~Friday~ Okay, it’s official. Grumpy Boy does have a sense of humor. And once again the evidence of that was on his t-shirt, which today instead of saying, “Does this shirt make me look grumpy?” said, “You’re not yourself today. I noticed the improvement immediately.”
At one stop, a man got on the bus, while two kids (presumably his), stood just outside the door to the bus with a big grin on their faces as they said, “Bye!” with a little wave as he got on. Sweet!
I hope I’m still dancing when I’m this age. Ignore the fact that beach music is playing, but instead of shagging (sorry to the Brits, it’s actually the name of a dance here), they’re purportedly doing the salsa. The video is just under five minutes long, but it truly gets more incredible as it goes.
I met Brad, Kim, and Anna for a Petite-Salon during lunch time at Coffee Haven, right next door to my office. As always, a fun-filled hour of repartee, fueled today by iPhone and iTouch technology. I must remember to take mine to the next one. The first thing I have to do when I get back to mine is to download the Bump app. And no, it’s not this kind of bump or that kind of bump.
Someone named Charlena posted a comment on a movie website, using absolutely no—none, nada, zero, zip—punctuation. A little bit later, a man after my own heart posted an edited version of her comment introducing it with, “Here’s what Charlena’s comment would look like if she appreciated the value of punctuation…” You go, “Stephen.”
I attended the play Drift tonight, which is the final production in the Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy series this season. A few weeks ago, I met a couple of the cast members of this play out at Flex. You might remember that I’d said one of them was very nice, and in describing the other one, I think I used phrases like, “pretentious theater person” and “was his own biggest fan”—that’s the gist anyway.
This play put me in somewhat of a melancholy mood, which is not a bad thing to me. I appreciate melancholy in doses. Here’s its synopsis:
| “Drift is about a man’s journey of gaining peace and perspective on his life, after the break up of his marriage and family. A man, newly single, steps into the empty apartment he once shared with his wife and daughter and the memories flood his mind. His path, as woven by an intensely personal rock score, is paved with humor, passion, disappointment and most importantly, hope.” |
To me, this play felt like 90% wallowing in sadness, regret, and second thoughts, and 10% hope. Is that enough?
What it did for me was to make me think about my life in terms of relationships ending, of which I’ve been through two major ones. In particular, it made me think about how they ended and the music associated with them at the time. Long-term readers already know the first story at least.
- The ending of my 16-year marriage, by coming out of the closet after 37 years to myself and to everyone else in my life, from which I excerpted this scene.
Another song that was popular at the time, which we both had a little trouble getting through, was What Might Have Been by Little Texas, which starts off this way:
Sure I think about you now and then
But it’s been a long long time
I’ve got a good life now I’ve moved on
So when you cross my mindI try not to think about
What might have been
‘Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
We can’t go back again
There’s no use giving in
And there’s no way to know
What might have been - My six-and-a-half-year relationship with Rob ended after a period of several months of not seeing eye-to-eye on a number of issues and eventually accepting the fact that neither one of us was willing to work on resolving them anymore. So, one night, sitting on the couch together, I said, “I want to move back to my townhouse.”
I did that on March 17, 2002, and I vividly remember the scene in the driveway of the house we owned together. After he’d helped me finish putting the last box in my car, he said, “Does it feel exciting to you? Like you’re going back to college or something?” (My townhouse is down by NC State University.)
“Yeah, it does a little. I’m excited about being on my own again. But, too, it’s sad that we couldn’t make it work any more. I’m glad we’re parting as friends at least.” We had a long, tight, hug and I drove off.
And as I drove away just after dark, Reba’s song, For My Broken Heart, came on, which starts with this stanza:
There were no angry words at all
As we carried boxes down the hall
One by one we put them in your car
Nothing much for us to say
One last goodbye and you drove away
I watched your tail-lights
As they faded in the dark
But, back to Drift. My favorite song from this show was “Ghost of a Chance.”
One thing that sort of ruined this play for me happened a little over halfway through, in a scene where the five guys in it were all watching two women who were being all sexy and hot. The protagonist of the play took pictures of the ladies’ asses with his cell phone camera, and then all of the other guys ran up to see the pictures—as men would do.
The problem for me was that I knew for a fact that three of those five actors would definitely not do that in real life, since they’re gay. And I suspect at least one of the other two, if not both of them, were gay as well. That sort of just ruined it for me. And I understand that it’s called acting for a reason, but I just drifted (pun intended) into thinking about all of the gay men playing straight men in all plays throughout time immemorial, and how—particularly if they’re not effeminate (or stereotypically gay in some way)—90% of the audiences most likely assume that they’re straight, which of course makes everything dovetail nicely into the majority paradigm.
The other 10% of the audience—the statistically gay part—knows the deal.
I dragged my whiny and bitter ass to Helios after the show and worked on this blog entry until they closed at midnight, at which time I took it on home.