Truths and Half Truths

Doing the REAL Dew

It was a lovely morning, considering the forecast called for rain beginning around 9.  I got out to the golf course around 5:30, figuring I'd get my 18 holes in and be home and cooled out before the first drops fell.

I took my camera along, and caught:

this fella, still flying low after a winter spent feasting on Florida's reknowned morbidly obese goldfish . 

And speaking of Florida, a little later on I came upon a sign you almost never see on the shores of a water hazard in the Gator State:

I did neither, by the way. 

Suit. Me Fine.

So, as promised:

I think I clean up pretty good.  You're entitled to your own views on that.  But people asked, so ... here are the pics.

Three Movies

I don't go to the movies much. 

Every now and again, my girls collar me and drag me to some girlie flick with them, but by and large, I'm not big on the theatre experience.  Too many people, and too large a percentage of them are ignorant and unresponsive to even the acid bath that is my "Shut the Fuck Up" look.  I also don't like being charged $3 for a SMALL Diet Coke, the sticky floors (I know, I know, could be worse, ever been in a porn theatre?), and the fact I have to rely on somebody else to set the volume controls.

I have a big TV and a DVD player and patience.  So I rent a lot of movies.  In fact, the revolving clerks at my video store are always impressed that I can reel off my seven-digit membership number.  (I say "Look in the top right corner of the screen, where it has "Number of total movies rented".  They go "Holy shit."  Because it would be rude to say "Do you have no life?")

When you see as many movies as I do, you're always on the lookout for some gems.  I've given up relying on movie trailers to offer me a sense of what I'll be seeing ever since the trailer for "Throw Momma From the Train" promised the funniest movie experience of our or anybody else's lifetime, and it turned out that all three jokes in the movie were crammed into the 30 second clip.  I don't have any reviewers with whom I consistently agree.  Ebert and Whoever give it Two Thumbs Up?  Yeah, they did that for some real crap, too.

Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - I'll listen to my kids about movies they've seen.  And sometimes they'll rave about a movie and I'll agree, and other times I'll get home, slap it into the DVD player and a half hour into the flick, I'll think "Did that child really spring from my loins or was she switched in the nursery from some other infant with no sense of humour?"

It's odd, isn't it?  I can like a person - even love a person.  I can see eye to eye with him or her on 95% of any topic we choose.  I can rely on their judgement with life decisions, fashion, music, cooking, gardening, anything.  But then I bring home a movie that he or she has  adored and think, "I don't know this person at all."

And later they'll see me and say "So?  Didn't you love it?  Wasn't it great when the elephant started to goose the fat lady and she turned around and punched it and it fell down and squashed the cat?"  And I'm thinking "Keep the smile on.  Don't let her know that was the one part of the movie you were hoping they'd apologize sheepishly for, and that now you're pretty sure she's either a racist or an advocate of cruelty to animals or she just didn't understand what she was watching."  And you have to re-think your whole opinion of that person.

So I was hesitant when my friend Laura recommended "The Family Stone" to me.  What if I hated it, thought it was moronic or badly written or boring or banal and predictable or just plain offensive?  Would I have to re-think my opinion of her?  Was a five-dollar rental enough to risk a decade-long friendship over?  Well, evidently it was, because I did rent it.

I loved it.

I was actually a bit surprised in watching it, because Laura's recommendation had been fairly vague - "It's the kind of movie I think you'd love" - and she knows my tastes run to romantic comedies.  And that's what the packaging on the box promised - a comedy about relationships and love and family and life.  Perfect.

But in the end, I don't know that I'd call it a "comedy" - at least, not primarily.  There are some chuckles, some cute moments, some moments that even caught me by surprise and made me laugh out loud - something I rarely do at home in front of the TV.  But on the whole, I'd call this a very well crafted relationship drama about a large, rollicking, extended family who get together for Christmas.  This year, they get to meet the severe, mildly distasteful, very different girlfriend brought home by the favoured eldest son.  And she gets to experience the joy of not being instantly accepted by a tightly knit family.

This movie is well-crafted in every sense.  The writing is crisp and believeable; people actually say whay they would say, instead of what a screenwriter would have them say, if that makes any sense.  The cast (including Sarah Jessica Parker and Diane Keaton, two actors I am pretty ambivalent about) is uniformly wonderful with not a weak performance to be found, and the direction moves the story beautifully along.  There are some lovely non-verbal moments - moments that will warm your heart and make you seep tears.  It's an emotional movie in the very best sense of the word.  I echo Laura's recommendation.  So, two thumbs way up.

I rented "Must Love Dogs" because I've learned to trust John Cusack's choices in scripts.  If he's involved, I'm pretty sure I'll like the writing.  And this one had a bonus - Diane Lane, who I think is not only drop dead gorgeous (her kind of beauty just weakens me), but is also an amazing actress who is not in nearly enough movies.

It was a lovely romantic comedy - not, perhaps, an enduring classic but one that was thoroughly entertaining from the start to the end.  It's about the pitfalls of re-entering the dating world - including some hilarious dates gone bad - and it's about finding and pursuing something that you can't deny is just ... right.  I loved it.

And finally, last night I watched "North Country" with Charlize Theron starring in a story inspired by true events in the Minnesota mining industry.  In the mid-1980s, women were finally employed by the mines, only to go through harrowing  abuse and horribly aggressive sexual harrassment.  This is the story of a woman who decides to fight it, stands up to a thousand men and a hostile corporation, and who won the first ever class action sexual harrassment lawsuit.

Charlize Theron can act the hell out of anything, and here she's joined by Frances McDormand (one of the great actors of our time, and consistently underrated, says me) and another fine cast.  It was sometimes disturbing to watch, especially if you remember the time as being fun and carefree, and then think that while you were enjoying life, people were doing such awful things to one another, and not a million miles away in some foreign country but right in our own back yard.

It's inspiring and uplifting, has a burst-your-heart final scene, and turned out to be another great evening in front of a roaring television set.

Oh, and did I mention that there's this scene where an elephant ...

Looking Gooood

Today, Allison and I are going out shopping for a new suit for me.  I am taking her with me because I know she does not like to be embarrassed, so she will see to it that whatever suit we buy will not be hideous and that I will look as good as I can look on my daughter's wedding day.

I cannot buy a suit by myself, because I am emotionally malleable when it comes to my appearance.  I am a blank slate.  I cannot think of myself in terms of "attractive" or "good-looking", or "sexy".  In fact, typing those words in association with a discussion of how I look makes me exceedingly uncomfortable to the point where I fidget and use any possible ruse to change the topic.  (Even if I am the one who actually introduced the topic.)

It's not that I am particularly humble.  I'm absolutely not.  There are things in my life or career that I will absolutely bore you to tears bragging about, things of which I am proud to bursting and unafraid to proclaim that pride to the world.

But how I look?  Not among them.

I have always considered myself homely and chunky.  And for about 32 years, I carried 70 extra pounds or so.  That helped in the "Who could like my looks?" department.

I've felt badly for people who - through what I cannot help but see as kindness or questionable judgment - have tried to convince me otherwise.  It can be frustrating, saying nice things to someone and have them reject it at the rim as forcefully as I tend to do that.  I think something in me believes that after a while, they'll stop saying it and I won't have to deal with either a crazy person or someone who feels that kind of pity for me.  How screwed up is it that telling me I look good or sexy makes me feel pitied and pathetic?

Look, this is not a plea for a bunch of comments saying "No, really, you're not hideous".  It's just a little essay about how I feel when I look in the mirror.  Were I to look at you, I would see a different person than you see in your mirror. 

That ass you keep cringing about?  To me, it's perfect.  Yer skinny ankles?  I love 'em.  That hump on your back?  Well, now that you point it out I see it, but I'll never see it as clearly as you do - because you're looking at the brush strokes and I'm standing back here looking at the whole beautiful painting.

(It does not escape my attention that I am saying to you precisely what people say to me, and getting every bit as frustrated by your eyerolling, deflection, and arguing.  But in your case, you're wrong about how you look and, of course, in my case, I'm right.)

So, I'll take Allie with me and we'll go to the suit store and she'll work as an antidote to the salesman who will say, with a perfectly straight face, "Yes, that looks great on you," while trying not to throw up in his mouth just a little. 

And maybe when we have something and it's been tailored and I've put it on and been reassured sufficiently, I'll take a picture of myself in it.  And maybe I'll put it up here.  And then you can all say lovely things about how I look ...

... and make me completely miserable.

Sound like a plan?

**************  UPDATE  ******************

We're back, and we have found a suit.  It is an elegant, subtle, grey-blue pinstripe that Allie says matches my eyes and makes me look taller.  Ish.

I am a hard person to fit into a suit, because I have a sort of barrel chest and broad shoulders, with a shortish body.  That's not terribly odd, but I've lost enough weight in my waist that the proportions are not quite standard.  When they ask my size, I always say "44 Stumpy".

But here's the thing:  the pants that go with a 44 jacket have a waist size of 38.  And when you say "Can I have this, but with a 36 pant, they say "Ohhh, no, we're forbidden to do that."

Well, bite me arse.  I worked hard to get down to a 34/36, and I'm not going to take 38 waist pants, because it's not just the waist that's bigger.  They're looser .. everywhere.  If you get my drift.  And tailoring them to look perfect costs money and gets awfully picky.

So, shhhh.  When the salesperson was off finding me a tie or whatever, I grabbed the pants out of a somewhat mortified Allison's hand, found an identical suit in size 42, and made a quick switch.  When I tried the ensemble on, everything fit perfectly.  As I walked away, Allie had to agree with the switch move.

I believe the exact words from my 21 year old daughter's mouth were:  "Ohh ...  those pants do wonderful things to your tushy."    Then:  "OK, I'm pretty sure that's inappropriate."

We'll see if I still love the suit once it's been tailored, or if my love alters when it alterations finds.  But for now, I'm thinking it might look ... OK.