A most interesting weekend. Oh, and like you care, but since I mentioned it in my last daylog (and I don't daylog that often), I didn't get the part for the show on Comedy Central. "We're skewing towards a younger demographic" I was told. If this was pc-speak designed to spare my feelings, it really would have been better if they told me I was too old for the part. I've never felt that politically correct speech was anything but a tool to be a very precise, for lack of a better term, bitch.
So, on to this weekend. Went to see Oliver Wood and The Quidditch Match (I think that's what it was called, that's all I remember about the movie, well, the LOTR and AOTC trailers were cool) and was entertained quite well.
However, since it was opening weekend, we arrived at the movie theater quite early. It was a nice night, so it really wasn't a problem for our group of four people to stand around, socialize and people watch.
Now two of our group, myself and another, happen to be cigarette smokers. We are conscientious of the fact that many people find such a habit bothersome, and as such, when needing a puff, would remove ourselves to the vicinity of the ashtray provided to get our fix.
This didn't bother anyone at all at first. However, as the line for our showing of the movie began to coalesce, my smoking companion and I, each with a lit cigarette, found the line coalescing around us, near the ashtray. I was just in the midst of putting out my butt, mentioning that it's rude to smoke in line, when I hear the following being squawked in my general direction:
"THATCIGARETTEISREALLYNASTYYOUHAVETOPUTITOUTIHAVECHILDREN
HEREIT'SILLEGALTOSMOKEINLINEYOUNEEDTOGETYOURSQUAWK
SQUAWK
SQWUAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWK!!!!"
...and here's someone who could have benefitted from pc-speak. It would have made my representation of her far more flattering in this account...but only in the sense that cats are usually more interesting than amoebas...
Despite our best efforts to politely inform this mother that we were, in fact, extinguishing our cigarettes right at the very moment she chose to begin her rant, we couldn't get a word in edgewise. My smoking buddy and I finally gave up and just showed her our backs but my friend Scott, ever the quick wit, over-shouted her with, "Listen here you piece of white trash with an over acute sense of entitlement, we do not revolve in orbit around you, though that's entirely possible given the gravitational pull your enormous girth seems to provide. So you and your cackling brood need to just pipe down ... my friends have already decided not to smoke in line, though there's nothing to legally prevent them from doing so. They, unlike you, are courteous people."
Have you ever had three hundred pairs of eyes turned in your direction in a public venue, and heard about fifty people laugh at you, all at once? Our squawking lady friend had not, and I swear she reddened quite a bit ... though it was hard to tell underneath all her pancake makeup. She spent the rest of the time in line glaring at us. We spent the rest of the time ignoring her by talking about sex, drugs, and rock and roll in a little higher-than-normal conversational tones, just to make sure both she and her teenaged daughters were properly scandalized.
When several people ahead of us in line started to smoke, I turned and looked pointedly at our adversary. She found something extremely fascinating to stare at on the ground. Perhaps it was her peeling, purple, glittery toenail polish.
Bitter about this? Hell no. Sometimes an easy kill is the most delicious prey.
We watched the movie without incident, but it was somewhat anticlimactic for me. We had made plans to watch the Leonid meteor shower after the movie let out at about 12:30 AM, but a dense bank of fog had rolled in, so instead we figured it would be a good night to sample some absinthe that one of our group had just imported from Spain.
It was an interesting experience, though the absinthe was heavily flavored with anise. As I simply can't abide the flavor of licorice, I ate a lot of chocolate along with the drink.
At first, I didn't feel any kind of buzz whatsoever, but at around the time I finished my first tumbler of the stuff (mixed with water, it turns cloudy similar to Pernod ... only it's far more garishly green in color) I got a feeling of little "pops" of warmth all over my body. You know how when you have a shot of liquor, you'll get a warm feeling in your tummy, right (and I realize I've just alienated all you honky tonk poets out there)? Well, this was similar in nature, but all over my body. From there, I noticed the edges of things seemed to take a sharper, more defined, look to them. And I got a high not unlike being stoned, rather than drunk. Actually it was a bit like both, a state I call droned. :)
The fog never broke, so about 3:00 am, we decide to go up to the mountains to get above the fog to see the meteor shower. However, by this time I've had three tumblers of absinthe and really don't feel like going out into the cold morning. I get dropped off at home, to find a guy sleeping in my bed, and I decide this is a good thing when compared to the prospect of watching the Leonids at a high elevation.
The next day (Sunday), I woke up with a hangover approximately the size of Australia, and didn't get too much accomplished (Sunday is usually the day I devote to domestic tasks like laundry, cleaning the house, etc). I was considering buying a bottle of absinthe from my friend, but the $80 price tag along with the 48 hour long hangover, made me decide it wasn't worth it after all. How Hemingway could tolerate it is beyond me, but then I gather he was always a glutton for punishment...