(Remember this series?)
I was talking to my best friend about a movie he’d seen, Tokyo Story, and he was raving about it. I must not have seemed properly enthused because he said,
“You can look it up. It got great ratings on DMV–you know, that movie place where people who have to air their likes and dislikes on the interent go.”
…and that is my new favorite description of IMDB.
There is no one like my best friend for Saligner-esque italics, except maybe Salinger. Case in point: him describing how the cleaners are getting his shirt collars pressed with folds and creases:
“It’s obviously done with careless abandon in some stupid machine.”
My best friend and I still talk every week, and he’s still a source of deeply quotable quotes. Last night’s call included meaningful italics and a nihilist’s approach to personal beauty. So a good week, really.
First, the italics:
Me: “Have I told you that I want tattoos? Sean, I want tattoos.”
Him, in the verbal expression of an eye roll: “Oh, great. That’s really great news, Karen.”
Later in the conversation I told him that I was thinking whatever “looks” I had were more due to youth than actual looks and that they were fading along with my youth:
Him: “Well, it’s regrettable that you’re older, but examine the options.”
Me: “‘Examine the options‘?”
Him: “Well, yes. If you weren’t getting older, you’d be dead. That’s the inevitable alternative.”
Last night’s weekly call with my best friend was particularly quotable. We talked about me moving on (“you and the dead-horse-ex-beating thing…”) and he shared his feelings about a recent visit to Hot Topic:
“It’s like going with someone to the marshlands to look at frogs and tadpoles: it’s alien terrain where I have nothing at stake.”
My best friend is not the Outdoor Type, and because I’ve known him for 13 years he remembers when I wasn’t, either. So this was extra-hilarious to me:
Me: “I went up to Snowbird for yoga Saturday and near the top of the canyon I see something big climbing up the bank above the road and it has a bushy tan and gray tail and I realize it’s a coyote. I’ve never seen one in Utah before!”
Him: “Are you sure it wasn’t a raccoon?”
Me: “…”
Him: “I know you took your animal tracking class, but how can you be sure?”
“As a purveyor of beautiful bath salts, I have to think, ‘Is this something else for me to worry about?'”
“Zombies are not scrupulous in their use of quotation marks, Karen.”
And those are words to live by.
Here’s some advice about word choice, as given out by my best friend last night:
“I watched The Universe last night and they were describing things like the scale of our solar system and the speed of light. And that’s the time to use the word “awesome”–not when someone refills the ice in your water.”
My friend was talking about a store meeting he gave and described his staff’s reaction (ranging from support to “reverence” to frustration to anger, apparently) and announced,
“I’m the Kim Jong Il of social stationers.”
I’m pretty sure I don’t need to call him ever again because I don’t think he’s ever going to top that line.
Last night’s catch-up with my best friend ranged from ADT to the human condition to Occupy Wall Street. During the human condition part, this exchange happened:
Me: “I don’t know, I just don’t think I’m ready to try dating on the Internet.”
Him: “Oh my god. No.”
And that sums up that human condition perfectly.
My best friend was out of town last week on a buying trip for his store, so we caught up last night on our Sunday phone call. He told me about some holiday stuff he had ordered (including Christmas ornaments that look like dinosaurs) and I asked him his opinion of a Christmas tree.
Me: “I have lots of space and basement storage and I kind of want to get a Christmas tree this year. But I don’t really believe in Christmas any more, so does that make me a hypocrite?”
Him: “No, it makes you a homeowner. Get a tree! It’s Santa Claus and the ho ho ho and a dinosaur for Toby!”
And that is my new favorite sentiment about the holidays.