Feb. 10, 2003

I'm going to start consolidating posts on le poulet frit from my first blog. Unfortunately, I lost the entries from le petit ecolier. So here's my effort to consolidate my past.

A few days ago, I witnessed a guy fall off of his motorcycle and I immediately thought of Michael Caine. It wasn't a spectacular accident. He didn't lay there with a single arm raised looking for a gentle face or one last human contact. He sort of bounced back up as if to say, "gee, my bad, slippery tires, What are you gonna do?"

I stood there thinking (post-Michael Caine) that this random guy had just experienced more physical pain than I had ever experienced in my life. I've sprained my ankles before and dislocated my shoulders from raising them too fast in celebration and each time it was much more of a production -- an orchestra of pity and whimpering. grimace, grimace, even tighter grimace, increasingly faster shallow breaths, interspersed with a few well-placed whimpers Granted, I wasn't wearing a helmet, a leather outfit, and matching boots on the basketball court or the bingo parlor but I also didn't have a 300lb "hog" complete with gas tank nestled between my legs and below my crotch.

Anyway, Chuck Rose was interviewing Mike Caine last week and ever since I've been noticing humans - manner of eating, the way they run after buses, etc. Mike was explaining how he learned how to act by watching people on subways. He cited an example where he was watching footage of the Challenger Crash and the footage of a spouse of one of the astronauts immediately after the explosion. One would expect wailing, beating of the chest, but this lady just stared. 5 minutes later -- looking up, staring. I really took this to heart. Sometimes there's no room for theatrics, no space for "obvious" reactions.

I hope that guy wasn't hurt too badly. I understand why he didn't lay there and checklist each part of his body before getting up.

Still no big accidents (knock on timber). Although in the last year and a half, I think I sprouted two hernias from no-holds-barred vomiting after eating a bad mussel. Correction - evil mussel. Some severe toothaches that almost led me to O.D. on advil and led me to a memorable experience at an opening of a play in which I downed a bottle of wine to dull the pain and proceeded to pass out and snore during the entire show. Et tu Sonicare?