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Rain, with occurrences
Late Thursday night the heat broke. The wind came up and the sky began flashing. When my screen flickered a few times, I decided it was a hint for me to stop writing and watch the rain.
This was the first time I have ever heard rain falling at a distance. A rustle, like leaves being shaken by wind - but it was the rain, running toward me.
The sky came apart. I stared out the open window, looking at the rain and the lightning which seemed to be right behind the house across the street. I kept the window open until it came in hard enough that I worried about the furniture getting wet.
Inu was under the toilet. This was to be expected. That's where she goes when there's thunder. Under the toilet or under the bed, and she couldn't get to the bed; Nonelvis was asleep in the bedroom, the door cat-proofed.
I took my bath with the bathroom door open and the lights out, so I could watch the rain and the flashing sky through the living room windows.
Rain has the same effect on me that it does on my sister. I remember her talking once about having sex with the bedroom windows open during a hard rain, the kind that pounds your sins away, with Mazzy Star singing "Ride It On" in the background.
She's probably moved on to other songs now, but rain is still sexy.
On Friday I had lunch with Nonelvis and Judy but Judy forgot, worked mostly at home, and went out to see Rose that night. I had dinner with her and then gave her a hand with a project.
It rained again somewhere in there, I think.
On Saturday Rose and Nonelvis and I had a yummy breakfasty sort of meal and then went to the Fetish Fair, but we didn't go in. The line stretched for a block. There were easily enough people lined up to repeat the hall's capacity again - that is, everyone inside the hall would have to leave in order to accomodate that entire line. They need a bigger hall; we've known that the last two times we went.
So instead we looked at kitchenware and I talked myself out of buying an expensive coffee maker I didn't need.
Later, Nonelvis and I went to see Run Lola Run - or, as its German title says, Lola Runs. I don't know why film companies feel the need to mess with titles in translation.
This is a very German film, and a film which would not have been possible before MTV changed the Face of All Media. It takes place mostly in real time and it never stops moving. You don't need German, even if you hate reading subtitles - I barely used my German because frankly there just isn't that much dialogue.
I really can't say much about it without giving the fun away, but basically Lola has twenty minutes to beg, find, or steal 100,000 marks, or Bad Things will happen. The movie shows you three possible ways those twenty minutes could go.
Go see it. It's good. See it before you see The Blair Witch Project since this one will go away first and the latter will obviously be here a while. Oh, wait, I'm too late. Judging from the journals, you all ran out and saw the latter the instant it opened, didn't you?
(Yes, I'm sure it's a good film and may even be that rare thing, a film completely unlike any other. I just tend to resent mass popularity; there's a part of my brain that says "If everyone else is doing it, I won't." And some of it was annoyance at the fact that the theatre we went to last night is the only one in town showing it and it's on three screens there and the lobby was crammed full of pesky humans and they were completely sold out and working on tickets for the next night.)
While we were seeing Lola the downpour began. We got out and watched the huge line of people in the garage waiting to have their tickets validated and Nonelvis watched the rain nervously - she's like Inu except she doesn't hide behind the toilet - and I said, "Look. I don't want to stand in this line and I don't want to be on the road in this with all these idiots." Bostonians get a lot of inclement weather but have somehow never figured out how to drive in it. "Let's go walk to one of the restaurants nearby and have a nice dinner."
So we walked. She with her umbrella, me in the warm rain. I don't mind getting wet. We ended up at the Blue Room where we had amazing food and bracing beverages. I had a fish stew that was not for amateurs. I mean that the seafood was mostly whole; it was impossible to eat this neatly, you had to reach into the broth to grab the unpeeled shrimp and take apart the clams and so forth. It had hominy in it, a lot of pepper, and it was absolutely astonishing.
A wonderful, if somewhat costly, way to finish the evening.
And then on Sunday I sat at a computer from nine am to two am and wrote over ten thousand words, getting up only to eat and attend to bodily functions. If you're one of the people who worries about RSI's, shed no tears for me - I don't type for more than a few minutes at a time when I'm writing. It's more like:
Type a bit.
Stop and think.
Type a bit more.
Stare at the wall.
Type a bit more.
Fuzzle Inu.
Type.
Get more coffee.
Type.
I have finished a novel before. In fact, I've finished The Novel on the Floor three times, after rewriting it almost from scratch each time. The satisfaction is nice, but it's a fleeting thrill; I had it last night, it's over now. Now the real work begins - the part of writing that is not fun. I complained about this book, but I was having fun. Now I must do the drudgery.
It is important, in future weeks, that you believe I can sell this book. Unless you are one of the people I pick on to test-read it. If you are one of those, from you I expect nothing less than total candor. Everybody else: I need your excess optimism.
It rained off and on Sunday. All day long.
© Columbine
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And it'll never
cease to amaze me
How a little rain
can drive folks crazy
When I'd trade all
my clear skies gladly
For your blue eyes
Your crooked smile
And a steady downpour.
- Cowboy Junkies
"Southern Rain"
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