Daily Dialogue — November 24, 2011
“Hello. Relax, it’s seltzer. Hello. I’m Shiva the destroyer and your harbinger of doom for this evening. I would like to thank you all for coming and welcome you. Even though I haven’t seen most of you since my latest stretch in the big house. But you all look fabulous. So during the 20 minutes or so that I was not in the hole for making a shiv out of my toothbrush, I actually did participate in the infamous 12-step program. Twelve steps. Step-ball-change. Step-ball-change. Still waiting for the change part. So… But, you know, as they say, the relapse is an almost inevitable part of recovery. So I get high marks in that mode. Anywho. I… Well, as more of you know than are likely to admit, one of the steps, actual steps, is about making amends. So, I did a lot of apologizing to people. Some of whom barely remembered me, most of whom barely remembered anything. And I apologized for, you know, like, bouncing a check, or passing out in their bathtub or flooding their house and, you know, just basically for involving them in sordid activities that they were desperately trying to forget. I had to call this one girl who was, I think, fourteen, but she couldn’t come to the phone actually because her mom had taken out a restraining order, but… But anyway… So I spent a lot of time… The point is, I spent a lot of time apologizing to people who were pretty much perfect strangers. So, I would very much like to take this opportunity to not only congratulate my extraordinary sister, the future explorer in matters of the mind, thank you very much, and her adorable, impending husband on the occasion of their unprecedented nuptials, but also, to apologize to said
extraordinary sister, future explorer in matters of the mind, for what? I don’t know. Everything. And I really mean
that, Rach. You’ve… I’ve been a nightmare, you’ve been and I’m really just so damn glad to be here with you and Sidney’s family and our family and just… Everyone’s together and I’m just… It’s really great. So I am hereby raising my seltzer
to my laudatory sister and herewith making amends. Sidney, you are robbing our dysfunctional family of one of its most
vital ingredients, and its only member still willing to lend me money. So, boo on you. That’s not true. Anyway, enjoy Hawaii.”
— Kym (Anne Hathaway), Rachel Getting Married (2008), written by Jenny Lumet
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is toasts.
Trivia: Jenny Lumet spent about 7 weeks writing the script. It was her first to be made into a film, even though it was the writer’s 5th screenplay.
Dialogue On Dialogue: This is part of the scene is like watching a slow train wreck, excruciatingly painful to watch. You can’t help but feel badly for everyone involved including Kym who is desperately trying to say something, but clueless how to say it. In effect, this is a set-up for her later AA monologue.