Just go with it
The theme of last night was Just Go With It as we headed out to see Biutiful with Javier Bardem only to get to the theater and find out they had changed the time till 11PM – first, who would go see this movie at 11PM? So we instead just had to buy a ticket and walk in. I bought The Roommate, not really aware of what it was, but we were knee deep in kids going to see Beiber at Elmwood and we just had to get out of the fray.
A family was headed into Roommate – a nine year old boy, a teenager and a mom – we asked what the movie was about and the mother said about two girls where the friend becomes obsessed with her and then starts killing people. I’m looking at the nine year old and thinking and he’s going in why?
So we went instead to see Just Go With It, the chick flick with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston, which was actually a pleasant surprise because it was funny and cute and lifted my spirits. It took a page from an exercise I recently engaged in from the Actor’s Studio, which is you don’t say no or shut down the moment, but instead you just go with it and say yes, and …
Then we headed to Mondo – the late night eatery of Susan Spicer in Lakeview – only it was 11pm and that means they quit serving, so much for late night dining. We trekked to Buffa’s instead, which is by far the best dive bar late night eating around. The cooks were drunk as usual, a daper older man sat at the bar who kept asking to buy my drinks or food and finally just came out and asked if I was with someone, refusing to see Tatjana sitting with me – and I said, yes with her. Oh, he said and then he left shortly after.
For some reason he reminded me of my mom, all dolled up, some liquor in him, and trying to live out a daydream. I don’t know if it was the William Trevor story I had just read, Reasonable Access, about a man who has an affair and loses his wife and kids, and then spends his time drinking and imagining them getting back together and being a family again – the sadness of it all – the way a few drinks in a bar can sometimes be the panacea we all seek from the weight of our humble lives.
Instead of staying attached to any of these feelings that surfaced – not being able to see Biutiful, not being able to try Mondo’s, the sadness reflected in Trevor’s story, the melancholy of Joe at the bar, the drunk cooks breaking glasses – I let them waft by like the smoke that filled the air in Buffa’s and just went with the moment. Yes, and ….