Renting some youth for two hours

It’s getting colder in the ‘Boro. I can tell because my Viactin multi-vitamins are harder to chew.

But that’s beside the point. Last night Colin and I went to go see Rent. You have to understand that the last movie we saw was Chicken Little, so this was special. Compounded by the fact that Colin saw it on Broadway and bought the soundtrack, so we knew all the words. I’ve always been thankful that my husband is this athletic, manly guy who also appreciates art, no matter what the subject matter.

So we go to the movie, a movie that is a remake of La Boheme and deals with AIDS, drug use, poverty and art.

Here in the ‘Boro, a smallish town south of Nashville, there are only two theatres—the “good one” and the “scary one.” We chose the good one, because seeing a larger than life musical deserves a big screen. Alas no. They stuck us in this puny theatre that fits about 100 people.

As the annoying Fandango ads and dancing hot dog ran on the screen, we looked around at our Rent-loving compadres. I felt time-warped. Tons of teenagers. Mostly girls. Cell phone lights dotted the room punctuated with giggles and hair-flipping. Then in walked a couple about our age. They sat right behind us, and like when I was pregnant and ran into another pregnant woman, I felt akin. Who were these people our age who appreciated a little music and AZT-popping?

Seeing that I make most of my friends in public places, I was tempted to turn around and introduce myself. Colin teases me for my friend-making techniques. No longer do I have friends named Claire, Marge and Sally, but “Coffee Shop Carol”, “Bookstore Belinda” and “Playground Patti.” So I was sitting thinking if this woman might turn out to be Rent Rachael, Movie Marnie or (hold me down) -- Cinema Selena.

Besides the adolescent laughs and “oh my Gods” during the chaste gay romantic scenes, the movie got an interesting reception in these parts. Frankly, I don’t think the movie made a smooth transition to the screen. What is theatrical cannot always be cinematic, and there were part of the movie that seemed laughable because the timing and rhythm were not right. Maybe an intermission would have helped.

Nonetheless, it is a kick-ass revolt against what this town I live in is about, where art is NASCAR and music is Toby Keith. This movie talked about compassion and creation is a way that left the Baptist-going audience a bit confused, where only Christians are allowed to possess compassion and only God can create.

And thus, our new best friends, the couple behind us, walked out a third of the way through. My husband looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking. Oh, and I was wrong, there was another couple our age there—down in front. I know because they too walked out.

So we were stuck with the fifteen year olds.

I wonder if the couples left because it was too much an assault of reality, or they were repulsed by the gayness—done tactfully. (Frankly, Jessie L. Martin is still fine, gay, straight or dead.) And did they then think that Colin was gay for staying, much less liking the movie?

So once again, Colin and I find that we are at home with people half our age or gays.

So ‘Boro, once again, you mystify me. How long are you going to stay in your bleached-blonde, John Deere driving bubble?

By the way, your kids are down with it. At the end, as the credits rolled, there they were applauding.

There’s a line in the song , “La Vie Boheme”, that says “The opposite of war isn’t peace--it’s creation.” But, of course, the South walked out before they got to hear that line.

Sequins in my eyes

It’s my time of year. Catalog time. Love it more than the actual holidays, frankly. They are all about promise. What I would purchase if I was generous or on the ball or had any friends. What I might receive, if I was generous or had any friends.

There is quite a hierarchy in the catalog market. Heifer International is the break-your-heart one. Can’t resist those little kids cradling little chickens and thanking faceless readers for funding his HIV drug therapy.

Then comes the frivolous stuff—and I’m a sucker for it. Shirts with cute sayings, hand-stitched Christmas stockings, chocolates stacked to make a pyramid. Today I received Amazon’s catalog. I don’t know if it is their first one, but a letter from me will be going out to assist. They have the website going pretty well, but the hardcopy mail-out is droll and boring. Exactly what I would find at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Twelve choices of cookware and some ugly dishes.

My favorite is Pier 1 Imports. They are the Bronté or Hemingway, or even Coetzee of catalogs. Just like a well-told story, their pictures highlight that product on an uncluttered backdrop. A sparse table with no bills and magic markers holds a single candlestick, so glittery and luminescent that if I buy it, I too might be transferred into the solitude and hope of the picture. Jewel colors, thin glass, silver sequins. Heaven.

I used to be partial to Pottery Barn. The way all the houses overlook some Maine bay and the walls and furniture are white with a single blue egg sitting on top of a coffee table. Then the wispy little kids, always barefoot and wearing linen dresses and thick headband doing a wooden puzzle. They have conned middle America into emulating what we think is going on in the Hamptons, while I am sure Pottery Barn is synonymous with Woolworth in the Hamptons.

The sucky ones are the ones that are all fruit or Christmas cards. I wonder how that Christmas card market fares. What with computer software these days that can do all the personalizing for you. Don’t get me started on fruit. If you want to say Merry Christmas, don’t send me a pound of oranges. Pulp does not say love.

Every year I tell myself I am going to do a catalog-only Christmas. Just dog-ear the pages and make one order that arrives the week before Santa does. But for the same reason they don’t let people live in lofts above Main Street USA in Disney World, I don’t want to spoil the magic. That candlestick from Pier 1 wouldn’t be able to live up to my dreams. Just like my writing, that ends up jumbled and unclear, that candlestick would end up amid a Judy Moody book, three pencils, glasses, a half-eaten apple and the acorns my daughter has collected to “dress up” our kitchen table.

Years ago, we went to visit the in-laws in Australia. We left our resilient cat, Tequila Mockingbird, home with some neighbors. But while we were Down Under, he went on walkabout. A year later I opened a Pottery Barn catalog and there he was, lounging on a white cotton couch, the bay glistening out his window. He’s a model now and I’m sure he’s yucking it up with the headband girls and chino-wearing mothers about me. “She doesn’t even live near a bay,” he says and they all look at each other and burst out laughing.