the underwear drawer

napster

So I watched "Requiem for a Dream" a few days ago, because it's on Hulu and anyway, we don't have a TV. It was OK, I guess, but man, it is not a pick-me-up. I had heard so much about it, how it was this harrowing depiction of drug addiction and all that. It was, certainly, and I liked the little art film flourishes and the jagged cuts and crazy flickering cinematography and all that. And I thought Ellen Burstyn was good, as the Brooklyn hausfrau with simple dreams spriraling to a wretched end. But in the end, I felt like it was a little after-school special. I mean, of course, we all know that Drugs Are Bad, so I'm not saying that a movie that says as much is wrong to do so, but I guess I was expecting something a little more...nuanced? I mean, to sum it up (don't read this next part if you don't want to know the end of the movie), in the final scenes, the four main characters end up respectively in a mental institution electroconvulsive-therapied into oblivion (without anesthesia, I might note--NOT REALISTIC); in jail keening for his lost childhood; septic and hospitalized with his arm amputated above the elbow (JORDAN CATALANO! You still look good, even with one arm); and living the depraved life life of a prostitute cuddling a brown paper baggies of drugs like a kitten. I mean, obviously, there are not that many happy endings in real-life stories of meth addiction (was that supposed to be meth? I'm not sure, maybe it was supposed to be heroin), but this was a real slash and burn. But I guess I felt the same way about "Legends of the Fall," where, at the end of the film, I just looked at the screen and asked, "What, aren't there any more characters you want to kill off?" Seriously, who didn't die in that movie?

Anyway, it was OK. "Requiem for a Dream," that is. I just wish I hadn't already watched all the episodes of "Arrested Development," so I could have had a lighter evening.

Anyway, I had big plans for today, which involved taking the bus downtown and going to the Children's Museum (I think they have free admission the second Tuesday of each month), but our plans got screwed up because our real estate agent, who was coming by to do a "walk through," showed up an hour late. Which, you know, I expected, because there is no real reason (aside from, you know, professionalism) for him to show up on time--he's already made his commission, this part is just obligation. So anyway, instead of the Children's Museum, we spent the morning walking through the apartment, making notation of pre-existing scuffs on the paint and scratches on the wood flooring, so that when our lease is up on two years, we know what damage was our fault (hint: Cooper-shaped hole in the door, errant Play-Doh smears on the ceiling) and what was already there to begin with.

It turned out to be an OK-enough day, I guess. Cal and I just ended up going to the pool upstairs, and then we took a leisurely 2 hour nap before dinner at my instigation.


MICHELLE(Lying in bed)
Cal, should we take a nap?

CAL
No, I'm not tired!

MICHELLEZzzzz....

CAL
(Succumbing to peer pressure)
Zzzzz....


In general, I think that Cal is mostly ready to outgrow his afternoon nap. Which, you know, is fine, because when he starts school full-time at the end of the summer, though there will be some sort of "rest on your mats" period in the afternoon, he certainly won't be napping the way he's used to napping, in a dark quiet room with Enya in the background. (Kidding about the Enya. We do have a white noise machine, however.) He'll just have to go to bed earlier in the evenings, I guess, which, now that I'm no longer keeping resident hours, is no longer as terrible a prospect as it may have been (whereas during residency, if Cal went to bed before 9pm, there would be many, many days where I just wouldn't see him at all). I'm looking to the rest of this summer as basically an adjustment period to life in Atlanta, as well as a trial run to get Cal reliably toilet-trained and on a good sleep schedule for school.




We're still working on it, of course.