Ok, I have just moved from one room to another and closed three doors (there are, by the way, nine doorways in my apartment, not including closets — I keep counting them in the hope that one day, like Coraline, I will find one that leads nowhere) so that I could get away from the sound of the television on which Ross is watching The Daily Show. I feel bad, because I’d already asked him to turn down the volume (which was not even loud to begin with), but I felt like I was going mad trying to write with the low hum of TV voices murmuring next door. I am a little scared by the amount of quiet my brain appears to need in order to function at even the most rudimentary of levels these days. I am not sure when it happened, but I have concluded that at some point over the past couple of months someone must have replaced my mind with a few fistfuls of cotton wool.

But cotton wool or no, there are things of which you must be told!

Item the first: Yesterevening, after Jo and I wept and giggled through a full packet of tissues together, I determined that we had to do something awfully cool in order to rescue the day. We started by going to Bartley’s, where I ate Bill Clinton and Jo ate the New England Patriots.

(Yes, we were very full afterwards.)

We proceeded to meet Ross at the Brattle, where we saw a film that immediately entered my list of top ten movies of all time. Jo and I had both read Donkey Skin, a French fairytale by Charles Perrault, in our Fairytale class at Simmons lo these many years ago. Little did we know that not only is Donkey Skin a bizarre story of forbidden love, fantastic fashion, and animals that poop jewels, but it is also a ridiculously sublime musical extravaganza complete with kooky costumes, horses that are dyed blue and red to match the blue and red kingdoms the story is set in, and a cast of characters who spend most of the movie in a state of absurd, earnest idiocy. My favourite part (I think this might be everyone’s favourite part) is when the ghostly souls of the two young lovers detach from their bodies, meet in the forest, float about on a boat, and sing a song of joy. The song is about how extreme their happiness will be when they are together, and how they will find ways to express it. Choice lyrics include:

“We will go together to the snack bar/
We will smoke a pipe in secret/
And then we will eat all the cake!”

In French, these lyrics somehow manage to rhyme, which makes them even better.

Item the second: Jo and I went to a community choir practice tonight! I haven’t sung in a choir since I was 13 years old and in a crazy children’s opera called “Help! Help! The Globolinks!” (which is another story for another day), so this was a little bit scary. However, on the whole I think it was a good move on our parts, for the following reasons:

1) We now know the Alto section of a peppy little ditty by Bach called “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leeeeeeeeben.” And really, how many people can honestly say that?

2) We weren’t the only people there under the age of 50! Yay!

3) The pianist was named “Flossie,” and she looked like one. This made me more happy than I can really explain.

4) Although we had to wear nametags, no one made us stand up and introduce ourselves — phew! On the other hand, it is important for me to remind myself that saying hello to new people does not have to include a detailed exposition of my neuroses. Jo and I were comparing notes afterwards over Dunkin’ and Donuts and were forced to admit that she is not, in fact, obliged to answer the innocent question, “So, what do you do?” by turning beet red, shuffling her feet and mumbling “Um. Well, I don’t actually have a career…”. And I am not, in fact, obliged to burst into tears and confess “I just quit my job, because I’m a quitting quitter! Thanks for asking!”

You will be glad to know that while we do go through rather a lot of tissues, we also try to laugh at ourselves as much as we can. I think we are getting better at it, too.

I will leave you with some images from Peau d’Ane:

“I must run away from my father who wants to marry me! But will my dress fit in the boat?”

“Damn, I’m fine.”

“Children do not marry their parents!”

“Help! I seem to be being eaten by a donkey! Yet I must continue to bound lightly through the air!”