— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे —
For the first time in nearly two decades, I have started thinking—and writing—about no longer reviewing every movie I see in a theater, especially if it has a middle-ground grade that renders it an inconsequential movie that few to any people are likely to bother even considering.
For now, it seems, I still just can't help myself. What if someone out there is still interested in reading my review? Now that I have a web domain on a service that provides Google analytics, I have found some surprising reviews have gotten a comparatively large number of hits.
My review of Halston from 2019 continues to get regular hits, and is by far my most-read review since I started fruitcakeenterprises.com in July 2017; it has more than double the traffic of my second-most viewed review (
First Reformed from 2018). As such, I never know what movie people might actually be interested in reading about, for even a few years afterward, and regardless of the grade I give it.
Some rando left a very snotty comment on my
Halston review, by the way. That was kind of entertaining.
Anyway! None of this is necessarily good enough reason to continue spending so much energy for so little return on investment, but as I said, this is a habit very, very hard to break. So, even though I gave
Memoria a solid C, I wrote over 1400 words about it; and last night's movie,
You Won't Be Alone, I gave a B-minus, and I still wrote more than 900 words about that one. Someone might still want to read about it! Like, when it comes to their local market, or whatever.
I went with Ivan. It was our first genuinely social outing outside of the condo (so, excluding when we watch movies together at home) since we went to Neko Cat Café on
December 29. We might otherwise have done something together since, except that I purposefully did not go out for nearly the entire month of January while the Omicron wave peaked. And then, I guess, there just never was anything in particular that interested both of us to go out and do in either February or March. I did try to get him to see a movie with me in March, which in typical fashion he strung me along for some time feigning interest and then bailed at the last minute. That was a movie he would have hated anyway. (
Compartment No. 6, which, incidentally, was fine but not great, and was part of my starting to reevaluate whether I should continue mothering to review all of these movies.)
I had walked downtown and then decided to catch a bus the rest of the way up the hill, to give me some extra time. Ivan had told me he would be going on a hike, which was why he asked to change our plan from the 4:45 showing (which I would have preferred as I could then just walk right over after work) to 7:45 as he didn't think he would be back in time. And when he was still gone when I got home, I really thought maybe he wouldn't make it to the movie after all. But then he came in while I was making veggie burgers for dinner, and he said, "Are we still going to the movie?" I said, "That's up to you." And he said, "Well yes, or I wouldn't have asked." Okay snotty: you're the one who consistently bails on me at the last minute, otherwise I wouldn't respond like that.
Anyway! I told him we'd need to catch the #8 at 15th & John at 6:57, assuming the bus was on time. Then Ivan took his dear sweet time, even after checking the clock after he was done washing the dishes from his own dinner. He went into the bathroom and . . . brushed his teeth. Seriously? I decided, whatever. I wasn't all that invested in this movie anyway, and just used it as an idea for him and me to do together. I figured he would be very interested as it includes two very big interests of his—witches and Eastern Europe—and I was right. Still, when he finally started putting on his shoes, I said, "If this bus is on time, we're going to miss it." It was scheduled to arrive at the stop in about three minutes at that point, and it takes at least seven minutes to walk over there. He acted like he didn't realize he was running late. "But, maybe it's late," I said. "Or, we'll just catch the next one." If the next one were even close to on time, we'd still get into the theater before the trailers were done, so, whatever.
I didn't even bother trying to rush over there. And then, like absolute magic, the #8 we wanted
was a few minutes late, and it pulled up literally at the moment we arrived at the bus stop. We got on and Ivan started tying his shoes. "Good thing I didn't tie my shoes before we left!" he said.
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे —
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे —
I did get a few questions answered while on the bus ride down to the theater. I asked if he yet knew the exact date he'll be leaving to move out, and he did: May 1. He wants to spend a couple of weeks exploring Vancouver Island, and will be catching the 7:30 a.m. Victoria Clipper boat to Victoria, British Columbia on Sunday, May 1—the day after both his and my birthday. On April 30, I will be 46 and he will be 37. It's weird to think of Ivan as moving squarely into middle-age; I've known him eight years as of this month, and when we first met he was still only 28 (though he turned 29 two weeks later). I've known him long enough for him to be one of my "young friends" and then move into an older phase of his life: a few pounds gained, a lot more experiences and travels under his belt, three different stints living in our guest room.
I even told him last night, "I'm not saying I expect this, but after a few or several years, I won't be surprised if you wind up living with us again. The last time you left, I was convinced you'd never live with us again, after all. And here you are." He was just like, "You never know." I do have a minor theory that, after some more years of moving all over the place by himself and still not making any lasting connections with people (though to be clear, I still hope he does make such connections and would be very happy for him if he did), a certain kind of loneliness may make him decide to return again. I think that was very much a factor in his decision to return after feeling isolated for a year in New Zealand—even though it took another year for him to move back in with us again, but that had to do with what work he could find. Honestly whether he never lives with us again or he does come back eventually, I'm fine with either eventuality. The bottom line is that I have learned not to think of anything whatsoever as permanent when it comes to Ivan—including the idea that he's "leaving Seattle permanently," as he put it when he informed me of this last week.
I'm digressing a bit. I could swear he said the cruise is two weeks, but I could also swear he said he departs Vancouver on May 15 and returns the 25th which is only 10 days. Either he's rounding or he gave me a wrong date; he does do that sometimes, giving me details that don't jibe with each other. According to him, anyway, his Vancouver Island + Alaska cruise terminates back in Vancouver, B.C. on May 25, after which he still doesn't know what he's going to do, aside from look for travel nursing jobs. He is considering New England, apparently; maybe Vermont. He said there are shortages everywhere. I asked if there were shortages in more than ERs and hospitals, which he has always refused to work in as a nurse, and he said yes, every area of nursing has shortages.
I asked if he had a long term plan for all his stuff. He's had three boxes of stuff in our storage unit literally since the last time he moved out—in 2018, four years ago. I once mentioned it over Messenger when he was still in California, after his return from New Zealand, and he seemed to get just slightly defensive: "COVID changed my plans you know." At that point, we thought he was just coming for a visit last July, and it wasn't even until he arrived that he found a job and decided definitively that he would just live with us again for the time being.
I think he probably remembers that exchange, though, and perhaps anticipated that we would not appreciate just being used as a storage facility for the foreseeable future. He told me that what he doesn't give away, he's "shipping back east," to his parents' house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He did ask if we wanted to keep the furniture in his room, evidently forgetting that for all intents and purposes, we kept the bed and the dresser for ourselves when he left in 2018, at which time we also thought he'd never be back again. Of course, we'd like to still keep those. He commented, and this was far from the first time he had done so, how much he likes that mattress. We had people stay over and sleep in that bed several times between his departure in 2018 and the onset of the pandemic in 2020, so several other people have slept in it (including Uncle David and Mary Ann,
one weekend in May 2018—the last time they visited Seattle), but I never have. Ivan used to have what felt like very nice memory foam pillows which he has since replaced with regular ones; I only just ordered a memory foam pillow for myself, in an effort to relieve intermittent neck pain, and it arrived yesterday. I've slept on it only once now, and I slept surprisingly deeply last night even though I did not have it quite formed the way I want yet. It feels like it's still tilting my head up too much, but I think I can work on getting it more ideally sculpted.
In any event, one of his projects for this month is to evacuate all his stuff from the condo, with the exception of the bed and dresser. He hasn't put in his notice at work yet but plans to in the coming week, he said. Hopefully we can do at least one more dinner at Saffron Grill with him and Alexia before the month is out. I was thinking last night about the likelihood that it was the last movie he and I go see together before he leaves. It's still early(ish) April, but a lot of things have to align for us to see a movie together: my own availability, a day he has off of work, a movie we're both particularly interested in. I'll be surprised if it happens again by May 1.
It remains weird to think about, how much I enjoy having him around, how much I'll miss him, but also how much I love it when Shobhit and I have the condo to ourselves. Ivan took a three-night trip to Portland last weekend and we got used to it very quickly—so much so that yesterday morning I almost walked out into the kitchen nude when I first woke up, then had to catch myself: oh right, Ivan is home. Shobhit's finances will take a significant hit without Ivan's rent, but maybe doing without it will be a bigger motivator for Shobhit's search for a better job. Plus, he's got money getting transferred from Indian accounts, which will provide a notable financial cushion, for a while at least.
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे —
[posted 12:20 pm]
