This afternoon went and saw Open Water. Um, well hmmm, it was ok. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, but it wasn’t god awful. The only thing I would suggest is if you have to see it, see it in the theaters because it will in fact suck on a small screen. 2.5**
Earlier this afternoon I went and hung out with g-friend’s former next door neighbors. A wonderful old couple, they seemed to really enjoy life. The husband was a former TV writer (I’m talking Bonanza etc lots of westerns from back in the day). The wife, well she just enjoys tending to their garden. She’s got an INSANE garden: sunflowers, anaheim chiles, eggplant, strawberries; LOTs of other stuff. I think what was so wonderful about them was how they are in no mood to just wait til life is over. They simply LIVE. And you can see the youthfulness in their face (for lack of a much better word). Makes growing old not look so bad when you see other people who seemed to have figured it out. And mind you, not that I have any fear of aging, I’m speaking more generally. It’s certainly something to look forward to, and what a better way to look at it right?
Another interesting note is that the husband’s daughter (from previous marriage) was in attendance at the brunch (I guess it was a brunch; sort of a stupid word huh). She was fascinating because she has been diagnosed for the better part of her life as schizophrenic. She is currently in a pysch hospital but was allowed to visit her parents during this Labor Day Weekend. I asked her all sorts of questions, and she was quite accomodating, and didn’t regard my interest in her as intrusive. I treaded lightly at first, but not so lightly as to make it obvious. I feel honesty is the best policy: and if you come from a place of respect, I feel she’d certainly have nothing to fear.
Well, so I hoped and so was the case. I thanked her for opening up and she said, “You know, I’ve been hiding this most of my life; I might as well talk about it.” That equates in many ways to my attitude towards my lil’sis. Why stigmatize it? The reason people can’t understand is because we fail to see the value in just communicating about things that don’t make sense to us.
She was a very kind person, has had a lot of ups and downs in her life. I suspect she is highly intelligent, but perhaps the most disheartening thing about psychiatrists (not psycho therapists or psychologists) is they make little attempt to understand her problem and try to reach solutions that are non medical. She explained to me how frequent the visits were nothing more than “you’re doing that? Ok, you’re fine take this array of pills.” That’s it. No help to deal, no help to understand. Just take this fucking pills. K, now i’m pissed…. lol
It was a wonderful early afternoon, and I’m very fortunate to have met them all.
It’s 9:25 as I write this, and g-friend and I are going to see HERO at the Cinerama Dome (or as we Angelenos call it: The Dome). It’s the largest non IMAX theatre in town and it’s AMAZING.
I’ll let you know how the movie goes, but I suspect I’m going to enjoy immensely.
Be safe,
Chance
