'Moon River' and me

Maybe it was the hues that streak across the sky before sunset.

Maybe it was the music and the memories and the magic of "Moon River."

Maybe it was the beer.

Whatever the case, Henry Mancini's hit popped up on my iPod the other night while I sat on the back porch.

I listened awhile, stared off into the twilight, and darn near teared up.

I thought, too, about Holly Golightly, and awesome Audrey Hepburn, and Truman Capote's triumph. I looked for a copy of the tome tonight at Books-A-Million (oh, excuse me, the store's been given the Orwellian acronym BAM), but it wasn't there. The story is better than the movie and the movie is sublime.

But it sneaked up on me, hit me in the gut when I wasn't looking, caught me unawares. Hasn't happened in awhile.

Who knows why we react the way we do to music or memories or smells or sunsets? I have learned the song remembers when.

But I have no answers for "Moon River" and me.

Maybe I, too, want to eat breakfast at Tiffany's and chase away those mean reds. Oh, dream maker, you heart-breaker...

Maybe it was the beer.

The mean reds

It's been a day for the mean reds.

Oh, not quite. Had an eye appointment this morning ($250 for an exam and a year's worth of contact lenses), went to the grocery store (steaks and refreshments for dinner) and chilled at the pad the rest of the day. But, I've not been with it today. Just can't seem to give a damn.

Read James Dickey through the first two chapters. Damn, what a book. Somehow worked up a headache, though, so herding words was out for the rest of the afternoon.

Tried to watch TV. Couldn't settle on anything. Skipped back and forth between "Weeds" and "West Wing" and "Perry Mason" and a Jack Lemmon movie.

I like Jack Lemmon. Kinda miss the old guy. This was a 1975 flick based on a Neil Simon play. It's set in Manhattan. Lemmon's going through a crisis; he's lost his job. Didn't hang with it long, but it made me want to hop a train and spend a few days in the City that Never Sleeps.

I want to walk down to the little newsstand in the Milford Plaza lobby, grab the Times, the Daily News and the Post, and some coffee, and while away the morning in bed with the papers. I did just that once, on a rainy Wednesday in February, before taking the subway down to Ground Zero to look around. It was five months after 9/11. They were still unearthing remains.

I give up on Jack Lemmon, but the Manhattan feeling won't go away. So I take something for the headache and watch Audrey Hepburn bedazzle George Peppard while talking about her mean reds. She enjoys breakfast at Tiffany's, you know. What a stunner.

I throw a load of towels in the laundry, but try not to think about what I'm doing. Being domestic, adrift in the suburbs, is depressing as hell.

I don't have anything to take for my mean reds. It's OK, though. The movie will do, at least until the credits roll.