There are weekends when you do absolutely nothing. You get up Saturday morning, 10-ish, have coffee, and blitz-ada-bling-bling-ZLUP… it’s Sunday night, 10 p.m. You sense vague memories of Eggo blueberry waffles somewhere in your distant past-- maybe you had them for dinner, maybe that was lunch. Was it lunch? If it wasn’t, what did you have for lunch? Then again, maybe you’re not missing a meal at all. Maybe you had brunch today. You ponder the importance of this ridiculously inane question as you set your alarm for Monday morning. Then, suddenly you realize that, besides the waffle meal in question, you have absolutely no idea how you spent the weekend that is now ending. I’ve certainly had my share of these lost weekends.
This past weekend was not one of them. In fact, it only demonstrates how far flung my interests really are. It also shows that the film geek within me is in no danger of dissipating. What does a film geek really do? Well, Thursday, I started watching Fellini’s “8 1/2.” By Friday, I’d finished watching “8 1/2” the first time and had begun watching it a second time—with the full commentary (emphasizing Italian neo-realism with references to Fellini’s Playboy interview.)
Saturday, I’d decided to explore my interest in Hinduism with a trip to the Vedanta Society in Hollywood, a temple oddly tucked away underneath the 101 freeway where Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh used to worship-- back in the day. There, I purchased some kick-ass incense and felt divinity in everything I gazed upon for the rest of the day.
Still blissful, I went to the local library and got a book on the Fundamentals of Hinduism and a book called Getting Out: Your Guide To Leaving America. I fully admit that I have frequent expat daydreams of leaving the U.S.A. behind. That said, seeing a manual that outlines a plan of escape was vastly appealing. It’s a wealth of information suggesting that I just might need to renew this baby after the 3 week library mark.
Then, inexplicably, I rented the original Ghostbusters movie. All that self-imposed film theory and criticism of “8 1/2” made me think that Ghostbusters could be brain-puff fun. It was, for maybe the first 20 minutes. Then, it got lame and its irritatingly catchy theme song infiltrated my brain:
“If there’s something strange in the neighborhood, who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!
Nearly as annoying as the song, "Shout" the Ghostbusters theme intercepted my dreams and disturbed my REM sleep. Suddenly, the Monday morning alarm went off (never a good thing) but I was thankful that I remembered exactly what I’d done to lead up to this very Monday moment. Maybe it was the Sunday morning omelette that I had for brunch (yes, brunch) that made all the difference.
Copyright © 2008 Kendra Liedle
No comments:
Post a Comment