.Sunday, March 24, 2002

Mom has some dessert

Married sixty-one years

"When we are not sure, we are alive."
Graham Greene (1904)
I couldn't find out if he is dead...do you suppose he's still alive?

SuRu calls. She isn't really in the mood to walk or, put another way, she's in the mood to do something else but the dogs are up for it and we do it anyway. We walk to Central Market and back. We rag on what we consider inappropriate infill (overpriced, too). I have my camera but nothing cries out to be photographed.

When I get home, FFP and I cook up cheese eggs and bacon. We don't usually do that but it makes a good lunch since it's lunch time by now and I've only had coffee so far. He goes outside to plant some stuff. I should do some yard work but instead I check on my backups and play with my computer. I decide to make my parents an anniversary card and end up sniffing rubber cement and sifting through old postage stamps and pictures.

Wasting time... it's so easy. Finally, I'm showering when my parents come over to visit a little before we go out. I finish getting dressed and we let some bad child-oriented movies wash over us while Mom and I play Scrabble and Dad and I have a drink. Dad gets out one of my short story collections and reads some. I think I've gotten him to the point of considering short stories to read. That opens up a bunch of the books for his 'reading list.'

Parent's anniversary. Well, it was Friday, but we celebrated tonight by taking them to Four Seaons. This is a tradition of at least three years running.

We have an enjoyable quiet meal. We share a dessert sampler.

At home, we switch between Six Feet Under and the Academy Awards.

I don't see many movies until they make it to DVD or my cable provider. Having said that, I'll comment on the parts of the Academy Awards I actually paid attention to and when I wasn't reading or playing with my computer or dozing. Because everyone else does it and because I can.

Whoopi Goldberg should never, ever be allowed in the hall again. Having said that, I've actually liked some of her movies in that secret, furtive way that someone who has favorite movies like Sling Blade can appreciate just good fun.

Sidney Poitier broke color barriers. Halle Berry? No, she won an Academy Award. She gave a pretty good performance actually, even though I thought Monster's Ball was way, way too contrived to be a great film. And I haven't seen Iris but, on the surface, that must have been a bitch of a role.

We will have broken barriers when we give one award for an 'actor!' So there.

The racial thing was way, way out of hand at this event. This is an example of what makes people whose non-white blood has been diluted until they are sort of mostly white have their blood boil! The people who are already racists use displays of silliness like this to punch up there ire. Not that she shouldn't have been able to cry or allude to women who had to play mammies or slaves. No. But, Halle, everything didn't really culminate with you. Racism will go on.

And then there was the person who is Halle Berry's mother, apparently, in the audience. I'm counting on the cameraman here. She looked, um, whiter than my own mother. And, of course, Halle is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Beauty, scientists have discovered, is perceived as normalness. Use a computer to average a hundred faces. People are in awe. A thousand? More beautiful. Mixed race people have features that are the 'best of everything' sometimes. Unlike, say Gerard Depardieu who didn't have to do much to his Gallic nose to be Cyrano.

Halle also seems to be a pretty darn good actress. But she isn't Rosa Parks or Nelson Mandela folks. The latter broke barriers and changed nations by spending decades in jail. I visited Robben Island and our guide was a former prisioner. The world is full of injustice. I don't think the Academy Awards makes one damn bit of difference in this battle.

And the award to Denzel? For what appeared to be an action flick? I don't know. (Bear in mind...I haven't seen any more of it than the clip of Ethan and a bit of the clip of Denzel where he and Ethan appeared to be in a car doing a buddy movie.) Why not Will Smith? Not that I saw Ali. Maybe he sucked. But I heard he didn't suck. Maybe it was a body of work thing.

And they couldn't give it to bad boy Russell Crowe on this night. Russell, who actually played a skinhead in New Zealand, could they? (Brilliant performance, I think, by the way...I saw some of it on TV the other day.)

And what was that thing Julia Roberts was doing? Was she trying to be one with the black man? (For the record I think interracial mixing is good for the gene pool. But I think Denzel is married.) Another thing that bugs me is people pretending that they are part of someone else's struggle. I admire Nelson more than Halle but I don't know what either one of them has been through. (This doesn't mean you can't contribute to the United Negro College Fund or adopt mixed race children, Julia. It just means, um, it isn't your night in any case. Your struggle is that of the big-mouthed woman who knows men love the way you look but are afraid to know what they are thinking about that mouth.)

Through all the crap, I thought Judi Dench, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford and Woody Allen maintained a reasonable composure. Judi looked like the oldest, wisest teacher at an unruly school assembly. Sidney looked like he was playing one of his roles where he is in complete control and all the white people are racist and stupid. (Wait, um, never mind.) Robert was genuinely humble and gracious. And Woody gave a paean to New York that was sweet and honest and also wasn't exactly joking about not being the one to introduce it.

Boy, aren't you glad I didn't pay close attention? By next year I will have forgotten who won, much less who was nominated. It's just the movies, folks. But now I have to get out and see A Beautiful Mind and Iris. Or maybe wait for the DVDs.

And I'm still trying to figure out if Graham Greene is still alive after finding that quote. And remember the following: (1) I am not a racist; (2) I am mostly white (it doesn't pay to look into it too carefully in America); (3) I am a woman but I am not a Muslim; (4) I don't pretend to know how it feels to be someone else but I do hate injustice.

JUST TYPING
Figuring out.
How to spend time.
Or money.
Spending yourself.
Your assets.
Ends up.
Being random, really.