Grizzly

Omar, my ex, had an inordinate love of cured salmon. He'd go on these month-long binges, eating nothing but salmon on a bed of vinegared rice.

"Neeeeshburuu....!" he'd lumber over from the futon with bared teeth, taking a swipe in my direction with his bear paws. "Neeshburu, we must keeeeep the salmon coming."

The onset of his salmon craze came at a bad time. He had lost his job for several months. And with only my modest income, a good percentage of which went toward his excessive salmon and dry-cleaning habits*, we were fast running up against pecuniary difficulties. He was a big man with a big appetite.

In an effort to economize, I bought sashimi-grade salmon from reputable markets, stocking up the refrigerator with so much fish one might suspect I was keeping a pet grizzly in my apartment.

One night, I came home from work to find him standing nude in the kitchen with the refrigerator, door swung wide open. In his one hand was a Styrofoam tray with shredded bits of plastic film still clinging to it, and in the other hand was a one-pound slab of fish. "Dinner?" I asked. Before I could say any more, he bared his teeth in what I called his hermit-crone smile and the shoved the entire salmon slab into his giant maw.

Remember Diana and that guinea pig from the TV miniseries "V"? Yeah, it was just like that.

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*It was pathological. The man would dry clean just about anything.

Space Eyed?

Round-up of what we drank last night: I like to play against type, drink something that will put hair on one's chest. But I can only handle the peaty and the smoky within limits. Enjoyed drinking the selection from Deanston to Highland Park (while I still had full grasp of all faculties). The salt air of Bunnahabhain was quite special. And Bowmore... that I need to sample again because I must have already reached Scotch saturation by that point. The BenRiach, PC6 and Brora all smell like my great grandma's storage cabinets.
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I have since gone back for some pointers re my Scotch whiskey education. Ethan set me up with a few different whiskeys where we determined that I have the taste of a common peasant. He didn't say that, but I suspect that's what we were both thinking. I chose the Glenrothes before we began, and I could definitely tell the difference between that and the blended Scotches that he set before me. I had asked him how to learn Scotches without a massive $$$-outlay. His response was that I should know what low-end Scotches taste like before we go into the rare and the fine--because they become more and more eccentric in that arena. I can dig that. But i think I saw him wince when, in a blind test of two, I chose the Vat 69. It was hard to choose because although the Vat 69 definitely had a rubbing alcohol finish, the Teacher's tasted like mothballs. Also, I start acting unnatural and virtuous* when people watch me eat or drink.

But he was encouraging. The fact that I don't know anything could be good in that I was a clean slate in terms of figuring out what I do like. His suggested next step in my Scotch education is to get the blended stuff, like The Famous Grouse or Irish whiskey and drink it by myself at home--as a foundation. I told him I liked drinking Jameson. He said, "No wonder." I still don't know what he meant by that.

He suggested based on another tasting that what I may prefer is lighter single malt Scotches, nothing aged beyond six-to-eight years.

I thought it was nice that he gently warned me against writing in the florid style a la tasting notes--"it's deathly." Sheesh. What do I look like, some kind of bullshit amateur? I guess I do at that.

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*Virtuous here is used in the way my sis and I, as children, referred to the self-conscious manner children behave when aware of being observed by adults. It relates to a spiteful essay my cousin wrote titled: "Virtuous Chiik." More on that later.

friendly competition

The two of them go way back--like two brothers. And as with family, they say some insensitive shit, throwaway remarks that sound like jokes but are really designed to belittle or embarrass the other. "Ha ha, you're a loser!" they say in other words, as it were all in good fun. Except it's not. And it's uncomfortable to watch.

Coming Soon

It might be a bad sign that my friends will alert me any time a new Jason Statham movie is about to be released. I’d see just about anything he’s in, including the bad ones. And Jason has been in too many bad ones by my count—Cellular and Transporter 2 come immediately to mind. Ay! I do wish he would choose better roles if only to make my shallowness a little less obvious.

Dear reader, if you are appalled by this, please understand that there are just some actors for whom it is worth the $11 to watch them do nothing more than drive a BMW. And if you are aware of any upcoming films in which Jason Statham, Colin Firth, Daniel Craig, or Clive Owen will be featured prominently, please let me know.

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DH and I were in the theater watching an action flick. During one of the scenes where a very impressive lead actor was coming out of the shower, DH leaned over and whispered: "I forgive you."

bug under glass

One of my roommates in college was always just a little too aware of me—of my schedule, how much money I spend, when I change shampoo, clothes that I buy, what I eat, content of my emails, who calls me and why. She had a knack of always being around to overhear sensitive phone conversations. (Mind you, this predates widespread mobile phone use so our 900 MHz cordless meant we really couldn’t leave the room). There were those moments when she betrayed details of stories I was positive I had never told her. And there were also moments when I witnessed my friends duck behind walls or lampposts when she passed just to avoid the inevitable ambush of conversation.

She wasn’t really my friend, but I began hearing opinions on how bizarre and not-right she was only after I decided to room with her. I started avoiding my room, going back to pack a week’s worth of clothes and books, and then heading over to my boyfriend’s place. During that time, she always happened to be in his vicinity, just dropping in on the off chance I was there. Just to say ‘Hi!’

Although I would never be able to prove it in court, I am positive she had gone through my belongings more than once—my papers, letter, clothes, mementos. What bothered me is not that she had gone through my things, but that she would take such interest in doing so. What plausible reason would anyone have in going through my heap of random crap? Or monitor my movements? It’s a little sad and a lot creepy.

I do think this just about approximates the experience of keeping a blog or any public chronicle of one’s personal life. You do it to amuse yourself and your friends. You get comments every now and again. It is fun! And then you start getting odd visitors, people whose interest in your activities is entirely out of proportion to any ostensible relationship you have with them.

This is to be distinguished from the ones who take some kind of prurient interest in you—who proposition you or make odd requests like purchasing your sweaty boots. These guys are creepy, to be sure, but at least their intentions are knowable if not always rational. The most unsettling are the ones that keep their motives quiet.

“Why do you put your personal stuff out there if you don’t want people to see it?” Boyfriends are really the worst with their simplistic solutions. Their natural protective instinct means they will often resort to quick and decisive fixes (which is a most desirable approach for say, pest problems around the house). Other issues require less drastic solutions.

During the worst of my SWF situation, my boyfriend would try fixing the problem by fixing me: “Stop being nice to her if you don’t want to be her friend. Lock up your stuff I you don’t want her going through it.” Yeah, I get it. It’s so simple. Like amputation to deal with a mosquito bite. Why would I allow these people to force me to live behind locked doors, real or virtual?

And I have no intention to. I like being out there, expressing thoughts and personal experiences—sounding my barbaric yawp—for the pleasure of hearing it echo and reverberate. And for the hope that someone might yawp back.

All I want is for the creepy people to stop being creepy.

You there! Yeah you—the one lurking silently out there. I can see you peeping at me. Who are you? Why have you come? Why don’t you come out and say Hello?

Tunefulness is not a crime

So call me cranky, but weddings are boring. Yes, yes, everyone is lovely. But it should be the marriage not the ceremony that should last for an eternity.
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Some baroque works have somehow become cliché wedding music—works by Pachelbel, Vivaldi, or Handel, for example. And every now and again you will run into some guy who will roll his eyes at Pachelbel’s Canon or, like Luigi Dellapiccolo, make cracks that Vivaldi “didn't write hundreds of concerti but only one concerto hundreds of times.” (To my knowledge, no one sneers at Handel). And I would think to myself: Wait, I kind of like their music. That’s so rude!

I do consider myself too stupid for Bach, though. It isn’t that I do not get real pleasure from listening to his music. On the contrary, I enjoy the Orchestral Suites very much. His many preludes & fugues, too, but not on the organ. I could listen to the two-violin concerto over and over and over again, and never ever ever tire of it. And yes, the same eye-rolling snobs may tell me that all of my Bach favorites are everybody’s favorites. That is, they are entirely too obvious. I will admit that some Bach is beyond me—any of the cantatas, the Mass in B minor, or St. Matthew Passion, for example. And I don’t know for sure why I like the Goldberg Variations. It sounds good to the ear and the theme-and-variation structure is easy to understand. Sometimes I think it’s rather like me watching a Godard film without the subtitles, not certain that I’d get it even if I were fluent in the language. In any event, I do feel like I’m missing something.

Have I convinced myself that I like these works somehow, because I’m a phony? On an irrelevant question?:

The life of music is based no so much on those who want to listen, but on those who want to play and sing… The audience wants something new and detests innovation…As concert halls became bigger and audiences became larger, music became gradually more and more difficult to understand at first hearing. That paradox is essential to the history of modern culture. Mozart was already difficult for his contemporaries, who were distressed by unintelligible modulations and over-complicated textures. Beethoven was much harder than Mozart, and polemic about the insanity of some of his late conceptions continued literally until the end of the nineteenth century. Wagner made Beethoven’s music sound simple by contrast for most amateurs. A devoted Wagnerian like Ernest Newman found parts of Strauss’s Electra unintelligible nonsense at its English premiere. Debussy was much less acceptable than Strauss… The music that survives is the music that musicians want to play. They perform it until it finds an audience. Sometimes it is only a small audience, as is the case so far for Arnold Schoenberg, and I am not sure if he will ever capture a large one, but he will be performed as long as there are musicians who insist on playing him. (Charles Rosen, “The Irrelevance of Serious Music” )

I’m fully aware that Bach is not included above among the difficult-to-understand, but I do find Rosen’s word comforting in the idea that serious music is not intended for popular appeal. Instead, it invites you to rise up to its level, to make it intelligible. And that if something is beyond me at the first or even second pass, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am hopelessly stupid.

Things not to do:

1. Send me a text message 1.5 hours after you were expected to call with the following: "I'm wrapping up in 20 minutes."

2. Arrive at dinner having already eaten.

3. Hit on me by asking if I need help when I'm obviously looking for the host and you and not the host.

Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Stevarino

He hates being called 'Stevarino.'

Just listen to this, he said, putting his Blackberry on speaker:
"Yo YO, Stevarino! It’s the Kipsterrrr!..."

The voicemail had all the cadences of Richmeister, Rob Schneider’s SNL copy guy; I half hoped the message would end with, “Just makin’ copies…”

Anyway, I was anticipating a buffoon, someone highly amusing. But this grown man who calls himself Kipster—I hated him on sight. Call it anti-charisma.

***

So Miyazawa, you a smoker? No? The Japanese business men I know all smoke. I’m from San Francisco... CALIFORNIA…I’ve done a lot of business with a lot of Japanese. And what I learned is that: #1 they like to eat sushi, #2 they like drink beer, and #3 they like to smoke. They do it in just that order too, sushi, beer, smoke, and repeat. He he he.

So you don’t smoke, hunh? Well, good for you. You’re language is not too bad. Keep working on it. I’ve done a lot of business with the Japanese. And you know, they all learn English in college. I mean their emails are all written out perfectly, but you wouldn’t know it from when the speak. You can’t understand a word they’re saying when they’re on the phone. It’s because they don’t practice speaking like this.

Is it wicked of me to point out that in all of Kipster’s extensive experience doing a lot of business with a lot of Japanese, the only thing he admittedly managed to pick up was the word ‘Dōmo?’

Chump.