seeking the Holy Grail

There’s a British indie film that I dig, Greenwich Mean Time, and I’ve been trying to track down a copy of its bone-shatteringly good soundtrack for around three years. It must be that only, like, five copies of this soundtrack were ever produced, because it is impossible to find, which means that it has become the Holy Grail in my eyes. Occasionally a copy surfaces on eBay, but there is always a fierce bidding war over it, and since I’m not willing to spend, say, $100 on a single CD, I always lose the war. I keep my eye peeled for copies on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, etc, and thus far I’ve been unsuccessful. If I could just download the individual tracks from the internet, I’d be happy doing so, but unfortunately, most of them aren’t available, probably because they are unique to the movie or just really obscure. If you have a copy and wouldn’t mind burning it for me, I would owe you for life!

This morning when I got to work I found a voicemail message waiting for me from the Department of Homeland Security. I almost had a stroke before I realized that it was someone in their PR department trying to get me to cover some issue or another in one of the newsletters published by my office. For a second I honestly thought they were calling me to say, “Pack your sunscreen—you’ve just won an all-expenses-paid trip to Guantanemo Bay.” Why? I don’t know; it’s not like I’ve done anything specifically wrong. But I’m a liberal Independent who does’t like organized religion, has marched on Washington, works for an animal protection organization, loves the books 1984 and A Handmaid’s Tale, and has a page-a-day anti-Bush calendar in her cubicle. And last year some of my library books (which, as we all know, can be monitored by the government, courtesy of the Patriot Act) included books on 9/11, the history of plague, and the history of the Gulag. So, if the Department of Homeland Security ever calls me at work and tells me that I’m Cuba-bound, after I finish freaking out, I won’t exactly be surprised. I’d like to think they have better things to do than throw me into the slammer for being liberal and having a fond taste for dreary books, but who knows.

Yesterday I got back from three days in Georgia. My birthday dinner was held at the dazzling Athens establishment The Grit, where I fressed on samosas, hummus, and vegetarian chili cheese dogs. Score! Did you know that curry samosa sauce tastes really damn good when mixed with hummus? Neither did I, but I do now. Afterwards I shoved a big piece of yummy chocolate and vanilla birthday cake into my groaning stomach and watched a slew o’ Tori Amos videos, courtesy of the DVD collection that Annida gave me as part of my birthday present.





song heard most recently before posting: Pancake —Tori Amos