Busy! Busy! Busy!

Larry snores amusingly as I write. A breeze rustles through trees overhead and across the street, over the river. My windows are all thrown open on a warm November evening. I am so happy with life! We can divide my weekend into two categories: movies and stuff!

On Friday, Lupe picked me up and we drove down to Montgomery to see Capote. I like the place in Montgomery. Parking is miserable but the theaters are very small, the films are of a higher quality than in general release, and nobody will play Spot the Plot with a laser pointer. If you could smoke and drink gin I'd be there every night. I'm sure my next two husbands are lurking on the premises.

The little theater was full. Lupe and I walked toward the front. Behind us, other moviegoers climbed over one another to get to two-togethers or even threes. In recent years, previews have often been better films than the movies they summarized so I look forward to them. My favorite preview in current rotation depicts Jake Gyllenhall and Keith Ledger as cowboys in love. Can I buy tickets to that in advance? Better yet: can the film's stars come to my house for a private screening?

I am a fan of movies full of explosions and films suffused with human drama. Capote is based on events between November 1959 and April 1963, but you don't have to know what they were. If you relax and go along for the ride, Capote is a monster roller coaster. If Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't nominated for an Oscar there is no God. Lupe doesn't remember if she read any of the books Capote mentions; I read those books and remember owning or having owned them. The set dressers made an important point about living at that time in that everyone high and low had piles, shelves and rooms full of beloved books.

Saturday night, Siobhan and I squeezed ourselves into a theater with a shoehorn to see ShopGirl. The place was packed. The average age of audience members was well into the seventies. Behind us about five feet, three old, old women talked through the movie.

Siobhan: Did they annoy you?
Tata: I assumed they turned down their hearing aids and forgot.
Siobhan: I would've killed them but they were already so close to death.

If you've seen a Steve Martin movie, you know his scripts are funny, smart and poignant. There are some minor missteps, but they hardly matter. Bring tissues. Don't wear mascara. We left feeling elated and chattered at length about curious details.

It's been years and years since more than one movie in theaters interested me. It is so exciting to see a bunch out at the same time. It's like the Hollywood crap factory broke and some great ideas leaked.

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Putting together an apartment is work! I've got art on every surface. I'm an artist. People have been giving me art since I started playing with PlayDoh. Last weekend, Paulie and I brought over my bookcase. I pulled my books out of boxes and had Book Placement Joy! Joy! Still, my living room looks like a crossword puzzle and my bedroom would be fertile turf for a scavenger hunt. The kitchen has become so wonderfully mine that last week, my co-workers found cookies in the breakroom.

Laughing Boss: Why did you bake?
Tata: Because I could!
Laughing Boss: What? Did you bump your head?
Tata: I wanted a cookie! Everyone must have one!

If you think because I have a fabulous kitchen I'm taking one for the team and putting on fifteen pounds you are sorely mistaken! No, the team's taking one for me! I baked. Dunk this, squids! Still, some things have been missing - a microwave, for instance. Over the past month, I've had these conversations.

Tata: Tonight, I'm going to a major retailer to buy a microwave. I saved up! I'm rrrrrrrrready!
Daria: I'll lend you mine! We have an extra one downstairs. Sometimes we use it for popcorn.
Tata: Ah...
Daria: While you save up, you can use mine and by Christmas - maybe - you can get one.
Tata: Uh...sure...
Daria: Don't worry! I'll convince Tyler! Everything'll be GREAT!
Tata: Oh. Thank you.

And:

Tata: So about the microwave...
Daria: I'm lending you mine! It's downstairs!
Tata: How...um...thanks...

Yesterday, I got really confused and decided that around noon today I'd go to a major retailer. I never spend wads of cash on myself so I had to work my way up to the microwave by tooling around the laundry aisle and letting myself be confused. Then I took forty minutes picking make up and lurid nail polish colors. Then I walked around and around and around curtains and area rugs. I picked up a power strip in Electronics but couldn't bring myself to spend $100 for a little TV for my bedroom. Disney's Cinderella was on the screens. I still know all the words and sang with Gus Gus. Please resist the urge to think of me and pumpkins.

Mmm. Seedy.

Finally, I stared at my microwave oven options for more than fifteen minutes, then picked one. The box was nearly as big as me and difficult to lift. It filled my cart's basket. After that, I had to be really, really careful what I found two-for-one and hope they were flat things I desperately needed.

So. I plugged the microwave into the power strip and polished my nails a metallic blue and applied lipstick and put away all the problem-solving items I'd stuffed into that cart somehow, then into my trunk somehow, then into my apartment somehow.

Then I scampered around my apartment singing, "Who do I want to be when I grow up? Me! Me! Me!"