Hall Pass


So I looked through the window
And out on the road
They're bringing me presents
And waving Hello

--Neil Young

I got me a Hall Pass.

"What's a Hall Pass?" you ask?

You, my friend, do not have children. Or if you do, they are grown.

A Hall Pass -- sometimes called a Kitchen Pass -- A term that must somehow have its roots the Military. A Hall Pass is like "Shore Leave."

A Hall Pass is when you say to your spouse/co-parent, "Hey! Listen, it's my birthday and really, you know I don't want anything. Birthday...Who cares, right? But what I do want is a Hall Pass." And than you decide on a time at which Hall Pass commences. And when your Hall Pass kicks in, you're Free.

Free as in free to spend the afternoon, evening, day, whatever in any manner you choose, and you choose to spend it that way you spent so many afternoons/evenings when you were single, childless, at loose ends, between boyfriends. The way you contentedly spent so many hours, and now spend almost none. Alone. Hanging.

A Hall Pass is when you take yourself and a book into a friendly neighborhood bar or pub. Not a hot spot or a crowded restaurant. No no no. It's early afternoon. It's uncrowded, except for that group of men in the corner animatedly arguing about...something. Empty except for the two women sharing a sandwich with a shopping bag on the table between them. A Hall Pass means you are at your leisure to park it at the completely empty bar, order a beer and open your book, tilt back in your barstool and read, looking up only to sip occasionally, and take in your surroundings in tiny, half-conscious draughts. Read, read, read. Sip, sip. Read. Read. Readreadread.

Order another beer, yes, thanks, that would be great. Can you make sure this one is headless, please. Yes. No head. Thanks.

A Hall Pass is when the cell phone does not ring because you have made a deal with Spouse that unless someone has been stepped on by an elephant, there will be no calls. No calls asking "Did you buy soy sauce and if so where are you hiding it?" No calls asking to pick up fabric softener or light bulbs on the way home. Because when you are on a Hall Pass, you are permitted to take your mental phone off the hook. To unclip your harness and yell down into the canyon, "I'm off belaaaaaay!!!"

It's when your brain is free to roll along with the pleasant buzz from 2 oh maybe 3 beers enjoyed in quite solitude, with a book that is best savored over long uninterrupted spells. And there is peace in letting your brain have its free reign, to think more than an inch deep on whatever rolls into your head.

For example, when you are on a Hall Pass you have world enough and time to ponder -- for more than just a second or two -- that really, if for some reason there were no men in the world (except on TV playing football), there would most likely be no women who enjoyed or professed to enjoy football. Sure, many women say they enjoy football, and maybe they really truly do. But without men around to originally foster this affection, I doubt many women would come to football of their own volition.

How many times (you can ponder this...take your time, you have a Hall Pass, brother) have you heard a woman say, "No way, man. I'll have to take a raincheck on that. I'm stayin home to watch The Game."? or "Did you catch That Game yesterday!! My God what a game!"?

It just doesn't happen. No judgment on this particular little point. It's just the kind of thing you can mull over in your head when you have a Hall Pass.

See, because when you have a Hall Pass, you can linger over your book, your beers, your thoughts, your observations. You can notice, looking up from your book, that the cocktail waitress and the bartender are barely tolerating the manager on duty. They roll their eyes. They snark when she walks away. When you have a Hall Pass you can become semi-invisible. You can pick up the resentful vibe. And who can blame them, these impotent underlings? The manager is an overly officious woman who is probably new here, and quite possibly new to management. She moves nervously and tightly. She talks at eleven...just a bit too loud and stridently. She is probably capable, but is not quite confident yet, either of her underlings or her own authority, and so she overcompensates by repeating herself and manically folding napkins and she hands out directions. When you have a Hall Pass you have time to see this stuff.

Or not.

When you have a Hall Pass you could end up calling your sister, K, and asking her, "Hey, can you get a Hall Pass and meet me for a beer?" even though she drinks chardonnay and hates beer. You could ask her to bring a newspaper so you can decide on a movie. And when she shows up, you suddenly remember, after hours of blessed and precious silence, how easy it is to laugh and laugh and laugh and talk on top of each other. So you do. And the bartender remarks on your resemblance to one another, and dips into his cache of Irish Jokes when he hears your first names.

And since this is a Birthday Hall Pass, and not just a garden variety Hall Pass, you get to trump her ace when you disagree on what movie to see, because, see, K does not like indie, quirky, or funky. But as I've mentioned...Birthday Hall Pass. It's like four-of-a-kind. You take the hand.

And since it's a Birthday Hall Pass, there is a dinosaur tea party waiting for you when you come home, courtesy of your kids. And a coconut cake so saturated with coconut cream that it's sitting in a puddle of itself. And best o best of all, there is a huge bowl of pasta carbonara and two forks to enjoy after Spouse has paraded the children to bed and turned the house into a quiet place.

Movie Review(s)

The Science of Sleep

I rarely see movies in the theater anymore. I am so glad I was able to see this. It is written and directed by the co-writer of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which recommended it to me immediately. I loved ESOTSM. How can you not? The Science of Sleep is messier and more undone and disheveled, yet more colorful and has a more low-budget look to it. Which I found endearing, and complementary to its odd, messy, confounding protagonist. From the very beginning it is hard to tell what is Stephane's real life and what is his dream life. Some of it is cartoonishly obvious, but other segments are unclear. The movie is spoken in Spanish, French and English, and somewhere along the line, you really forget that the movie is multi-language, so seamlessly do the conversations flow.

Stephane has problems with his dream life and his real life. He gets confused...and so do we. But in a good way. Stephane probably has something "wrong" with him. He's either immensely immature, or has an attention problem. Most of the time, he is embarrassingly honest and sincere, but he is also vulgar and discomfitingly forthcoming. He makes friends with his neighbor, the whimsical and independent Stephanie. At times their miscommunications and confusions are so hilarious, I had my hands over my eyes or mouth, and I was completely twisted up in knots in the theater seat in sheer empathetic embarrassment. Perplexing. Disconcerting. I'll see it again and I will almost certainly buy it. It's a cross between Amelie and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.


The Illusionist

This is killer. Sepia-toned, beautiful photography. Absorbing mystery/drama plot. And a really swoon-worthy romance. A grand cast from top to bottom. Love this movie.