Aging the Romance

Last night we watched "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," a movie neither of us had seen completely since it came out in the theaters in 1996. When I was 16, I remember crying so hard at the end of the movie that I was practically unable to leave the theater in order to drive home. I found photos of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes from the movie and tacked them to my wall. It seemed completely reasonable to think that this was a realistic depiction of romance. Not only was this type of passion understandable, I believe I expected it in order to know that it was the "real thing."

Now it looks beautiful and imaginary. Not that there isn't passion and magic and romance in my adult relationship. But I don't feel controlled by my emotions any more, nor do I have a desire for that experience now.

weekend widow

I got called a weekend widow yesterday, and this weekend it's even more true. ehs has been out of town for every Saturday except one starting September 20th (I did go for one of those weekends. He'll be gone again next weekend, and then we'll both be gone for two weekends. yikes!). He's enjoying what he's doing, but we've definitely put some things on hold because we know that the time just isn't there right now.

This time he's gone the whole weekend, he left right after work on Friday to fly to Boston for my brother's bachelor party, and he'll be back at the end of the day on Sunday. Yesterday I saw a friend during the day, then I went out with friends to one of my favorite bars in the city. It's a Scottish bar with great beer, amazing fish and chips, and a real pub feel. Also you can order half-pints, which is a wonderful concept. For an after-dinner drink, the waitress suggested port lemonade. I had never heard of this concept, and was not expecting it to contain ice cubes, but it was great and I would definitely get it again. Basically a version of sangria.

Today I'm having just a quiet me day. I'm intending to take myself to a movie this morning (box of popcorn and Javier Bardem, here I come!). Then my goal is to lose myself in some deep organization. We do a pretty good job of stuffing things in closets and closing the doors, but I've decided I want the closet back. We'll see who wins at the end of the day.

Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's house for what was described as "expirimental cooking." Apparently this will be the third attempt at making homemade pizza rolls. Plus some guitar hero, which I fully expect to be terrible at. It's nice to have your expectations low going in, that way it won't be a surprise.

home again home again, jiggity jig

It was great to see so much family in Georgia this past weekend: our new niece, an aunt and uncle we hadn't seen since our wedding (!), and all the other wonderful family down there. The weather wasn't as stifling as we had expected either, which was a welcome surprise.

Last night we managed to see The Dark Knight. I missed all the commercials and all but two of the previews (stupid 151 bus), but I made it. It was good, definitely scary, and somehow knowing that Heath Ledger is dead made his performance even creepier. It's really neat to see all the Chicago places in the movie. A lot of the action was on a street very close to where ehs works, and it was exciting to see those familiar buildings and streets.

ehs has borrowed a bike to see if he likes biking to work, which it turns out he does. The bike itself is not the right one for him, but he's enjoying the exercise and the breeze I guess. It's fun to send him out on errands, although the first night I told him I felt like I was sending a toddler to play in traffic. Which he reassuringly responded, "You are." But he's fine, wears his helmet and is cautious.

We've talked in the past about Working Bikes, which is an organization that refurbishes bikes and also uses the proceeds of selling bikes to bring bikes to other places in the world. So maybe we'll try to check them out at some point. We're still in the process of selling our car, and he may be taking it around for people to test drive this weekend.

Meanwhile, this will be my only Sunday at home in the month of August, so I intend to spend it thoroughly. We'll be going to the Mythical Creatures exhibit at the Field Museum, and then ehs's first annual work picnic.

Wall-E

Yesterday we took a trip up to Evanston. It only took about an hour to get there on the train. We first went to a great Indian restaurant called Mt. Everest, which had a buffet. Restaurants with a buffet are really the best way to eat Indian food, because you get to have a little bit of a lot of different things and all the different flavors work together so well. I had papadum, daal, palak paneer, cabbage and peas, veggie pakora. Also a salty lassi, and gulab jamin and rice pudding for dessert. Wonderful.

Then we went to see Wall-E, which was very good. It is a bit dark and sad for the future, but also had some hope in it for humanity's sense of responsibility toward the planet. It was also very funny, I especially enjoyed the robots in the sort of psych ward, and also the little cleaning robot "Mo."

Totoro Forest Project

Once again, Josh is on top of his links and information. This website is the home of the Totoro Forest Project. "Tonari no Totoro," or "My Neighbor Totoro," is a wonderful Japanese children's film by Hayao Miyazaki about the spirit of the forest helping some young girls find comfort in their new home. It's one of my favorite movies ever, I even have a Totoro and two Catbuses.

Now the forest where Miyazaki got the inspiration for Totoro is falling under the threat of urban development, and artists from around the world (including Studio Ghibli and Pixar Studios) have gotten together to create an amazing auction and exhibit. There's no way I'll be able to bid on these pieces, but they're amazing to see.

Johnny Depp is Following Me!

Not that that's a problem.

A couple of weeks ago Ian had a show at a bar called Lilly's, which is on Lincoln just north of the Biograph Theater. Unfortunately for turn-out for the show, the part of Lincoln in front of the Biograph was closed down so that all these old-timey cars could drive up and down it. They were shooting the new John Dillinger movie, which has Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

Today they're closing off Wells between Lincoln and Eugenie. Sound familiar? I can sit in the lobby of the building, and watch Johnny Depp and Christian Bale shoot a movie. Theoretically. I can at least see it from my windows.

UPDATE:

We received a memo from our building manager who says he must "with much regret inform the residents that Johnny Depp will not be on location." His character in the movie already died by the time this scene happens. We'll hope for Christian Bale, but with this rain we may not see much of anything...

Snow Dreams

Last night we watched Ed Wood, which is a movie about a very bad Hollywood director. So last night the first dream I remember was about being a director of a really bad show. I think it would have been bad anyway, but no one was following what I said, even though I was the director. I was just as glad to wake up and get out of that situation.

The next dream I remember had snow. We were in Vermont at my parents', and there was snow up to the windows of the first floor. Even in the kitchen, where the windows are much higher off of the ground. Lots of people were in the driveway trying to shovel a path out, but it seemed fairly impossible to me. Even if they could lift it, where would they put the snow?

Luckily it's a gorgeous day here, with no sign of precipitation.

Iron Man

On Wednesday we went to see Iron Man. We went to a 5:30 showing downtown, so ehs had to rush up after work. I felt a little silly sitting in the theater by myself, but at about 5:20 some other people came in. There were probably less than ten of us in the theater, which still beats the crowd for when we saw Son of Rambow a couple of weeks ago. We had a private showing of that great movie in the theater.

Iron Man was really fun, another example of when taking a comic to a movie really works. Now, I don't remember the Iron Man comics very much, I don't think he was a character I read about a lot. But the movie was charming and exciting, as well as feeling very topical. I loved his interactions with the robots he'd created, there were moments that felt like Pixar had been consulted on the script.

Indiana Jones

This weekend we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I've heard it has a lot of negative reviews, and I've talked to people who haven't enjoyed it. I thought it was great. It was everything the original movies are: exciting, scary, lots of action, kidnappings and escapes. It had the same great music, the same moderately strung together plot lines, with dumb jokes and hit-or-miss dialogue.

We seem to confuse nostalgia with quality. I love the original Indiana Jones movies, and I love my memories of those movies. And those two things are not the same. If you can come to this movie with the same sense of wonder, belief, and wish for adventure that you probably brought to seeing the original movies, you'll be fine. If you go to this movie expecting something more now that you're older and wiser and more discerning, you may be disappointed.

Half of the reason we go to movies in the summer is for the air conditioning, and another quarter is to lose ourselves in the excitement of something other than thinking about how awful the weather is. The new Indiana Jones movie met both of those criteria, and additionally was exactly what I wanted from a now older Indy. And yes, we did clap when it was over.