Like Spinning Plates

Another year down in my life. I don't feel any different at 23 than I did at 22, but then again I stopped feeling older with every birthday after my 18th. My mom kept saying repeatedly "I can't believe it...23! 23! I have a daughter who's 23!" I asked her how she'd handle it when I turn 24 a year from now. She told me not to get ahead of myself.

The anniversary of my birth fell on a Thursday this year, which made any sort of celebration a little difficult as the thought of staying up past midnight makes me instantly sleepy. Adrienne took me to see Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Huntington's BU Theatre: it was a huge student-run project, a collaboration between BU's College of Fine Arts and the Opera Institute. I loved it! It's definitely my favorite opera I've ever seen (which isn't saying much, as I've only seen what...five?). I loved it's silliness, it's refusal to take itself entirely seriously. Puccini and Verdi and Handel are beautiful and moving, yes, but sometimes I just want to have a laugh instead of being confronted with yet another tragic turn of events for a pair of lovers. Papageno was irreverant and delightful, and has Papagena was a great match. Now that I think about it, I won't go into a detailed discussion of every actor's performance because they were all wonderful. A very fun evening.

I also got to spend part of my Big Day in the Emergency Room. Nothing serious, mind you, just a severely unusual reaction to my new bug bites on my arms. My right arm in particular was having a tough time: the redness/swelling had spread from the area of the bites on my upper arm to encompass my entire arm down past the elbow. My doctor, upon hearing the symptoms, told me to hie myself to an emergency room as I may have a skin infection called cellulitis. The doctor at the ER told me it was likely that's what I had, but that it was hard to tell the difference between cellulitis and just a bad reaction. He gave me some antibiotics and sent me on my way. I've been taking them since Thursday night, and have come to the conclusion that I did, in fact, have cellulitis as the speed with which my arms have improved is nothing short of remarkable. It certainly did not heal this fast the last time. I'm still not sure if it was bedbugs: I stripped my mattress bare, washed all my linens and comforters, sprayed with an organic bedbug killing spray all over my mattress and box-spring, and did not see a single bedbug (if they were indeed the culprits, means that I should have been able to see them). Maybe I just have a spider that likes to feast only on my arms every few weeks...

A comforting thought. Somehow I don't mind that idea as much as bedbugs.

Yuval has been in Tel Aviv since Monday and I miss him like crazy. I only got to see him for the two hour drive home from Portsmouth on Sunday before he left, and before that the last time I saw him was Valentine's Day. Absence makes the heart grow anxious, man!

I'm typing this from the apartment downtown where I babysit Dylan. Currently I'm eating a chicken quesadilla that I ordered up from the in-room dining service and it's tres delecieuse! Jason said all they had for me to eat was pizza and he refused to let pizza and soda be the only things I eat when I come over here; so he told me to order up whatever I wanted from room service and they'd just charge it to him. Also, they got me a birthday card. I adore these people! As I'm writing this the TV is turned on low and currently "My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad" is on. I didn't even know this show existed, let alone that it was on Primetime. The whole concept is repugnant to me, just like "The Moment of Truth." Because nothing puts fatherhood skills to the test quite like hurling your kids on a bungee cord towards a giant target where they attempt to stick huge sticky darts to the bullseye for points. Thank God the writers are back so the networks don't have to make up anymore crappy reality gameshows.

Saw There Will Be Blood last night and loved it. Daniel Day-Lewis better get the Oscar for Best Performance: if he doesn't, it will prove that the Academy has completely lost all sense of good taste. It's not a movie for those who only enjoy a fast-paced story, nor is it a movie for those who demand sympathy for their main characters. Day-Lewis's character, Daniel Plainview, is nothing short of a truly evil human being whose motivations are unclear and never explained--something that makes the whole experience even more disturbing. You're never given a reason for his behavior, it's just the way he is, and that combined with the fact that the movie doesn't pull its punches makes for one sprawling, sparse, epic mastepiece. It's a genuine American tale, in the darkest sense--a look at the underbelly of rags-to-riches stories that made our nation as powerful and wealthy as it is today.

Okay, I gots to check on the baby now. It's almost March (which translates in my mind as meaning it's almost Spring, even though such a conclusion has no meteorological support whatsoever).