Last night I lay in bed, with the window open. The air's gotten a lot cooler around here lately, so I open the windows at night. Anyhow, there I was, trying to sleep, when suddenly the Helicopters showed up.
These ain't no wimpy UN New-World-Order Helicopters.
From the sound of it, these were LA Police Helicopters. These helicopters eat the black helicopters for breakfast. Deep, wall-penetrating sound. After the tenth or twelfth pass by, I closed the window, but the sound wasn't much muffled. I wonder who they were chasing.
At the party last Saturday, one of the grad students who lives near campus said that at 2am Saturday morning helicopters came zooming in and over a loudspeaker a cop said, "You there! Keep moving along!" This student is from a suburb outside of London he said he liked having the helicopters -- better to have them in a dicey neighborhood than not.
I don't want to hear a sound like that at night again, I can tell you that.
Watching Ordinary People. We have to watch this for writing class (yes, the class today). We're watching it before we get the script to read and we're supposed to pick out atmospheric elements that tell us what kind of story this is.
I thought before I started this that it was a stupid exercise -- how was I supposed to know what elements were from the script, which ones from the production design, from the direction (oops -- there's another example of a guy who is a director and an actor)? But in fact it's a good exercise: what are little details that give us a sense of what's going on?
The psychology -- Freudian slips, obvious revelations -- are a little heavy-handed though.
The factoid that keeps running through my mind as I watch this is that part of this movie was filmed in Highland Park, where Darin grew up. And a close friend of Darin's parents is in the movie.
Why, by the way, was Timothy Hutton nominated for and awarded Best Supporting Actor? He is clearly the lead actor in this film.
Darin just called. I always sign off our conversations with "I love you." Sometimes he says it too, sometimes he doesn't. Doesn't bother me much one way or the other.
Except (you knew there was an except somewhere): every so often I'm reminded of a guy I dated 10 years ago. Paul, the Pauline Kael fanatic, who had every single one of her reviews memorized. Who wouldn't use the word "love" because once you use it you always have to use it. He said that communication was the most important thing in a relationship, and communication would always tell you were the relationship was, not simple (or simplistic) phrases like "I love you."
One time, however, we said it to each other, the first time anyone had ever said "I love you" to me. After that, I said it to him when we signed off our long-distance phone conversations -- he was in Boston staying with friends, I was in Palo Alto -- and he never said it again.
Whatever happened to him? Oh, he spent the summer in Boston, while I was struggling to find my feet after graduation, first with a horrible little job in Palo Alto, then finally at Apple. (Paul had another year to go at Stanford before graduation.) I was horribly depressed, probably the most depressed I've ever been, and I cried every night, usually when I was on the phone with Paul.
When he came back he made it clear he didn't want to see me any more. I saw him once, talked to him once more after that. I have no idea whatever happened to him after that.
According to his friend, C, who was living in the apartment instead of him (don't ask), Paul no longer thought that I "could be helped." Psychologically, of course. Oh yes, C said -- and Paul evidently had some kind of menage a trois going on back in Boston with his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend. Of course, I have no idea if any of that's true; C wanted to hurt me, wanted to stick it to me, and he succeeded. I ended up moving out of the apartment and into a wonderful house in Portola Valley, so I did okay.
So this story I've been telling for years about the guy who wouldn't say "I love you" while he was evidently involved with his best friend's girlfriend may not, in fact, be true. But then again, Paul didn't exactly stay around to clear anything up for me himself.
Communication is such a wonderful thing.
I look back at that terrible time in my life and I look at what I've got now -- with a guy who actually can communicate and can handle my downs as well as my ups -- and it bugs me that something that happened 10 years ago still upsets me so much. That when I tell my husband I love him I wonder if I'm putting too much pressure on him. Not that it stops me, but I think about it.