April Fools bring May flowers, but I didn’t have the strength to pull any pranks today. The best I could hope for was not to provide crucial information to those in need of it, which is unlike me since I’m usually such a Chatty Cathy.

My friend Viki bought me a copy of The Talented Mr. Ripley this week, which I was beginning to think was the victim of some sort of outlandish conspiracy. Not only is it not at iTunes (my preferred method of watching movies lately), I hadn’t been able to find it in regular video stores, either, and I really wanted to see it again. I watched it in bed last night on my laptop, and it was as good as I remembered. I once dated a “Mr. Ripley,” although somewhat less of an endearing one in person than Matt Damon would make it seem. On this viewing, I was struck by Cate Blanchett’s performance as Meredith and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Marge. Both play their characters stunningly, from Meredith’s fluttery insipidness to Marge’s more confident exterior that masks her own needs. And of course, the tragic circumstances of Tom killing the things he loves the most in order to preserve his fantasies about himself. I wonder how often people do this—not literally—in real life.