They knew of you. Now they know you.

I Netflix'ed "Say Anything" and I'm watching it right now while I fold the laundry. Well, okay, right nowI'm blogging, but I'm in the middle of folding the laundry.

Embarrasingly enough, I decided to see the movie again because it was on a list, somewhere on the Internet, of the best movie sex scenes. Or the best quirky movie sex scenes? Anyway, I was surprised. I did not remember any sex scene in Say Anything; if you asked me, I would have said Diane Court and Lloyd Dobbler haven't had sex yet when they get on the airplane.

What I remember is this: I went to see the movie in the spring of my freshman year of college, with my roommate and the boy who would be my boyfriend in another six months. They both went to single-sex private high schools. As we walked home from the Eric Garden, weirdest-named movie theater in America, we talked about what a good movie it was.

One of them said, "Wow. That graduation party at the beginning."
"I know!" I put in, "I have been to so many parties exactly like that. It was so brilliant, so evocative..." I trailed off as I realized they were both looking at me in horror. They thought the party was appalling debauchery; they fervently hoped it was a satrical exaggeration.

I identified not only with the kind of high school depicted, and the kind of people Lloyd hung out with, but also with Diane's position as the Brainy Girl who doesn't get to know most people until the end of senior year. I have never been as beautiful as Ione Skye, but I think I was that type...soft-looking. Fresh-faced.

There was no Lloyd Dobbler in my life. A couple of would-be Lloyd Dobblers asked me out in high school, and I ran screaming, basically. I only wanted, as Woody Allen says in "Annie Hall," to belong to a club that was not interested in having me as a member. As a consequence I spent most of high school without a boyfriend, which was probably for the best.

PS: Wikipedia has a list of all the (many) pop culture references to "Say Anything," mostly consisting of people holding boomboxes over their heads.

Notes From All Over

An Entirely Different Sort of Song
The children ask me what the words are to "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." Gamely, I begin singing:

MV:Here comes Peter Cottontail...
*cut*
....colored eggs for sister Sue,/There's an orchid for your Mommy/And an--
S: An organ?

Will The Lights Go On Again?
Now that Friday Night Lights is over, I don't know what to do with myself on Wednesday night. Going back and reading that sentence, it sounds like it makes very little sense. But if you don't know by now that Friday Night Lights is a TV show, the best new show this season, I can't help you anyway.

I had more but I can't remember it.

Are They Trying to Break My Heart?

This infuriates me:
"My success as a scientist depended on my neglecting my first set of children."

I mean, what the hell? Does he really think that? Could he have manged to say, I don't know, "Unfortunately, my sucess as a scientist etc."? Or is it all okay because he gets this second family and he can do it right?

If anyone's success depends on neglecting children, it's not worth having. I say that from my incredibly spoiled position as a "stay-at-home" mother of three children with an increasingly successful father. But he has not always been so successful. He has always been, and continues to be, intimately involved in the lives of his children: my absolutely equal partner in their upbringing, if not always their physical daily care.

Maybe we're not talking about money here. Success as a scientist, after all, is probably measured by research breakthroughs, by standing and respect in the community.

Still. To paraphrase Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons--it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world...but for success as a scientist?

It's Too Late Baby, Now, It's Too Late

How I would have loved a Second Avenue Subway when I lived on Second Avenue.

I suppose learning all those bus routes was character-building. And sometimes when I was taking the 34th St crosstown I would just get off on the spur of the moment to buy particularly tempting takeout or see a movie solo. That was fun.

But not as fun as having a subway option when it's snowing. Or raining. Or 100 degrees out. Or a gridlock day...

In Large Amounts, As Depeche Mode Said

So, in the past few weeks I've been trying to live a little more quietly--less Internet, less TV, even less reading (not to mention hourlong runs, alone with my thoughts). After a while, I began to hear the things I say to myself. And what I heard myself saying, over and over, quite discourteously and dismissively, was, "That doesn't count!"

I accomplished nothing today, I would think. If only I didn't have to spend all that time clearing off my desk...putting things away...raking leaves...driving the kids. I could have gotten something done.

So my resolution for the remaining three quarters of this year? Everything counts.

Cheaper than Antidepressants, and No (Bad) Sexual Side Effects

I can now run 5 miles in under 57 minutes (less than 11.5 minute miles, for the innumerate among you). I have lost 12 pounds as promised, or somewhere around there, since the vagaries of fluid intake, my crappy scale, and phases of the moon make precise weight determination impossible.

I have only revised 3 chapters of my book.

So my batting average for Lenten resolutions is .500.

On the other hand, I feel awesome. I have a friend who started taking antidepressants and not long afterward her husband said, "Ooops, sorry I put on the dishwasher. I know you hate the sound of the dishwasher in the evening." And my friend said, "I do? Gosh, it's not really bothering me right now."

I had a similar moment on Monday. We had just had breakfast at the Courtyard (have I mentioned how much I love hotel breakfasts? And watching TV in bed?). I was all packed, the children were all packed, NSBR was finishing his packing. I said, "Hey, shall I go get a cart?"

NSBR looked at me in surprise. "Um, sure!" So I went to find a cart. I wondered why he was surprised. I was a little surprised at myself. And then I realized that in the same scenario in years past, I would have been huddled in a chair with my book, glad that my packing was done, and fuming at the fact that R. didn't get up sooner or do his faster, since it was his job to go out into the big scary hotel, possibly having to walk some distance and/or ask a person a question, get a cart, load it, etc.

Suddenly it didn't seem so onerous. That same friend puts it down to the running, and I am inclined to agree.

Back, But Eden Kennedy Has Said It All For Me Already

I always thought I was scared of confrontation. It turns out that what I was really scared of is that I might kill the other person with my anger.
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