I've totally begrudgingly given into the hype that is the Sex and the City film. I loved the series. It was a bonding time I had with my mother when I was in high school, from seasons 2 through the end. Just like everyone else, I didn't want it to end when it did, and cursed Kim Catrall for forcing the idea of a film adaptation into a stale mate. Then I went to college and got a grown up job and a condo and got over it. But when they started filming, I totally got excited again, and have been anticipating May 30th probably more than my own birthday for the better portion of six months. A few different invitations to see the movie with lady friends went out, but my brother-from-another-mother gave me the stink eye and told me I had to go with him. Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but I definitely got put in my place. Since my mother was in town, I invited her as well, for old times' sake, and also since I hadn't really seen her since she'd been in town despite the fact that she'd been crashing on my couch.
Around 10 am, I sent texts out to a few others I knew were interested in seeing it in Baltimore that night. I went on Landmark's website, mouth already watering at the thought of sipping a cosmo while watching Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte do the same from the other side of the screen, and then my heart fell. At 10:30 am, every single showing at Landmark that night through the 10:30 pm showing was sold out. A cursory search through other theatres yielded the same result. In a panic that my opening night screening of SATC wasn't going to happen, I put a call into my friend-that-knows-everything and he suggested that we get tickets at the Rotunda. Since they don't have online ticketing, he figured it wouldn't be able to sell out. Great planning. I was still going to swing by on my way into the city for happy hour and buy the tickets early so that our faces weren't cracked at 10:15 when we showed up at the theatre.
Of course plans never work out the way you want them to. I sat on northbound I-95 for over an hour, wound up not going back to my office as planned, and was still going to be late for my happy hour date at Brewers. My friend swung by the Rotunda and picked up tickets for us, and at 6:30, the 7:30 showing was already sold out and there was a line around the theatre. Phew. It looked like my instincts were right. Three or four Resurrections and a detour through downtown to usher my mother into Hampden later, we were sitting in a packed theatre with my mother, and some out-of-town cousins. I felt so apologetic that they had to experience cinema in Baltimore at the Rotunda. I really wanted them to see Landmark... because that's the Baltimore I want people who aren't from here to think of. The Rotunda, however, is more like the Baltimore that I probably experience from day-to-day. Not that I'm ashamed or anything. I just attempt to assert a little more class into outsiders' perceptions of the city. So all that to say, the drunken man sitting on the other side of my friend shouting random nonsense at the screen was probably more entertaining than most of the movie. It was good. I'm going to see it again with other girlfriends. But it wasn't what I was sitting on pins and needles for. And when J-Hud's catchy little "All Dressed Up in Love" came on, I wanted to jump out of a window, or run out the theatre screaming at the very least. Maybe I shouldn't have read the liveblog of the movie over on Jezebel that day? The one good thing about being slightly annoyed at the movie is that I don't want to see a designer anything for at least a year. The Maestro's off the hook for buying me any expensive designer handbags. I'm sure that's a load off of his shoulders.
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By this morning, I was really on people overload. That's not to say I hadn't had a good weekend. I got to see and spend time with family, old friends, new friends, see a movie, drink homemade margaritas. The weekend was full and overwhelming. I stayed in bed until noon... watching Meet the Press and Chris Matthews... thoroughly annoyed by the politics that Tim Russert allows people to play on his casualty of a show, but amused and relaxed nonetheless. I decided that I was hungry for breakfast food, but didn't feel like driving into the city, so I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and headed up the street to IHOP with a book that time has refused to allow me to finish. I started taking quiet time to myself when I moved out here right before my senior year in college. If I skipped my 8 am class, I didn't have to be to school until 2 on some days, so I'd grab a book and sit at Starbucks and read and journal for hours just to detox from people. I guess some people don't need to detox from people, but my friends have always been and will always be drama queens. And the people that aren't my friends, but that I have to interract with on a regular basis are the same as well. As a result, I need moments in the week to not see people, not talk to people, to just be. I used to have a complex about it. When I lived on campus, I refused to go eat if I didn't have people to eat with. I would rather starve for days than sit in a dining hall and eat alone. Now I relish those moments, because they never happen.
So I anticipated there being a wait and made small talk with the hostess, a girl I'd done a show with a few years back, and fiddled on my phone. When I got seated, I discerned what I was going to order right then and there, and then cracked open my book. While I was quietly observing the people around me, like I do anywhere I go, I still enjoyed the peace of not having to make conversation, not having to break down the happenings of my week to anyone, to be out and about without having to give that much in return to the world around me for just a little bit. As I left and paid my check, the hostess noted, "You always come in here alone." For a second, I reverted back to that college freshman, afraid that someone would think she was a loser and had no one to sit with. I made a funny face and responded, "Yeah, well, you know, I live around the corner, and uh, I'm just being lazy on a Sunday. hehe." Unscathed by my neurosis, she asked about theatre-type stuff, and we chatted for a few minutes. I told her to have a good summer, and as I walked out to my car, I came back to my senses and stopped apologizing for wanting a few moments of peace and quiet to myself after a long, hard week.
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It's my mother's birthday today. If anyone can guess how old she is in the comments, I'll give you a prize. Thank God for good genes.
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