Two Weeks in Review

[kate_nepveu]

Chad was at a conference most of last week, during which time I failed to sleep but mostly ate properly, so that's an improvement over the last time he was away for an extended period of time. I was scheduled to donate platelets and plasma on Saturday, but my red blood cell count was just a hair too low (they require that you meet the threshold even for non-red-blood-cell donation, in case they can't return the red blood cells to you). I was rather disappointed—I'd gone to a lot of trouble to get properly full of calcium, for one thing—but it was probably for the best given my fatigue.

This Wednesday, we had Chad's current and former research students and advisees over for dinner. All the traditional elements were present: Chad's spiedies, my chocolate chip cookies, and my kicking them out at 9:00 p.m. (I would have just gone up to bed and left them to it, but one of the quieter ones had been looking at his watch for a while, and was giving several others a ride.)

My parents had been thinking of coming up this weekend, but it didn't work out. Instead, we did exciting things like napping, playing with the dog, and yardwork (dandelions everywhere fear me! or at least the ones in the landscaping and the more obvious ones in the yard, since they're hard to spot when they've just been mowed). We also saw Revenge of the Sith, which was dreadful (since I'm cut-tagging something else, I think I'll put my spoilery comments in a separate post), and Chad played in a charity student-faculty/staff basketball game. I had today off, and did a little work, a little reading, and a little basking in the sun. No nap, though; I might be almost caught up on my sleep, and didn't want to mess with my sleep patterns.

On Saturday we had a nice dinner out at Provence, a local French/Mediterranean restaurant. The food was delicious, but what made it memorable was the gentleman who was seated next to us a little ways into our dinner.

This is a fairly nice restaurant, so we'd changed out of jeans and T-shirts for the meal; we were both wearing slacks, Chad was wearing a button-down shirt, and I was wearing a light sweater (I expected air conditioning, wrongly). The gentleman next to us was wearing dress pants, a light-colored button-down shirt, and a cream-colored jacket that appeared to have only one of its two or three buttons fastened, but nevertheless fit to his torso like armor. He had noticeably precise and upright posture—precise hair, too—and carried a glossy magazine, folded in half the long way. He efficiently consumed a single glass of wine, an appetizer, and what looked like filet mignon (the tables were not far apart, but I was trying to be at least minimally polite), before we'd gotten to dessert, paging through his magazine between courses. Just before he left, he pulled out a very fancy cellphone/PDA gadget and appeared to be listening to a message. His jacket stayed fastened the entire time.

Meanwhile, Chad and I were talking quietly—but probably audibly, because the tables were close together—about graduations, silly hoods, the time I fell down the stairs in my robes, and various other lightly silly or schmoopy topics. After he left, I leaned over to Chad and said, "We are so in a different movie than that guy." Chad's response was something along the lines of, "Let's hope so, because if we're not, this is the point where a car comes crashing into the restaurant."

Fortunately for everyone, if the gentleman next to us was in a James Bond movie, the next action sequence took place elsewhere.

This led to a discussion about feeling like you're in a movie, what your movie would be, and so forth. I'd never before been so conscious that someone else's movie was going on right next to me. I'm probably an extra in other movies—dramas of family members, the re-enactment of Reality Bites by some college people, things like that—but I rather doubt that I'm in a movie of my own. Chad and I were insufficiently zany for a romantic comedy, I have no long-supressed desire to find my biological family, and civil defensive litigation is not the stuff of high-powered legal thrillers. (This bothers me not in the least, mind.)

What about you? Have you ever had a moment when you were sure that you'd inadvertently wandered onto a movie set? Are you in a movie now, and is it yours, someone else's, or both? Or was only a specific portion of your life a movie?

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Mm. During "Trekkies", I kept leaning over to my husband and saying "I'm not like that about Buffy, am I?" He just cackled evilly.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh dear.

I haven't seen that, but I may be skirting around the edges of it or _Galaxy Quest_ (I haven't been involved in media fandom, but there is _Firefly_ these days) or, to switch genres, _Deep Secret_.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The world is just a B movie
About my life and hard times.
The world is just a B movie
And I keep forgetting my lines.

From a song which was made into a movie.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes? Which song and which movie?

(Meanwhile, I shall go off and listen to Elvis Costello singing "Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal / I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel".)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know I'm not in a movie, because they wouldn't have my family as even a midpoint in a movie. But when I was doing research one summer when I still thought I'd be a physicist, the other research students and I amused ourselves by assessing who in our party would survive if it was a disaster flick and wrangling over the details. "Caleb would be the lovable hick; toast in the first reel." "Jason is as close as we've got to a minority, so he's probably safe if he's willing to be a sidekick and otherwise kaput." Etc.

[kate_nepveu]

Hee. Next time Chad has students over and they go off into _Family Guy_ lines interminably, I shall quietly amuse myself by assigning them to disaster movie roles.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

"Have you ever had a moment when you were sure that you'd inadvertently wandered onto a movie set?"

Maybe it's just a New York thing, but I have those moments all the time. In particular, young people seem to project a field of My Movie extending roughly 100 yards in all directions.

[orzelc.livejournal.com]

Of course, in New York, it's relatively easy to literally wander onto a movie set (or at least a tv show set)...

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

The few times I've been in NYC for reasons other that passing through on the way to the in-laws in CT, I've wandered through someone's shot, not noticing the camera crews until after I'd ruined it for them. It's weird, there are tons of things set in DC, but no one actually shoots here. At least, not in the bits of DC I wander through anyway.

[kate_nepveu]

Maybe it is. I didn't really get it the two summers I lived in Brooklyn, but I didn't do as much wandering about the city as I should have.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If rysmiel and I have to wait anywhere for a while, we often play the game of "What movie are those people from." I find the problem isn't assigning strangers to movies but stopping doing it again.

As for me, I'm clearly in an urban fantasy movie by Denis Arcand. I'm sorry it has to be a movie in French, because my French sucks which means I'm comic relief, but I'm too ugly to be in a movie in English.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

You got to this before I did.

The best place to do this is Mont-Royal Metro station, as people come off the escalators. You reliably get people who are in Hong Kong action movies, teen/skater comedies, Kevin Smith films and Quebecois family films that way.

Denys Arcand films aren't allowed, because everyone in Montreal could legitimately be in a Denys Arcand film.

Getting in an urban fantasy mindset in Montreal can be disconcerting:
"Unseelie Court, minor functionary."
"Dwarf, on his father's side."
"You can tell she's an angel because she smells of vanilla and she's reading Italo Calvino with every sign of enjoyment."

And that's before you start pegging the time travellers.

[kate_nepveu]

. . . I smell of vanilla. If I read Calvino and like it, does that turn me into an angel?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It depends on the precise gradation of vanilla, and I'm short of an appropriate vocabulary for scents.

Besides, if you were an angel I'd expect much more palpable evidence that Heaven was organised.

[kate_nepveu]

Who me?

. . . that reminds me, I need to mail yhlee's book.

*guiltily and non-organizedly scurries off*

[kate_nepveu]

Well, but if you are the comic relief, at least you aren't a glorified extra who's destined to die?

(We turned on the TV Saturday night and there was _Galaxy Quest_. We'd seen it within the last year and yet, somehow failed to turn the channel away . . . )

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Every time I go out with two of my colleagues in the department and their wives, we make comments about the reality TV show that's being filmed. We mainly talk about what would be the lines right before the cut to commercial, or the ads "This week on 'Profs': 'But I thought it was a FISH!'"

The only channels that would be interested are of course PBS or WB, nothing in between.

Oh, and we talk about which other department members are guest stars this week...

[kate_nepveu]

I wonder which would be the preferrable genre, reality TV or academic satire?

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Can't it be both?

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

First, may I say Chad's car comment cracked me the fuck up.

Second:
Have you ever had a moment when you were sure that you'd inadvertently wandered onto a movie set?

Well, considering they were shooting a film a block from my house last week, and I worked on a studio lot for five years, I'd have to say yes.

But in the non-literal sense, yes again. L.A. will do that to you even when you're not tripping over an actual set every other minute. Having ninety percent actors for friends helps dispel this sensation not at all.

Are you in a movie now, and is it yours, someone else's, or both?

Yes, and it's mine. It's always been mine. You can't have it. MINE! I'm the star! Me! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Uh. Ahem. Yeah, basically everything I do has an audience, invisible or otherwise. It helps make sure I say witty things as much as possible.

My movie wants to be a action-packed, wildly popular Oscar-winning epic with heart AND soul, but is probably in reality (hah) a bittersweet, deeply snarky indie drama about the futility of life which leaves the five or so people who actually see it enervated and vaguely depressed afterward.

[kate_nepveu]

Occupational hazard, having actors be dramatic a lot?

But the real question is, who's cast as you?

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

Occupational hazard, having actors be dramatic a lot?

Don't even get me started.

But the real question is, who's cast as you?

*blink* Well... I am.

I mean, I suppose other people with this particular delusion see themselves as Nicole Kidman, or Robert De Niro, or whatever, but personally I can't think of anyone who could pull me off in just that certain je ne sais quoi. If you want a thing done right, do it yourself, and alla that.

Not arrogant at all, me.