Second night in a row I can't sleep. Tonight it seems to be because every 90 seconds or so, some butthead with with big speakers and a small dick drives by blasting bass beats with enough decibels to rattle my windows on the 7th floor. Even the Harley riders would be better; at least I could yell at them. So I'm a little cranky. It's a cool summer night and there seems to be a lot of testosterone in the air, for some reason. Maybe it's the ginkos. But that's another story.
I also finished watching "Big Fish" tonight, which was not at all what I thought it was going to be. Far from being just a goofy fantasy, it was actually a pretty poignant tale about the misunderstandings between parents and children, and how little able children are to imagine a life for their parents before their existence, to really grasp that their parents were once young. It's sad how lacking in imagination the son (Billy Crudup) is. His father is this amazing storyteller, and all he wants is facts, like Joe Friday. Not surprisingingly, he's a journalist. At one point, his father (Albert Finney) tells him, "I've been myself since the day I was born and if you can't see who I am, that's your failing, not mine," which only made me think that are parents are never who we want them to be, anymore than we're what they want us to be. A nasty recipe for mutual disappointment.
Anyway, it's a lovely movie and I'm glad I bought it. There are some sweetly whimsical moments in it, of life being even stranger than we can imagine, which it often is, if we'll only let ourselves see it.
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People on my mind tonight (and just lately):
- Paul, who's going in for minor (if it's ever minor) heart surgery soon
- Peri, who probably needs surgery and can't afford it
- Roger's partner Ron, who's going in on the 27th for a bowel resection arising from colon cancer
- Cathy, who needs knee surgery and also can't afford it, especially now that she's in nursing school and her partner Betsy is unemployed
- Dad, as usual, who's been gruxing around all week with a bladder infection
- Mel, who's wearing herself to a frazzle taking care of her mom and running a business and two households, but still sent me a beautiful card for my birthday
- Cousin DeeDee, who's got congestive heart failure and whom I haven't heard from in a while
- Uncle Dave, who's not doing well either
Shit, no wonder I can't sleep.
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