i should have watched it as soon as i was born, not in my 25th year. what was i thinking? (hailey would agree…she’s been urging me to watch it since our day one.)
i loved everything about it. the house party with everyone was dressed to the nines dancing away on a zebra rug and a haze of smoke over their heads, old saxophone’s making noise on the record player. george peppard casually flicking aside his cigarette and bounding quietly up his new york city steps in a dark tie holding a brown paper bag full of groceries, a baguette peeking out. the constant reel of “moon river”. the retro cars. the ankle watch. the hot dog stand. sing sing. everything.
but what i fell in love with the most is they way they fell in love.
it wasn’t particularly romantic and i don’t think there were any flowers or pick-up lines involved.
they go to a burlesque show together and drink champaigne before breakfast together. he engraves a crackerjack box prize ring for her and they race into the streets laughing after stealing animal masks from the five and dime.
after some bad news, she instructs him: “don’t take me home until i’m drunk. until i’m very drunk indeed.”
they stand in the corner at her house party drinking as she comments about a woman in a tall, fluffy hat who’s “a thumping bore.”
he types away at his stories on his typewriter upstairs and she strums at her guitar in the window just down the fire escape.
she pours drinks for them at four in the morning while he lies in bed shirtless smoking a cigarette and talking about writing.
they goofed around and found regular joy and bantered back and forth like old friends.
i want to fall in love like that.
no flowers or picnics or perfume for christmas.
i want to steal animal masks and climb up the fire escape and drink whiskey at four am and laugh in the corner about the thumping bore.
and the best part? even though she drop-kicked his heart a couple times with her dumb gold-digger tendencies, at the last chance he gave himself to ever be with her, he was still the man who gave it to her straight.
“You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”
and he won her.
you need a man who will tell you when you’re being ridiculous.
way to set the bar, george peppard.
...like a rolling stone. 