Speaking of celebrity dreams (and there is no topic more fascinating than the nonsensical dreams of others) two nights ago, I had an elaborate dream that I was invited to Donald Trump's wedding. I sat right across from Michael McKean (on whom I have a legitimate crush of which I am not ashamed) and was excited by how many celebrities were in attendance, and I think I was in love with Donald Trump and bitter that he was marrying someone else. This doesn't mean anything, I hope, except maybe that I should lay off the Tylenol before bedtime.

I am going to go through the list of notes I have scribbled on my notebook at work, so I can feel as if I have accomplished something. The only thing I can't take care of is "NYC trip" as that involves pictures and it is already 4:30 in the afternoon and it is too late for pictures.

Symphony

I went to my first symphony last Friday, courtesy of La Wade. When we walked in and saw all the people and their instruments on the stage, I realized I had been expecting an orchestra pit with all the musicians inside of it. I don't know what I was envisioning would be on the stage. Possibly nothing. The way they do it is better!

We saw one modern piece and one classic piece: Takamitsu's From me flows what you call time (modern, obviously) and Holts' Planets (classic). I loved the whole experience. Toru Takamitsu actually did the score of the Kurosawa version of King Lear, called Ran, which I watched while studying that play. Boy, I hated that movie! I did not hate the music, though, even though Wade probably thought I did when I literally had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, as a snort escaped through my nose. There were random windchimes, and that's my only defense.

Planets was really good. My favorites were Venus and I think it was Saturn. Wade said they were pretty famous and I had probably heard them before, but I am not cultured like Wade, nor have they been on the soundtrack of any Jane Austen movies, so I didn't know them at all.

There's a free symphony this weekend that I am taking my parents to. I expect that this will be a disaster; my parents are not equipped to appreciate culture, and they are not the types to pretend that they do. (They made me cry one Christmas by opening the gift I had gotten them and saying, "We don't need this." It was a down comforter and it was really nice; I still have mine. But WHATEVER.)

Clearly I have parental issues. So this weekend should be fabulous. They are already bringing lots of things for me to look at and lots of topics of conversation. I sincerely hope that my friends will all show up and help to buffer me from it all.

(Me: "I'm also bringing some friends with me to the picnic." Mom: "Okay, I'll bring 20 glasses then." Me: "We don't need 20 glasses. At most there will be six people there." Mom: "I'll bring 15 glasses, then!" Me: "Okay, Mom."

Ulysses

I've been getting my intellectual stimulation by reading Ulysses, which I finished yesterday. Which is rather poetic, considering that yesterday was the centennial Bloomsday, exactly 100 years after the day the book is set, June 16, 1904.

I celebrated by going out with Joey, having a Guinness at the Irish Bank around the corner (which is a bar, not a bank) and then going to the Mechanics' Library (there were no mechanics, but I think there may have been a bank) to hear some readings and see a movie with a bad pun in the title, Joyce to the World.

Well, it was entirely sold out by the time we got there, so we sat in the hallway with a dozen other people and listened to the readings from there. (They read some of my favorite parts, including Bloom's water speech that is an encoded love poem to Molly, at least in my own head, and then someone did a really horrifying rendition of Molly's ending monologue with way too many fucking pauses for a stream-of-consciousness piece of literature.)

Then we left and had another Guinness, because that's what James Joyce would have wanted.

I consider the book to be an intellectual exercise more than an emotionally resonant story, although I know that others have had different experiences with it. Do I think it is the greatest English-language book of the 20th century? It certainly does have the breadth and depth and realism and complexity to qualify, but somehow I still think it's overrated. Possibly no book could live up to all the hype that this book has inspired.

Interestingly, I also finished Seabiscuit yesterday (on the train on the way home) which is a great, gripping book, and an interview with the author reveals that she considers Pride & Prejudice to be the best English-language book of the 20th century. I consider that book to be in many ways fluffy, and my first impulse is to say, "No way!" But perhaps there's more going on beneath the surface, and I should read it again.

Mas

There has been the usual frenzied whirlwind of social activity in these parts. Both nickd and selila have been in town, adding to the usual madcap antics. Dr. Nick (possibly not a doctor in the sense of having any medical training, but a doctor in my heart) even said "faith and begorrah" for us in his charming Irish way. (He is both very Irish and excruciatingly charming.) We got to know each other in Vegas, eating a buffet together and slogging through the desert heat in bonding fashion, and he has all the incriminating pictures of me that exist from that trip.

(Actually, Jen Wade has posted a couple. There's the one where I am wearing the Elvis sunglasses, and the other one where I look like I am shoving Jenfu off the peacock throne, when in fact she had too much daquiri and toppled off of her own volition.)

So what with all the visitors and things, there have been parties and outings and most recently, another Mas (which as you may remember is our monthly holiday sometimes called Tablemas or Chairmas or S'mas or some other unintelligible variation.) La Wade cooked yet another excellent meal. And now we are well into the second Mas rotation and I still have not taken a turn. Not having any better alternative, I am going to take over Jenfu's kitchen and "cook" for people when it is my turn. I anticipate that it will go very well, by which I mean probably nobody will die after eating my food. I have high expectations!

What I Would Do To Clay Aiken If He Weren't Gay, In Detail

Just kidding.

Going Home

This is not what I'm writing about, but it is what I'm doing. Next time: NYC trip! Or more likely, adventures in parent-wrangling.