Sunday. December 23, 2001

what a silly dog...look at that top knot and pompom tail!

Rock and Roll house at Christmas

are there rules about flying them perpendicular to the ground?

"I enjoyed going to UT," he says. Standing where many pictures have been made and mass murder history, too.

the tower

"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death comes, we are not."

Epicurus, Lives of the Emminent Philosophers

It's Sunday. It's not Christmas Eve yet. There isn't anything I have to do. It's glorious free, absolutely free time.

Well...as free as it gets. I wake up in a bit of a wine fog. FFP makes some coffee and SuRu calls for walkies. We walk as far as Allandale and back, winding around the neighborhood and making the usual observations. It's cool and sunny, very nice.

Back home, we relax with the paper. I exchange gifts with the neighbor across the street (give some handmade soap, get a delicious cheese ball). We steam some enchiladas, try the cheese ball.

Mom calls. They didn't go out last night but not because she didn't feel like it. Rather there was a change in plans and they are visiting those people now. And she's gotten an invite for a turkey dinner tomorrow for all six of us (including FFP's parents). I guess Mom being in the hospital and my refusal to have another big deal meal has elicited charity in one of her friends. If so, great. Mom sounds good. I guess Darvoset agrees with her. My mother-in-law says 'oh but she planned to cook.' So, OK she can cook on Christmas day and we will not have to go to a restaurant at all.

So...WEB surfing and newspapers. Movie? Work out? What to do with the free time?

FFP goes off to get a haircut. When he returns, we decide to see The Man Who Wasn't There. The Coen brothers are a long-time favorite. Billy Bob Thornton is a cinema god in my book.

The Dobie is desserted. All the places in the food court are closed. The students are gone. But the theater is open and so is the video arcade. The arcade is a loud blast of electronic noise. But not one single person is in there. No one working even. It is under camera surveillance with change machines. I try some pinball machines while we wait for our movie and FFP reads.

Film noir. In black and white. People going to jail just so light can be filmed coming through bars? Twists and turns. And, yes, the mention of the eating of human flesh. (This must be a check box for the modern movie. I'll have to remember that.)

It's a good movie. As surely gray as black and white. And the opposite of Amelie. I like this getting to see movies.

FFP wants to walk 'up the mall.' I take his picture in front of the fountain with the tower behind him. Another group is doing the same. I imagine it's been so since the tower was built. When a team wins a championship the tower is orange with a numeral one lighted in the windows. Teams sit here for a protrait then, sometimes. After August 1, 1966, at least for a while, the emotions behind the pictures must have really changed.

FFP wants to walk up the mall and refresh his memory about the statues there. George Washington, Jefferson Davis and Woodrow Wilson in case you were wondering. A three-generation Asian family comes down the steps, laughing, a toddler holding adult fingers. Forrest points out where a patrolman was gunned down through the supports of a concrete rail.

The campus is so, so quiet without the students. Spooky, almost.

As we drive away, we are talking about old times on these streets since we've know each other. That where Starbucks is used to be the most liberal, hippie, anti-establishment place. A place called Les Amis. That a record store was in that building. Inner Sanctum. That a scene in Slacker was shot on this corner.

Forrest says he's hungry and is thinking about Italian food. I say I'm more thinking Chinese or Indian. He says that sounds good. It's only 4:30 or so. I suggest we try Peony in our neighborhood. Open continuously from 11AM in case you were wondering. So we go there and since it's so early and since everyone else is out shopping at the last minute or something, the dining room is desserted. I have Imperial Egg Foo Young. I think I read somewhere that Egg Foo Young isn't really Chinese. FFP has Orange Blossum Chicken. We have huge bowls of hot and sour soup and green tea. We get cheery fortunes.

At home we try to watch TV but our big TV is flipping vertically. Not all the time, but kind of randomly. Yet another thing to be fixed or replaced. It's always something. In spite of the TV, we watched a couple of King of the Hill episodes and an interesting film on IFC called Marius et Jeannette. It had this liberal, working man crushed by the machine bent but the people were interesting and I like hearing French.

Les Amis was there and now it's Starbucks. Extremely sad.

JUST TYPING
Free time.
Slips away.
Faster.
Faster than a work day.
Faster than a long drive.
Rushing away.
Disappearing.