Titanic Again

It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they "speak with the accent of natives" they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
-- Ivan Illich

Tuesday, March 3, 1998

It's late and I'm tempted not to write an entry, but I do have a few things to talk about.

I stepped on a friend's toes last night, and got my hand slapped! (Figuratively, that is.) I had asked zir to tell me about something, and I thought I'd been clear about my intended use for what zie wrote. Evidently not! All was smoothed over, but I did feel bad. To post on the web what was intended as private email is a grave faux pas! It's true, no good deed goes unpunished.

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Our group program manager wrote an article about the databound tasklist I've been talking about the past few days. This type of web page really is a handy thing in an intranet situation.

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Jason and I had arranged to go see Titanic together tonight, so I found a theater that was showing it early enough in the evening that he could get to work on time. I also thought we would get some food ahead of time. However, his sleep schedule has now shifted such that four pm was really too early for him to wake up. I let him sleep till five, but he was still sleepy and silent on the drive to Renton, and during dinner. Poor guy, he just didn't feel like chatting at all! So I tried to keep quiet as well, rather than keep pinging him with questions and comments that demanded responses.

We ate dinner at a large Chinese Buffet in the strip mall next to the theater. I love the name of this place: "Foody Goody"! That just doesn't rhyme! It was a huge place, decorated in pink neon. Jason was able to get the breakfast-type food he wanted (fruit, pastry, jello) and I had a normal Chinese dinner.

The movie was great, of course, and held up well on a second viewing. But Jason hadn't realized that I had already seen it! Would he have gone if he had known? Or taken me up on my offer to not go, when he was having such a hard time waking up? I had wanted to have some conversation time with him, which is why I had planned on eating beforehand and didn't agree to his desire to sleep until an hour before showtime. (One isn't supposed to talk during the actual movie, although that rule was unknown to the people sitting behind us and to the left.)

I am late on updating the Cacophony pages. I'll try to get to it tomorrow morning!

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