Absolute Perfection

As I'm sitting here in the library, having just written the first sentence of what will most likely be the absolutely, most perfectly insightful essay EVER written on the evolution of drawings of theater and performance between the 16th-18th centuries in Italy and France, it's occurred to me that two recent incidents signalled the perfect endings and beginnings to my school week and weekend.

Last night, I went to the movie theaters for the second time since my sojourn in Chicago to see Pan's Labyrinth. The first was to see Be Cool. Why Be Cool? Because it was either that, or The Ring 2 and since both Morganna and I can't handle horror movies, we opted for the former. We were 2 out of about 6 people sitting in the theater, and since neither of us had seen Get Shorty, the inside jokes and references were woefully lost on us as we sat in the theater looking at our watches and picking our noses. I don't remember a single thing from that movie, but I seem to recall liking Uma Thurman's bikini in one of the opening scenes.

Pan's Labyrinth was good, as expected. However, what was even better was the trailer at the very beginning advertising a new! salsa! movie! with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony called El Cantante. Within the first few seconds of the trailer my heart rate jumped to 300 bpm and my eyes grew as big as saucers because oh my gosh, they are having a movie about Hector Lavoe. Who cares that this is probably just a weak attempt to recreate Ray and Walk the Line, who cares that the acting abilities of both these people are dubious at best, and most of all, who cares that this might be a huge flop in the theaters! It's a movie about musica latina! And I will be the first person in Blockbuster to rent it!

The consequence of this trailer is far-reaching and powerful. While watching Pan's Labyrinth and covering my eyes during the scary bits, it wasn't necessarily the knowledge that someone's mouth was getting slit open right then that made my heart race, but the anticipation of a salsa movie coming out the summer of 2007. After getting home, I watched the trailer online enough times to make my mother weep. And then I went to sleep, light-headed with the excitement of all this, turning what was really a terrible week into a beautiful one.

My life had obviously taken a turn for the better.

This morning on my trek to the library, I was hit with the cold, hard (no pun intended) realization that it is MIGHTY icy out on the sidewalks. (See the pun?) I was walking along with a hot cup of coffee in one hand, books in the other, swinging my bag, when I hit a particularly rough spot of sidewalk. I took THE MOST DELICIOUS SMACK EVER onto the sidewalk, and it didn't end there. Valianty trying to avoid spilling my hot beverage, I kept on sliding down that sort of small slope created for cars to turn into driveways and for ants/snails to sled on until I reached the bottom. And I hardly spilled ANY coffee, and NONE on myself.

It's these small victories in life that keep me going, even when facing some of the what might turn out to be some failures in life. Including this awesome essay on, what is it again? Something about theater and drawing? Oh, whatever, who cares about that, I am going to write a 5 page commentary about why I think there should be a law banning tanning salons, and I WILL get an A++ on it.