bo staff in Star Wars Episode 1. (1) Indiana Jones’s whip.
  2. What’s your favorite car in a movie?
    So many great movie cars. My answer today is the Audi RSQ, a fictional car in Will Smith’s I, Robot. Spheres for wheels.
  3. What’s your favorite cat or dog in a movie?
    I decided when I wrote these questions I wasn’t going with animated dogs, disqualifying Rowlf in the Muppets movies, Snoopy in the Peanuts movies, Perdita and Pongo in 101 Dalmations, and Gromit in the Wallace and Gromit films. So I’m going way off the board and taking Brutus, the Great Dane in Disney’s The Ugly Dachshund.
  4. Who’s your favorite sidekick in a movie?
    Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings films next.
  5. What’s your favorite painting or sculpture in a movie?
    “Love isn’t love without a violin-playing goat.” Julia Roberts, talking about La Mariée by Marc Chagall in Notting Hill. Chagall is my favorite. Second place is probably A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Pointillism, baby.