probably for the millionth time. I remember watching this movie for the first time when I was in Oregon. Life was different back then and it was almost 10 years ago. I kinda feel like a sap saying it, but this it's such a romantic movie. The Jon Brion soundtrack. The colors. The dialog. The outfits. That grit in the film that gives it an almost British feel. All the rich shades of New York. Sure it's a bit romanticized, but it isn't slapped on the way cities are slapped on as backdrops to sitcoms. It's part of the movie's DNA.
I remember my first winter in New York. Feeling lost. Not sure what I was doing there or how long I'd be there. The cold winter air dry as concrete. Making random telephone calls to friends, getting a few from friends. And as the seasons changed and the walks grew longer, sometimes alone, sometimes with new company, those phone calls came fewer and further in between. Unexpected phone calls. Like sand paintings. "Thanks for calling." Like a sweet but unsentimental closing in a card that frays with our memories into nothing.
Things change. I've changed. And this, my thirty-third year, has been full of dramatic changes. And while I'm sitting on my couch, with a stomach filled with take-out pad thai and most of a twenty ounce Diet Coke, watching this movie I've seen a million times, I'm still relishing it.
