NYC life, Lucy Grealy; Die Hard

So, when Susan was here, we went to ABT and saw Don Quixote, which, as she fairly commented, was very little about Don Quixote, and very much a typical romantic ballet plot (non-tragic division). The night before we hit a show, with M., Sly Fox, an adaptation of Ben Jonson's Volpone starring Richard Dreyfuss and a zillion people you've seen on tv. Plus much shopping, the Met Museum, the Park. And a belated shout-out to linaerys and queenofthorns (neither of whom are really online much on the weekend and may not see this) for coming over and fangirling with my mum-in-law!

And I realized how much my life has limited itself, in recent years. I used to do all this stuff -- plays, the ballet, the museum, the Park, etc. I'm really feeling like, not life, but NYC, is passing me by. It's a combination of grad school -- there is never a moment when there isn't something I *should* be doing for teaching, dissertation, or freelancing, plus the brokeness factor -- and M.'s schedule and/or lack of inclination to do some of the things I enjoy (uh, ballet, museums).

But if my life weren't such a juggling act, I'd be arranging to do this stuff with friends. Or, you know, persuading M. on his days off. Instead of which, as I said to G. over dinner Wednesday night, I meet my friends for dinner because it's an efficient use of time. "I know," she sighed in agreement, since she does the same thing.

I miss NYC. If you're reading this and you're local and we know each other, drag me someplace that's not dinner or a movie (unless it's subtitled or at Film Forum; I'm not doing enough of that recently either), OK?

Happened to pick up this month's VOGUE (not on my usual reading list) and Ann Patchett had written a piece about her memoir about Lucy Grealy. I met Lucy once; when I was still hanging around with K's friends, maybe a year after his death. I'd gone to see John Farris do a reading at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and a bunch of us went out for food after, at one of the new pricy restaurants on Ave. B. (Hey, when I first went to the Nuyorican, you used to have to walk over to Second Ave. to get a taxi home . . .) She'd become friends with D., a writer and real estate investor who used to rent a room at the cabin. Of course, she was best known for Autobiography of a Face and though I recognized her, I pretended I didn't because of the awkwardness factor. (Hi, you're the one with the face, huh?) I really liked her, though I never saw her again -- this was towards the end of my time still heading over to Alphabet City.

So I got this really weird frisson reading that she'd been a junkie the last few years of her life. Most of K's friends didn't do heroin, but of course he was my window into that world. And that was the neighborhood where you could get it, for certain.

On a cheerier note, M. was watching Die Hard this afternoon, and I actually sat down and watched it for a bit with him. I hadn't seen it since I saw it in the theater. I was taking a Bar Review course and staying with my folks; a boy in my class was crushing on me; I wanted to see things getting blown up, because, as I said, I was taking a Bar Review course, so I let him take me. Ordinarily, of course, I only go to see things get blown up if it is a scifi/fantasy/comicbook spectacular, or made in Hong Kong.

Even then, and never having seen him in anything before, I couldn't imagine why anyone would root for Bruce Willis over Alan Rickman. (Never having seen Alan Rickman, that is. Bruce Willis seemed to be playing the same part he played in Moonlighting, only with more blood and no Cybill Shepherd.) The eternal question: why are all non-Hong Kong action heros so unappealing? Do guys genuinely *like* Van Damme, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and whoever has taken their places? Because I don't think I know many women who do. And why are all good villains British actors with excellent stage credentials? (I have allowed M. to show me Die Hard with a Vengeance on tv, because Jeremy Irons is in it. I do not believe there is a villain of that caliber in the middle one, so I will never know exactly what happens in between Die Hards one and three.)

Man, it's a snarkable film. And sooooo 80s. Everyone's a yuppie. The corporate tools who get trapped in the building. The villains, who are like ex-radical extremists, turned "I just wanna turn a profit" yuppie thieves. And I'd forgotten Alexander Gudonov was even *in* it, which in and of itself gives rise to snarking possibilities that go on and on . . .

As does this entry. Uh, bye.