Eternal Spring Sunshine
Posted on April 12, 2004 at 8:31 am | No Comments
Well, it’s hard to imagine a much better weekend than that one. A Friday night relaxing at home, an ideal Spring Saturday spent hiking through the Blue Hills and the Arnold Arboretum, followed by dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. A Sunday that started at the Breakfast Club, then off to a movie, and even more at-home chillaxin’. Throw in a Red Sox extra-inning win on the tube, some intense online multiplayer action, and several chapters of a good book… it nears perfection.
Speaking of near perfection… Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was damn near the perfect film. It’s images & words are still bouncing around my brain, and I hope I don’t shake ’em loose for awhile. I was completely lost in it, fairly deeply affected. I saw it alone (Amie had seen it while I was in London), and in an almost-empty theater, which only added to its impact. It was simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful, melancholy and joyful. Just a beautiful work of art.
There’s this scene where Clementine says “Well, this is it, Joel. The last of it. It will all be gone soon.” and he asks “So what do we do now?”. She simply responds “Enjoy it.” And they do. It was just one of those brilliant moments that will stick with me. I can’t imagine myself enjoying any other film more this year.
Actually, I finally got to see the preview for Garden State up on the big screen, and if it lives up to it’s promise, I might take that statement back. It looks downright magical.
On the other end of the movie spectrum… out of a sheer sense of obligation, we netflixed the last Matrix film. Bleh. Well, it wasn’t nearly as terrible as the second one, but that certainly isn’t saying much. Again, it felt like a video game. Action, cutscene (“go here next”), more action, cutscene, action. Left me cold. They could have tried throwing a little emotion in there, considering it was man vs. machine. Would have made the fight seem a little more clear. We need more than earth-toned knitwear to tell our humans and programs apart.
Ok, so the entire final battle was semi-thrilling… even I can’t dismiss some of those special effects. Still, it was hard to overcome the tedium of the previous scenes (and, um, the entire second film). Before it started, I said “Please, no rave scene… and please, no shirtless Morpheus.” Thankfully, Mr. Fishburne stayed fully clothed, but when they descended into the Frenchman’s club, and the slow-motion dancing (and, um, nipple squeezing!?) started… my meager hopes were dashed.
Our super-cute dog Nina turned 1 year old on Saturday, and we took her on her first hike up into the Blue Hills, just south of Boston. Suffice it to say, it was one of the best times ever. We went further into the woods than we had before, on some pretty great trails. Since it’s so early in the season, the place was relatively deserted, so we were able to take Nina off leash… for a few minutes. She was in pure sniffing heaven, but her nose was leading her a little too far away for comfort. The last time we were in the hills, Amie said “I’d love to come here someday when we have a dog… I dream of that.” And so we did.
So here’s to Nina, a puppy no-longer. Hard to believe she was once this tiny …
Good Friday: Pizza vs. Jesus
Posted on April 9, 2004 at 11:48 am | No Comments
It’s a beautiful spring Friday here in Boston. The sun is shining, work is relatively quiet, Fenway Park will be filling up shortly, and the weekend is looking so good. Figured we needed something sorta special for lunch today, so I drove from Copley across the river to pick up some Pinocchio’s in Harvard Square. Best pizza around. Square, Sicilian-style perfection.
I’m placing the order for it this morning and my workmates overhear me.
“One 15-piece sicilian, half cheese, half pepperoni. 11:30 pick up. Thank ya.” (click)
One of my co-workers appears in my cube…
Whoa, hold on there. Did you just ask for pepperoni?.
“Um, yeah… isn’t that what we got last time? Half and half?”
Well, um, it’s Good Friday. No meat for us.
The look on my heathen face shows my surprise. “Seriously?”.
Now, of course I’m vaguely familiar with the ‘no food on certain days’ thing, but I’ve rarely thought about it, and certainly never made a faith-based faux-pas like this one. I didn’t even realize these co-workers were all that religious. I mean, it’s not like the subject comes up much at work.
While I was raised Roman Catholic (a label that now sounds fairly alien to me), I’ve followed my own disjointed, disillusioned, then curious, then semi-spiritual path since I was confirmed in my early teens. I’m not what you’d call a “fan” of organized religion in any form, although I’ve got many friends who follow their own religious stylee. Thing is, they don’t preach it to me, don’t shove it in my face, and I respect them for that. It makes me value their beliefs and their individuality even more. I’m of the mind that faith is a deeply personal practice, and those who shout the loudest are usually those sporting the biggest crutches. Too often those who blindly follow are those who shun serious self-reflection, who find it easier to live by a set of pre-existing precepts than to calibrate their own moral compass.
If forced to define my religious beliefs (or lack thereof), I wouldn’t go so far as atheist (“One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.”). I’ve seen too much weirdness, too much coincidence, too much sporadic magic in my life to believe there’s not something going on behind the scenes. I can’t be so presumptuous as to know there’s no one out there, or in there, or wherever there is. So I’d have to go with agnostic, a phrase that it seems my co-workers equate with athiesm, but it’s a far different animal. Most of you know this, but for those who don’t… “Agnostic, n., 1. a) One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. b) One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.” That would be me. I’m a firm believer in the “everything happens for a reason” philosophy, but I don’t know who or what is running the show. When it comes to a higher power, all I know is that I simply don’t know. I can live my life by the golden rule, and still keep clear of arbitrary, rigid, sometimes discriminatory, and occasionally insane guidelines from some dusty book.
So there I am this morning, the agnostic amongst my anti-pepperoni peeps. They take their ‘meat-free-friday’ pledge seriously, didn’t even want those slices anywhere near their plain cheese pieces. So I called back Pinocchio’s and changed the order… only three pepperoni slices please. The guy on the phone says “Oh, Good Friday, right?”. Exactly.
As I bit into my first piece, contented grin on my face, co-workers around me, I couldn’t resist one last heretical ha-ha. “Take that, Jesus!”, I exclaimed, looking upwards. If I’m going to hell, I’m already well on my way. One piece of pepperoni pizza isn’t going to make the difference. But it sure tasted good.
For my Christian friends and family, have a good Easter weekend. For my Jewish pals and in-laws, I hope you had a wonderful, peaceful seder earlier this week.
Oh, and if someone wouldn’t mind, can you refresh my memory on the whole “no meat on Good Friday” thing? What’s the story behind that, again? Why exactly can’t those Fenway faithfull have their franks? Save me some google time. (update: thanks for the responses… it almost makes sense.)