Last week I went to Brooklyn for dinner. We ate at a surprisingly good sushi restaurant. The waitstaff was somewhat pushy in the way a mother can be, but their recommendations were good, and we were fully stuffed by the time we left.

I grabbed my friend's jacket from the coat rack and helped her into it. When I reached for mine, it was missing. There were only two tables left at the restaurant and I asked whether anyone had taken the wrong coat by mistake. It turned out that one of them was a former coworker of mine.

Of the coats left on the rack, there was one similar to mine. I guessed someone had left with the wrong one. I told the waitress about my dilemma. She took down the name and number of my friend who lived nearby. She asked me the label. I told her I didn't know but described the color and material. She said she'd let us know.

My friend asked me if I wanted to borrow a coat. It was cold outside but not unbearable. I went home in my sweater and scarf.

Two days later I called the restaurant. They told me my friend had already picked up the coat. No one seemed to know what adventure my coat had had.
Posted by eugene at 11:59 AM | Comments (3)

Sunday night I went to see Babel. The theater was surprisingly busy. Lines formed outside many of the theaters, ours included. By the time the commercials and previews were over, the room looked almost sold out.

The film was tense. Characters through their own fault or through no fault of their own found themselves in situations that became more and more desperate with each scene. Brad Pitt spent much of the running time with the furrowed brow of worry permanently tattooed to his forehead.

After one particularly wrenching scene, a woman called out in the theater. "Help! Is there a doctor in the house?" Everyone stirred, but no one was certain what was going on. The events in the room eeriely echoed the proceedings on-screen. It was difficult to separate the truth from the fiction. The woman called out again. People leapt into action. I ran outside to alert the theater staff. People were already on their cell phones.

By the time I returned to the theater, the man seemed ok. A nurse had come over to help and soon others were walking him out of the theater. I asked what had happened but no one seemed to know. The man seemingly had revived of his own accord.

The film continued to play, the events in the room heightening everyone's awareness of the drama on-screen. The crowd murmured amongst themselves then fell silent as we watched to see what would become of the actors and their parts, and I wondered what would become of the actual drama that had played out before us. Posted by eugene at 6:37 PM | Comments (4)

I know it's been a while since I've posted. In Ethiopia, the internet was slow, expensive, and unreliable. I thought about back blogging, typing up posts and assigning them the correct date when I published the entry. Instead, I decided to incorporate them into a site along with the photographs I took there. It can be found here: Four weeks in Ethiopia. I'll resume regular intermittent blogging soon. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Posted by eugene at 4:19 PM