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The Thin Red Line
Sunday, January 10, 1999 This should be a long entry, because I have a lot to talk about, but don't miss my party adventures last Friday! I spent Saturday morning getting ready for a Cacophony event. We were getting together to create images and grids for a calendar, which is an event I've sponsored before. I hadn't realized that the last time was in the beginning of 1995! So I was very productive, clearing off my dining room table (the sewing machine, old bills, miscellaneous crap) and getting out the rubber stamps and clip art books and books of quotes that we would use to create the artwork. I only left the house to buy light bulbs, since every lamp in the front half of the apartment had burnt out. Nick Fraser was the first to arrive, with a large collection of stamps. I hadn't realized that he had accumulated so many! He told me that stamping was an activity he'd shared with a woman that he dated last year. By the time he got his stamps arranged on the table, we were running low on working space! But we started playing and experimenting with ideas. Christina was the next to show, and Tobin arrived last. We were surprised when Christina said that she and Tobin were going to go up to Vancouver, B.C. later that afternoon! It was already about three o'clock by that time. Christina did images for two months, and Tobin did one, before they had to leave. That left a fair amount of work for Nick and I, but we kept plugging along and got most of it done. I was really getting into playing with rubber! I'd been regretting sponsoring the event when I was preparing for it in the morning, but of course I had a lot of fun in the actual doing. About five o'clock, the phone rang. It was Jack! This is almost unprecedented. He started telling about going to Olympia that day, and his stops along the way, until it finally sank in: he was childfree for the weekend, unexpectedly. Would I like to get together? Score! That sounded great! After some negotiation about what to do that night, it became clear that Jack really wanted to see The Thin Red Line, and it's only playing at one theater right now, in downtown Seattle. So Jack would drive over here and pick me up. amd we'd head down there. I swear I didn't push Nick out the door. I got packed, he finished a page or two for the calendar (did I explain this? I'll take the originals, copy them and comb-bind them, and hand back copies to the participants. There will probably be some extras, too.) and packed up all his things again. I walking him out, wishing that he could meet Jack but not wanting to make him miss his bus just for that, when I looked out the building's front door to see Jack just parked across the street. (Jack has met my dance friends and my family and my science fiction friends, but not my Cacophony friends.) There was time for a brief handshake, then Nick was on his way and I helped Jack carry in some old diskette cases that are also good for CD storage. I'll be taking these in to work, since my rack that I got for my birthday is almost full now. Jack had picked them up at the Boeing Surplus store on his way back from Olympia, then had bought two large CD racks at a pawn shop. Gee, he did have fun on that drive!
Jack had been concerned that the movie might be sold out, and sure enough, the seven and eight o'clock shows were sold out at six forty-five, when we got there. There was a nine o'clock showtime, though, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet. We bought tickets at the automated machines, a first for both of us, I think, then went off to find dinner. Good thing the union projectionist unpleasantness (not a formal strike) at this theater has been solved, or I might have had a problem seeing a movie here! And I would not have enjoyed a discussion on labor politics with Jack; such debates aren't fun for me. Our first choice, the new Desert Fire restaurant in the Pacific Place mall, had a forty-five minute wait, so we started off to the Westlake Mall food court. Jack wanted to take the sky-bridge between Pacific Place and the Nordstrom's next door, solely so he can joke about feeling far above the ant-like hordes teeming below us. We were sidetracked at the Nordstrom's cafe that was right there, and had a very tasty dinner there with very good service. We walked down to Barnes and Noble (same bit when we crossed the sky-bridge) and browsed the science fiction and romance sections, then listened to a very good blues guitarist who was playing in the cafe. Finally it was time for the movie. I was very impressed with this film! The suspense of the lyrical parts while the soldiers are resting or thinking about things was very gripping. I did cover my eyes during some of the intense battle scenes. The Buddha-like quality of Jim Caviezel, who played Whit, made the film luminous! I did feel that it was a bit too long at three hours. I'd like to go read the James Jones book now, to see how director and screenwriter Terence Malick adapted the material.
I think Jack needs more sleep than I do. I sleep with a small radio near me, and listen to Weekend Edition on NPR with earbuds after I wake up. That way Jack can still sleep, and I can be near him. After Jack got up, he finally solved the email problem he'd been having (thus his phone call on Saturday) so that made him happy. He and I both need regular email fixes. Jack was very pleased with the Scottish Bangers he fixed us for brunch, and I liked them, too! They were spicier, I think, than the normal British banger, and contained barley. But Jack added chipolte hot sauce to his, all the same. While we were taking the decorations off the Christmas tree and packing them up, Jack got a phone call from B---, a friend that has been working on a business project with him. It became clear as they spoke that the project was going to fall through, since there were things that Jack, B---, and the third guy in the group just couldn't agree about. Jack was bummed; he described his state to me as being grumpy, but to me he seemed disappointed and depressed, but not irritable which is what "grumpy" suggests to me. We talked about the developments for quite a while, and what he'll need to be doing next. He doesn't want to lose his friendship with B--- about it, so it's on to the next contract. After we got the tree taken care of, we went for a walk. I'd asked Jack if talking about the problem was helping; what would he have been doing if I wasn't there? He said he'd probably have gone for a walk, so since it was a nice afternoon by Seattle January standards, we took a tour of his neighborhood. We drove south into a beautiful sunset, to pick up Jack's older daughter A----. We drove up to the trailer; her mother came out and said, "I was supposed to pick up A--- at the Chevron station at four o'clock, but I forgot! [it was six by then!] Could you go and get her?" Jack was furious! But off we went. I saw a figure walking just as we were pulling out onto the main road. "Jack, that's her!" A--- seemed to think that her mom had been to the gas station and had left when A--- had been a few minutes late showing up, but this was not the case! So she'd waited for a while, then had walked the three miles along a two lane road, in the dark and cold. She didn't seem upset, though. We had a nice dinner and a quiet drive back home. Jack came inside to use the facilities, then said to me as he was leaving, "You could come over some weeknight this week, if you aren't already booked." Sounds good to me!
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