Accursed Traitorous Pillow Top

By chance, I finished the T. C. Boyle’s novel Talk Talk a few days ago and then went to see Babel this weekend, both of which explore communication and the lack thereof; both have a main character who is a deaf woman.

I thought Babel was excellent, though the presence of Brad Pitt was slightly distracting. It’s a tragic tale of bad decisions and cause and effect that takes place in America, Mexico, Morocco and Japan. If you happen to be an English-speaking American citizen, you will feel extremely and guiltily privileged after you watch this.

After Babel, I had the worst burrito I’ve ever had, at a place on the natural path between the AMC 1000 theater on Van Ness and the Lumiere, and then met Tom to see The Departed, which was also very good, albeit quite violent; I believe The New Yorker said it was “merrily violent.” I particularly enjoyed Mark Wahlberg’s character.

Once upon a time, in a fight in real life, he caused someone to lose an eye, so I am not necessarily a fan of him as a person, though I’m sure he’s long since reformed. I once saw him in a movie where he played a stalker and he was so terrifying I had to stop watching halfway through and never did see the end.

Very uncharacteristically, Tom missed a key plot point in The Departed and thus wasn’t sure whether to cheer or to be outraged when the final murder occurred. I would probably have had the same problem if I hadn’t read a review of the movie the morning of the day I saw it.

I’m still having back and/or hip pain and have returned to blaming my mattress. Acupuncture is not helping, probably mostly because lying flat on my back makes it feel worse. My mattress is about two years old and has a pillow top. Apparently, pillow tops are prone to becoming squishy, as mine certainly has. I think what’s happening is that my hips are sinking into the mattress, causing my spine to be unaligned and the surrounding muscles to bunch up.

To test my theory, I borrowed Tom’s sleeping pad and sleeping bag, and slept on them on my floor a couple of nights ago. It was one of the more uncomfortable nights of my life, but my back did not hurt when I aborted the experiment early in the morning, though other sectors were screaming.

I got into bed and, as usual, felt my back seizing up within minutes, and it hurt pretty much as usual when I arose a couple of hours later.

Next I tried something my father told me his dentist of a certain era did daily to keep her back in good shape, which is to lie on the floor for twenty minutes with her knees up and feet near her hips, with her head on a one-inch book, except when I did it, I used a buckwheat-hull pillow in a pleasing gold color.

This gives one’s back the chance to unbunch, and after I did it, voila!—I was absolutely pain-free all day, but then, I had spent only two hours on my crummy mattress. When I did the same thing after spending the whole night on my mattress, it was not quite equal to the task.

Verdict: I must keep up with my stretches and back exercises (which of course I skipped before sleeping on the floor, as I fully expected sleeping on the floor to be a miracle cure), and I must buy a new mattress.

Today’s letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle that probably won’t be published is below. It’s a perfectly fine letter, as they all are, but they publish only one out of ten or so. This is in regard to Mayor Newsom’s recently revealed affair with the wife of his campaign manager, who has resigned.

My coworker correctly predicted that he would soon disclose that he was seeking treatment for something or other. He is seeking treatment for alcohol problems.

The letter:

“I don't know what model of recovery Ruby Rippey-Tourk is following, but the Ninth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous prescribes making amends to those one has harmed 'except when to do so would injure them or others.'

“The result of her confession has been the public humiliation of her husband and the loss of his job, as well as the public humiliation of Mayor Newsom and the possible derailment of his political career.

“I support Ms. Rippey-Tourk in having done what she felt was necessary, but can't help but think the gentlepersonly move might have been to carry her secret to the grave.”

As a point of trivia, I used to work for a magazine called ON Union Street, later known as ON San Francisco. One of my duties was to edit the columns sent in by our contributors, most of whom were business owners. We were business-friendly in the extreme. Gavin Newsom, in his capacity as owner of PlumpJack Wines, was one of our writers; however, I can’t remember the first thing about interacting with him, though it must have happened several times.