— छह हज़ार तैंतालीस —
Last night marked my return to Action Movie Night—I hadn't been in four weeks, because two weeks ago I was spending my second of two nights in the ICU. So I had a few people either ask how I was doing, or asking exactly what happened, or simply say they were glad to see I was doing better.
I learned that Andrew is a cyclist, and has been hit by cars seven or eight times. He's never gone to the hospital, but noted that he probably should have on a couple of the occasions. He made reference to "when, not if, this happens again." This is fascinating because so many cyclists go through the world convinced no one is paying attention to them and riding through the city is wildly dangerous. It seems worth noting that I have been commuting regularly by bike for half the year since first getting that bike in 2008, so that's
eighteen years—it's not the first time I've crashed, but this was the first actual injury I have sustained. My theory is that my default as a cyclist is to stay out of the way of cars as much as I can, and rely heavily on protected bike lanes. I can't speak for Andrew specifically here, but I do think a lot of cyclists are very aggressive and act like they have as much right to the road as any car, which makes things more dangerous for them. And maybe they
do have just as much right to the road, but that doesn't change who is going to win in any chicken match between a car and a bicycle. I mean, come on.
I am very conscientious about things as nuanced as parked cars I ride past. Jennifer G, my onetime boss who retired from PCC over a decade ago, told me her son got injured once by someone in a parked car opening a door into him. That scenario has always scared me, so I try never to ride too close to even parked cars. What I need to do now is be as aware of parking garage entrances as I am of parked cars—always slow down when passing them, be on the lookout for oncoming cars, that kind of thing. This was what caused the accident two weeks ago. I think the state of my brakes may have also been a factor; I slammed on them too hard, and since my back brake is far more worn down than the front, that likely contributed to my losing control of the bike. I do plan to take the bike into the bike shop in the next couple of weeks just to get it looked over and make sure nothing is dangerously out of whack. I don't want to be taking any chances once I can finally ride again.
— छह हज़ार तैंतालीस —
— छह हज़ार तैंतालीस —
Anyway, back to Action Movie Night. Shobhit made pasta, which is what we usually make. It was quite good. The one pizza brought had meat in it, so really the only other things we had to eat were pretty junky: fries from Dick's; Pringles potato chips; Safeway chocolate chip cookies. I also made myself my first legit cocktail since the accident, which was a Zevia Cherry Cola with rum—one shot of regular rum and one shot of coconut rum. It had been long enough since I'd had a cocktail that I was feeling it with the first few sips, but that dissipated quickly.
It was Daniel's turn to choose the movie, and because the setup in the theater is still fucked up, it's currently required to bring a movie on DVD, which Tony plays on his personal DVD player with separate audio and video outputs. He has to run one cord to the wall and one cord to the projector; it's a janky setup but it works. Daniel did comply by bringing a DVD, but at first it seemed it wouldn't work because it was asking for a regional code. There was a few minutes there where there was discussion of choosing a backup from a flash drive Ryan has provided with a ton of relatively recent movies on it.
Some people were not very kind about it, trying to say that Daniel would have to consider this his turn even though it was looking like we'd have to watch something besides what he actually brought: "You fucked up! You're supposed to bring a backup!" It was kind of unnecessarily bitchy, a kind of tone that is clearly pretending to be playful but has some clear truth to it.
Tony had actually gone upstairs to his condo in the East Building to look for an alternative, but Daniel figured out that he was able to make the movie play by choosing DVD rather than Blu-Ray, or something like that. In any case, the movie played. Daniel had revealed that the movie was from the sixties, but called it a "foreign film." The movie was the 1965 Clint Eastwood film
For a Few Dollars More. Daniel clearly thought he was being "clever" calling this a "foreign film" due to it being a Spaghetti Western—meaning it was technically a European production. Well, it had American stars and is a story of the American West, so really, come on.
I know my dad used to like these movies. I remember his VHS recordings of this and
A Fistful of Dollars and
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Back in the late eighties and early nineties, these were thought of as "old movies" even then but were still recent enough to hold some cinematic nostalgia. I can't say it stands up as well on those grounds anymore. The movie was fine, but it was not all that exciting. I was struck by how Shobhit was not the only person audibly yawning (something he does a lot during these movies and I find rude and annoying). The group is usually pretty open minded about movie choices, and it's fine to choose things from genres that are not strictly "action movies." But, Daniel kept calling this an "action movie" and I was just left thinking he was incorrectly conflating
action with
Western. Just because there are fistfights and gunfights does not automatically make it an action movie. But, I suppose, by 1965 standards it might still reasonably be considered one.
The movie is 2 hours and 12 minutes long, and by the time we even started it was well past 7:30, so it went later than usual last night. I was headed for bed very shortly after we went upstairs. I beelined for the bathroom when the movie ended and thus did not help load the dishwasher like I usually do, which I was happy to avoid this week due to the pain in my back, which was fine through most of the movie but was coming back as soon as I stood up again. Shobhit's starting to say that maybe I should start taking fewer Extra Strength Tylenols, but I'm going to keep taking them as long as I continue to have pain. For some reason I feel slightly more sore today, which may or may not have to do with how I slept, I'm not sure.
— छह हज़ार तैंतालीस —
[posted 12:36pm]
