I came home from the gym, ate a dinner comprising--hey!--pasta and cheese en famille except I should say en flocke, and then Blake and I read on the couch and pet his little buddy head and he tucked and I might have snoozed a little bit because if there's anything more peaceful than a buddy tucked and one-footed under my chin I have yet to experience it. And I finished Mysteries of Pittsburgh.
I had no idea how he was going to end this. He ended it well, in a tone so apropos for its character that yep, that's the only way he could have closed it. Its population of beautiful, ornery, unique characters reminded me a little of Secret History.
Before bed I actually put away laundry, though it was only dry this morning, instead of letting it age on the floor. Really, I was proud.
In bed I began another José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Its title in Portuguese is O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo, which threw me. Ignorant of Spanish as I am, I read about half of One Hundred Years of Solitude before realizing that José and Arcadio Segundo were juniors, seconds. I know Spanish and Portuguese are much less closely related than I assumed for my first 2.5 decades, but I don't get "segundo" here. If it means something like "following," that would account for both the "junior" and "according to" meanings.
In 2001 I assigned myself the various lists. In 2002, I meant to read a lot of nonfiction and I did read more than usual for me but then read more from the lists. Starting late last year--after A House for Mr. Biswas struck me, after four chapters, as being more depressing than I needed and I actually gave up on it--I have been reading more current fiction than I have for a long, long time, it seems, and I am glad of it. I'm not allowed to claim as a favorite author anyone whom I read in translation, but if I ever either relax that rule or learn Portuguese, Saramago will be on the list.
Apparently the '80s are so fashionable now that even cheesy restaurants have updated their tape loops. At Subway I heard "Down Under" for the first time in not long enough. Another time, "Message in a Bottle," which to my mind never went out of style at all.
(Who said to me, in person and recently, that no one but he himself seemed to appreciate the irony of Sting singing "Message in a Bottle" during half-time at the Superbowl (to me, that's ironic in itself) as a duet with another singer? I don't remember. Anyway, I cracked up. Because that's funny.)
Today when we entered Qdoba I heard "Pride (in the Name of Love)" during which I attempted to order a burrito:
Could I have a burrito please
he to justify
chicken, no beans
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
Medium salsa, please
One man washed on an empty beach
No cheese or guacamole or sour cream, thanks
One man betrayed with a kiss
But could I have a scoop of those mixed peppers and mushrooms?
Early morning, April 4
It was late afternoon, you twit
For here. No drink, thanks
Free at last, they took your life
But they could not take your pride....
One of the reasons the dance in the dole line so amused me in "The Full Monty" was that I identified with it too strongly. I should point out that only the burrito segments of the above paragraph were aloud. The other bits might have been mouthed, but I'm not confirming or denying that.
So we sat and listened to the next song
(the Blowmonkeys' "Digging Your Scene" from Choices which is the B side of my Echo and Bunnymen's Songs to Learn and Sing tape, both dubbed, it might go without saying, from dear BHM)
and ate
(me: one third of that already nigh-fatless and staggeringly vegetablized burrito: go me!)
and heard more songs and kvetched, because that's how our lunches run these days
(during staff meeting this morning, someone said something about our funding "because now we have a mortgage to pay" and I muttered, "We could always move back downtown" and no it seems I won't stop bitching about that).
Until. Until. Until another song's first note, at which I slammed my hand on the table and said, "Can we go now?" and we got up and threw out our trash
("Does she walk? / Does she talk?/ Does she come complete?")
and I scarpered, needing to get out of there before the chorus.
I didn't quite make it: "My blood runs cold/ My memory has just been sold/ My angel is the centerfold/ Angel in the centerfold." For the rest of the afternoon. Thank you very much.
Yesterday after the gym I scampered into PetsMart for buddy pellets (Kaytee Rainbow Cockatiel Diet, specifically). We call these his Fruity Pellets. I also purchased, because I am a sucker, an issue of Bird Talk because the cover, and therefore the centerfold, featured Nymphicus hollandicus. I gave the rag money because of that, despite the issue's suggestion that you rotate your bird's toys regularly to peak its inquisitive nature [sic].
I would never say anything as foolish as that I buy Bird Talk for the articles. I buy it for the photographs. Like the photograph of the whiteface on a boy's shoulder watching him color. The photograph is charming: the 'tiel's head is cocked to point one beady eye at the marker, and I can see that it's plotting to climb down to the table to help. The caption, of course, is ridiculous: "Take your cockatiel out for some one-on-one interaction a few times a day." A few times a day! I laugh, I chuckle, I go ha-ha-ha. Or the photograph of whiteface pied perching on a vet's hand and--it looks like--singing to the little wand flashlight a vet uses to look into ears and eyes and vents.
Then, if I were truly a freak, or slightly more ambitious, the segment I'd want Blake in, with a photograph and a short paragraph. A pied taking a shower. (See what I mean? Especially with names like "Spike" and "Cheeky." Total porn.) A gray male and female having their heads pet. A mantling gray male (I won't say "mantling gray cock" because that just sounds so wrong). A cinnamon (Percy's color) and a pied playing in a bowl. A gray male having its head pet. This last one's name is Buddy, "a very bold cockatiel [who] isn't afraid of anything (almost)....There is one thing that he is deathly afraid of and that's the dreaded blueberry." He also sings to his girlfriend and their eggs.
Naturally we had to see what Blake thinks of blueberries. He loves cherries particularly, strawberries, and most fruit, but I think we've never given him a blueberry. (We already know he's afraid of flashlights and wouldn't sing to one.) First, we evened the playing field: we have only frozen blueberries and he hates cold things, like snow and ice cubes. He also doesn't like sudden confrontation with The Strange, so the slightly thawed blueberry approached slowly. He just chucked at it, his usual greeting noise. Ha.
I think snow, fitballs, and balloons are quite reasonable things for him to be scared of. If he'd just stop huffing at Booboo and Pan, since he likes Morse and Monty and Hamlet just fine, I'd be content.
(Oh, the centerfolds. I wonder if they're show birds, because do so many individuals really keep their birds fully flighted? But would a sicko bird-showing person allow a photograph in which the tail feathers are not perfectly zipped, in which one tallest crest feather is still partially encapsulated in shoelace aglet? But anyway, two pearls on one, full wings tip to tip over each tail, and a normal gray, mantling a little, on the other. Nisou asked me why we didn't get a pretty kind after Percy, all yellow or all white or pied, why steel gray. Because he's pretty too, of course.)
And I do appreciate the irony in the juxtaposition of this with the previous entry. Yep.
I should have done some cardio, either on the Nordic Track or at the gym, but no. I used the fitball while watching the news, a very early episode of "Northern Exposure" (maybe the third of the first season, sigh) and then Buffy. I did twists for my obliques, walk-outs for my lower back, a faintly obscene exercise for glutes, and the prone isometric thing for my core.