Fantabulous Rock Stars

30 June 2001

Here's a hint for all-y'all who want to write a movie script or a novel: if you need to jump ahead 2000 years in the future for the last two scenes, when previously the movie or book has taken place within about a year or two, that's a bad thing. Not good planning on your part.

We went to see "A.I." last night. It lasted much, much longer than it should have. Much. Much much. And it had no sense of story arc whatsoever. Even Michelle, whose questions about my stories almost always take the form of "What happened to N after that?", agreed that the story arc went too long. Never mind the rest of what was wrong with it. Oof.

Yesterday afternoon, Michelle and I went sari shopping for her. She got a very pretty purple one, which we will practice wrapping once or twice more before she leaves tomorrow. We got a strange (but I guess not surprising) vibe from the store clerks, a combination of "Buy more stuff!" and "Go away!" We eventually did the latter, sari in hand, and headed over to get Coffee in its socially abstract form.

Last night I got very very tired staying up talking with everybody. As I was folding towels getting ready for bed, I told Mark the following story:

"Once upon a time there was a banana named Rosa who wanted to be a pilot. And everyone said, 'Bananas can't be pilots!' But Rosa said, 'I'm different. I'm special. I will be a pilot.' So she went to the airport and jumped up in the pilot's seat on one of the big planes. Then the pilot sat on her. 'Aah!' he said. 'I've got banana on my pants!' So he jumped up and ran into the airport to change his pants.

"While the pilot was gone, Rosa took the airplane out and launched it into the air. [I want it known and appreciated that I refrained from making sound effects in this story.] But she didn't fly it very well, partly because much of her innards remained on the pilot's pants, but mostly because she was a banana. So she crashed into the side of a snowy hill.

"There she met two men who had also crashed, trying to fly their two moose out of the wilderness. And she made friends with the men. They offered her some of their moose to eat. Bananas usually don't eat moose, but she didn't want them to think she was rude or unfriendly, so she had a little."

When I'd finished, Mark said, "That was a very disturbing story, sweetie."

I said, "No it wasn't! It was a tale of triumph over adversity, hope against the odds!"

He said, "She got sat on and crashed her plane!"

"Yes, but she got to eat moose with her friends!"

He left to go put the towels in the bathroom.

"And bananas generally don't eat moose!" I called after him. Then I lay down on the bed and started giggling. "Bananas don't eat moose!"

This is why I don't get that tired all that often. Also one of the reasons why I've never had the urge to experiment with pharmaceuticals: my brain chemistry does enough funky stuff all by itself.

On a slightly different note, I'm a little disappointed in us. We have not been living up to our reputation. I'll bet you didn't realize we had a reputation -- or at least, not that kind of one. Maybe the "wow, they're all really big geeks" kind. But you would be wrong.

See, when Michelle met Scott at the wedding, they hit it off and started exchanging e-mails. But she kind of wanted to find out what he had been like in college, and she didn't want to put me in the position of having to talk him up or bad-mouth him to her. So she e-mailed Jim, a geek friend of hers who had hung out with the old crowd once or twice, and asked him what we-all had been like. His response: "They partied like the most fantabulous rock stars ever!" And he wasn't being sarcastic. He wanted to come to any parties the crowd might have in the Cities in the future.

Um. When we heard this, Michelle gave me one of her patented, "Why didn't you tell me?" looks, and Scott and Mark looked at each other. "I don't remember any fantabulous rock star parties," said Mark.

"Maybe they were so fantabulous we don't remember," said Scott gleefully.

Mark frowned. "I don't think so."

But we haven't been having fantabulous rock star parties at all. Maybe tonight, if Grandpa's doing well.

On the Grandpa Watch: I talked to him yesterday, and he was quite clear and lucid, joking and being himself. He had walked to the end of the hall and back again (Kari said it was with Daddy; I don't know for sure) and said that if he was good, they were going to let him go to the Beach Boys concert last night. There actually was a "Beach Boys" (missing Wilsons = not the Beach Boys) concert in Omaha last night, and Grandpa was clear-headed enough to laugh at himself, knowing there was no way he'd get to go.

I'm trying not to be freaking-out worried here. I have no idea when Grandpa's biopsy results will be back, so thinking about them constantly until then is a bad idea. Timprov and I have some work stuff to take care of today, and Amber will probably be by in the evening; otherwise we're going to play games and sit around and talk and potentially watch a movie or two. It'll be relaxed. It'll be good. Really.

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