Extravagance

It's difficult, I suppose, to measure the productivity of one's evening. Sometimes, even when I do nothing, I feel like I can go to bed saying, like Jesus at the end of Last Temptation: "It is accomplished." (Did Jesus really say this in the Bible? Do I just have amnesia? Can anyone give me a chapter and a verse?)

Tonight I did laundry, took time out to encourage my friend Jaime, helped Matthew work through some shit and had a long, fluid, easy conversation with my old friend John Testro that actually felt like a conversation between two friends. I ironed my shirts for what seemed like three hours, and I also watched Jim Jarmusch's excellent Dead Man with Johnny Depp and a million other people including John Hurt, Gabriel Byrne, Iggy Pop and (!) Robert Mitchum.

I did not, however, finish the book I'm reading, nor did I buy my parents a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary present. Will I? Probably not. So on those levels the evening feels like a bit of a loss, perhaps because so much of it was spent on the phone, or because I had to complete the utterly banal task of doing my own laundry.

A list that began forming in my head yesterday. It is in no way complete. These are just a few of the things I've thought of.

My Favorite Extravagances:
Getting a massage.
A venti hazelnut latté.
Seeing a movie at the Arclight Hollywood.
Five extra minutes in the shower.
Dry cleaning.
Going to the opera.
Smoking marijuana.
One of those bioré strips.
Brie.
Having someone else drive.

That's enough for now.