In a few hours it would be Vanitha and Marty’s first wedding anniversary, except that we lost her last October. And I’m posting because I felt like I should commemorate something, some date, because I know for damn sure there won’t be a post on the anniversary of her death, or what would have been her birthday. Who’s got that kind of strength. Not me.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: hold on to the ones you love.

I haaaaate moving.   I hate the tedious rearranging, the pointless cleaning, the slow emptying of personality and identity as stuff comes off the walls and the shelves and goes into cardboard boxes labelled ‘No Idea’ or ‘Misc.’

One thing I didn’t hate till now was deflating my couch, which I now hate, having discovered on Wednesday night that this act turns out to be next to impossible.  In my mind I had pictured removing the two plugs over the air valves and letting the thing go flat as I efficiently packed and stowed (resembling, in the mental image, a cross between Julie Andrews and Martha Stewart).

Anyway, as it happens, when you remove the plugs no air comes out - some kind of fiendishly clever Oriental invention probably dating to the Han dynasty - so I stuck the tube from my air pump into one of the valves and was rewarded with a faint ‘Fweeee’ noise.

“That’ll take all night to deflate!” I thought, and in a moment of whimsy or stupidity or both, launched myself onto the couch with the intention of hastening the exit of air from the tube.

The couch promptly pitched me into a wall and I spent about half an hour immobilized on the floor listening to the ‘Fweee.’  Good times?  Good times.  Can I go home now?

I love every beast
Living in the silent deeps.
Their beauty confounds.

I don’t actually hate the ‘Harry Potter’ series - I just think the books are ass. The movies, in my opinion, are top-notch and I plan on buying the entire series for my future offspring. (Obviously I won’t be buying the books. What a waste of rainforest.)

Which brings me to my next point: Daniel Radcliffe, who just the other day looked like this, his little face shining with fortitude and innocence, is going to be starring in a Broadway play called ‘Equus,’ written by Peter Shaffer.

I do not like this idea at all.

Have any of you guys seen the 1970’s movie version of ‘Equus,’ just out of curiosity? Now that the swirling circa-2003 rumours have finally crystallized as to who’s playing the main antagonist, you probably won’t be able to find it in the video stores, as scads of fourteen year-old girls will have rushed to rent it so as to get some background for the play to which they will beg their mothers to acquire tickets.

I have seen the film version of ‘Equus,’ and even assuming they tone down the nailbiting disturbingness of it for the stage, it still gives me chills. I swear to Gob I spent 98% of the movie squirming as if from a full bladder, when it was more accurately from a full brain. I watch a lot of movies and it takes a lot to upset me, but I found ‘Equus’ acutely upsetting.

If you’re a horror buff the premise of ‘Equus’ won’t faze you. But it’s a drama, not a horror, and the premise is like such: there’s a kid, and he’s just blinded six horses, both eyes, with a metal spike. He gets assigned a psychologist to figure out why, if there is a why. The terror comes at the end, when it turns out there is a why. I almost screeched out loud at this point, and I had to stop the movie and go hang out on my balcony for a few minutes.

I’ve got one for you: we fall, a blank slate, into the tumbling story that has been running for thousands of years before our birth and will run for thousands of years after. Our blankness is therefore written upon by all things simultaneously: you’re born and everything everywhere is a pen, because you have nothing to compare anything with. So why do some things affect people so much while some are unaffected? Why should any single experience etch itself into the mind? I mean, how does that happen? Do I need a psych degree for this one?
Anyway, if you get a chance, go try to rent the movie and then picture Daniel Radcliffe in it. Doesn’t work, right?

I have driven the future, and it is luvverly.

Yesterday I got to drive a brand-new 2006 Honda Civic hybrid for two glorious hours, and you know what? If this turns out to be the car of the future, I’m all over it.

For one thing, it’s pretty near totally silent, even at highway speeds. This may not seem like a luxury (for instance, my brother gets uncomfortable if he can’t hear every rattle and grunt from a car’s engine), but so famed are actual luxury cars for their quiet interiors that the hybrid seems a lot plusher. Plus, the cone o’ silence inside the car lets you really enjoy the top-notch sound system. Ah, those wacky Japanese and their audio obssession.

Yes, and the handling is fabulous and flexible; there’s enough room inside to play a game of handball; the speedo is digital and the readout is practically two inches tall, sitting neatly in the driver’s line of vision; in fact, ‘neat’ is a good word for the entire dash layout. Neat and intuitive. And (my favourite part of the instrumentation) it’s got a section that tells you not just the fuel economy, but how much power is coming from the gas versus the battery, which is dead cool, or maybe I’m just a nerd.

Mm, what else. The exterior is pretty sexy too, I thought. One of those bodies delicate but just bulbous enough to activate something in the back-brain that thinks ‘aerodynamic.’ I guess my only real complaint is the mushiness of the accelerator, but I understand that’s a common problem with hybrid cars and it’s really only a problem if you’re going from a dead stop anyway.

Anyway, I loved it and I would totally, totally buy one if they weren’t $35,000 (which could get me what, like, two used ordinary Civics or three brand-new Yarises?). It seems like a lot for a measly 110 hp, but a) who needs much more power for in-city driving, honestly, and b) I bet it would be really cool to have a tank of gas last six weeks.