I'm just a cock-eyed pessimist

I dreamed two nights ago that I was at tonyawinter's place in Seattle, helping her go through stuff. It was seven years in the future and the first time I'd been to Seattle. Most of my friends had left.

I don't think it will take me that long to go back, but, wow, seven years?

We went back to Inn Noodle for dinner again last night, and I made "When Harry Met Sally" style noises as I ate my duck hor fun. It wasn't on the menu (it was with seafood), but they told me they'd basically make whatever I wanted using the noodles I wanted. God, it was SO GOOD! An unexpected wechsler joined us shortly after our food got there and we were grateful as we had inadvertently ordered too much again (oops).

More on the evening later.

Briefly: tonight, going to see the puppet show at Little Angel Theater at 8, then maybe going to Bmovie (depending on exhaustion levels).

Last night: I'm on an Ibsen/Pinter/Tennessee Williams kick, "collecting" their shows like one would Beanie Babies or BPAL imps, and last night was Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman. The language was thick, but the plot was crystal clear and the characters fantastic. I didn't know a thing about it (other than "financier's ruin causes long-lasting rifts within his family"), but as the various relationships of the characters - estranged twin sisters, one the wife of Borkman (who has not seen her husband in eight years, despite the fact he lives upstairs); the son; and the sexy widow next door. (An unseen other character is "the lawyer" next door who's having a party "the son" is invited to; he's the man who revealed JGB's malfeasance and, in essence, ruined him and his family.)

Kurt Vonnegut (RIP) once said (and scarlettina reminded me) that "every character should want something," and, by God, these people did. Whether it was power, love, money, revenge, happiness, or freedom, they wanted it like fish want water and humans want air, with great, gasping breaths to suck it in. Their stiff, nineteenth century language (Victorian formality) was delivered as a package to the same, burning desires that animate people today - and I loved it all. It reminded me of the very unhappy version of The Voysey Inheritance, which is a look at the same kind of financial finaglings gone "right." In this play, you see exactly the kind of ruin Voysey Junior expects, and you understand why he is so very afraid of the consequences of his father's actions.

Ibsen (thinking of Vonnegut again) rushed us straight to the non-stop action as the years of built-up frustration spilled out. What a great night of theater! I wasn't bored for a minute, and at the end, I wanted to thank each actor personally for delivering, at last, on the contract we made when I bought my ticket: that I would willingly suspend disbelief, and they would become, not actors on a stage, but people who had stories (and pasts) I cared about. Thanks for a great night, guys!

Rightie, fer you folks what is coming over tomorrow, feel free to come earlier, 7ish if'n you'd like, as I will be home from 6 PM onward without fail.

Why is this? Because tonight I went and saw Venus and Adonis, which was a poem read out loud with guitar accompaniment and beautiful Bunraku puppets acting it out. It was just gorgeous and lush and fantastic and generally perfect and I loved it. Er, and so I don't have to go tomorrow.

That said, before the show I got on some downer kick about how shadowdaddy's life would go so much easier if I just kind of kicked the bucket in the next few years (yes, the heart shit is freaking me out a bit), and neither of us felt like going out after the show, even though we were fairly near King's Cross and according to some article I read this week about retirement I should be good to live until almost 100 (if you add 10 years to my maternal grandmother's age of death, even though my mom didn't even make it to 55), though it was counteracted (in my head) by another article I read that said extreme stress can cause physical damage to the heart. Maybe I screwed mine up over the last two years. Maybe we aren't meant to go through the crap with the extreme adrenaline rushes that last for months at a time. I mean, think about it, a widower with a house of his own in Seattle ... he'd be a hot commodity.

On Tuesday I'm supposed to go in and get a 24 hour heart monitor to try and figure out what is going on, but the appointment time is the same time as the rescheduled early morning thing I'm supposed to do at work (from this past Tuesday) and I'm not sure what to do. I guess I am an old person, and it's good I'm at home now, and am planning on spending tomorrow night at home, albeit in the company of people who's presence I enjoy.

And my knee's still hurting, I think because of walking into work Wednesday. Joy.