constant narrator

E., newly four, was going to the bathroom and demanded that I come with her because ‘the toilet paper was too far away’, which it was. ‘Why didn’t they put it on this wall? It’s closer.’ She was right. Whoever installed the toilet paper dispenser put it in the farthest wall from the toilet.

‘Papa’s dead, right?’ she asked for the 3rd time that day. It was a recent phase to figure out who, exactly, was dead . Yes, I said. ‘How long has he been dead?’ Three years now, I said. You are four, I said, and he died before you were one. ‘A long time ago,’ she said. Yes, I said, I suppose so. ‘I didn’t like Papa very much,’ she said out of the blue. It made me sad.

Oh don’t say that, I said. You did, you actually liked Papa very much and he loved you. He would carry you around for hours and you would laugh and giggle and kick your feet just like L. did at the treehouse today. You loved Papa and Papa loved you.

‘OK,’ E. said, and hopped off the pot ready to wash her hands.

Today I broke down and finally bought a miniDisc recorder. I’ve been enamoured ever since pfly did the stereo walk-around recordings at Burning Man 98, but the desire increased after my Dad died and I realized I had no good recordings of him.

Since my grandpa is 94 (although doing quite well), the urgency has increased each time I go home to record him telling some of his excellent stories. I had an ill-fated attempt at purchase and use last year with dbauler, because I didn’t do my research. I left Iowa bummed and left Best Buy with an open-package MD that didn’t have a mic input. No more! After reading up online, I know I am completely in over my head. MD has some seriously geeky followers as well as hardcore broadcasters with their $600 mics. I still need to go to an audio store locally to figure out what (lower-end) mic to get, and then read the stupidly complicated and unhelpful MD manual. Then I’m off next week to get some midwestern goodness on tape. Er, disc.

And after that, recordings of rusty train noises!

A. and I, in search of Friday evening romantic-comedy brain candy, rented Along Came Polly with Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller. Now I think Ben Stiller is funny as all shit but Jennifer Aniston I can take or leave. A. wanted to watch the movie because it featured a blind ferret and she’s a sucker for that stuff. So, it was there, exactly as it should have been, solid, mediocre in its timing, with a few laugh-out-loud moments (not nearly as many as Zoolander) and one o the worst “I’m gonna impress my girl by learning to dance and then have a big latin dance number in a crowded club” montages I have ever seen. How many times can that schtick be done? Answer: too many. Waaayyy too many. Philip Seymour Hoffman saved more than one scene by just inhabiting his body in a way that stole the screen from anyone else around. Other than that, eh. You know.

Saturday, bug and S. called and we went and saw The Bourne Supremacy. I hadn’t seen The Bourne Identity simply because I had not yet forgiven Matt Damon for The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was the most painful piece of homophobic shit movie I have ever seen. I still haven’t forgiven Mr. Damon for that wasted 3.5 hours of my life but TBS helped ease my pain a little. Much like Keanu Reeves, Matt Damon is better when he shuts up and kicks some ass. It doesn’t hurt that he has two of my current favorite hotties supporting him: Franka Potente of Run Lola Run fame and Karl Urban, quite recently Eomer of Lord of the Rings. Hello, yum. So, solid action movie, a few surprises (not tons), enough onsite filming in exotic locales to give it a heady James Bond lavishness and a warning to sit further back than the fourth row: seasick camera work in the fight scenes, of which there are many.

Last Friday some co-workers and I met a now-ex-coworker at a joint called Dot’s Place. It was the most fantastic hole in the wall I have been to yet in Austin. It’s way up north, hiding in a very large and hot shack behind the discount cinema, off of Howard Lane. It is soul food and if you don’t eat meat or at the very least fish, don’t even bother going. It’s $6.50 for a plate and that gets you ‘one meat and two vegetables’. If you’re not interested in pork in your vegetables, it’s best to ask before it lands on the plate. Drinks and gargantuan slices of pie and cobbler are extra. Friday is all you can eat catfish. It’s open for lunch from 11-2 and you will be standing in the good-natured cue to get served down the cafeteria style line. There was every kind of person imaginable at Dot’s and we all sat at long family-style tables covered with checkered oilcloths. My plate was enough food for about three meals and the catfish was excellent. It almost made me want to eat meat, looking at the homemade chicken and dumplings and fresh noodles and beef tips. Okra and tomatoes, collards greens, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rice and broccoli casserole, green beans with ham, you get the picture. Even with its utterly limited vegetarian possibilities, the existence of this place makes me happy.