the hand behind this pen relives a failure every day

Along with strawberries and rhubarb, sticky nights have arrived. Not each night, not yet, and I'm savoring that - another couple of weeks and it'll hit, but for now, there's still a few where it's simply gentle.

Continuing with my Steven Spielberg kick, I've now seen all his kids-focused CGI stuff and say with some confidence it's only going to get better from here. The Tintin movie felt uncannily like I was watching a movie-length video game, down to the inventory puzzles and room searches. After this, it's people. Well, people and a horse.

Last summer, it was two showings each of Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick at the MOMI; this year, it was in IMAX on one of the biggest screens in the country. Last summer I took the subway under a river; this year, I rode a bike about thirty blocks. Last summer it was Top Gun on 70mm and Maverick in Dolby in the same theater; this year it was the same theater again, with Top Gun on an elegant film-to-digital transfer and Top Gun Maverick where I finally saw it with the full aspect ratio shift.

Both years I took the same local friend with me to at least one of the showings, and had even more of a blast because of her company.

Both years I recognized a few familiar faces up at the front of the line, and they recognized me too, all of us pleased that sometimes it isn't that big a city or that wide a world.

Both years I started and ended with Maverick, which was necessitated last year by the MOMI's programming and allowed this year by my deliberately choosing that order.

What's quite nice about the theater is that it's such a huge screen, there's exits up at the very top of the theater, the rows all the way in the back. What this means in practical terms is that not only does it increase safety and help reduce a bottleneck at the bottom of the stairs, there's extra bathrooms up there, plus a space where I can easily avoid the more annoying previews. Having to get back to my seat in the pre-screening "turn off your phone" bumper is a small price to pay for that. Trust me, after four screenings I can tell you which ones were worth my time.

I'm thinking I could probably squeeze in a couple more showings of one or both of them, and I'm also thinking that in terms of real-world practicalities - scheduling, costs, errands, chores - as well as in terms of keeping the mirroring motif consistent, I should say that doing it twice each is enough, and to be content with having been able to get as many showings in as I've already managed. It's a local theater, and it's also a time commitment. So, I'll take what I've got as best I can.

Rather amusingly, the original Top Gun score got classified by my music player as "new age." Though perhaps, given things like box office records, theatrical runs, National Film Registry selections, knock-off effects like sunglasses sales and military recruitment, it isn't wrong. A new age, indeed.

I managed to successfully "I have food at home" myself tonight, and I don't expect a medal or a commendation. Mostly, I wanted to mark it down so I'd have it on personal record. The better to remind myself to stay in the habit going forward. Same with doing the dishes before I head out.

Somehow, this doesn't stick for going to bed early. It's going to take a more substantial effort than knowing there's tasty leftover chicken in the fridge.

It's fairly amusing to get scam calls to hang up on me - I'll ask for a website or an email, and they cut their losses then and there.

"Do you have a website?"

"No."

"Why?"

It was one of the brighter points of the day. There was a decided lack of stimulation, and it's making the evening drag on somewhat. I'm hoping a light weights routine will help some, once I decide what movie to do it to.

Not quite fully ripe, a little firm, and they're still the first strawberries of the season. I haven't kept track of their arrival year to year, but I'm sure someone has, so rather than try to track that, I'm going to take a moment to enjoy them without much further thought. That can come after I've eaten them.

I didn't even think about getting enough to turn them into a cake for my older brother J.'s requested birthday cake. I just grabbed two boxes to eat straight. One went to the Friday night family dinner and one's just for me, with the tops infusing into tap water for aggressively pleasant hydration later this week.

Sometimes I think of myself as largely ignorant of computers, unable to identify a problem I've been having lately with enough precision to fully troubleshoot it or even find out what's going wrong sometimes. And then there's days like today where I meet someone who doesn't know what an operating system is. Key to this: she's at least a decade older than I am and does a lot of work on her own computer. I had to explain what an operating system is so I could explain a joke I made about Linux, and then I had to explain Linux.

It's for the best that I didn't go for the obvious Kinsey scale joke when she told her trainer she was straight. "At least a Kinsey two," is what I'd have said if I'd thought she'd have gotten it.

In other news, I only used a little of the bottle of prosecco I bought for the springtime asparagus-ramp risotto, and the pressure of the remaining bubbles had the stopper knock off in the fridge. I suppose the best solution is simply to drink it.