Day 1034: Pleasant/Unpleasant

In honor of Halloween today, it might be pleasant to imagine this post being read by Donald Pleasance (the psychiatrist in Halloween, a movie I have not seen because I know it’s unpleasant).

If you are presently pleasantly or unpleasantly unaware of Donald Pleasance, here‘s “the last aperrience” (do you find misspellings unpleasant?) of Donald Pleasance in a Halloween film:

Yesterday, while I was pleasantly walking in unseasonably pleasant New England weather, I heard some music with many pleasant memories.

I find music like “The Pleasant Pheasant” — with Billy Cobham on drums, Michael Brecker on saxophone, Randy Brecker on trumpet, George Duke on keyboards, John Abercrombie on guitar,  Will Lee on bass,  and Garnett Brown on trombone — exceedingly pleasant. My pleasant boyfriend, MIchael, thinks jazz fusion is quite unpleasant. He finds the Ramones, Joy Division, and the Clash (who have a particularly unpleasant name) very pleasant, instead.

Michael and I met five years ago on a pleasant Halloween in pleasant Harvard Square. Here are some pleasant words we exchanged — through the pleasant online dating site OkCupid — right before that extraordinarily pleasant day:

Me: Sure, meeting at Peet’s is a fine suggestion. You know it’s going to be Halloween when we meet up, right? Do you think we should be in costume? My suggestion is that we both wear masks that are made from printouts from a picture we’ve posted here. That way, we’ll be sure to recognize each other. Otherwise, I might not recognize you unless you have the same exact expression you have in your black and white picture here. In the other picture you posted, you’re too far away, so I don’t think that will provide me much help in spotting you. Although maybe it will when you’re far away. I hope you have a wonderful evening, night, morning, and whatever parts of the day you experience before we write again.

Michael: I’ll keep this relatively short today Ann, so we have a lot to babble about tomorrow. Excellent suggestion concerning the cut out masks incidentally. I cracked up. Ah, I don’t really know what you mean by “black and white” picture though, Ann. I really am that pasty. So is my apartment. I’m afraid I let my hair get kind of long but you’ll know me sure enough. I will be the man with, by far, the scrawniest legs in the cafe.

Me: Speaking of cracking up, I did the same when I read your black and white picture comment. You really are pretty hilarious.  SInce you have given me some helpful hyperboles and superlatives regarding how to identify you (e.g., “the scrawniest”), I’m trying to be thoughtful that way and come up with something similar which will, without fear of contradiction, identify me as being the most of something in the vicinity. But I’m having some trouble with this. I just don’t think I’m that much of a stand-out, either way. The best I can come up with now is that I will be the person with the most curious expression on his or her face standing outside of Peet’s. By “curious” I don’t mean “odd” (as in “curiouser and curiouser” in Alice in Wonderland), but rather “curious” as in “eager to find out.”

It’s pleasant for me to remember that day, five years ago, when Michael and I met, although I went to another pleasant coffee house first, by mistake, and had to rush to get to Peet’s on time, which I found very unpleasant.  When Michael and I share pleasant memories about our first pleasant meeting, he tells me that I had a rather unpleasant expression my face when he first saw me. That’s because I find it unpleasant to be late (especially for something I expect to be surpassingly pleasant).

Here are some pictures I took yesterday. It would be most pleasant if you let me know which ones you find particularly pleasant or unpleasant.

Those last two pictures I took during a pleasant stroll with Michael on Pleasant Street. Honest.

Pleasant thanks to Michael, Donald Pleasance, Billy Cobham, the Brecker brothers, George Duke, Will Lee, John Abercrombie, Garnett Brown, and pleasant people who helped me write this post, Especially pleasant thanks to you — of course! — for being here, in the pleasant present.