the jury's still out

Last week, I biked over to the LBJ Library to meet up with S for a movie I had seen listed in the Chronicle called The Gift. It's about "bug-chasers," or people who actively seek out HIV. I don't know if it's a doc or a narrative, but that doesn't matter right now.

There was a lot of construction going on around the library, so it took me longer than I thought it would to find my way to S, and he was in a disappointed state of mind already because he had planned to wait for me on the deck overlooking the beautiful fountain below, but couldn't because of the construction.

When I arrived in the lobby, he was on the courtesy phone and I thought to myself, "I'm not that late, am I?" He was calling UT's information line, trying to find out where the movie was showing. Everyone was puzzled. The problem was the room number I had: 3-14.1

That's a crazy room number, isn't it? We tried our luck at the communications building, or whatever that building is called that's actually in front of the LBJ Library (I always thought it was the LBJ Library). We took the elevator to the third floor, but there was a printed out sign on the bulletin board just off the elevator: THIRD FLOOR CLOSED

So we went to the ground floor; I went into a student planning office or some such place and asked the woman at the desk and the other woman standing next to it about the room number, and then about a possible movie showing in that building or anywhere on campus. But I didn't know exactly what program the movie was part of, so I said, "HIV Awareness Week, or something like that," instead of, "I don't know."

A third woman in an office with glass walls put her hand over her phone receiver and started making suggestions. She had somebody pull out the building directory. We went through it sort of together and found rooms like 311.1, but the dash apparently is important. There was no Room 3-14.1 in that building either.

Long story short: we missed the movie. I came home and put it at the top of the Netflix queue, not because either of us is dying to see it (no pun intended), but just to get it out of the way, you know?

I looked for the listing in my Gmail All Mail box, searched Trash, but the only reference to the movie that I could find was the email I sent to S with the date, time, and room number, 3-14.1. (I had forgotten I saw the listing in a newspaper and not on some movie listserv I'm on, such as from the Austin Film Society, to which I am a dues-paying member.)

Okay, long story not-so-short, but I'm getting there. I dug the old Chronicle out of the recycling crate and found the listing for the movie at the LBJ something-or-other Center on the UT campus in San Marcos, Texas, which is 31.7 miles from Austin!

Anyway, The Gift arrived today and we're gonna watch it.

(That picture is so beautiful; the HIV virus would make a beautifully tragic holiday ornament.)