Hap Hazards

Today is August 31 and I’m scrambling. In lieu of an actual post, I’m doing this instead:

Point:
Do you know what really bugs me? That I can’t just walk into a regular grocery story produce department and buy twelve cherries. I love Bing cherries. I grew up in a town with cherries trees in every other front yard and I never will grow tired of Washington Bing cherries. But, on some days, I’d like to buy a few and not a gross. Have you noticed this? It isn’t just cherries we are being beat up with these days. “They” bag or package some fruits and veggies in quantities appropriate only for a family of twenty-eight or nine children. Marketing Bastards. Bugs me.

Point:
How many pitchers of daiquiris do you guess I can drink over a long holiday weekend? I’ll get back to you on this.

Point:
There’s this thing that happens to me that I’m not quite sure what to do about. (And it isn’t ending a sentence with a preposition.) When I possess something temporarily, I seem to value it so much more.

If I check out a library book,

get about a third of the way through,

decide I LOVE it and have to have it,

go out and buy it immediately,

I will then rarely finish it.

Why is this, you might be asking yourself. Answer? Because the urgency is gone. Knowing I have something for only a limited period of time, helps me appreciate it more. If I know “I own that book, I can read it any time. There’s no hurry.” This is crazy, faulty thinking, if there ever was. (Preposition, preposition.) If I love it enough to purchase it, well then, it follows that I should soak it up, doesn't it? What gives, exactly?

Point:
Why do men wax? Seriously, this in not a rhetorical question. Why would a man wax the hair off his body? Do you know? I most certainly don’t. A few years ago there was a trendy phrase ‘Real men eat quiche’ or maybe it was 'don't eat quiche.' Either way. My gut reaction to this thought, then and still is, if your sense of your manhood depends on what you eat or don’t eat, wear or don’t wear or what ever, well then your masculinity is precariously balanced, indeed. If you are gauging your, or anyone else’s testosterone level by the size of the four-by-four pickup truck with the triple lift package being driven, well God help you. And in fact, here is an important safety tip: If I can stand under your truck with out hitting my head, well then, you’re over compensating. Okay back to waxing. The one exception to my aversion to the phrase ‘Real men . . . . (whatever you want to fill the blank with…)…. “ is ‘Real men DO NOT wax.” Period. Wear the hair you came with. Part of what separates men from women is body hair. Is the thinking here, that women secretly or overtly, desire the look of an eleven-year-old boy’s chest? Ew. If you come with hair naturally, wear it gladly and proudly. Be grateful. Men are hairy creatures. Thank GOD! The movie Bull Durham was made in 1988. It’s a classic movie on a couple of levels (Annie Savoy's quote: "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self awareness"), but my favorite ‘old school’ part of this movie is the chest hair. (See the locker room scene. . . .) The good old days. This turns out to be a difficult thing for me to articulate but I guess what I’m saying is ‘Let nature be.’
Now I’m not speaking of men who naturally have a smooth chest. I’m talking about ‘tampering’ with what was intended for natural physical attraction. Leave it alone, idiots. We do not want boys. If we want you at all, we want you all grown up. Men. Please. Step away from the wax.


Point:
I haven’t watched any DVDs in ages, until this weekend. I’ve watched two, over the course of this glorious, long, solitary Labor Day weekend.
Ghost World (Scarlett Johansson & Thora Birch) and Conversation with Other Women (Aaron Eckert & Helena Bonham Carter).
Ghost World was interesting; I do not believe I would recommend it to anyone. I feel no compulsion to watch it again myself.
‘Conversations’ I recommend to you, here and now. Without reservation. With anticipation, in fact. I love many things about this movie. I just finished it a few minutes ago. I’m going to start it over again a few minutes from now.

• First but not most, I love the ‘sound’ of this movie. The academy award for best sound is not usually a well-known bit of trivia for any given movie year. This is true for me as well as for anyone. But there is something so ‘real life’ about the sound of this movie, I can’t tell you.
• I love the dialogue of this movie. Now please know that I am a dialogue freak and this movie completely fulfills this fixation in me. I love the dialogue and its authenticity.
• The most obvious thing to love (or hate) is the split screen way in which this movie was shot and edited. At first, this was a bit distracting, but soon I was crazy about it and wondered why all human drama type movies aren’t shot this way. And so, please tell me why aren’t they?
• Last and completely most, I have a huge physical attraction to each of these two lead actors. No one more than the other. For me, they’ve each got ‘something.’ If you decide to watch this movie, PLEASE talk to me about it before you watch the ‘Special Features.’ This is not a request, it is a mandate.
  
  
  Point:
  That’s it for me. Thanks for reading. And oh yeah, Happy Birthday Tim. Was it good for you? I personally was left a bit . . .um. . . wanting, but we’ll discuss this another time. (No, seriously. I am all sincere when I say Happy Birthday and I trust it was an amazing weekend of friends, family and fun-ness.)