On Thursday I went to Thanksgiving dinner at the house of an Indian friend (this is the Indian feminist that I was mildly criticizing a few weeks ago) of mine. The food was very nice, albeit just about as far away from traditional Thanksgiving fare as it is possible to get, substitute vegetarian curry for turkey and Bombay potatoes for mashed potato and you're getting close. My contribution to the meal was the supply of two bottles of wine, most of which I consumed myself. Anyhow, between the wine and the beer we had after the meal, by the time I walked home, at nearly three o'clock in the morning, I was moderately well sauced. Thursday night was probably the coldest night of the year so far, which meant that for the first time this year I was wearing a wooly hat. For some reason, the alcohol played a large part I imagine, I thought that it would be good idea to pull the hat down over my eyes and walk the last couple of blocks as though I was blind. (I can't explain why I thought this was a good idea, but at the time I did, I have done many things more stupid after an evening of drinking.) After a few lamppost collisions I managed to get to my apartment safely.
This morning while I was eating breakfast down at the cafe I discovered that one of my friends, a guy who works at the cafe, was robbed at gunpoint last night. He was robbed on the same street, at a similar time, that I was walking down 48 hours earlier. It did make me think what a lucky boy I was, and made me wonder what kind of a neighbourhood I'm living in. Although, I'm pretty certain that this is a very safe neighbourhood. Still, it's hard to believe that someone I knew got held up at gunpoint a hundred yards or so from my apartment. Lucky me, unlucky him I guess. Or lucky him as well, as he walked away unscathed and got his wallet back a few minutes later as the police caught the guys. Makes you think.
On Friday night I came over all cultural and went to see Women of Solofest, which is part of Myke Rock's MultiFestival. I went at the behest of one of the bartenders from Vic's, who was drunkenly approaching people on Wednesday and insisting that go see her play on Friday. It was a pretty interesting mix of music from solo piano (played by my assailant, although I must confess I was fairly willingly assailed) to rock to folksy-blues. For those keeping records, that made it two consecutive days which I went out somewhere which wasn't downstairs.
The remainder of my Thanksgiving weekend has been spent in the company of superheroes. Firstly, I have been watching the third (and first half of the fourth, after down-cough-cough-ing the episodes using bit torrent) season of Smallville (for those who haven't seen it, Smallville is like a poor man's Angel — which in turn was like a poor man's Buffy — but with a young Clark Kent, so it is littered with man of steel and fast than a speeding bullet lines). For what it's worth the third season is a bit shit, but the fourth season is much better. Then I've been reading (you know who's) 1602, in which the Marvel superheroes are imagined as they would have been if they had been incarnate in the 17th century. It's all very clever, but being as I'm not a true comic book aficionado I imagine I'm missing at least half the references. They've both been a pleasant escape from mundane reality.
On the off chance that anyone needs a reason for escaping reality, here's a happy tale about the decline of the Zimbabwean education system, coupled with the increasing media insanity that the Zimababwean government suffers from (banning cricket journalists?) . This happy tale coupled with the 'fact' I learned from Harper's Index that the , "Projected lifespan in years of a Zimbabwean born in 1989 and one born in 2002, respectively : 60, 34", highlight what life is now like in the worst country to live in.
Finally, a short treatise on stomach health. My stomach has been pretty much unhappy for the last three weeks. In that time I've been trying to use the judicious, or excessive, application of beer to fix the problem. Needless to say, this method has not been entirely successful. So last night I adopted a different strategy, this strategy was based upon the twin pillars of pharmaceuticals and advertising. I selected a product, "Pink, does more you than you think", that was purported to fix various stomach ailments, and tried it. Of course, my version of trying the product involved using it two minutes before going downstairs and drinking, but still little steps and all that. I'm not sure that my method of fixing stomach ailments is working, tonight I might try the reverse application of products. If it is not deadly, I might let you know how it goes.
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