SATURDAY, LIVE

sometimes i think the world's biggest mystery is my physiology. everyday from monday to friday where the alarm was set at 5:30 am, i always hit the snooze and beg for two 5-minute addendums to precious sleep. but this saturday morning where the time was adjusted to 7:30 am, i woke up at 5am with eyes dilated as those of a dilated emoticon's.

i turned the lamp on and soon enough my eyes were searching around the room for nothing in particular. or maybe i was in the lookout for reason in some dark corner which might otherwise tell me, somebody out there urgently needs you. stand up. go.

but none of that bull. i certainly did not feel sleepy if my life depended on one final sleep.

i did not stand up but instead let my hand do the walking. the walking hand felt whatever was on the nightstand and grabbed anything recognizable. zephyrhills bottled water. glug glug. cellphone. 4 fwd email messages from eldest sister - (quick gossip: americans don't use the word eldest; you tell them that and they retort, you mean, oldest?) - and as if on cue i deleted all of them without knowing their subjects, much less reading their contents. my sister's forwarded messages were so historically bad that the two times i read them in full, i was thinking if she had not heard of the word spam.

there was another message from a fraternity brod who was asking a final headcount for our 4th of july reunion in upstate ny. i will reply later, i told myself.

i dispatched my hand further. bolanos' book was there, marked from where i left off last night. and then i felt something that my knowing hand knew was a good feel. a dvd.

(there were 4 dvds i bought a couple of weeks ago: "turtles can fly" which i watched last week and consider as one of the most beautiful i've ever seen - i will do a review of this in the near future; "tony takitani"; "italian for beginners"; and "eat, drink, man, woman".)

that dvd was the ang lee movie.

with an L position i settled my back against the headboard, put a pillow on my lap, put the player on the pillow, and on to the movie i went...

i had been eating chinese food most of my long life but seeing the first 5 minutes of the film made me want to rush to my favorite chinese restaurant, beg them for mercy, and ask for a quick serving of steamed pork with scallions done a la eat, drink, man, woman. believe me if i tell you that none of the iron chef reality shows will hold a candle to the first 5 minutes of this movie.

and then it ended, basically, with the words flowing from the mouth of the loving father to daugther, i can taste it.

the movie, indeed, left a great taste in my mouth, and after i put the dvd player back to its place and fixed the bed, fixed the self, fixed breakfast, i already knew what i did not know previously: great chinese food and a great chinese movie was the sole reason for that dilation.

have a great weekend, all!