GODZILLA AND THE SKIVVIES

I finally have a scheduled day off from work, but I still feel horrible, so I decide it's "Sit On My Fat Ass and Do Nothing" day.  This means turning on the television.  Anyone with a brain knows that daytime television is made for morons and radicals because nothing is being broadcast except slanted political talk shows and  weird repeats of old reality TV.

I start changing channels, wondering the whole while how the world continues to turn at this level of stupidity, until I stumble upon the COMET channel.  The COMET channel is having a day-long Godzilla festival, and not the new stuff; black and white gems of the horror genre.

Oh, sure, I must have better things to do, like make soup and grade papers, maybe dust a little bit.  But no, I decide it's time to watch Raymond Burr attempt to speak English to an entire cast of Japanese-speaking actors, hitting his mark every damn time.  The dubbing (and over-dubbing) is side-splitting, which flies in the face of the fact that this is, with all that is true and honest, an "genuine horror classic."

It's fun to try and decipher which scenes are real footage of ships and planes and buildings, and which are done on sound stages or, worse, in bathtubs.  Godzilla is, of course, a mechanical marvel and superior to the fake electricity lines.  In the end, a one-eyed, semi-maniacal doctor saves the day, sacrificing himself, his speed-date fiancee's wedding-night fate, and all of the oxygen in Tokyo Bay.  Sorry if I ruined it for you, but after the city is flattened, the humans do what they always do: Destroy innocent creatures from the nature they perverted in the first place.

The one thing I didn't realize though, is that Raymond Burr is not totally un-handsome.  Even in black and white, it is clear that he has huge blue eyes with decent lashes, and he is a tall and not pudgy young man.  However, even those revelations are not enough to hide my shock when he is lounging in a tent with a Japanese cohort.  The two men are chatting away when the monster's

approach causes a sudden gust of wind, toppling their tent.  Burr and sidekick run to a tree and hang on.  This is when I notice Burr is clad in a partially open shirt and white skivvies.  Yes, the cleanest white skivvies his mama could ever be proud of should he be in a car accident.  Then, the rain starts.  Raymond Burr is in the rain in sheer white skivvies and ... Geezuslouizahs, I never realized that Godzilla was borderline porn!

Well, it just goes to show that #1, things aren't always how we remember them (I never noticed the skivvies before), and #2, daytime television really is a wasteland, and, probably most important of all, #3, Godzilla maybe isn't truly dead since there is a marathon of more Godzilla movies on all day.

IT'S (A) SNOT FAIR!

Ugh.  I caught the cold grippe.  No, not the pukies, thank gawd; I caught the snot-filled, headache torturing, double-earache, knock-ya-flat-on-yer-ass, beat-ya-til-yer-wishing-for-death grippe.

Of course, much to the hatred of my colleagues, I have to drag myself to work because grades are closing, common assessments must be administered, and I cannot take time off before a long weekend (MLK Day on Monday).  Like a pariah, I sit away from people at meetings, use the student bathroom so as not to leave germs in the teacher one, and eat lunch by myself at my desk.  At the end of each work day, I collapse on the couch and pray for relief as I tear through my third or fourth box of tissues.

At the end of the week, I drive directly home, put laundry into the washing machine, make myself soup, change the laundry over the the dryer, sit on the big comfy chair with a blanket and ... fall fast asleep.  Yes, my big Friday evening involves snoring in my living room as soon as the sun sets.  I don't feel any better when I wake up, but at least the laundry is done and ready to fold, so something has been accomplished.

I drag myself off to bed after ingesting copious amounts of cold medications and Tylenol, have strange dreams, but manage to piece together another eight-plus hours of sleep.  When I awaken on Saturday morning, I should jump up and start my day.  Yes, I should get out of bed and do something productive.  I ought to run errands or go wine tasting or ... or ...

Or maybe I'll hang out in bed under the multiple quilts, prop myself up with flannel-covered pillows, and play some games on my phone for an hour or more.  To be fair, later I actually do get up and work on decorating some of my empty walls and hanging sheer curtains in the living room, and I have great intent to bake a pumpkin pie now that the snowstorm is moving in.  My daughter brings me gingerale (because "feed a cold") and orange juice (because "Mimosas" plus vitamin C), so I am totally ready to continue the TLC.

However, the morning is recovery time, and I intend to savor every moment.  Thank you, warm bed, and thank you, fluffy quilts, and thank you to the tissue companies who've kept me sane these last few days.  Bless you (quite literally), all.

THE ART OF SURPRISE IN PORTLAND

I'm heading up to Portland, Maine, for the weekend.  Part of my motivation is due to the incoming snowstorm.  A few days earlier a storm arrived with a snow prediction of a few inches of snow, and southern Maine got about a foot of the white stuff, so I don't trust my luck when the forecasters are calling for real snow during my travel plans.  My one-day trip now becomes two days, and this means I have a few hours to kill off in downtown Portland that I wasn't expecting.

I decide to visit the city's art museum.

Obviously there are some big name museums that can hold their own with the likes of Boston's MFA and Washington's National Gallery of Art, but, to be honest, Portland Museum of Art isn't one I'd put on the list.  Of course, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford blew my socks off, too, so I shouldn't be such a snob.

The payback, of course, is that when I walk into the PMA, I look like an absolute fool.  My eyes are wide, my mouth is gaping open, and I stand in the lobby like an idiot, absolutely transfixed by what I am seeing, and there is a lot to see.  Sure, I expect the Wyeth collection, but I guess it didn't register in my brain that N.C. Wyeth was such an extensive literary illustrator, and his diversity is astounding, mesmerizing, even.

I'm also not expecting the Monet, Manet, Cassatt, Picasso, Rodin, Hopper, Homer, and Renoir masterpieces.  Yeah, yeah, I know: I'm a snob, like these amazing pieces don't belong in ... well ... downtown Portland.  But here they are, right in front of me, and I'm drooling like an amateur.  And I'm not an amateur. I grew up in a house where art was revered and where we played games like Masterpiece: The Art Auction Game (of which I still own the original board game).  My mother was an art history major and we had art books all over the house.  I could hold a conversation about Marc Chagall by the time I was ten.

This is all very fascinating, I know, but the strange twist comes from the part of the museum that fascinates me the most, and there is frightening little conventional art to see in it.  The 1801 McLellan House (the original art museum, I believe) is a New England architectural gem.  Of all the art I photograph (legally and not) inside the museum, I simply cannot stop taking pictures inside this building.  The meticulous, handmade woodwork and the attention to design are haunting.  Once I walk into this part of the museum, I'm thinking, "Picasso who?" and wonder how the lame delusions of "contemporary art" can even bear to exist with this classic marvel connected to the rest of the building.

I spend hours at the museum, twice the time I intend, and eventually indulge in a cafe lunch so I can rework some of the photos I have while the experience is fresh.  And speaking of fresh, the snow I drove up early to avoid, the change of plans making this entire excursion possible?  It never arrives.  It is a mere dusting, not even worth shoveling.  It does make Portland shine, though, as if it needs anything more beautiful than the museum to make it so.

2020: BALL DOWN!

When I watch the New Year's Eve coverage from Times Square, I assume this is the main ball dropping that will happen for 2020.  Within sixteen hours, I am proven incorrect.

It all starts with the television.  On January 1st, mere hours after declaring 2020 "a better year with less bullshit and more control over my own life," I attempt to turn on the television with my cell phone.  Guess what!  It doesn't work.  Then, I consider doing the correcting that I brought home from school, get through one set of papers that barely makes a dent in the 500 in my backpack, and decide to play Whist online instead.  When Whist turns out to be a disaster because the internet keeps dealing me crappy cards, I decide the holiday season is officially done.

Yes, the season is done already, even though it's not technically the twelfth day of Christmas just yet.  That's it.  Kaput.  I'm over it.  Time for the shit to come down.

Everything is going well so far, this first day of the new year.  The big tree breaks down and fits into a regular-sized container.  All of the decorations and toys and stockings and garland and lights and wreaths fit into containers or single bags for storing.  I just need to take down the small, tabletop, decorative tree in the front hallway.  The one with the delicate glass balls hanging on it.  The one with the ...

Aw, damn.  Ball down.  Ball down, people!  BALL DOWN!  Sixteen hours after the first ball of 2020 drops (Times Square), the second ball of 2020 drops and breaks on the floor. 

However, this is not a tale of tragedy; this is a tale of victory and hope. 

The ball that breaks?  Not an antique.  This is important because several of the glass bulbs on the big tree (safely packed away) are older than I am and are fragile like snowflakes.  Also, the ball that breaks does not shatter.  This, in and of itself, is amazing considering this flimsy glass ornament hits the metal table, bounces off wooden decorations, rolls from a chair, and careens three feet across the tile floor.  Two distinct pieces of glass are missing from a quarter-sized hole in the ball, and the top has cracked enough to lose its hanging attachment.  However, the glass-shard ratio isn't even registering "barefoot danger" levels.

So, although 2020 starts with two ball drops (and a cell phone to television miscommunication), things could be so much worse, shatteringly worse.  Here's to less ball-dropping in 2020, or, at the very least, to less damaging ball drops.  Ill drink (out of plastic, just in case) to that!