still somewhat short on time

The TV is now 100% hooked up. We get the best possible quality from our Verizon box (and can watch 3D movies on demand), we're connected to the internet by wi-fi so we can watch Netflix, and we're wired into the computer so we can watch DVDs from the computer's player, movies from my hard drive, and pretty much anything else you can put on the computer. Saturday we watched "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" (pretty funny) and "Django Unchained" (excellent). Please don't ask me how I managed to watch "Django" at home. Suffice it to say that a lot of awards screeners are floating around the internet, and one floated onto my computer.

Other than that, I've been eating up back episodes of Nip/Tuck on Netflix. Such a great soap opera with nifty guest stars. Now I dream about handsome plastic surgeons instead of "Dexter."

As I walk around with my great new phone, I'm figuring out what's most useful to me and what I like best. I text with a few people, though I'm still one-fingering the keyboard. What I'm really loving right now, apart from being able to take and send pictures, is bringing the phone with me at bedtime and listening to Pandora. Pandora is a music-streaming service that will create a channel around an artist you suggest (in addition to having standard category channels like Delta Blues, 50's Blues, 50's Oldies, 80's Oldies, Bollywood Oldies, etc). So I have Roy Orbison Radio and Lyle Lovett Radio and Adnan Sami Radio. But my current favorite at bedtime is Django Reinhardt Radio. (It remains to be seen if Barry will tolerate that one, since he's a real jazz-hater.)

I'm going away this weekend to visit my aunt Joyce (my uncle Howard's first wife) in the Poconos. I haven't seen her since my wedding, 12 years ago. She's only about seven years older than I am, around Barry's age, so we've always been pals. (I also adore my uncle's second wife, who recently brought me a mess of Venetian glass beads from...well, from Venice.) I'm somehow not as anxious as I usually am when traveling, which seems like a good thing. I'm looking forward to getting caught up with her, to being out of the city, and to being in the Poconos - I was last there about 15 years ago, just a couple of months before I met Barry.

I'm into bracelets lately, knotted on silk. The top one is white keshi pearls, which I'm keeping for myself and wearing right now. The 4th, 5th and 6th down from the top were given away as holiday gifts (they are grey "dot" pearls, tan pearls with vintage Swarovski crystal, and Peruvian pink opal). The amber (bottom) is going to be remade as a double strand, to order. I'm still hoping to start on Etsy around the end of the month.

KANK revisited

I just watched this video again (for the zillionth time), and it got me to thinking about the impression Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna made the first time I watched it.

It was the first Indian movie I ever saw. I particularly enjoyed this song, because it was exactly the kind of thing Americans identify as "Bollywood." I knew nothing about the actors at all: no idea I was watching father and son. Clueless about the beautiful woman in pink who was in no other part of the movie. Hadn't the vaguest notion of how well-known or popular any of the actors were...though I remember thinking that "the older guy" was probably very famous. There was just a certain ease and charisma about him that suggested a great deal of experience. I was very taken with Shah Rukh Khan, although I found his movie character shockingly obnoxious. I thought it was kind of cool the way this song mixed some English in with the Hindi. I thought the older woman was splendid, and loved her chemistry with the older guy. I couldn't believe how long the movie was. I'm not sure if I noticed that no one kissed on the lips. Since the movie didn't have American-style credits identifying the characters and the actors who played them, I'm not even sure how I learned Shah Rukh's name, although I believe his was the first actor's name I learned. I thought he was quite cute, and made a point of watching a few of his movies in the month or so after. Then I didn't watch another Indian movie for about two years.

Two years later, I remembered how novel KANK had seemed to me, and I watched it again. I  believe that was October 2011. I don't really remember how I went about researching and finding out who these actors were and what Indian films were all about. (I get so wrapped up in new passions so quickly and deeply that I often can't remember where they began; they fast seem to be things I've always done and known. I can't remember for the life of me how I started making jewelry, for instance.)

What happened the second time I watched the movie was that I was fascinated by Amitabh Bachchan. I had been right the first time I watched the movie: he was the real deal. I expect I learned his name through my film bible, the Internet Movie Database, and I simply began to follow him; I started watching his movies almost exclusively, and branched out from there. It took me about two weeks of tooling around on YouTube before I learned how to pronounce his name; I also had his name written on a piece of paper by my computer to aid my searches, since it took a while for me to get the spelling down.

My second start with Indian movies was the real one. I knew there was a lot in the movies I didn't get, and did exhaustive internet research to learn some of the social context. I started to some some of the major actors I enjoyed: Shah Rukh, of course, Abhishek Bachchan, Kajol, and so on. I started to learn about playback singers and item girls and some of the top producers and composers and directors; I found out that no one ever kisses on the lips. I discovered Amitabh's blog, and started to make some internet friends in India. (Most particularly Shiva, who kindly pointed people to my blog via Twitter, and translated an interesting Twitter conversation for me between Amitabh and Ram Gopal Varma; also Pankaj, who recommended Aamir Khan's films. Another friend dear to my heart is Moses, an Israeli who learned Hindi from watching 3,000 Indian movies, and proclaims daily, "I love Amitabh Bachchan!")

I have one friend of Facebook who always calls me "Aunty," which I hate, but I love him anyway.

And of course I met Rochelle, an Amitabh mega-fan - a Jewish woman one year my senior who lives two neighborhoods away. Never imagined that Indian movies would bring me a new in-person friend who shares a lot of my tastes and background.

Barry noted that I have had far less depressive moods since I began watching Indian films. I am deeply appreciative of being led to so much fascinating study. I probably know about 40 or 50 words in Hindi. I have discovered some amazing Indian musicians, film musicians or non. (And I am including Adnan Sami in that group, although he's not Indian - if I have it right, he is of Pakistani descent, born in Canada, raised in England, and now living and working in Mumbai.) I taught Shiva some Yiddish via email, and recommended American films to Pankaj.

It's been a pretty fruitful nine months.

I've also become active on Twitter during this time; I joined a year or more ago, but never really cared for it. I found the 160-character limit stifling. Now I adore it, way more than Facebook. Neat little jokes and messages and information fly through the ether, and I can reach out to people I would never have encountered before. And of course it's always thrilling to get a reply or retweet from someone I admire from afar. I've had replies from Amitabh himself (only one, but that's plenty), from Raghu Dixit, and often more than once a day from Adnan Sami (brilliant man with a great sense of humor). Some nice replies and retweets from one of my heroes, Dick Zigun, "the unofficial mayor of Coney Island." (I used my blog name as my handle, @northofconey, so I'm followed by a lot of Brooklyn-based people and organizations.) I've said hello to Dick here and there over the years when I've seen him around Coney, but last Friday night, when I introduced myself at the Mermaid Parade volunteers meeting, he knew exactly who I was. I've had some nice replies from the actor John Ortiz and former jockey/actor Gary Stevens. I've also had some Twitter exchanges with a couple of the "Deadliest Catch" captains. In fact, on that week's "After the Catch" (kind of the postgame show for "Deadliest Catch"), they put my live-tweet on the air! (Not having a smartphone or laptop, I had to run to my computer to live-tweet during the commercials, but it was well worth the fuss. It was a pretty major moment, seeing my tweet on TV.)

Whiplash change of topic: it is now apparently considered old-fashioned, when writing, to put two spaces after a period or colon) instead of one. It feels weird. Makes me feel a little old (though not quite like being called "Aunty").

Yes, I had my first volunteer experience at the Mermaid Parade, and sad to say, it didn't go well. I was assigned to sell merchandise, went to the meeting the night before (Rochelle was there, too), signed in on Saturday morning, got my free tee shirt and a bottle of water, and was told to go to 21st Street. Met up there with two of the people who were also supposed to sell merch (we were told there would be three tents with four people each), but there was no one to tell us where to go or what to do. The three of us sat under a tent, where there was a cooler with bottled water and a porta-potty, and waited for an hour and a half. We kept asking staff people what was going on, and some of them radioed in, but we never got any information. A couple of times, one or the other said, "I think you're supposed to go to 22nd Street," or some other location, but no one at those locations knew anything, either. (I very much enjoyed meeting one of my co-merch-volunteers, a woman in her late eighties, who had sold merch in 2011 and had some very interesting stories to tell about her life.) We didn't get the lunch that was supposed to be provided. It was an extremely hot day. After and hour and a half, one of the staff said something about a problem with the merch set-up, and I walked the ten blocks back to the volunteer station. The woman there said that there wasn't going to be merch, apologized and gave me lunch and another bottle of water. (I have to say, they were very on top of having plenty of water.) She said I could carry a banner, but I knew that was beyond my stamina limit at that time. Barry and I found each other, but it was already a half-hour before the start of the parade and impossible to get a decent place to watched. We tried to watch a little, then went home.

I emailed the volunteer coordinators about my experience. The next day, they sent a group email to all of the volunteers, and apologized sincerely for any glitches. A day later, I got a very lovely personal email from one of the coordinators, apologizing again. So I kind of got to be part of the event; tried my best. At least I got the tee shirt. I think I'll give it another shot next year.

earworm and brainworm

Today's earworm is not really an earworm - it's that I taught the word to Adnan Sami today and Twitter. Cool beans.

The brainworm is not so cool. I am having some weird memory losses. This past Thursday, Susan Gerritt (from work) and I were supposed to take last summer's intern, Sarah, to lunch. I can't seem to remember the lunch. I can't remember seeing her at all. I'm pretty sure it happened, because I do remember paying for it (it was the first time I'd ever paid in a restaurant with the PPSC card - got permission from Judy, of course). But I can't remember anything else.

I'm also fishing, at times, for some older memories, and I am known for remembering things very well. I also have the short-term blips which are perfectly normal for someone my age. My typing has also gotten a notch worse. And I've noticed occasional tremors in my hands.

I guess the next thing to do is have my primary doctor recommend a neurologist, in a couple of weeks when I have the money. Something is less-than-right upstairs, I think. (The answer is yes, scared shitless.)

Love my new primary doctor. Most of the lab tests are done in his office, which is very efficient, and he spend a lot of time with me. Tweaked my meds a little and explained everything. And by the way, I dropped 13 pounds in a month. (Answer: salad, lean protein, Greek yogurt, a little fruit, and just plain eating smaller amounts.)

Volunteering at the Mermaid Parade was a bust. I was supposed to sell merchandise - there were going to be three booths with four people each. Was sent to an area to wait and waited for an hour and a half with two other merchandise volunteers. No one knew anything - staff members radioed in but got no answers. Finally, someone said they thought they weren't doing merchandise after all. This was after months of emails and a meeting on Friday night. So I walked the ten blocks back to the volunteer registration area, and they kind of said, oops, there was a problem, and that was it. Of course, by that time it was too late to get a good spot to watch the Parade. I tried to watch some, but was pretty beat after sitting in the heat all that time. Bummer.

earworm & a flirt

Current earworm:

I hope this is a decent version; can't listen where I am now.

For some reason, when I try to upload a video to Blogger and select "My YouTube Videos," it says that I don't have any. Now, my Blogger sign-in is my Goggle sign-in, same as YouTube, so I don't understand at all why "My YouTube Videos" in Blogger doesn't bring up "My Favorites" or "Recently Watched" in YouTube. What's the point of connectivity if it doesn't connect?

I've been a mite flirty with someone lately, but it's online only and he's not in the US. I consider it about 90% not-wrong. He's either flirting back or just friendly; either is fine. It amounts to something like 4 or 5 tweet replies over about a week. It's his fault for being so magnetic.

bad fingers and Bol Bachchan

Amitabh shows how it's done, in the title song from Bol Bachchan. The young man with the mustache is Ajay Devyn and the cleanshaven young man is Junior Bachchan, Abhishek.

I have a bad trigger finger and a not-so-bad trigger finger, and it's back to Dr. Patel for me on Monday. If you weren't around for last year's trigger finger here's what it's all about. So it's either going to be a shot of cortisone. or what I had done last year:

"Percutaneous trigger finger release:  Trigger finger release can be performed in the office under local anesthesia using a percutaneous technique.  Numbing medicine is injected in the hand near the base of the finger.  A larger needle is then placed through the numb area and is used to divide the pulley that is causing the triggering.  Advantages of this procedure include that it can be done in the office and does not require an incision.  The main disadvantage is that the surgeon cannot see the pulley or nearby nerve and there is a possible higher risk of injury to the nerves or an incomplete release.  While these complications are unlikely, patient should take them into account when choosing to have a procedure."

It's gonna hurt like hell if he has to do this again, especially on two fingers. I remember being in howling pain the day after. The bad one is the right-hand pinkie, and PTFR is usually done one the middle three fingers. The not-yet-as-bad one is the left-hand ring finger, so it may be a wait-and-see, or a PTFR. And if I have the surgery, there's physical therapy after, for maybe six weeks.

So I may be very limited as far as using the computer, although of course I'll have to at work.  Send good thoughts for a nice needle full of cortisone.

Recent reading: The Leftovers by Tom Perotta. Surburban folks try to get along after a Rapture-like event. Love the way he writes, and the post-Cheever look at surburbia. See also, his Little Children.

Somehow, I hopped into another post-apocalyptic novel right after, Stephen King's Cell. Just started it, and it's pretty much as un-put-down-able as most King books. I am an unabashed fan.

Too much to write about with hurting fingers: out in Yardley with Jannah last weekend, Saturday night party on her boat (six boats all tied up together), and then slept on the boat. The whole deal was kind of like camping but less grubby. Relaxing by the pool on Sunday, parade on Monday. I dearly love the Memorial Day parade in Yardley...I hate to use the word "quaint," which it isn't, quite, hut it very old-fashioned and I look forward to it every day - I've been going there for Memorial Day the past 4-5 years.

Very hard, busy season at work, what with classes ending, getting evaluations from teacher, updating transcripts, trying to get a second summer intern, overseeing registration, orienting new faculty, etc. If I must say so myself, I've been coming through like a champ, but I'm seriously exhausted. Part of me (no lie) is kind of hoping to spend Tuesday in bed, on painkillers.

I'm having a really good time on Twitter, especially when I get replies from (can't deny it) well-known people. This past week: Raghu Dixit and Adnan Sami. Both good dudes, and Raghu is supposed to come to the US in the fall. I also have a little joke-topping thing with @Disalmanic, who is a damn funny guy.

obsession?

Even if Barry does think that Bollywood movies are good for me, it doesn't mean I don't have an unhealthy obsession.  But I'm starting to learn that I'm not necessarily the best judge of my mental state -- it came to me via analysis, which would mean I'm spending my money wisely. 

I've mentioned, I think, that I enjoy reading AB's blog and that there's a community of around 300 people who are daily commentors.  (The interface here marks the latter word as misspelled with either -er or -or.)  And I'm starting to see some really icky obsessiveness there.  I think that the people who call him "a god" need to get a life, or perhaps a more conventional god.  And there are clearly some women who are very much in love with him, or think they are; crushes aren't a dreadful thing, but sharing them with strangers, and particularly with the object of the crush, seems weird to me.  Some of it makes me kind of queasy, and some of it makes me feel sorry for the people involved.  AB is kind to and patient with them all, but I wonder what he really thinks about some of those folks.  If he's truly as spiritual as he seems, maybe he doesn't judge them -- which would make him a way better person than I.

That having been said...here is a recent find on YouTube:

I think this is really funny, and the ponytail is kind of cute.

And one more:

This is an actual American-style music video, not a movie clip.  Adnan Sami is a Canadian of Pakistani descent, I believe, and living in Mumbai.  I have no idea what this song means, but I like it and the two of them are cute together.