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Pretty standard Tuesday today! Yesterday was the requisite
long Monday post detailing the events of the weekend. Now, I have far less to update you on, one day later.
Except! I met up with Tracy for dinner and a movie last night. I don't know if this was the longest we've gone without hanging out, but if not it would have to be close: the last time we hung out was when we went to the Pacific Science Center IMAX theater to see
Oppenheimer. That was on Saturday, July 22. That was ten and a half weeks ago. Okay, that really has to be the longest we've gone without hanging out—at least since we were back to working at the office.
I stayed an extra twenty minutes at work—the least I could do, honestly, after all the time I spent writing yesterday's blog post—and then walked straight to Pacific Place. Or specifically, Nordstrom, on its top retail floor, and the cafe there, right by the skyway across 6th Avenue to Pacific Place. We agreed to eat there for dinner at 5:30. We ate there once before, on June 1 of last year, when I discovered the truly delicious mushroom ravioli dish they have. I ordered it again and it was amazing.
I didn't order anything else because it was also expensive. The dish alone set me back just over $23. But it was worth it.
Anyway, we got to discussing the last time we hung out, and she said, "It was before Minneapolis." That meant it had to have been in July: I flew to Minneapolis on August 1. We finally zeroed in on July 22, when we went to see
Oppenheimer.
We had a fair amount to catch each other up on. I told her about the results of the City Council primary election, and by extension that, let's say, memorable "underground cabaret" show we went to on Saturday night.
Somehow, we got to the subject of the small "church" made up of five families I was a part of back in the early nineties in Spokane, and the affairs both the preachers had with Dawn, the woman who was Katina's mom (Katina being who is now my brother's ex-wife). It was all very soapy, but Tracy made a point I had never considered before: all these people brought together by, basically, Bible study—how does that evolve into "sexy time"? I had no answer for her. Well, I kind of did: these people socialized more than just church going. There was plenty of time to get to know people outside the context of having Bibles in hand. It's still a little odd, in retrospect. Another thing that never really crystalized in my mind until getting Tracy's outsider perspective: our little group was fundamentally unusual. It occurred to me that, indeed, I have never met any other person—specifically, Christian—with a similar experience, having been part of a makeshift church that met in each other's living rooms every Sunday. To us, at the time, with my mom unable to find an extablished church that worked for her, it made sense an an alternative.
Conversely, Tracy shared with me a text that had been sent to her sister Cindy, in which their mom accused Tracy of stealing clothes from her and giving them to "a witch man." It was legit Looney Tunes stuff, on par with QAnon, and I think that was what Tract was intending to convey: her mother is crazy. She is also apparently a massive hoarder. She shared with me a video she made for another friend, of her mom's bedroom, in which there are shoulder-high piles of clothes with a path through them to the bed. Apparently one of those piles has fallen over, "and she just walks over the pile" to get to her bed.
Oh, I think I remember now how we got to these narrative threads. Tracy had brought up someone at her job asking what her first concert was (NSync, I think she said), and so I shared my own
first concert experience, which was The Cranberries at The Gorge with my brother Christopher in August 1996, within days of my first coming out. This led to talking about how Mom had been terrified that my dying my hair black and wearing makeup and black nail polish might mean I was a Satanist (one of the most utterly ridiculous mental leaps my mom ever made). Basically, this made Tracy want to share how nuts her own mother is.
— पांच हजार चार सौ बयासी —
— पांच हजार चार सौ बयासी —
We also chose dinner at Nodstrom Cafe because it was so close to Pacific Place, where we then went to the 7:05 showing of
Dumb Money, which has been playing for two and a half weeks, but this was the soonest Tract could make the time for it. I don't usually wait so long so someone can see a movie with me, but I was okay with it for this movie. Kind of as expected, the movie was
decent but unexceptional; solid B material.
Here's a weird thing about the movie watching experience, though, a kind of meta aspect to it. I can't think of any other movie I've seen in which we see so many people wearing face masks, because it's set at the height of the pandemic—all of two years ago. As in, covid continues to spread, just not like it once did. Masks remain a good idea, they just no longer get used by most people. They certainly get used by me, in movie theaters, even if, as in this case, there are only maybe ten or fifteen other people present. My point is, watching this movie in which most of the characters are seen with masks on at some point or another, I was the single person in the audience wearing one.
I have an appointment set for this year's covid booster on Monday next week, October 9, incidentally. I already mentioned that last week. Yesterday Shobhit set up his own appointment, and he'll be getting his on the following Saturday, the 14th. Hopefully this will provide sufficient extra protection as we approach our Thanksgiving week trip back down to visit Faith in Palm Springs.
Tracy gave me a ride home after the movie as usual. We were both yawning, and commenting on how much later a showtime this was than usual for us. (The other option was 4:30 and that was too early; this allowed us to have dinner beforehand anyway.) I told her I know we usually hang out and chat for a while but I needed to go write my review. "That's what dinner was for," she agreed, and we said our goodbyes. I actually then wrote up my review in unusually quick time before being ready for bed around 10:30.
— पांच हजार चार सौ बयासी —
[posted 12:30 pm]
