This Metropolitan Life

Wow, it’s been ages since I’ve updated. I guess there wasn’t much to write about on Thursday night, and I’ve been busy most of the weekend.

Friday

Friday night was nice. I had dinner with my parents in our hometown. We went to a quiet Middle Eastern restaurant and I filled up on Greek salad and Middle Eastern sausage and a big plate of three different kinds of grilled meats, plus a grilled onion, a grilled tomato and a grilled green pepper. It was exactly the kind of low-key Friday night I’d wanted. Also, my bank account balance was below zero, and although I’d deposited a paycheck, it wouldn’t come through until after midnight, so I couldn’t really spend any money.

After dinner we went home, I played with the puppy, and we gathered together on the couch for a nice, heartwarming, family-values-inducing evening of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Yup, the show with Ice-T. More importantly, the show with that hot guy from Oz, the guy with the hawk-like nose and the close-set deep-blue eyes. I’d look up his name, but my computer is too slow, and it would be a hassle.

It’s always nice to spend time in my pretty suburban hometown. I could see myself moving back there someday — when I have enough money, when I’m ready to settle down with someone, when I have no more need to be in the thick of urbanity. If that ever happens. And anyway, the town is just 30 minutes from Manhattan by car. Who knows.

Saturday

Since I’ve been thinking about radio lately, I think I’ll recount my Saturday This-American-Life Style.

Act One. Saturday morning. I wake up in my brother’s old bedroom. I go downstairs and look through the newspaper. My mom decides to make pancakes with bananas in them. I haven’t had pancakes in months. Mmmmm… pancakes.

Act Two. After taking the bus and the PATH train home to Jersey City, I have an afternoon of Sparkiness. We meet up in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not the colonial one in Virginia) and have the best burgers in Brooklyn. It would have been cute if they’d been called Williamsburgers, but they weren’t. Still, they were delicious. Good call, Sparky!

After lunch and conversation, we wandered down to a small park by the East River and looked out at the Manhattan skyline with the Hasidic Jews. (Um, they weren’t part of the skyline. I mean they were sitting in the park.) Then we made our way over to a mini-mall and read some free newspapers while Sparky nursed his congestion with what he claimed to be very bitter tea. He didn’t seem to like it too much.

We walked down to the platform at the Bedford Avenue Station on the L train and parted, thus beginning:

Act Three. I wandered around the Village for a couple of hours, including a 90-minute stint at the Chelsea Barnes and Noble.

Act Four. I went to the Chelsea Clearview Cinema by myself and saw Mulholland Drive, David Lynch’s new film.

Whoa.

It was great, great, great, until maybe the last 25 minutes. Then it got weird, weird, weird.

Like most of David Lynch’s work, the movie was very anticonfluential, as David Foster Wallace might say. (And that sentence was very pretentious, as some of you might say.) But it had some highly entertaining set pieces. I’d go see it — he’s a terrific filmmaker. Just don’t expect any plot resolution. “Twin Peaks,” anyone?

(By the way, I can tell how embedded The Simpsons has become in our culture. Whenever I think of “Twin Peaks,” I picture Lisa Simpson dancing around a room inside Chief Wiggum’s head, chanting, “Burns’s suit! Burns’s suit!”)

Act Five. Act Five was kind of lame. I met a friend and his friend at XL in Chelsea. XL is very shiny and sterile and filled with a strange mix of people. They’re all dressed like Chelsea-types, but for some reason, collectively they’re not as good-looking as the guys at the other Chelsea bars. I’m not sure why.

Anyway, I got home around 1 in the morning, fiddled around on the computer, and eventually went to bed. It was a day of variety, of juxtapositions — pancakes and David Lynch; Williamsburg and Chelsea and the suburbs; Sparky and XL.

I may see another movie today. Movies are one of the best solitary activities, I think.

This entry feels kind of lame for some reason. No big dramatic existential questions. I basically had a pretty darn good day.

That makes for boring writing, but enjoyable living.

Wow, that sentence says a mouthful, doesn’t it.