Travels with Grumpus

Testing a new application.

This is gonna be awesome.

“Yes, I am qualified to beat people up. But I am pretty intelligent,” says Mr. Tero.

Not that we ever claimed the two were mutually exclusive.

Grumpus: There’s war in the Middle East, a tsunami in Indonesia, and THIS makes the news? What a bunch of fuckers. See, this is why I can never be a politician. For me, profanity is part of everyday speech.

Maya: Kind of like punctuation.

Grumpus: Fuck, yeah.

Five years and 8 months ago, give or take a few days, was when Grumpus and I had our first real conversation over many beers, a few cigarettes and some bar chow at a nice little establishment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He says the booze gave him the nerve to get my phone numbers and email address, and I guess it was the same thing that kept me yapping on through the rest of the night and early morning, even as the group made its way through the snowy streets to a 24-hour diner a few blocks away. A few days later we had our first “date”, and a couple of months later we were officially a couple.

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Continuing our movie marathon weekend, Grumpus and I saw Superman Returns today. Grumpus was looking forward to it with almost as much intensity as for Batman Begins. And we know that Batman is Grumpus’ favorite character of all time (some might even say that Grumpus is Batman). I tried to avoid the hoopla because I wanted to come in with a clean mind and no expectations. I wanted to like the movie.

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Our loyal readers know by now that Grumpus and I take our television seriously. Thanks to big sis Trickie, we discovered the brilliant Foyle’s War, a detective series set in the WWII English countryside. I love my laconic, cerebral British detectives as much as the next girl, and I have to say that DCS Christoper Foyle has taken over the space in my heart previously occupied by Commander Adam Dalgliesh.

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Maya: Hey my friends have been reading this blog and they think you’re really goofy and funny. They don’t understand why I call you Grumpus.

Mickey: Well sweetie, that’s because they don’t have to live with me.

Apart from reminding me to get out of bed and shower, Grumpus also keeps me in touch with the outside world by sending me links to all the news that’s fit to know.

This week for instance I found out that Bolivia is even more screwed than our beloved country. Their new government is trying to incorporate Aymara Indian mysticism into its policymaking. In concept, the Aymara say they can “be without being” or be present physically and someplace else spiritually, and believe they can re-create a mythical pre-conquista Eden without poverty or oppression. This all sounds well and good, but when you really think about it, that “be without being” trick is practiced daily by good folk of all cultures; in English we call it “spacing out”. And while it’s a neat trick, it’s not quite the way to Eden.

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“One of the most wonderful things about Istanbul,” said our guide Suleyman, “is that you simply cross a bridge, and you’re in a new continent. Historically Turkey has always considered itself the easternmost part of Europe and the westernmost part of Asia.” We were driving across the Bosphorus bridge, from Europe to the Asia, and I only half-registered this pithy introduction to the city. Grumpus and I had decided to go the indulgent route and booked ourselves a package tour that included a guide, a car and driver, and a nice hotel; and at that moment, punch drunk from 10 days in New York and coming off the excitement of Mona’s wedding, I was extremely pleased with that decision.

The first thing that really registered, after the rush hour traffic, was how pretty the city was.

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Mickey: So I hear that Zach Braff is now making a play for Jessica Simpson.

Maya: Ewwwwwww. Jeez, you know who Zach Braff is? He’s the Eric Forman of real life.

Mickey: Huh?

Maya: Yeah, first Mandy Moore. Now Jessica Simpson. He dates out of his league.

Mickey: You’re right! He even got to make out with Natalie Portman in his, quote, directorial debut. I mean would you date that guy if he didn’t have a hit TV series?

Maya: Uh, no.