Fair Trade Certified

Tom Petty Box Set Update: #2

2009-06-15T05:43:00.002-04:00

Status: Round 2, Disc 4, Song 8

Well, I made it around once and am charging through my second round. It took me 24 days to make it through the first one (a pace that will have me listening to this thing for the next two years, btw), and I'm hoping I shorten up that time for this second round.

It's sort of nice to have a goal with the music I listen to. Marathon training is cool, but it's a lot. Six days a week of working out (four of those running), new sneakers, new blisters, early mornings, lots of pounding the same exact sidewalks every morning. Watching out for shin splints, wondering how on earth I'm going to make it 26 miles when 6 still feels like I'm pushing it. Through all that, it's nice to have the same voice there, to have a subgoal that clearly can be reached if I give it enough time.

Tom Petty Box Set Update

2009-05-26T04:53:00.001-04:00

Well, as Memorial Day Weekend ends, I am well on my way to listening to the entire Tom Petty Box Set 30 times.

And by "well on my way" I mean "I got a cold last week and didn't run much, so I've barely cracked the damn thing".

I am officially on Round 1, Disc 3, Song 2.

My initial thoughts:
1. Tom Petty sings at least half a dozen songs that I had no idea were him.
2. If you're on the last 5 minutes of a run and it's really freakin' hot out and you don't think you're gonna make it, "Free Fallin' " is definitely the song you want to come on.
3. Tom Petty gets surprisingly disco at times.
4. As far as running music goes, this could definitely be worse.

Clearing out the excess....

2009-05-25T12:44:00.002-04:00

Well, as one of my random summer projects, I'm going through a book called "Apartment Therapy"...an 8 week program designed for those of us living in small spaces to improve your home and make it a happier, healthier, less cluttered place.

I'm on week number 2, and as part of this, I was challenged to completely clean out my kitchen this week. I started on Friday, and finished most of it on Saturday. All said, it took me about 5 hours as I moved around, throwing out spoiled food, old condiments, dusting, mopping, rearranging, and making a stack of things I didn't really need or use. It was a pretty damn liberating experience actually, and walking in to my kitchen now feels like running in to an old friend who's lost about 30 lbs. It looks good in there.

I was pretty proud of the VCVAH and I on some counts....we really don't keep that much extra food around, everything we have we use. We do let things get pushed to the back of the fridge a little too easily, only to rediscover them when they're a month past the "use by" date...but other than that we were good. The one place that we (I) really fell down though was utensils. Our utensils drawer was unopenable most days because of all the stuff jammed in to it. I decided this was silly and that with strengthened resolve, I was going to pare down. I braced myself for the chore of deciding what to get rid of. As I started sorting through things, I was quickly embarrassed. I had thought this was going to be difficult.....until I realized I owned FIVE pizza cutters. Let me repeat: I (who can't eat regular pizza) owned FIVE (I have never purchased one) pizza cutters (3 of which didn't look like they could cut jello). How did this happen? How had I allowed myself to wrestle with this drawer day after day, without ever realizing how much of the stuff in it was just plain junk? I had 3 garlic presses in there for heaven's sake! Only one of them actually worked!!! I have $400 worth of German steel in a nice knife block on my counter top, and I was keeping 5 dull knives (one of which I managed to snap in half with my bare hands) in this already croweded drawer. I had little plastic coffee scoops that I was saving by the dozens...who does that?

In the end my two drawers of terror wound up being consolidated to one. My coffee mug collection is a quarter of what it once was. There is now room to breath in my kitchen, and I am loving it. At first I thought the "Therapy" part of "Apartment Therapy" was a bit dramatic, but I gotta say, when you live in an 800 square foot condo, and you get rid of that much stuff in a weekend, something in your soul definitely relaxes. When you realize that you're not post-college any more, that you have enough stuff, that you don't need to keep every cracked dish "just in case", you feel yourself growing up a bit more. And it is good.

When the going gets tough.....

2009-05-13T06:55:00.002-04:00

Well kids, I'm back from Maui.

There were loads of minor tragedies, but luckily they were weighted towards the beginning of the trip, and I happen to find it very hard to get angry at the beginning of a vacation. For those of you not on facebook, the incidents included: Tim losing his wedding ring in the ocean, me scratching my eye and it nearly swelling shut for two days, sunburns, heat rash, and sea sickness (all me).

In all of this however, a distinctive and unrelated issue emerged: I dislike my job. I really REALLY dislike my job. The interpersonal dynamics are pushing me towards a major anxiety induced breakdown, and it's very depressing for me. The work itself isn't terrible mind you, but the constant tight rope I walk between the personalities is exhausting. As my trip closed out, I got more and more upset at the thought of going back. Then I got upset because I really wasn't such a fan of my last job either. Maybe the problem was me. I grew morose.

Anyway, it was then that my own words came back to me, in a highly underrated post I did almost 3 years ago. When the going gets tough, the tough get weird. I realized I was looking at this all wrong. I was looking at this as something to be endured rather than the blogging opportunity it was. I realized that I need to take myself from stressed out to inappropriate hilarity. I needed a shift in position, a parallax if you will. It was then that I decided what I would do. I would take on a series of interesting or bizarre challenges over the course of the summer, for no other reason than to have something other than work to focus on.

I liked the idea immediately, and I've perked up quite a bit. I began to plot strategy. Memorial Day to Labor Day sounded like a good time frame.....a 100 days of summer type thing. Now for the challenges....what to do? So far, here's what I've got:

1. I have a book of "50 best hikes/walks around Boston". I actually have two, one more naturey, the other more urban....I'm going to pick one book, then do all of them.

2. Listen to the Tom Petty box set 30 times in a row. While running.

This one works because I should allegedly start marathon training soon. I'm going to force myself to only listen to the six CDs in this box set until I hit 30 repeats. The set is 5:13 hours long, in case you were curious. I started yesterday, for honesty's sake.

3. Watch the entire first season of "The Real World" in one sitting. Obviously, this will be done on a weekend.

4. Order a set of 100 random postcards. Send out all of them to various people I know.

5. Watch one John Waters movie every night for a week.

I'm somewhat considering tracking this on another blog I have set up, just for organization, but I'll cross link. Any suggestions for projects welcome. Or, of course, new jobs.

Mawwiage is what bwings us together....

2009-04-28T07:21:00.002-04:00

Given that I'm headed back to school soon, I've gotten the brilliant idea that the VCVAH and I should start reading some of the more popular marriage/family help books out there, so I can start to have ideas of what the current thoughts are (and get a little preventative maintenance in to boot). Most of these seem to be available on the cheap through amazon.com's used books (thank God for divorced people selling off their books, eh?).

So, dear blog audience, read any good marriage or family help books lately? Or even books on interpersonal dynamics (i.e. working with different personality types or the 5 love languages type stuff?)

No need to have read them yourself....

Truly awful suggestions also encouraged.

Life update

2009-04-16T04:00:00.002-04:00

It's occurring to me that most people get updated on my life via word of mouth or facebook status updates (Pmac, you would love facebook. Sign up please.)

Anyway, for those who have neither, there have actually been some changes lately, so I thought I'd give a good ole update for you folk.

The VCVAH and I are doing well....and it's pathetic that seven months in to our marriage that actually means something (and I mean that in the "I know people who got married the same month as us who are already in counseling" sense). But anyway, we're fine, we're happy, we no longer have a roommate, we miss the money, but love the space.

When we got married, we promised ourselves we'd go on a big honeymoon type trip in the first year, and since we both still have our jobs and prices for travel are tanking, we jumped on some deals and are headed to Hawaii two weeks from today. Maui to be specific. There we'll be doing the typical nauseating honeymooner thing, while also visiting my college friend Kara (who comments here as Live Free or Die Tryin'). It's all very exciting.

Other than that, I've been accepted to a grad program in marriage and family therapy and am most likely headed back to school in August. After getting my 10th employee review in a row that said I'm a good worker but I talk too much and a little too involved in coworkers personal lives, I decided a career change was in order. I have a vague idea that I'd like to stay at Dana Farber with that....they have a big psychosocial department.....and work with families who are facing cancer, but it's a three year program, so that could change. I will not be quitting my job to do this, btw...at least for the first two years. We'll see once I hit my internship.

The smaller stuff is good as well. I'm working on a rather far reaching writing project that is stimulating, frustrating, emotional and necessary all at the same time. I'm running a 10k in a week and a half. I got a fun book called Apartment Therapy, an 8 week guide to making your apartment a real home. Thus far, highly recommended for anyone living in a small space. It's motivating me to throw out mounds of junk (junk= anything I packed when I moved from Medford 2 years ago and haven't unpacked/missed/realized I still had since then).

Those are the highlights, thanks for indulging me!

When good presents go great....

2009-04-12T10:36:00.004-04:00

Well here at Fair Trade Certified we have just finished what I like to call the week o' birthdays. The first week of April is a busy week for me birthday-wise, as my mother, my sister and my husband all have birthdays in the same 5 day period.

I was a little unsure of what to get for the VCVAH this year, as last year's trip to Camden Yards (or rather, as I recently learned, Oriole Park AT Camden Yards) was going to be hard to beat. After a few sessions of brain racking though, I hit on a plan.

As many of you know, I'm a pretty neurotic budget maker. When we got married, the VCVAH was a little worried about living up to my high standards, but he fell in line like a champ and has been great thus far. I wanted to do something to reward him for all of this....something where he felt like he could go a little crazy on something he wouldn't normally buy. CDs and DVDs are where most of his spare money goes, so those were out. I sat down and thought hard about what his other loves were, and it wasn't long before I came up with it: hot sauce and beer.

Now, while my digestive tract actually flinches just upon hearing that, this is the sort of thing he loves. So I tracked down a specialty food shop that sold both, worked a little overtime and set aside a good chunk of cash to let him go a little nutty with.

Yesterday was the big day, so we went to the store (Gypsy Kitchen in Quincy,MA). They had a couple of rows of hot sauce, and it was all going well. Then we got talking to the owner, told her what we were doing, and things got awesome. Turns out she started the whole place because of her love of hot sauce. She started popping bottles open, letting Tim try them, and when he didn't flinch she brought out the really big guns. She made him put a couple back ("I don't like to say bad things about the stuff I sell, but let's just say if I were on a desert island that is NOT the one I'd want with me") and pulled out some she thought were superior. It was great. She even put us on her email list and told us that if we needed any suggestions for any of them to call her. It was a pretty great time all in all (to note, the only one Tim fought her on was Joe Perry's hot sauce. He said he didn't care if it was good, he was buying it).

Anyway, because I've been in to picture blogs lately, I thought I'd show you his haul:Yup, that's Joe Perry's hot sauce in the front there. That big thing in the back is actually 5 lbs of BBQ sauce that she says is some of the best stuff she's ever had. At $25 for the container, it better be. Now in case you're wondering what that random white thing in the middle is, let me zoom in for you....If you think it looks like a nose, you're right. The sauce is actually called "Pick This"....and if you squeeze that nose, boogers come out. I'm not kidding. Sometimes Tim buys things just to annoy his mother. I have a bad feeling this sauce is coming to Easter Brunch with us. I tried to get a picture of the boogers, but they apparently are reflective and got lost in the flash. Lets just say the texture is a bit disturbing. Oddly, this was not even close to the grossest packaging they had there. In case you ever wondered what market niche hot sauce is aimed at, I'll give you a hint: men.

Anyway, the beer proved to be much less interesting (as apparently they don't let you sample beer at 11:15 on Saturday mornings), but the hot sauce was great. The BBQ sauce will be made in to burgers tonight, as I still have some ground beef left over from the sacrificial cow my parents slaughtered for Easter and the bottle says it goes well with sacrificial cow (lamb or goat works well too, dove for the poorer folk). All in all, a birthday success, and we are actually taking bets on when he will run out of hot sauce now. Guesses welcome, but in fairness, keep in mind that he had 5 bottles to start (including a jumbo bottle of Frank's) and I accidentally left one out of the picture.

Political Poll....

2009-04-11T08:27:00.002-04:00

....because I know that especially you New Hampshirites must be missing the pollsters....

poll by twiigs.com

The sexism of equality

2009-03-07T13:22:00.003-05:00

I was having a debate rather recently with my workplaces resident "Evil Republican". He had pointedly mentioned how much he hates feminists, and was clearly awaiting my response. I tend to proceed rather slowly in these sorts of conversations, as Rush Limbaugh has supplied conservatives in this country with enough derogatory terms for women like me to last a lifetime. Nothing like the threat of being labeled a "feminazi" to make you chose your words carefully.

I started by feeling things out a little bit, trying to get to the crux of why he hated feminists so much. Even a man angry at his level can't help but let his true feelings slip out if you let him talk long enough.

Finally, he got to it: men and women weren't the same. He resented people saying they were.

I then gave him a response that I had never really thought much about, but I liked, and have been thinking about since.

First, I agreed. Men and women aren't the same, and it is silly to say they are. I mean, start with the basics: Ovaries. Testes. Is this sounding familiar? Even mentally, the idea that women gravitate towards certain things while men gravitate towards others clearly has some basis. Deciding that one woman can't do something because other women don't tend to is sexism, and the more evidence there is otherwise, the more sexist it is. However, the rest is just commenting on broad societal trends. I was always sad that part got squelched during the debate about Larry Summers comments (that and the fact that economist are not scientists, making his comments more innocuous....I would have been far more offended by someone who actually worked in any of the fields he commented on making the same comments. Summers had to have been speaking broadly, he wouldn't know much else.)

Secondly, I mentioned that equating the sexes had allowed the most sexist and dangerous trend of the 20th century continue unabated for decades: medical research on male subjects. Most people know the symptoms of a heart attack: shooting pain in the left arm and chest, shortness of breath, etc. What most people don't know is that those symptoms are male symptoms. Women have much trickier presentations....more than one older woman came in to the ER when I was there complaining of "acid reflux" that almost killed her. Decades worth of doctors, nurses, paramedics, and EMTs were educated to look for the wrong symptoms. No one knows how many women died because their "stomach trouble" wasn't treated seriously. What I do know is that doctors are still scrambling to educate the public about this new knowledge. So what happened? Well, quite simply, doctors assumed men and women would be equal. That it didn't matter which gender you experimented on. Luckily that's broadening, but the fact that no feminist organization brought this up earlier is telling. There weren't women there to catch the mistake, and there weren't any women advocating about obscure medical testing on heart disease. Many women in the feminist movement seem scared of science, scared of what it might say, scared that maybe we're all not so equal after all.

Last, I wrapped up with what I always say: if you ignore a girls ability for math because she's a girl, that's bad. If you don't make a girl learn basic math because "girls don't need it" that's also bad. Any time we don't permit ourselves to believe in outliers, we limit society. Straight men can be hairdressers and kindergarten teachers and women can be CEOs or Secretary of State. We always need to make sure that the largest number of people are getting to follow their passions, and whether that is being a homemaker or running the free world, I think we should encourage people to do it, regardless of gender. But don't tell me that I have to prove my allegiance to my gender by voting for someone, or that someone who has five kids and shoots guns can't be a woman too. That's not what feminism means to me. To me, feminism is and has always been about my right to be different, the same, or somewhere in between at my own discretion. In the end, feminism is my Dad sharing his love of statistics and big words with me because he saw my aptitude. It's my Mom introducing me to books that had strong independent girls as protaganists and telling me that I was like them, giving me heroes. Every little girl and little boy should have that from the get go.

I think in the end he took it well. He told me I sounded pretty reasonable, which tends to mean I defied his stereotype. It's strange to me though that so much of what I said repeated a simple human message: I am different from you, and that's okay with me. It's strange that he actually started to defend women when I told him about how my mother in law almost died because no one recognized her heart attack as a heart attack 15 years ago.

There's still a lot of sexism out there, for sure, but that's for another day. Right now I'm going for a run, and after that, I'm going to paint my toenails. Sure, my SAT math scores were near perfect, but I'm still a girl....and I'm not going to let anyone take that away from me.

ADD

2009-03-02T21:16:00.002-05:00

As I was reading the Assistant Village Idiot's post on boys education today, another topic crossed my mind that is rather related and has been coming up rather frequently in my workplace: ADD.

This topic comes up so often because one of our supervisors happens to have a rather stunning array of ADD like symptoms. He talks quickly and constantly in half sentences. He never stays in one place for more than 30 seconds. He is constantly dropping what he's doing to go do something else. He sings, fidgets, and otherwise squirms, is easily distracted, and forgets things constantly. You don't have to know him very long before you feel comfortable asking "Sooooo....they have at least tried Ritalin on you, right?"

The weird part is, he's the best worker we have.

I've spent a lot of time pondering this, and how it relates to educational opportunities for boys in general. He was actually diagnosed with ADD, but he and his parents declined treatment. To look at him now at 29, I'd say his parents made a good decision. Sure, it's clear that anyone giving him the ADD diagnosis in elementary school (or now for that matter) would have been justified, even right....I'm just not sure it affects his functionality.

The key here of course, is that my job is a good one for someone with ADD tendencies. We don't sit at a desk all day. We do work on multiple things at once. The longest you have to focus on any one thing is probably half an hour. You use your hands a lot. In such a field, this guy not only survives, he thrives and gets promoted.

Anyway, I was thinking about how all this relates to those boys who are now in elementary school. From the choices my coworker has made, it's clear that in lieu of medication, his parents taught him how to find environments that could work for him, not against him. I have no thoughts that he feel in to this job accidentally. He was looking for this sort of thing. So he has all the symptoms, but they just don't add up. He's happy, he said he would have hated by on medication, and he worked harder to excel because of it. As for working with him, sometimes his tendencies are annoying, but they are never dangerous. He does his job well.

I wonder how closely anyone in a school system would have looked at him though. Fidgety boy= ADD....would they even have looked at his grades? His ability to do work? He eventually scored in the 98th percentile on his MCATs....what was the deficit they were correcting? His capacity to be annoying?

Thought patterns and random analysis

2009-02-28T09:53:00.003-05:00

Thinking about thinking is one of my new favorite pastimes.

Our roommate recently moved out, and I was trying to set up some furniture in our now vacate office/guest bedroom. The only problem was the nuts and bolts.

Nearly a year ago when I had last used this furniture, I had put away a bag of the nuts and bolts that had been, um, vital to their operation. Now I had to find this bag. As I was not too stressed out, I got really interested in seeing how my brain would process through this mystery.

First thought: All right, a bag I had a year ago. Did I bring the bag over to Tim's a year ago, or did I leave it at his parents?

Answer: I left it at his parents until September when I moved in. Then I definitely had it here. I have seen it in this room. So it's in the condo.

Second thought: Have I seen it recently?

Answer: No.

Third thought: So it's somewhere in the condo that I don't often look. Where don't I often look?

Fourth thought: My mother always used to say "If you want to find it, start cleaning."

I found it about 5 minutes later. The whole system seemed to work pretty well. Start cleaning, continue to think of places, check them, continue cleaning. I always wondered about this cleaning system of my mother's. I used to think it was a ploy to get me to clean, now I think there's some definite advantage. Cleaning connects me to the house as a whole, makes me remember spots where I have put things in the past. The sensory advantages seem pretty acute, muscle memory is also a possibility. Somehow the act of cleaning highlights the routine motions I go through that I would otherwise forget. The wayward nuts and bolts were found in the broom closet, which was a pretty obvious place to have put them. I had forgotten we had one though, until I had to get a paper towel out of there.

I'm not sure where this fascination regarding cognition has come from lately, but I've been finding myself asking more and more people how they came to their conclusions. I think I've been hanging out with too many neuroscience folks, but who can really ever tell.

From the redundancy hall of fame....

2009-02-24T08:04:00.001-05:00

An email from my work today......

"We experienced Internet connectivity issues today from 11:10pm to 12:10am. The problem was with our internet connection. The issue has been resolved and we will continue to monitor the situation."

So what you're saying is....the files are in the computer!!!!

The most important part of the inauguration....

2009-02-17T06:27:00.003-05:00

I've neglected this blog terribly, but I've resolved that this morning I will put up a post that's been on my mind for a while.

I watched the inauguration when it was on, and while several weeks have now gone by, I am still ruminating on one of the most interesting phrases that was spoken. It was during the Rick Warren prayer, as he thanked God for yet another peaceful transference of power. That phrase struck me as it never had before....

Peaceful transference of power.

As I watched Obama and Bush share the platform, it struck as beautiful and profound that not one person watching was wondering if the transfer of power would take place. For all the tension of the election, everyone knew how this would end. Noon came and went, and Obama took office with his predecessor looking on.

This is one of the most beautiful unifying moments in American politics, the moment when those two men walk out together. When George looks on and smiles as another takes his place. I'm no George Bush fan, but I was sad that people chose to boo at that moment. It doesn't matter who agrees with who now, he's just going to hand it all over.

I think this beautiful moment struck me so much this year because I had a pretty lousy winter. Three of my older relatives died in as many months, including my grandmother. I had just spoken at my first funeral 3 days earlier, and I had requested the day off because of it. I was really pretty sad as I flipped on the TV, and I wasn't even sure I was going to watch the inauguration. It didn't strike me until Warren's prayer exactly how luxurious that was. Why could I have afforded not to watch this event? Because I knew how it would end. Because we always know how it will end. Because we are just that lucky.

This is truly a beautiful country.

More Webangelical

2009-01-31T07:09:00.001-05:00

Phylis Schlafly's last name is hard to spell. Oh, and she said my generation doesn't care about abortion because of public school. Tell that to me and my brother.

I'll get something for this blog up soon....

2009-01-28T06:01:00.001-05:00

....but in the meantime, my brother posted 3 things this week, so I have to keep up. My thoughts on marriage and submission.

Cross linking....

2009-01-26T05:10:00.003-05:00

One of my brother's coworkers is trying to start a Christian HuffPo. My brother's recruited me, and in case anyone missed my facebook posting (for those of you, like David, who still aren't on there), you should check out my first submission, and the website in general. Warning: it's a Christian web site, get over it people. Also, it's labeling itself "post-evangelical" so it's mostly religious left/emergent church. A lot of it's still worth reading anyway (or better yet Ben, writing for).

On ridiculous polls, and how they tell me nothing....

2009-01-10T06:32:00.002-05:00

I read a poll this week that was quite possibly one of the more ridiculous I've ever come across. CNN was the culprit, and you can read it here.

For those feeling lazy, here's the gist: people like past presidents more now than when they were in office....specifically Carter and George HW Bush.

Now when I first read through the article, I wasn't immediately struck by how useless this information was. I thought it was mildly interesting that Carter went from a 34% approval rating in the last December of his presidency and now 64% of people think he did a good job.

Then it struck me how old I was.

The poll states it asked about 1,000 adults their approval ratings of Carter and the elder Bush. At 27, I just happen to be, rather firmly, an adult. And yet my mother probably didn't yet know she was pregnant with me when Carter left office, and Reagan was quite settled in to the Oval Office by the time I was born. Nowhere in the article does it state this was corrected for. What makes it even worse is doing the math out one more step....if a 27 year old wasn't born when Carter left office, then essentially no one under 30 was speaking in full sentences at that point. Those born in 1970 or later where probably wholly unaware of anything political at the time, which brings us to no one under 40 can give a real opinion that says anything. In fact, if we give people a lot of credit and say they start having a political clue at 15, that puts us back to 1965 as the year of birth for those who could give a real opinion....and they're all turning 44 this year. Now, while they may have cut out those under 30 in this poll, I feel they probably did not cut out anyone under 45, especially not without saying so. So we have a pretty decently large group of people commenting on the presidency of someone they have no clue about. Of course they are going to like him. It's easy to like president's when all you know is that they work on Habitat for Humanity. Even if you know that he gave away the Panama Canal (as my grandmother reminded me frequently, why this political issue still had her riled up after all these years I've never quite grasped) you will never quite get the significance, unless you happened to study not so ancient history or you lived through it. As school teachers tend to hate teaching "history" that happened in their lifetime, and no one will put the Carter administration in "current events", we are pretty much stuck with a hazy view of something that happened right before we were born, and are left to draw our own impressions from what we here in every day conversation.

In summary, I know more about Lincoln than Carter.

To note though, I don't like Carter. My grandmother hates him, and I've never seen her hate anyone. More impressively though, my father-in-law hates him. Good old Fred is the most hardcore patriotic Democrat I have ever met in my life, and he said Jimmy Carter was the only president who made him consider resigning from the state department....well, until George W. Bush. Anyway, when Fred says Jimmy Carter made him vote Republican, I know it was bad. Really bad.

Weird social observations....

2008-12-20T18:02:00.002-05:00

I've been getting a lot of reading done on the train to work lately, and I've started picking up on some interesting trends in people's reactions to my reading material. I was on a liberal kick for a little bit right after the election....I felt that I should at least give Audacity of Hope a look, now that the man was going to be our president and all. Most people know what the cover of that book looks like, but for those who don't, it is simply a picture of Obama against a white background. I figured being in Massachusetts and all, that I would not get much of a reaction for reading this book, especially since it was directly after the election and I clearly wasn't making much of a political statement. I was surprised to find however, that I did actually get a number of dirty, quizzical, or otherwise uncomfortable looks from co-riders on the train.

I pondered for quite some time what this could mean. I thought a lot about the AVI's points about liberal social signaling, and was wondering if maybe the looks were a mark of confusion. A person who reads a book by a candidate right before an election is sending a fairly clear message to a party: I want to know about your candidate. A person reading the book right after, someone showing that interest after the fact, well, that's suspicious. I'm leaning towards that as an explanation, because their simply can not be that many angry Republicans on that train. Massachusetts Republicans tend to be pretty rational "blend in to the woodwork" folks. They don't normally have to go searching for fights.

To note, I got no reactions for reading the book "Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, which was at least 10 times as liberal as "Audacity of Hope". That led me to believe that people really don't hear much about very many books, and that it is the title and cover art that is key in getting reactions on the train.

This then of course meant that I had to grab a nice obviously conservative book with some good cover art to see what happened. David Frum's "Comeback: Conservativism that can win again" fit the bill. There are elephants on the cover. It's red. The title's written in huge Boston Herald special font. I got some weird reactions, and many more quizzical looks. A conservative book by an author that's not Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or Bill O'Reilly seemed to puzzle people. There were a few angry looks from overtly strange looking people, but lets face it, if I can tell your political affiliation with 95% certainty just by looking at you, you probably don't have many thoughtful opinions anyway.

So I considered my political experiment a wash, as it seems people are weirdly uncomfortable with any overt political material. I dabbled briefly in the idea of going with God themed books, but after one day of reading Christopher Hitchens "God is not Great: How religion poisons everything" I gave that up. If you think people get uncomfortable when you read political books on the train, try religious. I literally had to wrap the cover in paper. Yikes.

In the end, train reading feels very much like small talk at a cocktail party given by people you don't know. The more generic the topic, the better. Daily Metro: good. Book with a potentially alienating title: bad. The only exception to the no religion, politics or sex rule actually seems to be the sex. I am continually surprised to see how many women read romance novels on the train, though I am glad to see that apparently Fabio still has steady work.

And so it goes....

2008-12-18T22:22:00.002-05:00

It is a strange and perhaps quite fortunate fact of my life that in 27 years, I"ve never lost a grandparent.

Until today.

My grandmother (my father's mother, for those of you who know the family....Mrs. Clark is still quite well) died this evening, rather unexpectedly.

It strangely worked out rather well, as I had to go fetch my phone to get a coworker/friends number about 30 minutes before I was going to get out of work. Thus I got the message while still there, and I was able to work out taking time off without any awkward phone calls.

There's not much to be done tomorrow, and with a snow storm coming in I'm probably going to be sitting at home by myself for a while....meaning I will get a chance to both celebrate my grandmother's life and mourn her death in a way her sometimes sweet, sometimes stubborn, often baffling heart would have truly appreciated: midday drinking and maybe a soap opera or two, for old times sake.

From princess crowns to tennis lessons, from snakes in the kitchen to mice in the couch, from telling me my pajamas were too prudish to telling me my husband was a catch because he was so cute, I'll miss you Granmere. I'm so glad you made it to my wedding, even if there were no martinis. Your life and love, while not without their flaws, made me a better person.

The Gnomes and Fairy books have been sitting on my bookshelf, but tonight, I'm taking them to bed with me, and I hope that when I fall asleep reading them, somewhere somehow, you will look down on me and smile, just like you always have.

Quite frankly, I'm just worried about what's going to happen on Friday....

2008-12-04T11:11:00.003-05:00

The week started out so well. My only real complaint was I was sore from a 5 mile run I took.

Things went down hill from there:

Monday: I fall several steps down an escalator at a T stop for no apparent reason. One minute I'm standing, the next, I'm on the floor. My guess is the rain and leaky ceiling had something to do with this, but regardless, I emerge with multiple bruises and wounded pride.

Tuesday: I have a day off from work, and decide to do some cooking. I bust out my fancy vegetable slicer, and when something gets stuck and then rapidly and unexpectedly unstuck, I proceed to julienne the side of my hand. I sink to the floor and proceed to play a fun game of "is that blood or beet juice" followed by "is that puss or bone" all while trying to locate a bigger paper towel roll.

Wednesday: Back to work and the day seems okay, except my darn contacts are bothering me. Think nothing of the news that one of my coworkers got sent home with pink eye.

Thursday: Wake up, look in the mirror, and promptly start revisiting this whole "my coworker has pink eye" thing, as both my lids are stuck together, and when finally opened my eyes seemed to have taken on the hue of Tuesday's beet juice.

I'm headed off to the doctor now to find out exactly what's going on with this whole eye issue, relishing the fact that my doctor also sees pediatric patients and this is going to make for one heck of a wait in the waiting room. Mothers tend to control their children around you much more quickly when you're obviously suffering from something their children could contract.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T07:24:00.002-05:00

Well, I have to work today, but I thought I'd give a belated Happy Thanksgiving shout out to everyone, and mention that all of the King children (and 2 Clark cousins) made their racing debut yesterday morning. That's right, we got up at 6 AM, drove up to Sunapee, NH and ran a 5K before getting down to the business of eating and giving thanks and all. It was a good time, and we took pictures, got maple syrup, tshirts, and we all got beat by a Teletubbie. No seriously, there were prizes for best time and best costume. While none of us can quite get best time, next year, I'm thinking we got this best costume thing wrapped up.

In case you were curious about other details, Abby and I ran together and are hoping next year to improve on our 12:15 and 12:18 paces.

Yup, come run with the King girls. Cuz it's slightly faster than walking. What can I say? We have short legs.

The next race is the James Joyce Ramble in April. It's a 10k, and I'm recruiting. Let me know if you wanna sign up.

Electoral reforms....

2008-11-09T11:12:00.002-05:00

I've decided that we've got to change some things for the next election. I have two ideas, and someone needs to get on them.

1. It's been oft repeated of late, but I really think having media folk identify themselves by party affiliation would be excellent. Any journalist wanting the coveted "independent" label would have to submit to some rigorous testing by a bipartisan committee. Since journalists are lazy, my guess is not many would even try.

2. This one's more mine. I think you should get two presidential votes: one for the candidate, one for how you feel about your vote. This way when people say things like "So, you voted for Obama, do you think everything's gonna be perfect now????" You could say "Oh no! I voted for Obama, with reservations." Or when someone says "So you voted for McCain? What, you liked GW Bush that much?" You could say "No! I voted for McCain, specifically". Other options could be "Along pary lines", for those don't like the candidate but can't vote for the opposite party or "Enthusiastically!" for those who still think politicians aren't bound to disappoint. When these votes were tallied, we could get rid of a lot of obnoxious politician speak like "The voters have spoken!" Hard to say that when 60% of your vote was under the "because he's less despicable than the other guy" category (though I'm sure some of them would try).

So there you go America, Fair Trade Certified, reaching for a better tomorrow.

Election night....

2008-11-04T21:48:00.002-05:00

I'm going to bed now because I'm sleepy, and I'm at a zen moment with whoever wins. It does strike me as interesting though....I've never voted for a presidential candidate who won...and that's including my votes in the primaries. Well world, I've voted for both of these men this year, so either my streak is broken or Bob Barr's president.

Goodnight everybody!

What should we be praying for?

2008-10-31T07:16:00.002-04:00

I saw a clip this weekend of a pastor opening up a McCain rally by praying and asking God to "protect his reputation". I thought at first that he was referring to McCain's reputation, but as the prayer wore on it became obvious he was talking about....God's reputation???? Yup, God," protect your reputation, because people with other gods like Hindu, Buddah, and Allah, are praying for Obama to be elected, so protect your reputation and help McCain win".

All in all, it was a strange prayer, the idea of asking an all powerful being who allowed, oh I don't know, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Pinochet come to power to "protect His reputation and elect John McCain" seems a bit strange. A quick look at history seems to show me pretty clearly that any God that exists does not seem to let the affairs of men affect his self esteem.

This whole clip however led my mother and I (then my father and I) to discuss what prayers we should be praying. I see nothing wrong with praying for your candidate to win, as long as you keep things in perspective, much like when I prayed for the Red Sox in 2004. It's my biased opinion and I'm probably often being a smidge narrow in my thoughts. I don't feel that either of these candidates is terrible to the point of a vote being sinful, regardless of your theology. Anyway, we came up with two prayers that we think every praying person who prays should be praying, two things I think we should be at least hoping for our country:

1) That this election gets decided on election day. That there is a decisive winner, and nobody has to drag anyone else to court to try to prove otherwise.
2) That the health and wellbeing of both of this men is protected, from both natural and external causes.

I think those two prayers should be trumping any prayers for a particular candidate (Dr. Dobson be damned). Not because God's repuation will be tarnished if they don't come to pass, but because I think if either of those prayers are not answered, it will continue to deepen the divide between people in this country and cause us as a nation some serious harm.

My thoughts on the Liberal Media Bias.....

2008-10-28T18:58:00.004-04:00

The AVI posted a piece on biased media, or perceptions thereof that got me thinking. I started to response in his comments section, but it got a little lengthy. My thoughts, in brief:

1. Of course there's a liberal media bias.
2. I know because every conservative I know tells me this on a regular basis.
3. Conservatives (especially those with power) are the biggest proponents of this bias.
4. Liberal media bias? It depends what you mean by "liberal", "media", and "bias".
5. Actually a lot of it really just depends on that "media" part.
6. It doesn't matter more and more every day.

Let me expand:
I think there probably is a liberal media bias (henceforth to be referred to as LMB). I think, but I don't know, because frankly I get 95% of my news from CNN.com, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Time Magazine. The first is as bad as a celeb gossip site most days, the second two are blatant and forthright about their bias, and the last always seemed pretty fair to me. So if I were to answer the question is my media part of the LMB, I would have to answer: on average, yes. That's why I tune in. However, if I were to answer for the media....I would have nothing to go on, except for the fact that every conservative I know says the media is biased. Which leads me to believe it's probably true. My guess is the more conservative news sources you are exposed to, the more firmly you believe in a liberal media bias. In fact, I'd guess that someone on a media diet nothing but Fox News and Rush Limbaugh would be one of the people who would most adamantly agree that there is a LMB.

Why do I think this is? Well, one answer could be that the LMB is taking over the world and Limbaugh, Hannity, Rupert Murdoch et al are the only ones strong enough to take it on. There may be a decent amount of truth to that (in fact as much as Rush Limbaugh annoys me I do feel that he jumped in to a what he saw as a vaccuum and, well, good for him). Anyway, as with most oft-repeated contentions, I like to take a look at them from the perspective of "is anyone making money from repeating this contention and getting it established as fact". To which of course, the answer is yes. By carving themselves out as a niche, Fox, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc have all made a lot of money. However, they also get a lot of credibility and a better image from playing up how (apologies to McCain) "maverick" they are. JOURNALISTS GONE ROGUE! THE STUFF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!! This automatically attracts audiences pretty well, as everyone loves a dash of sensationalism. By playing up the thought that conservatives are a fiesty minority, they increase their market value. It's like a kid from Canada going to an American high school and passing himself off as "foreign". There's truth of course, but most of it's grandstanding.

Try to get someone to give you anything more than anecdotal evidence for a LMB is tough of course. Some of the more famous arguements are "they cover this more than that" or "they would never say such and such about so and so"....which to me is always hard to take seriously as it sounds way to much like "you always pay more attention to my brother!!!" and "you would never make my sister do this!" of my youth. Sometimes, like in the case of John Edwards, a scandal gets covered up for so long it's obvious something was going on, but most of the time it's people comparing two different situations and trying to say they're equal. Situations involving two different sets of people in two different time periods are simply really difficult to compare, and no one can explain why Paris Hilton gets the coverage she does, how are we supposed to explain why people who actually like, do stuff get covered the way they do?

At the end of the day, LMB means a lot of different things depending on the context. "Liberal" can mean either covering something too much or not at all, or just not covering something the way you like it. Plenty of people told me when we were headed to Iraq that there was a LMB and that's why so many people were against it....and yet a couple years later Scott McClellan comes out and says, essentially "Don't look at me, you're the one who didn't ask the tough questions." Did that get called a conservative media bias? No....actually I heard it referred to as "the failure of the liberal media. Huh???????

Another anecdote: I once heard a Hillary supporter (during the primaries) mention that he was really mad that "no one was covering Obama's campaign contributions from the energy industry, like oil, coal, etc". Funny, it had been a NY Times cover story two days before. Where exactly did you want it covered? It seems the goal is sometimes not just that they get covered, but the goal is media saturation.

Which brings me to a point about what is media? Which media is it, exactly, when we talk about LMB? NBC? CBS? Time? Newsweek? Celebrities? Blogs? The View? You laugh, but I have had people tell me that the fact that The View has two or three hardcore Obama supporters and only one conservative is proof of a media bias. Is it really? I mean, the liberals are comedians and the conservative was on Survivor. Does that count as media? When a Washington Post reporter posts on his blog that a skewed story about Sarah Palin cutting funding for unwed mothers and a conservative blog charges that "Today the Washington Post published a story about Sarah Palin that wasn't true" and calls for the Post to print a retraction, is that biased? Could you imagine the outrage if a normally liberal columnist got fired from a liberal magazine for endorsing McCain? But then again, maybe their wouldn't have been any. We don't really know.....because let's face it, so few people really count on the super traditional sources of news for their news any more, it's all kind of a moot point.

Which brings me to the end. While the anecdotal nature of LMB claims annoy me, ultimately I still am more than happy to say it exists. However, I must repeat again: I believe, but I have not seen. I, like the vast majority of my age group, don't read a newspaper (except the free Metro), don't watch the nightly news, and can't think of much I do that falls under the "Main Stream Media" label. My subscription to Time is basically the only thing, and even that makes me a rarity it my age bracket. Most of my generation isn't worried about media bias....in fact, they're searching out biased media. Everywhere you go now, when hearing about the business angle of journalism, everyone's talking about how people want more columnists, more opinions, more blogs, more opinions. People like to hear about biases up front and then hear the news through an admitted filter. My generation has been raised on the Drudge Report and the Daily Kos and frankly, I'm not sure that's a habit we're going to break. A LMB is only really dangerous when people think what they're getting is seriously, um, fair and balanced. When people stop looking for that and go after people whose bias they know, well, problem solved. If the media wants to survive, they're not going to have to get rid of their bias, they're going to have to take it up a notch.

When statistics run amok....

2008-10-28T06:39:00.002-04:00

I was sitting in a department wide open enrollment/benefits meeting this week when the HR person dropped this little gem:

"You know, you guys should really consider getting this insurance because, well, your chance of becoming disabled is three times higher than your chance of dying."

So what you're saying is....I'm invincible!!!!!

VP Debate: Nine minutes in

2008-10-02T21:10:00.003-04:00

Gwen has pointed out neither of them has answered a question.

Biden is at fault for that, as he's been going first.

Palin has already cited kids soccer games, used the word 'maverick' twice, and....winked?

Freedom of Speech

2008-09-14T13:19:00.003-04:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about freedom of speech lately. I've heard several people make comments like "We have freedom of speech because everyone's entitled to their opinion...." or other such statements linking the two.

These statements bother me, and I never could quite put my finger on it until I was on a run recently, reflecting on the state of politics in the nation.

I don't think we have freedom of speech because we're all entitled to our opinions. I think we have freedom of speech because everybody's a little bit wrong sometimes.

It's an important difference. If you listen to someone who disagrees with you and think "well that's their opinion", then you go away unchanged, as do they. No one has gotten much out of it.

If however, you listen to someone with the thought "they have the right to express this, because they may hit on something I've missed", then everyone becomes a potential teacher.

I don't know, maybe it's the Calvinist in me, but I take a certain amount of comfort in reminding myself of my own fallibility.

Why I love John Stewart....

2008-09-05T07:03:00.002-04:00

I know I said I was taking a hiatus from political stuff, but I did have a few comments I felt sure of, so I'm rescinding that.

The first is that I think the more I study about Abraham Lincoln, the more current politics is ruined for me. I spent a long time last year listening to the book "Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" on audiobook, and have done some research since. Just reading his speeches, his thought process, oh wow. By the time I got to the end of Team of Rivals, I found myself pulling over my car to cry my eyes out that we had lost such a great man.

I was thinking about him the other day, when Sarah Palin was set to give her speech. I understand the urge in American politics to come out swinging, to defend and attack....and her speech did that. It was quite well done. I was left with a longing though, a wish that she would have looked to Abraham Lincoln for some inspiration. That she would have deeply and humbly reflected on the past, her children, her choices, and then emerged with a victorious resolve to move forward with a new sense of compassion and determination. I think that would have been beautiful, and she would have gotten my vote. Hell, I would have campaigned for her.

I don't think my desire is so far off, as I have heard some stunning examples of this from Christians in my life. Everyone loves to watch a conservative Christian fail, to point the finger and say "You're not so perfect now are you???" Which, of course, is essentially "Where is your God now????" . I have seen ordinary Christians step up and defend this in ways that took my breath away. Admitting that they are human and can err, to admit that things don't always go the way we want, and to then turn and triumphantly say that this does not reflect on God or their beliefs, and in fact has made their resolve stronger....well, very little cynicism or judgment can truly stand up to that.

I heard it said once that the reason the Lion King was one the biggest Disney movie of all time was because it's story of guilt, depression, and triumphing over both was one of the most human stories we have, one that hits all of us to the core. That's what I loved about Abraham Lincoln, his sense of both reflection and resolve, his deep grasp that issues were not simple, but his determination to stay the course. I know it would have been a lot to expect from anyone, but I really did have a tiny shred of hope that's what Sarah Palin would make her speech look like. Her failure to do so I do not believe reflects on her, but in a sense, all of us.

I left her speech feeling that they'd gotten a visceral response, but no more than that. I left thinking less, not more. Does this sort of thing win elections? For sure. But at what cost?

And so it goes...

2008-09-02T04:58:00.002-04:00

Despite my promise of a few more political posts, I feel I should stop. My mouth (or fingers) has outpaced my ability to consistently form opinions I like with rationale I'm proud of. I need to let a few things stew.

One for you and one for you....

2008-09-02T02:38:00.002-04:00

Two thoughts on the Sarah Palin/daughter/pregnancy scandal, one for the right, and one for the left:

First, to Sarah Palin....privacy???? You're asking we respect your privacy???? You want privacy?????? Seriously????? A little over a week ago, you accepted John McCain's offer to be his running mate, and, according to you, did so with the full knowledge that your 17 year old daughter was pregnant. You and only you chose to go from governor of a state no one notices to a national figure, and in the process exposed yourself and your family to millions (if not billions) of people's attention to your life. Ask for compassion. Ask for sensitivity. But please, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't ask me not to be interested. YOU gave away your family's privacy at a sensitive time. Therefore, that is the one plea I will have no sympathy for.

Next, to the left. This should really make us reexamine her character/parenting skills/whatever right family values folk????? What???? Listen lefties, I know it fills you with glee to hear about someone who pushes family values have something like this happen. I know you feel it's proof that your self confident belief that anyone who includes "right" in their political beliefs is a closet hypocrite and will some day be exposed as not-as-enlightened-as-you, but come on. To say that we should assume her character or parenting skills suck because her 17 year old daughter engaged in sex before marriage when her mother said she shouldn't!!! is insulting to everyone whose child has been less than perfect. I went to a small school, and I knew most of my classmates parents. Let me tell you, the bad parents = bad kids correlation, while there, is not one-to-one. Some good parents have bad kids. Some bad parents have good kids. Some have a mix of both. Even implying that this is CLEARLY a reflection on her is insulting and hurtful to a whole lot of people. Can you ask her for an explanation, her feelings, whatever? Sure, grill away. But to rush to judgement on a mother's character because of the actions of her daughter at an age where almost every kid makes quite a few mistakes is just not fair to any of us. Most teenagers make bad decisions, and sometimes the consequences don't fall proportional to the crime. Regardless of the circumstances, I think an automatic "blame the parents" reaction is pretty terrible. If ever the maxim "Judge not lest ye be judged" should be applied, I believe it should be to child rearing.

Thank you for your time.

I think I've found my muse....

2008-08-31T13:30:00.002-04:00

I've been running a lot lately, mostly to cope with a lot of the feelings this political cycle is giving me (posts I hope to get to in the next week: abortion, Sarah Palin, John Edwards, fiscal conservatives). I realized at some point that I am a pretty obsessively list/goal oriented person, and that an occasional jog wasn't going to do it for me for long. I mentioned the concept of training for a race to a coworker, who was in. The obvious big crazy goal was a marathon, but we quickly decided that for either of us that would not be feasible before next October or so. Wanting some gratification sooner than that, he suggested I find a good 10K sometime in the spring.

Good golly, did I succeed.

It's called the James Joyce Ramble. Yup, that James Joyce.

This was like striking gold, since this particular coworker and I originally bonded over our love of "A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man", and it's in fairly nearby Dedham, MA. Then, as I perused the race details, I found that this was even better than I had ever hoped: at every mile marker people dressed in period garb read selections from Joyce's books. How great is that???? Here's the breakdown:

Mile 1: Finnegans Wake
Mile 2: Ulysses
Mile 3: Portrait of an Artist
Mile 4: Exiles
Mile 5: Dubliners
Mile 6: The Dead

I am so there. Who wants to come?

Preliminary findings....

2008-08-30T15:51:00.003-04:00

After a couple of hours of research, I've come to my preliminary conclusions about Sarah Palin: Palin actually is everything Ann Coulter tries to be.

In the mean time....

2008-08-29T18:54:00.001-04:00

While I work on getting some other stuff up, you go check this out:

Four Word Film Review's all time best....

Political Thoughts, take one.....

2008-08-29T18:31:00.002-04:00

So it's been politics as usual in my life of late, meaning it's most of what I'm thinking about. My brother Tim and I spent most of the afternoon yesterday hashing out my idea for an alternative to raising minimum wage, and he hit the quote of the day with this "You know, I'm coming to realize that while I like Democrat priorities, I think I like Republican solutions."

I have a lot to say about a couple political happenings lately (though I'm still in the research phase with Mrs. Palin, the badass as I will now be calling her), and hopefully work will be slow tonight so I can get those up.

For now, I'll regale you all with the short version of my minimum wage alternative plan, which is really quite simple:

Offer a "Living Wage Certified" stamp to all businesses. Wanna pay your employees whatever the heck a "living wage" is in your area and flaunt it? Go ahead and apply. Hell, we do it for organic food already, and abuses would be pretty damn easy to report.

The beauty of this plan comes in it's execution....those of you who have lived/live in the Goffstown area will follow this example the best. In my hometown, there are two grocery stores right next to each other: Shaws and Shop and Save. Now, lets say one of them decides to up the prices a bit and become living wage certified. Let's say it's Shop n' Save. Now, first, Shop n' Save will lose some business. Their prices will have to become a bit higher, and people will not like that. I doubt the prices will have to go up by too much, but still, an increase. They will also however, gain some customers who like the idea. However, the other thing that would happen immediately is that Shaw's employees who were not making as much would start applying to Shop n' Save, along with anyone else in town who wanted a better paying job. So, Shop n' Save winds up with their pick of employees, while Shaw's faces some turnover, and winds up with those not good enough to get hired by Shop n' Save. Now, the good hardworking people of Goffstown start to realize that Shop n' Save service is better, and that starts to balance out the couple of cents extra they might pay. So people go over to Shop n' Save for the better service and the trend goes on.

I think it could work on some level, it would address concerns for families not making enough, and quite hopefully, stop the reckless and ultimately damaging raising of the national minimum wage....which serves to screw people who still don't make enough in urban areas, and totally screw businesses in rural areas.

The end.

Stay tuned....

I have seen the future....

2008-08-06T20:51:00.004-04:00

Years from now, a stodgy anthropologist is going to be appearing on a little watched cable station, and he will be asked a question along the lines of "In your opinion, when did American politics hit an all time low?". His answer will be "The day that Paris Hilton came across better in a campaign ad than John McCain". They will then run these clips as his evidence.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

And they will all shake their heads sadly in agreement.

Weird Wedding Etiquette of the Day....

2008-07-30T11:45:00.002-04:00

"When addressing invitations, remember that putting "and" between a couples name implies marriage. An unmarried couple living at the same address should merely have their names written on two separate lines, without an "and" joining them."

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone I may have offended by my reckless and unwarranted use of the word "and". I did not mean to condemn nor condone your cohabitation decisions, nor (in the case of any same gender couples) to make any statements supporting nor negating your right to marriage, partnership, cohabitation, etc, etc. In the future, I promise to be more mindful of my conjunction usage and the deeper meanings implied therein.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Overheard at MGH

2008-07-24T16:42:00.002-04:00

Nurse 1 (stepping outside this morning): Oh it's so hot out! It must be global warming....
Nurse 2: No, I think it's July.

New Project

2008-07-15T06:27:00.003-04:00

I want to compile a list of books. Two books from any of the various personages that populate my life. I can't have read them already. There should be a good reason why I should read them. Alright, it doesn't have to be good necessarily, but it should be enough to convince me to put it on the list. Oh, and YOU must have actually read the book. I will be updating the results as we go along here.

Update: People who recommend more than two books are at my mercy. I pick out the two that strike me most and add them too the list. If multiple people recommend one, it goes under who ever hasn't met their quota. Children's books are quite all right.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Josh)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Josh)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Erin)
Kite Runner (Erin)
The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time (Tracy)
"A Dog's Life" by Peter Mayle (Pmac)
Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis (Lelia)
Collapse by Jared Diamond (Lelia)
the spirit catches you and you fall down (Steph)
The Namesake (Steph)
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver (Alissa)
Mermaid Chair (Sue Monk Kidd)
Souls on Fire by Elie Weisel (David)
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade (David)

Sigh

2008-07-01T20:59:00.002-04:00

A brief note to mention that I have officially come home twice in the last week to find dying mice stuck in traps in my room. One tried to chase me in to the bathroom while dragging the trap behind it, the other one just curled up and hoped I'd leave it be. It was a depressed little mouse.

Overall, this makes me happy I grew up exposed to this sort of thing, and that I get as little sleep as I do. My senior year of college, the Chinese place in the basement of our building had rats actively running in and out of the kitchen, and if that didn't stop me from eating there*, no field mouse is going to hold me back from collapsing when I get home from work in the morning. So there.

*Quick justification here....for $5 at this place you could eat for 2-3 good sized meals. And the food was ready in 5 minutes. And with all the MSG on it, even rat can taste like chicken.

New book character....

2008-06-06T16:30:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while in my daily life, I meet someone who is totally going to be a character in a book I write some day.

I have one in my computer programming class.

I don't know his name, but I do know that he has a very large nose, asks obnoxiously weird and entertaining questions, and has very little chance of passing the class.

The best question so far came when we were discussing programming conventions.....those things programmers do so that other programmers can more easily follow their code....essentially how to make your hand writing legible in the computer world. In this discussion, the professor stated that when you name "objects" you should give them names with all lower case letters, and when you name "constants" you should give them names in all upper case letters. Now, we had spent the last 45 minutes or so discussing what objects were in Java, but there had been no mention of constants. Someone asked, and the professor said that naming a constant was kind of like giving a name to pi or something like that. He then repeated that you would put it in all capitals. My next story character raised his hand and said "Oh, so the difference between an object and a constant is capitalization?" My very sweet Romanian professor almost through chalk at him. He barely managed to stammer "No...um....the difference is that....um....they're two totally different things...." before going over to his desk and putting his head in his hands.

Then the kid had an asthma attack, complete with gasps of "don't mind me" and everything.

True story.

Summer project....

2008-06-02T14:30:00.001-04:00

Alright, it's actually a year long project, and I'm documenting it all in my new blog, which can be found here:

http://twelvelaborsofhercules.blogspot.com

There's not much there at the moment, but I'm putting up an FAQ and other such fiddle faddle in the next couple days.

In honor of this special day....

2008-05-11T04:47:00.000-04:00

This one's for you Mom....

Bored bored bored....

2008-04-26T04:36:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting here extremely bored at work, so I thought I'd relay an anecdote from last Friday night. My little sister came down to celebrate her birthday (albeit a bit late) by hanging out in Boston with her big sis. I had planned for us to go out to dinner with some friends of mine at around 7pm....which should have all worked out since she was supposed to get to Boston at 6:15ish. Unfortunately, things being what they are, she actually got there at closer to 6:45. This still should have been okay, however, since Harvard Square is really only a ten minute drive from my house. Alas, who could anticipate that even with a resident sticker, parking in Harvard Square would still take almost half an hour??? Well, maybe I should have. Anyway, after driving around for quite some time on side streets, desperate to find a spot, I drove past a spot that looked to be blocked off. Just as I passed it though, the VRA who was also in the car, remarked that she was pretty sure the sign had said it was only reserved until 5pm. The VCVAF, who was also in the car, confirmed it. Unfortunately, I was already almost half a block away from the spot, on a one way street, natch.

It is here that I had to teach my little sister the first lesson of driving in Cambridge: what happens in Cambridge, stays in Cambridge. I had done the only thing I could do. I slammed on my brakes, took a look behind me, threw it in reverse, and gunned my way back up the street before anyone else could swipe the spot (or you know, turn down the street and smite me). My little sister was much less surprised by this maneuver than I thought she would be, though considering we'd been driving around Harvard Square for almost 30 minutes on a Friday evening, I think she was getting jaded. In fact she was so unmoved that her only comment was "Bethany, that lady on the sidewalk just gave you a really nasty look." To which I of course replied "Abby, I just backed up half a block on her street at twice the recommended speed for that sort of thing, just to swipe a spot that's basically in front of what looks like her house. If she gave me a dirty look, I deserved it."

It was the there the New Hampshire-ness kicked back in for her, and she looked mildly frightened til she was on solid ground again. And man did she scoot by cranky woman's house.

The end.

The best movie that never was....

2008-04-25T02:38:00.003-04:00

I rented a movie recently, on the (long ago given) advice of Kate-from-Houston-Kate. It's a movie called Casino Royale, and unlike the more recent version, this one is a 1967 spoof of the James Bond franchise. Now, I haven't watched it yet, but the more I read about it, the more it's gotten me thinking. When Kate recommended it to me (on March 14th, 2007 Kate, if you're having trouble remembering it) she said the following:

"I swear this movie was stolen from Mel Brook's reject pile... it is the best compilation of a nonsensical mess I've seen since Mad Mad Mad Mad World. I spent three hours thinking "what the hell?"

Which seems to be pretty consistent with what the rest of the reviewers thought. What's upsetting about this is considering who's involved, you'd think this would have been priceless....John Huston, Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, and Woody Allen to name a few. And yet, poor reviews. Bad in part because it's not great, and bad in part because it should have been so good. This got me thinking, dear reader....what other movies were like that for you? Movies that just couldn't be bad, and yet.....were? Ben, I know you've got some opinions you're dying to share. Dad, bring out that random knowledge of the 70s, 80s, and today, Dan, something weirdly witty is in order here, and VCVAF, I know you read this, post something! Seriously though, I'm gonna go watch this movie and see if it's really all that bad, you guys let me know about your disappointments and heartaches. Movie related only though, otherwise, I just don't care....

In honor of earth day....

2008-04-22T05:28:00.003-04:00

...I would officially like to nominate "going green" as the front runner for the prestigious Most Overexposed Phrase of 2008 prize. For the love of all that as good and holy, not every single action that's not a gratuitous waste of resources is "going green". I don't care how new Al Gore tells you this is, sometimes reusing something is just that....reusing something.

I was spurned to this annoyance recently by an email from someone in my workplace, in which she made the comment that our birthday poster was being reused this year in an effort to "go green". Now, my aggravation with the fact that reusing a three sheet banner is consider "going green" is probably lost on those of you who have never worked in a lab like mine, where all information must be reproduced in triplicate just in case someone somewhere may need it and not want to look it up on the computer in the morning, or share it with anyone who gets either of the other copies. We have binders full of papers that just get thrown away because they contain absolutely no useful information....and to top it all off, several hundred pages of reports are printed ever day on dot matrix printers because they haven't figured out how to digitize. But none of this matters however, since three pieces of paper were not thrown away....nope, we really made progress there! Never mind that every time you print out a list of samples it also prints out a sheet that's blank except for the statement "Pending log complete". No, that's not something we can fix. But that three sheet birthday banner, we saved that tree. Bono would be proud. YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!

Because everybody thinks their baby's perfect....

2008-04-20T23:57:00.003-04:00

This weekend I got to spend a bit of time in the hospital, as one of my favorite cousins gave birth to her second baby boy. I hadn't been in a maternity ward in a while, and there's been a few developements. The most interesting of these was finding out that they now have "baby photographers" who work on the maternity ward, and offer there services to take baby's first pictures. That's all well and good, but what was really kind of disturbing is that they also offer "retouching" services, not just for mama, but for baby too. Retouching???? For a newborn????? I mean, let's face it, newborn's are endearing looking at best, but rarely, if ever, actually cute. I don't really know what's to retouch. But hey, then again....it's never too early to start making your child feel insecure, is it?

Double talk....not just for politicians any more!

2008-04-09T15:52:00.003-04:00

As someone who was in college during the whole rise and fall of Napster, I found it highly interesting to read that Sony BMG is being sued for pirating software.....

Guess they should have made it clearer to their employees that they were, uh, against that.

I found this interesting bit of news on a celebrity gossip-ish website I found that even the AVI might enjoy....basically it exists to take public statements of celebrities, and prove that they're not even trying to tell the truth. Like one of those obnoxious "Hills" girls doing an animal rights campaign after she put out a handbag line made of leather and lambskin.

As time Marches on.....it makes me Mad!!!

2008-03-24T10:55:00.003-04:00

Alright, as my Dad has taken to whining about my lack of posts again, I decided to put one up with a title that's horrible enough to make him proud. Yup, I titled my March Madness post "As time Marches on...." and for you Dad, I just went back and tacked on "it makes me mad!".

Anyway, it's March Madness time, and I'm celebrating the fact that BC didn't make the good tournament this year (I'm not really honey) if only because it means I have to watch fewer games, and the VCVAF can actually pull himself away from the TV for things like, oh, premarital counseling and Easter Brunch (no seriously honey, go BC...get 'em next year!). Even with this pleasing (no honey, I mean displeasing, let me look cool in front of my friends) development, I am kind of bummed that I can't really get super in to this whole March Madness thing because brackets look like SO much fun to play with.

Then, to my rescue, came the Go Fug Yourself girls.

In case you've never heard of it, Go Fug Yourself is a wonderfully snarky, self-effacing website dedicated to putting up pictures of celebs wearing ridiculous clothing, and making comments (surprisingly original every time) about them. This year, in honor of March Madness, they decided to throw Fug Madness, which is really hysterically funny, and deserves as many links to it as possible. Basically, they pit current celebs with significant bodies of work in "what were they thinking????" land against each other, to determine to overall Fug of the year. It's divided in to four brackets, all named after some all time fugs, and whose round one results can be found here:

The Madonna Bracket
The Charo Bracket
The Bjork Bracket
The Cher Bracket

I'm assuming round two is coming soon, and frankly, I can't wait. It beats watching more basketball (I only don't like watching it when BC's not in it honey, I swear).

Way to do us all a favor....

2008-03-13T21:40:00.002-04:00

I went to my parents house for a night earlier this week, and my Dad took the opportunity to mention to me that there's been talking of passing/enforcing Title IX type legislation for engineering schools. Obviously, my Dad was eager to talk to me about this as I actually graduated from an engineering program in the past 5 years (though we're getting close to exactly five years...yikes!) and I am generally opinionated about this sort of thing. I would be interested in any links anyone has to stories about this. Without reading any of the details though, my initial reaction was something along the lines of "Fantastic, we're finally equal and you're going to do something to ensure that every single guy we go to school with now has a reason to look at us and think "Are you here because you're smart, or because you're a girl????"".

I met some of the smartest most motivated women I could have ever imagined while getting my degree, and I would hate to see their experience cheapened.

Other than that, women in engineering, at least at BU, were more than adequately treated. There were no allowances made, but there were professional societies just for women, and there was always the knowledge that being female gave you a slight advantage in applying for grants. Everyone wanted to support a bright female, it simply made everyone look good.

Oddly enough, now that I think about it, I think the high drop out rate among female engineering majors can actually be blamed on attempts at gender balancing. Most of the women I knew my freshmen year who wound up dropping out mentioned having some combination of a directionless feeling in high school, high SAT math scores, good science grades, and overly concerned guidance counselors. Once they got in to engineering, it wasn't what they had wanted, and they dropped it in favor of something else. Guidance counselors looking to balance the scales had pushed them in, and they left of their own volition.

Regardless of the reason, legislating any of this would only further complicate things for everyone. This is what happens when you let the Arts and Humanities tribe put their hands on Science and Technology. We're doing fine on our own, thank you very much! Out out damn spot!

Sweet!

2008-03-10T14:55:00.001-04:00

It's only March, but I have officially found what I'm getting my brother Daniel, my father, and the VCVAF for Christmas!

Friday polling....

2008-02-29T16:06:00.003-05:00

Last night at work, we decided it was time for this song to have another 15 seconds of fame, in a short term nostalgia sort of a way. I'm posting the video, but to spice things up, there's a poll at the end. After you answer, please join me in a moment of silence to ponder the fact that we are part of a species that killed Tupac and Biggie, but let this band live. For reals yo.

more at twiigs.com...

Weird moment of the day....

2008-02-27T13:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday my 64 year old mother-in-law to be was reading over my wedding website and pointed out that I spelled "Sammy Hagar" incorrectly (I put two G's).

Then again, this is also the lady who, when I told her I was taking her son to an Ani Difranco concert, said she thought that she was a nice girl who'd made some lovely contributions to the feminist movement and to Buffalo, NY.

I think I'm gonna like my in-laws.

Hopefully this will keep me laughing for the next seven months or so....

2008-02-25T01:41:00.003-05:00

So as many of you can imagine, I do not fall in that category of women who has been planning their wedding day since they were five. This means that treading the waters of wedding planning has been a little harrowing for me, as the ridiculousness of the situation is quick to kick in. The wedding industry is crazy, and they try to make people crazy to get them to spend more money. It's as simple as that. Overall though, I'm beginning to find some joy in the whole process, trying to remember that it really is just a big party for all my friends (or rather, those of my friends who make it in under the guest list cut-off) to help me celebrate the fact that I found an amazing guy who I want to spend my life and build a family with. It seems a simple semantics issue, but I am amazed how much referring to it as "that big party" takes the pressure off. Anyway, I realized that one of the things I was going to need to remain sane through all of this was a good running joke, preferably dark in nature and something that kind of flew in the face of all the schmaltz. Well, I found it. It started at a wedding I went to a couple months ago, where they had a live band playing at the reception, a couple decibels above comfort level might I add, and they suddenly started playing "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie. The VCVAF and I just kind of looked at each other in surprise, since this is, quite explicitly, a break up song. For those of you not familiar, here's a sample from the second verse:

The path that I'm walkingI must go alone
I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown
Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay

The other strange thing is, it's not even a particularly perky song with bad lyrics, it's kind of just a downer of a song with bad lyrics. Not really what I would have thought of for a wedding. At this point, the VCVAF and his friend, relayed to me that at the last wedding they were in together they had attempted to request "that song from Silence of the Lambs that the Buffalo Bill guy dances around to" and been sharply reprimanded by the DJ. It was then that the joke started that I was going to start up a list for my reception of "World's Most Awkward Wedding Reception Songs". I've been adding to the list slowly, and suggestions are welcome. I have to say, having a side project helps during the wedding, as every time my head starts spinning at having to come up with an opinion on yet another bizarre detail, such as what color shoes I want my bridesmaids wearing, I can laugh to myself while thinking "I don't know, whatever you can dance to "Smack my Bitch up" by Prodigy in". Alright, here's the list, suggestions welcome:

-Smack My Bitch Up by Prodigy
-Every Breath You Take by the Police (aka, the stalker song)
-No More I Love You's by Annie Lennox
-that "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife" song
-I Like Big Butts by Sir Mix-a-lot
-I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic at the Disco
-Follow you Down by the Gin Blossoms
-Girls, girls, girls by the Beastie Boys
-99 Problems by Jay-Z
-The Bilbo Baggins Song by Leonard Nimoy, as I feel that song would be awkward anywhere.

That's all for now, more to come I'm sure, as this week I have to start looking at flowers. Woo-de-freakin-who!

Seven months from today.....

2008-02-20T12:20:00.002-05:00

The time is flying by and planning is going full steam ahead. Getting married is literally like taking on a second job. Maybe not quite a full time job, but definitely one of those part time jobs that's 39 hours a week and doesn't pay you benefits because that's "part time". Anyway, it's not really quite that bad, and there's a lot of moments of joy in the whole thing. I'm starting to kind of enjoy it. This was one of my moments of joy last week.....a quote from my cousin Greg, which both amused and slightly frightened me:

"...it's like one of those weird dream/nightmares where you suddenly have to figure out how you feel about the fact that your childhood best friend, that weird drunk boyfriend of your college lab partner, and your Great-Uncle Ron are all in the same room.....and they're talking. About you. That's what weddings are like."

A fun new toy....

2008-02-14T22:17:00.002-05:00

Since I haven't been posting much lately, and this makes my Dad sad, I decided to get myself a fun new toy to motivate new posts. Oh that's right folks, I got a poll widget. And I love it. Today's poll was inspired by the fact that I have a huge box from Amazon.com in the middle of my living room right now, and while I haven't opened it, I suspect it contains hubcaps. I had to get new hubcaps lately because I got in a bit of a fight with a curb a couple weeks ago, and the wenchy little thing took off with one of my hubcaps in retaliation. Anyway, I managed to get my front end realigned in a timely manner (golly that sounds like a plastic surgery procedure) but I had yet to replace the hubcap. I kept running in to my classic car problem, i.e. everything to do with cars gives me a panic attack. This made it very difficult to go anywhere that might sell hubcaps. I hid from this task for weeks, until I started feeling kinda ridiculous. The anxiety was still present however, so I was feeling a bit stuck. Then one day while I was surfing around Amazon.com, my internet equivalent of Xanax, I got the bright idea to see if they had hubcaps. No way, I thought. Oh you underestimate us, said Amazon. I found actually quite a few hubcaps, all at deeply discounted prices. Now, they sit in a box in my living room, no muss, no fuss, no scary Auto Zone salesmen. Cool, right? Okay, seriously.....

more at twiigs.com...

Red Sox, Red Sox

2008-01-31T09:57:00.000-05:00

A couple days before the Patriots try to finish off their perfect season, I am sitting here reading Sports Illustrated's Best Baseball Writing of the past 50 years. It's a great book (got it for my Dad for Christmas....hit him up if you want to borrow it, I got my copy from the library), and I've been wading through the essay Tom Verducci wrote after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. I say wading, because I can't read more than a paragraph of the foolish thing without starting to cry. I would feel sillier about this, except the entire article is about how much it meant to New England when they won, and hey, at least I didn't name my son "Damon" or anything like that. One of the more interesting facts to arise in the article is that, at the time, the oldest man in the world, and the oldest woman in New England (113 and 111, respectively) were both Red Sox fans. What makes this even more interesting is that they both died within 3 weeks of the 2004 victory.

Now that's a true fan.

Opening day is coming!

Whoa....this is so fascinating it's blowing my mind.....

2008-01-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

There's an off-beat alternative sex/love advice columnist that I read occasionally in a column called "Savage Love". It was one of those columns I started reading because it was in the Boston Pheonix or some other newspaper I used to pick up on the train, and I've occasionally checked back in on his column every couple months since them. Some of his columns are downright gross (he answers a lot of questions about fetishes) but one he had recently was totally fascinating. Basically, a guy wrote in to say he'd been married for 10 years, and that his wife had put on a lot of weight, her skin was bad, and she was eating things that made her have lots of gas. So basically, the guy wasn't attracted to her any more. He wrote in desperate....he hadn't said anything to her, and he was seriously getting tempted to cheat on her. Dan (the advice columnist) wrote back that he should be honest with her, and gave a couple examples of conversation starters, ranging from "health reasons" to fairly blunt and tactless.

His female readers freaked.

What fascinated me was that he then posted a column where he pointed out that two weeks before he had posted a column where there was a man in the exact same situation....except this man was gay and it was another man he was talking about. He had told this man not to confront his partner, to keep his objections to himself basically. His female readers had freaked, and he used their actual suggestions in his reply to the man. He then compiled what his female readers had written back when a woman was the target of criticism.

I personally was surprised that women would be so quick to try and stop a guy from being honest that he was so close to cheating on his wife.

Anyway, the double standard that emerged interested me a lot. My mother called me about a week ago to ask my opinion about a situation she saw on some talk show....where they were raking a mom over the coals for letting her son get really obese at a really young age. My mom had mentioned she couldn't help wondering why they had picked a young boy, and if their advice would have been different if it was a young girl.

The more I read through the letters this columnist compiled, the more interested I was. His language is pretty foul, so I won't link to it here, but he did have some interesting ones. It got to a point where he was taking a lot of specific advice and saying "okay, reverse the genders....is that still okay"? Like one woman, whose husband had gained 100 lbs, said she left a collage of pictures of fat women on his pillow and asked him how he liked that....could you imagine a man doing that?

Oh, and to clarify, he DID emphasize that if there were kids involved (the original writer had none) that husbands who expected their wives to be at their pre-baby weight needed to be offering regular babysitting for gym visit time, and otherwise helping the situation. He reamed out a husband whose wife was supporting him (and doing most of the child care) while he was in grad school for even daring to object to her 20 extra pounds.

I guess what I'm pondering now is.....how fair is all this? On the one hand, women definitely have more pressure to look a certain way, so we deserve a little grace I think. On the other hand, grace doesn't mean a free pass, and if my VCVAF were seriously thinking of cheating on me, for ANY reason, I'd want to know. Ditto for if he were that unhappy. Also, the pressure on men to look good is picking up....I don't really think it's fair any more to assume you can just bluntly dump these things on them either.

In the end, I'm definitely going to be watching for examples in either direction over the next couple weeks. Also, the VCVAF and I have been doing some premarital counseling type stuff as of late, and going over lots of "how would we confront this?" type questions. I guess now I have one more to add to the list.

I'm thinking weekly weigh-ins and writing the numbers on a huge chart in our living room for all to see would do the trick.

See? I could TOTALLY write an advice column.

Dan, Dan, a good good man.....

2008-01-17T15:48:00.000-05:00

I love my brother Daniel, in part because he seems to actually get how needy and desperate for attention I am, and he caters to it. Thanks Dan. Anyway, this is the email I got from him today, regarding the Christmas present I gave him (a rather nice Johnny Cupcakes tshirt that can be seen here):
And now the email:

I wore the T-shirt you gave me yesterday and got several compliments.
Here is the breakdown of what people said

3 - "nice shirt!"
2 - "sweet shirt man"
2 - "oh ya, i like that"
1 - "is that a cupcake?, I like cupcakes!"
1 - "I dont get it, is that ET or something, whatever, its sweet anyway"

Most of these comments came at different times during the day.

Anyway, Thanks for the t-shirt Beth.

Hope all is well
Dan

See? He gives me specifics, approval, and a little bit of humor as well.

Tim and Abby, he's killing you guys in the polls. Watch out.

Early morning ponderings....

2008-01-16T06:29:00.000-05:00

I didn't work last night, and thusly awoke at 3am, too tired to do much, and too awake to sleep. For some reason, while I was laying there staring at the ceiling, I began to envision a national survey with only two questions:

1) Do you believe that everything will work out okay?
2) Do you consider yourself more of a Democrat or a Republican?

I don't really know why, but I spent a good 45 minutes pondering if there would be any correlation between the answers to those two.

I don't know how it is for most people, but I realized that on the days that I am consumed with worry over everything from the funny smell in my car to world hunger, I am more likely to want a Democrat ballot. On the other hand, the days that I feel like things are pretty okay, I want to go Republican. I don't really know why that is, but I'm sure I'll be pondering it a lot more over the coming weeks. I was happy however, when I realized that this all meant that my pervading desire to vote for McCain probably means, for me at least, that things are pretty good here on the Western front.

Passing fads....

2008-01-11T05:14:00.000-05:00

I realized the other day that I never properly thanked the universe for letting laser pointers and the associated laser-pointing at public events go out of style.

Thank you universe, thank you.

So my dad will have something to read this morning....

2008-01-10T05:07:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and I am still totally thrilled about my gift. I got a juicer this year, and it is wonderful. Great yummy juice, a motor more powerful than a Prius, and on top of it all, easy cleanup. What makes me happiest however, is how one facilitates that easy cleanup. Oh that's right folks....I now have a use for plastic grocery bags. Oh the Venerable Roommate Alissa and I had some uses for them before mind you, mostly cat litter and small garbage can related things....but now, well with lining the of the pulp container, now I can use almost one a day. Before those bags were multiplying at the rate of a small third world country, but now we're talking Eastern European replacement rates. This week in fact, I used up ALL of my plastic grocery bags that I brought home AND I even used one extra from the stash. Seriously, this is exciting stuff. At this rate, I will actually be going to grocery stores begging for bags by like, oh 2009 or so. The most exciting part is that it's not even a lame usage, like the plastic bag bathmat I tried to make in college. It's like an actual need...like if I don't line the pulp container with one I will have a gigantic mess on my hands. The Yankee in me is proud.

And no, you can't give me your bags now. Thanks for asking though.

A blustery winter poll.....

2007-12-21T10:06:00.001-05:00

When you go to clean snow off of your car, do you make sure to check the headlights and tail lights?

I always do, but I've been amazed after going through 3 snowstorms in 10 days or so how many people don't. Maybe it's because I work nights so I'm normally cleaning off my car at 11pm, but it's always been one of the things I clear first. I'm not just talking about in the dark mornings either, I'm talking about at night too. It's a little unsettling. Anyway...what do yooooooooooou do?

Spin, spin, spin that thing!

2007-12-19T10:33:00.000-05:00

It took celebrity gossip bloggers approximately 2 hours to dig up the fact that in November the now pregnant 16 year old Jamie Lynn "sister of Britney" Spears described her relationship status as "keeping her options open, you know with a bunch of guy friends", calling in to question the fact that she is now saying the father of her baby is a "long time boyfriend".

Of course, this also is going to delay the release of her mom's book on parenting.

I love Hollywood!!!!

Um, like, all in one box?

2007-12-18T12:26:00.000-05:00

"The charity has this year launched a celebrity-led campaign to encourage more of us to send useful gifts - which may include items such as dung, condoms or even a can of worms - to help communities in the developing world."

Now THAT'S being prepared....

2007-12-16T06:07:00.000-05:00

As of yesterday, the VCVAF and I know what we're getting each other for Christmas next year.

Remote car starters.

That will pretty much make it the most exciting Christmas present I've ever gotten, save the Ani Difranco tickets my Dad got me one year, the Gummi Bear DVDs, also from my Dad, and, um, this year, when you know, I got proposed to. I guess that one should go first huh? But seriously, after 26 years of New England winters, a remote car starter is almost as exciting. But not quite. Because that would be rude.

Man, I develope new pet peeves like it's my job....

2007-12-11T06:33:00.000-05:00

I've been engaged for exactly 6 days now, and I've already got a new pet peeve with the wedding industry. besides the obvious overpriced overstressed self absorb aspect of everything, there is one advertising slogan that keeps getting repeated that is driving me up a wall: "Let us make this a day to remember."

Alright guys, seriously. It's my wedding day. I'm making it a day to remember. My fiance is making it pretty memorable too. My parents, my family, my friends, they're all helping out, along with the fact that I'M PROMISING TO DEDICATE MYSELF TO ONE PERSON FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Oh, and the legal implications. That helps too. You, oh Mr. Product pushing man or woman, are NOT making my day memorable. You are asking to be allowed to show up on a day that will probably be stamped in my brain forever regardless of what my favors look like, or my dress, or anything else. The only person who has a right to use that phrase at all is the photographer, and really, he'd sound cleverer if he said "Let me help with your memory". Though maybe that wouldn't appeal to the young'uns. Anyway, yes, it irks me that trivial things are trying to elevate their importance level, and it really irks me that they're questioning my memory.

I'M GOING TO REMEMBER MY WEDDING, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS!!!! AND THAT'S FINAL!!!!

Of course, I am also a little amused at the fact that these ads never mention nor seem to consider that people's memories are more accurate and acute when they involved an event when bad things happened*.

Actually, maybe they do know that. Maybe they're trying to tell me something. Huh.

*The study that found this, fascinatingly, was conducted using hardcore Red Sox and Yankees fans, and asking them specific questions about the ALCS games in 2004. They found that Yankees fans were far more likely to accurately recall specific details about the games. I thought that was a fascinating study.

Unclear on the concept awards, December '07

2007-12-09T18:37:00.000-05:00

Alright, this is an ER story, and it gets in to some GYN issues, so the squeamish should be forwarned.

I was at work the other night, manning the main ER phone lines, when I had the following conversation.

Me: Hello, Emergency Room.
Crazy woman caller (cue voice that immediately conjures up the picture of a woman who 1) dyes her hair a very unnatural color blonde 2) has orange and wrinkled skin and 3) a minimum pack a day smoking habit): Hi, can I talk to a nurse?
Me (with a sense of foreboding): Well the nurses in the Emergency Room don't really come to the phones, is there something I can help you with?
CWC: Well, I have a question for someone, let me talk to a nurse.
Me: Well, if it's for medical advice, nurses don't give that out over the phone here.
CWC (condescendingly): This is an Emergency Room right?
Me (inwardly sighing): Yes, yes it is.
CWC: Well, maybe you can help me. My daughter got an STD, but she's a virgin, so I was wondering if she can get a colopscopy done.
Me (immediately rubbing my temples to stave off the headache this was about to induce, wondering if I should try telling her 1) what STD stood for 2) what a virgin was or 3) that she was pronouncing colposcopy wrong. Luckily I've worked in the ER long enough to know that all of these will only serve to encourage her feeling that I exist to answer her questions, and that would not be a good thing): I'm sorry ma'am, we don't give medical advice in the ER.
CWC (really condescending now): I don't need advice, I need you to tell me about this procedure, if it can be done, and where to do it.
Me: I'm sorry ma'am, I really can't help you, we don't answer that sort of question here.
CWC: This IS an Emergency Room right???
Me: Yes.
CWC: Well then.
Me: Um....
CWC: Well then if the nurses won't come to the phone, put a doctor on.
Me: Ma'am I can't do that. The doctor's don't come to the phone either. The doctors and nurses here are here to treat patients who are actually in the ER.
CWC: I'm NOT bring my daughter in just to ask this question.
Me: Okay ma'am, I think you should call your doctor, that's really the appropriate person to ask this sort of question of.
CWC: But you're an EMERGENCY ROOM.
Me: Yes, and we don't answer that sort of question here.
CWC (triumphantly): Well, I don't HAVE a doctor.

It was here a was about to ask as kindly as possible how in the world she found out her daughter had an STD, and to perhaps try contacting the same person who performed that test, when she cut me off to say:

CWC: Who are you????
Me (kind of confused): Um, I answer the phones.
CWC: Are you like an answering service???
Me (totally baffled as to how to answer...um, yes in that I answer phones?): Well, more like a secretary? A phone operator maybe?
CWC: Look, I just need to know if a colostomy can be done on my daughter, who's a virgin, who has an STD.

I will now pause to clear up a few things for any readers who might be confused:
1) A colposcopy, which is what I'm pretty sure she meant, is a procedure in which a colposcope is inserted in the vagina to examine the epithelial cells and cervix.
2) A colostomy, which is what she said the second time, is when part of the colon is diseased or damaged, and a hole is made in your abdomen so the bad part of the colon can be bypassed. Yes, you poop out your stomach in to a bag. It's as gross as it sounds.
3) STD stands for sexually transmitted disease, or diseases that are transmitted when a person has sex.
4) A virgin is a person who has not had sex.
5) Why being a virgin would prevent a doctor from examining a girl is a mystery to me. I'm fairly sure they've encountered that before. But hey, I'm no doctor, maybe Clerks 2 was right. Maybe Pillow Pants does exist.

I wanted to tell this woman all of those things, and perhaps suggest gently that her precious daughter just might have indulged in a slight fabrication of the truth at some point, but my job description and sanity wouldn't quite allow for it, so instead I said:

Me: Ma'am I really can't help you.
CWC: BUT YOU'RE AN EMERGENCY ROOM.

She then proceeded to start swearing at me quite vehemently, while also talking to someone else in the room about how awful I was and how ridiculous it was that the @#*&$ EMERGENCY ROOM would even answer one @#*$& question for her. I took this as an opportunity to muster my sweetest voice, say "Goodbye ma'am" and hang up.

I have sooooo much sympathy for 911 dispatchers. I can ONLY imagine.

Excellent. Thanks for letting me know.

2007-12-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

I decided to register with theknot.com on Thursday so I could take advantage of some of their wedding planning software, and eventually to create a wedding webpage with them as such. When you register, they ask you to enter a tentative date you want to get married, and they create a customized checklist of tasks you must complete, and timeframes you should do them in.

I am happy to report that I am apparently 27 action items behind schedule, with 182 to go.

Seriously.

For those of you with time to kill (or who just really really really like to read)....

2007-12-08T05:49:00.000-05:00

If you've got some time on your hands this holiday season, or if you just really like reading lengthy books for fun (and those lengthy books aren't limited to things by JK Rowling), then I've got a two book recommendation for you that I have been finding utterly fascinating. The first book is The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York* by Robert Caro and the second is The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. I read these two books pretty much at random, mostly because I'd been picking up books on city planning, and I was surprised to find that essentially, the second book was written as a response to the actions of the subject of the first. It's rare that I find two books that I feel pair in an almost wine and cheese type way, but these two are it. Basically, the first one is an incredibly detailed Pulitzer prize winning account of the life and career of Robert Moses, aka the man who designed a substantial part of New York City. At around 1200 large pages of small font, it's not for the faint of heart, but if you can trudge through the first 75-100 pages or so, things really start to pick up and it's a surprisingly action packed read. The second book is a bit shorter, at around 500 pages, and is more a really interesting theory manual about what makes cities special and how to keep/encourage that. The sociological intonations are pretty interesting, as it puts a name to a lot of phenomena any city dweller would have experienced. I actually read the second on first, and what began to dawn on me as I made my way through the Robert Moses book, that the woman writing the first one MUST be commenting directly on him and his work. Sure enough, a quick look shows she lived in New York City at the same time he did. Overall it gives the whole reading experience the feel of a really great debate, and I feel I wound up with a much deeper insight in to New York, beginning of the century political climate, city planning, and the people who controlled it than I would have gotten by reading either of the two books on their own. It's all very intriguing, and I will definitely not look at New York the same way ever again, though I will still think the Yankees suck.

In conclusion: please read them, if only because I'm dying to have someone to discuss them with! Thanks!

*Anyone who can tell me how to underline in html would be appropriately thanked.

In case you haven't heard....

2007-12-06T20:29:00.001-05:00

The VCVAB is now the VCVAF, and on his way to being the VCVAH.

Yes, the ring is beautiful.
No, we don't have a date yet.
Yes, he proposed to me in a parking garage.
Yes, it was actually romantic.
No, you can't come to the wedding.

I jest, Mom and Dad, you guys can come.

Everyone else, we'll see.

I hate it when that happens....

2007-12-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

It's always a little awkward when a celebrity dies that you thought was already dead.

Evel Kenieval, in case you're wondering.

Just one of those days.....

2007-11-19T22:33:00.001-05:00

Due to a pleading email I got last week, I got suckered in to pulling four shifts in the ER in the next three weeks. Since I invariably sign up for these shifts in such a way that minimizes the number of days I will have to see this miserable hospital, this means 4 16 hour shifts and 11 8 hour shifts over the next 21 days. Which is awesome. Anyway, I commenced my first of those double shifts today, and the requisite weirdness quickly ensued. Of course we had to start with Cambridge drivers, who made my first cross Cambridge trek completely miserable. By the time I complete the 4.5 mile drive (40 minutes later), my nerves were already fraying. I pulled in to the parking garage, thankful to be back in familiar territory. That was short lived.

I walked in to the ER, to find that the whole sign in system had been redone, and moved to the back of the ER instead of the front. I wore a pedometer to work one night, and I can confidently say that's approximately a 175 step walk from where I had entered. Sigh. When I got to the new sign in station, I discovered that the new way of signing in was a disturbing looking credit card machine with no helpful instructions to be found. Cool. Cursing the fact that I had gotten no notice of this, I begged for help from other late comers, to no avail. Turns out even when used properly, my badge didn't allow me to be recognized as an employee. My shift had started 10 minutes ago, so I decided to sort this out later and wander to my area. I was a bit distressed to find that my assignment was one I hadn't done in, oh, about 2 years now. When I got there, it was a complete disaster area, and the person I was taking over left me three neat stacks of paper, none of which had any relationship to the others, and each of which had a different task left to complete. Of course, what those tasks were appeared to be a bit of a secret. The next hour or so consisted of me asking people what I was supposed to be doing, and getting the response "Oh, it's pretty much the same as always over here". That was the response of course, until I actually did something, at which point I was told I was doing it wrong. During all this, the narcoleptic girl next to me kept asking me questions, then promptly falling asleep two words in to my answer. She wouldn't wake up until the ice pack she had on her knee would fall to the floor, at which point she would look at me impatiently, with a sort of "well....do you know the answer or not????" type expression. Sadly, she was the bright spot of the day.

Finally after an hour and a half of feeling like a cat on the losing end of a water fight, I emailed my supervisor about the time clock issue, and mentioned, quite sweetly, that I seemed to not be getting some of the protocol updates, as I really didn't have a snowball's clue in hell what I was doing here (you may be think that's a misapplied metaphor, but think about it, it works). Her prompt and somewhat baffling reply was that the time clock didn't work for me because that was for everyone other than me. Of course. Then she mentioned "Oh, yeah, I don't think there are an real protocols there, they've just kind of been evolving." At these point she must have telepathically sensed the mental breakdown this statement would cause, and she added "I'm not sure that's the best place for you to be working, maybe we should move you for the rest of the day....."

That improved my mood considerably.

The end.

Car trouble, Bethany style

2007-11-14T10:06:00.000-05:00

I got a parking ticket a couple days ago, for reasons that are stupid, yet totally my fault. I moved in to the new apartment two months ago, and had, up until now, been using my roommate's visitor pass to park in our resident only street parking. Now really, I should have been more on the ball about the parking pass, but let me break it down for you: working nights pretty much kills your motivation to do anything. You still get that whole "man, now I'm home from work, who wants to go back out again?" feeling that afflicts most people, but you also have it coupled with a lunch break that comes at 4am, and a mental state approximately equal to that of jello on your ride home. Anyway, I figured I'd deal with the parking thing eventually, but I underestimated the power of the People's Republic of Cambridge to find my motivation for me. See the thing is, Cambridge LOVES to make laws that prove that they know what's good for you. Like cars. Cars are not good for you. Therefore Cambridge makes all sorts of laws that make having a car, well, miserable. They do this in a multitude of ways....letting bicyclists run rampant with entitlement, having stop lights that actually announce that they are "timed to require frequent stops" and most of all, resident only parking. Now, my neighborhood is really quite a few blocks away from anything you would conceivably want to go to. Seriously, the only reason to be in my neighborhood is if you LIVE in my neighborhood. Or are visiting someone in my neighborhood. But yes, Cambridge needs their revenue methods, so they like to ticket offenders with a vengeance. The VCVAB was here the other day, and arrived sometime after 5pm. When we went to leave, there was a ticket on his car....from 5:10 pm. At 5pm I looked at the clock and thought "huh, it's 5pm, when is he gonna get here" and he did NOT immediately appear at the door. I think they watched him get out of his car. I think they hide in the trees. Anyway, so my car, with it's visitor pass, were just hanging out this Saturday, when bam! A ticket showed up. As it turns out, visitor passes can only be used for 3 consecutive days, provided you move your car at least once every 24 hours during that time, so as to avoid storage fees. As I have now apparently been there for four days, I got a ticket. A $30 ticket. I'm pretty sure they don't really ticket for this particular offense much, since they kind of have to stalk you to prove you're doing it, but the van right next to where I was parked had been there for four months, so I think I just got caught in a sting. Anyway, this all put me in quite the bind, since my last car screw up still hadn't quite been resolved. Namely, I had let my registration lapse. I had totally, completely and horribly forgotten about it. The scariest part was, I don't know when I would have remembered, had I not grabbed an envelope to jot down a "to do" list on and subsequently flipped it over to find a big "Registry of Motor Vehicles" stamp on it. I opened it to find "Instructions on Renewing your Registration" inside. The day was November 1st. The registration expired September 30th.

Luckily you can renew registrations online and they send you an email that you can keep in your car until they mail you the decal and paper. With visions of trying to explain to a state trooper "No officer, really it's okay, an email is totally a substitute for a registration...." I went ahead, printed it out, and was on my way. (By the way, yes, I renewed online....I wasn't actually legal to drive to the DMV. Cool huh?)

So then this parking pass thing comes up. Now in order to get a parking pass, you need proof of residency, $8, and....you guessed it! A valid registration! Now I have been questioning if a cop would believe me on this whole email thing, but I KNOW a parking office employee will not. No way. On Monday I decided to take some decisive action, and went to the VCVAB for the day. Nobody bothers you in Braintree. Tuesday, I used my visitor's pass, as I had now broken the chain of consecutive days and could used it again. That was a good call, as I actually recieved my real registration in the mail. Now, the time to hesitate was through. I knew I had to actually do something, so I bribed a coworker with breakfast and made him come with me. Yes, I'm 26 years old, and the only way I get things done is to bribe someone else to MAKE me do them.

So I go in to the parking office (which, to note, actually specifies on their website that you should probably walk there, since they have no parking. Seriously, Cambridge is awesome), and the poor abused looking public servant behind the desk is trying his best to help me. I have all the required paperwork, but then he gets that "I'm about to tell you something that normally causes people to yell at me so I'm just going to flinch now" look that so many people in that sort of position due and he says "Um, ma'am, is it, um, do you, um, have a, uh $30 parking ticket? Itsaysyougotitjustonsaturdayforparkinginaresidentonlyspot" and then promptly cowered. Now, up until this point I had been nothing but polite, so I tried to continue the streak and said cheerily "Yes, that's true, I have one, do I have to pay that first?" He said yes, and ducked lower. I was now nervous that the place where you pay your ticket was going to turn out to be on the fifth floor of a different building or something equally ridiculous. Cautiously, I said "Soooo...can I do that now? Here?" "Oh, um, yeah!" he said, brightening. It's sad when you feel like you're blowing someone's mind by accepting reality. So I paid my ticket, paid my $8, and now I have my resident's pass, my valid registration, and every thing's kosher. Although my insurance company does keep calling me for some reason, maybe I should check those messages now.....

Kidding Dad, kidding.

I'm not quite sure that's gonna hold up in court.....

2007-11-09T10:32:00.001-05:00

Sooo.....if your boyfriend's dad is famous, and he says nasty things about you in a phone call to your boyfriend, and your boyfriend tapes the phone call and sells it to the tabloids, can you now sue said father for slander?????

Thank you Dog the Bounty hunter, you give me much to think about.

The anger bubbles in my soul like....oh....I don't know, 7Up or something.....

2007-11-08T12:35:00.000-05:00

I know that my first post back after a hiatus should be about my vacation. It isn't. I'm just that sort of rebel. Moving on.

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I was beyond elated. As a die hard fan, I had been carrying the weight of the drought, the dashed hopes, and the feelings of despair of several generations on my shoulders. As if to add insult to injury though, I also had to carry the weight of the curse. Not the curse in the real sense though, the sense of subtle psychological effect of bad luck year after bad luck year, all supposedly started by one man's bad gamble on No, No, Nannette....no, I mean THE CURSE as in "the thing hack Boston sportswriters (cough cough I'm looking at you Dan Shaughnessy) make their career writing about in an attempt to cover up the fact that they have nothing even remotely interesting or constructive to say about the team or sport itself". That curse. Good lord how I loathed turning on commentary and hearing "the curse" this or "the curse" that. BABE RUTH DID NOT HIT THAT HOME RUN ASSHOLE AARON BOONE DID!!!! I would scream. The universe heard me, the Red Sox won, and I've gotten to enjoy three years of baseball without this obnoxious journalistic device.

Obviously, I had to find a new pet peeve.

Enter Don Shula.

It was after reading his comments on the whole Patriots camera scandal that I realized a pet peeve that had been lingering under the surface for years now. Why the hell do people attach "gate" to every scandal now?????? Seriously "Spygate"????? That's not even remotely creative, nor even very descriptive. I mean, Monica-gate sounded about as awkward as a 16 year old boy trying to sing the soprano role from Rigoletto, but at least you knew what people were talking about when they said it. But Spygate....are we talking about the Rosenbergs? Give me a clue here. The first time I ever noticed this was when Bill Clinton took office, and I feel it's become ubiquitous since then. Of course, since I was about 11 at that point, I wasn't very conscious of media messages prior to that. Anyway, I think Don Shula using it is just a general symptom of the same illness that kept everyone talking about the curse of the Bambino long after the novelty wore off. It's some sort of boring herd mentality, and frankly, it annoys the heck out of me. Maybe there's something greater going on here, maybe the whole "Gate as a suffix" thing is really the sign of some sort of liberal media anti-Republican bias....trying to constantly remind us all that Republican's have likely, totally screwed things up in the past (unfortunately, I actually think that theory probably has something to it). Who knows. All I know is I'm done with it. Time to come up with cleverer ways of putting things. Bring back alliteration, or bad puns or ANYTHING. I'll even let you hire my dad if you choose to go with that pun one. Anyway, the time to hesitate is through. I'm petitioning the Writer's Guild. Get it put on their list of demands. A cessation of all uses of gate as a suffix unless it's, like a really really funny joke. We can call it Moratorium-gate. You know, for irony.

Tina Fey would totally be on board, I just know it.

Ooooooooooh......myyyyyyy........Goooooooooood........

2007-10-23T12:22:00.000-04:00

PMac....this one is for you. Remember that time that Leslie and I played that song about liking big butts for you that you were all upset by? Well as a refresher, it was called "Baby got Back" by Sir Mix a Lot, and was a ridiculous staple in the early 90s. Even Sir Mix A Lot hated it by about 1994. Here's the video. Dad, Mom, don't bother. Mom, remember how I told you not to watch that Fergie song a while ago and you did anyway? This one is worse. Dirty, and will stick in your head for YEARS. Yikes.

Alright, now, here's the (gulp) Christian parody. Titled, yup Baby got Book. Seriously. Enjoy while I work on my post about the rest of my vacation.

One of my favorite games to play after 13 years of Baptist school was the "quote the worst Christian lyric you've ever heard" game. This one just won all of them. I particularly like how they changed "36-24-36...only if she's 5'3''....." to "39 plus 27 equals 66 books....and if you're Catholic, there's even more....". Yikes. Kinda glad they nixed the disturbing use of fruit though.

Best roommate baseball conversation so far this playoff season....

2007-10-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

Back from Europe, FYI.

On to more important things, like the playoffs....

I'm thrilled about last nights win, bringing it home and turning the series around? Let's hope.

After the Sox finally broke the curse, my new favorite baseball activity became watching the disintegration of the dynasty, aka Steinbrener gearing up for a heart attack. The resignation of Joe Torre thus has me elated, as he and Rivera were the only two things I didn't hate about the Yankees. Now I have nothing left to make me feel guilty. This is gonna get good. Anyway, on to the funny gchat conversation I had today with my roommate (to our credit as girls, we had discussed the technical aspects of the game prior to this). Anyway:

alissa: random observation: mike lowell looks a lot like scott bakula

me: huh

alissa: http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/1277/Events/1277/ScottBakula_Granitz_259449_400.jpg.html?hint=nm0000836
just put a goatee on this

and you get mike lowell

me: weird

what made you come up with that one

alissa: i don't know, when i was watching game 1, it just hit me when i saw lowell i was like "since when does the quantum leap guy play baseball?"

Astute observation Alissa, astute.

Go Sox. Yankees suck.

Go get my mother, she's gonna like this one.....

2007-10-12T03:45:00.000-04:00

There was a little run in with the Romanian police.
And then we almost died.

Kinda.

Not in that order.

Need more details? Fine. Here we go.

So Kate and I decided to go to Bucharest. We hopped an overnight train from Budapest, and due to some slight miscommunications and utter lack of interest or helpfulness on the part of the ticket woman, wound up with two second class coach tickets for a 15 hour journey. The journey started all right, with us sharing a seat with some very loud Hungarian women. Things were actually going quite well until we got to the border, and that's where everything began to get a bit dicey. First, we couldn't get anyone to confirm the actual destination of our train. Everyone kept saying we were on the right train, but any questions such as "so even though this train says it's going to a totally different city, we're okay, right?" were met with blank, blank stares, and lots of "ummmm....ya.....sure" type answers. Our worry was exacerbated by the fact that the map of Europe Kate had procured in Budapest, was pretty much useless in Romania. As it turns out, the Hungarian language has taken it upon itself to rename EVERY SINGLE ROMANIAN CITZ TO SOMETHING THAT LOOKED NOTHING LIKE WHAT THE ROMANIANS CALL IT. I honestly don't know how they found the time.

So anyway, we're rolling along, circa 1:30am, the car's cleared out, and it's occuring to me that not being in a sleeper car means we are pretty grossly unsafe here. No locks, and thez open the doors at ever stop. Awesome. Kate is having none of these fears, since she, unbeknownst to me, took a bunch of Benadryl, and is sleeping quite peacefully on the plastic seat next to me. I had woken up about half an hour earlier, convinced I had seen a human hand pressed against the window across from me. I had convinced mzself that I was merely being paranoid, but I was still pondering whether or not I should close said window, when suddenly the train whistle started blaring. Now this had happened a lot that night, but this one was longer. And louder. And it was being answered. After a few minutes of this I pretty much was bracing for a crash, when the train slammed to a hault, nearly knocking me off my seat. This, at least, woke Kate, and I looked at her and said "I think something's wrong". Helpfully, she responded that no, we were fine, we were in a station, and so we were. The passing minutes quickly proved me right however, as the FREAKIN ROMANIAN POLICE STORMED OUR CAR. Like, half a dozen of them. They ran to the seats next to us, and in a scene I'd heard in a million anti Communist movies, proceeded to go all KGB on the guy next to us. He starts screaming about his passport, and Kate, again helpfully, pulls out hers to show the nice men, should they ask. They are too busy beating and screaming at the guy next to us to do much with our passports. At this point, they drag him off the train, still screaming, and Kate and I just stare at eachother. At this point, I look out the window and see the guy who seems to be the head policeman looking under where we are sitting. When a train attendant comes up to him to ask what's going on the guy TAKES HIS BILLY STICK AWAY FROM HIM AND CLUBS HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH IT TIL HE PASSES OUT. So I never found out what happened. As they left, one ran back in and slammed our window shut, all while shooting us quite the look.

And Kate went back to sleep.

The end.

Just a quick note.....

2007-10-08T05:07:00.000-04:00

Leaving Budapest tomorrow.....or tonight. Got bored with the Prague idea, the new working theory is Sarajevo, Bucharest, maybe Istanbul (or Constantinople?). It will come clear by the time the train leaves the station I am quite sure. I cannot use contractions because I cannot find the apostrophe key on this messed up keyboard, and the z and the y have switched places on me. For more details about what I am doing, feel free to check Kates (still no apostrophe found) here.

Toodles!!!!!

PS Yes Kate and I are just being obnoxious with the cross referencing. We have no idea what we are doing.

Leaving for Budapest: the Exterminator files....

2007-10-04T14:49:00.000-04:00

About three weeks after moving in with the VRA (that's Venerable Roommate Alissa for the uneducate), I came home one night to find our pantry door open, and Alissa sitting on the couch casting long sideways glances at it. When I asked what was up, she said that she had opened it to find a moth flying around inside, and when she went to kill it, she found that it was not one moth but like, a lot of moths, and once she'd killed six she kinda freaked out and decided to sit back down and glare at it. Which was cool. I wasn't too concerned as the spot she was pointing to was the unused top part, and I figured the moths just kind of were hanging out there or something cuz the view was nice. Clearly.

The next morning, I opened the pantry to find three more moths, at which point we decided we just might have a problem. I had a bunch of stuff in there, so I decided to look through it, and when I opened a bag of rice I had (Basmati, the kind sold in a burlap type bag) I found a moth hanging out inside. Huh. I threw it out, and hoped like hell that this was the source of the problem. Alissa in the meantime, decided that these were rice moths and researched them online. In the process, we discovered that my PTSD from having bed bugs a couple years ago was still alive and well, and that even watching Alissa look online for information about rice moths kind of lead to me having an increased pulse, dilated pupils and a general sense of paranoid doom. I made her shut off the computer. My unwillingness to cope with the issue brought up an interesting conundrum....which one of us was going to initiate dealing with this?

Basically, the problem is this: Alissa and I are very good for each other in a lot of ways. We have fun together, we are unflinchingly honest with each other, we've been friends for years and have a good handle on each others histories and idiosyncrasy's. We challenge each other emotionally and mentally, and I would daresay even inspire each other. One of the only major flaws in this however, is that neither of us really aspires to be a much better housekeeper. Or if we do, the other one definitely doesn't bring it out in us. Our apartment is relatively clean, and getting better, but some sort of big awkward job like purging a pantry and scrubbing it down for moths? We were both just kind of content to make a couple vague resolutions and then hope like hell it got better. It didn't. Over the next several weeks, we slowly but surely saw the moth sightings go from 1 or 2 a day (okay, conservative estimate. Very conservative.) to 2 or 3. Then we saw them flying in the rest of the kitchen. As my day to leave for Budapest came nearer, I realized that this problem could not go two more weeks with out being addressed, and while I was tempted to just leave a note that said "Oh, and would you be a peach and clean out the pantry while I'm gone???? Thanks! Smooches!" I knew that wouldn't go over well, and worse, wouldn't happen. Sigh.

So last night, we finally, gently, Alissa suggested that we tackle this. I sighed, knowing that, in the immortal words of the Doors, the time to hesitate was through. We dove in. We threw out everything open or even remotely questionable, and scrub the whole thing down. The one relatively funny moment was when I mentioned that we should probably use some really chemically type cleaning spray to upset the moths, and (being the little hippies that we are) we realized we basically had nothing more powerful that some lemon scented hippie juice. Dammit. We eventually dug up some bleach and used the undiluted hippie juice on top of it. Now we're at a solid 18 hours totally moth free, and both feeling pretty proud of ourselves, or at least I am. Who knows, maybe next I'll use some of this extra energy to start packing or something.

But really, what's the rush? I totally have 28 hours til my flight leaves. Give or take. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post while I'm in Hungary and Kate is taking her midterms or something, but I probably won't. Either way, you'll miss me. You'll totally miss me.

Toodles!

PS If anyone wants to hang out with Alissa in the next 12 days, contact me. I'd like her to have a full schedule so she doesn't miss me too much.

Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature...

2007-09-26T14:43:00.000-04:00

So I'm having a phraseology problem lately, and I need some help.

The Background: A few months ago, two events occurred in such close succession that I could not possibly ignore the clear message from the universe contained in them. The first was the fact that I read a book by some self help guru (hey, the title was Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life...how could I resist) where he mentioned that the simplest thing he thought most people could do to improve their life would be to listen to books on tape. His basic point was something along the lines of most of us just wasting our car time, and books on tape would help change that. Right after I read that, I found out that my Dad had started doing this, and was raving about a book called Team of Rivals. Now my Dad has read a lot of books in the course of my life, but rarely had I heard him rave about one like this.

The Upshot: I went to the library. I checked out the audiobook section, and found Team of Rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. With a run time of 42 hours, and a commute time of only half an hour, it took me almost two months to get through, but in the process it reduced my road rage and helped me forgive Britney Spears for totally sucking now. What did I care? I don't listen to the radio any more. Oh yeah, and I wept, absolutely bawled when he got shot. History had rarely been that alive for me.

The problem: So now I've got one under my belt, I've moved on to The Agony and the Ecstacy by Irving Stone. It's a book I borrowed from someone (hi Keith!) a long time ago and have never managed to find time for. I'm hoping I can return it now, and perhaps even get back my Charlotte Perkins Gilmore reader from him. Anyway, the real issue is this: how do I refer to these books? Should I say "A book I'm reading?" The purist in me says no. Should I say "This book I'm listening to in my car?" I would, but that always makes me feel the need to defend myself and add "you know cuz this self help guy said I should and I'm reading 10 real books right now so it's not like I just don't read you know so it's okay" That's a little wordy, and sounds pretty defensive...and also runs the risk of totally changing the course of the conversation. So what do I say? And if it comes up in conversation later, can I say I read the book? Come on people, you are some of the most precise language lovers I know....what do I do???

Emergency room logic puzzle....

2007-09-24T14:11:00.000-04:00

What do you get when you cross a too-small quiet patient care area with no walls, only curtains, an older man who is hard of hearing and has come in with a 20 hour long case of priapism, and a young urology resident with a very shrill voice?

Answer: a room full of patient visitors who will go home that night saying "Oh yeah, mom's fine....but guess what was wrong with the guy in the room next to her!!!!"

Oh, and in case you ever wondered, the treatment for priapism is to stick big needles in to the problem area and draw blood out repeatedly, until things return to normal, along with intermittent massage of the problem area. And yes, the urology resident had to explain all of that, loudly, TWICE.

I haven't seen that much giggling since my freshman year of high school, when one of the seniors got up in chapel and said that he drew his inspiration from the Bible, and his special verse was Genesis 38:9.

Not linking to that one. I think that would get me smited. Smote?

Two week countdown....

2007-09-22T11:19:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I leave for Budapest 2 weeks from yesterday, and I still have 15 books out from the library. Anyone care to wager how many I will have returned (fully read) before I go?

Personally, I'd be disappointed with anything less than 10.....

Oh yeah.....

2007-09-06T03:56:00.001-04:00

And today's my birthday. Twenty six is old. I'm sure my parents will squawk when they hear that, but I kind of figured it was safe to tune them out once they hit 50.

John, this one's for you.....

2007-09-06T03:06:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day (coming in the middle of a conversation about how Gen X and Y women today are taught that they have the market cornered when it comes to handling emotions and functioning in relationships):

"I believe that in this day and age in America, every woman should have to actually attempt to date another woman. I think this would make them realize exactly how flat out obnoxious women can really be."

-Anonymous

Chalk one up for the Republicans....

2007-09-05T02:51:00.000-04:00

In an attempt to figure out how I'm going to vote in the next election, I've decided to start keeping a sort of giant mental white board in my mind, and putting up marks each time a party does something that particularly impresses me, and erasing one each time they do something that particularly irritates me. This should also give me a good indicator as to how my mental white board skills are actually working these days.

As many of you know, my feelings of disgust at the whole Senator Craig scandal are high. There are many things about this case that bother me, and my feelings have ranged from anger to sadness to bafflement that someone could actually make the choices and statements he has. Personally, I think it's a sad testament to what can happen to a person when they lie to themselves and the world for long enough.

That being said, the Republicans came out ahead in this one. Why? Because 1. The actions of one member of a party do not reflect on the whole party and 2. Because of how the party leadership is responding.

To quote the CNN.com article: McConnell was asked about the spate of GOP scandals in recent weeks including an FBI raid on the home of long-serving Alaskan Ted Stevens as part of a corruption probe. McConnell said most lawmakers are "honorable," but occasionally members from both parties get in trouble.

McConnell of course, being the Republican Senate Minority Leader.

Now, Harry Reid, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader: "This is an issue the American people are looking at, but it's a Republican problem, a Republican Senate problem."

False morality, hypocrisy and double lives a Republican problem????? I'm sorry, I guess I thought that was kind of a human problem. Sorry Dems, despite all the bad press for the Republicans, you still lost on this one.

On libraries and self control....

2007-09-02T23:40:00.000-04:00

There are people in this world for whom library limits were created. I am one of those people. Libraries are intoxicating places for me....whole rooms filled with interesting books, all there for me to take and peruse at my leisure. Even the smell of the air excites me. I love it.

My love affair with libraries started when I was young, and got put on hold through most of college, when my reading time was diminished. After college I fell in to the dangerous situation where the bookstore was more conveniently located than the library....not a good situation for my wallet. Recently however, facing an impending move, I started thinking about how tough it was getting to lug all of these books around, and it occurred to me that renewing my love affair with library might not be such a bad idea. I subsequently found out that all of the Boston area libraries (not including that actual Boston Public Library, but whatever) are linked through an online network. This means that at any time of night, when I'm sitting at work and someone recommends a book, I can go online, request it, and within days it will be sitting at the library waiting for me. It's pretty awesome.

Now, if you know me at all, you probably know that I pretty much believe that anything doing is probably worth overdoing, so within a very short period of time I found myself with 7 books at home (part way through 5 of them, natch) and with two more waiting for me. I was a little apprehensive about going and trying to take them out, as I had vague recollections from childhood and college of limits that were somewhere in the 6-8 range, and I really didn't feel like maxing out my library privileges so soon. I have a running theory that Dick Cheney might actually be personally monitoring my library usage, and I thought he might view that move with suspicion. Moving on. Anyway, so I was looking around online for the limit, and I couldn't find it, so I decided to chance it. I was fine. Of course, because of my abject fear of asking public servants just about anything, I couldn't bring myself to ask the librarian what the limit was.

I was reminded of all of this because two days ago, I found the answer online while looking for something else. How many items can you have out at a time in the Minuteman library network. One hundred and fifty.

They reeeeeeeeeeeally shouldn't be tempting me.

Filthy lucre....

2007-09-01T05:51:00.000-04:00

An interesting point about money has come up lately, and I'm curious to test this thought on people outside of my immediate (as in closest in proximity) circle. I was having a discussion with the VRA* this morning about money and budgeting, and I mentioned the point that budgeting books have a lot of general advice, but that sometimes the general advice is not going to be what works for you. As an example, I offered up the fact that lots of financial advice columns will recommend withdrawing your available discretionary income at the beginning of the week, and keeping the cash in your wallet. The rationale for this is that by seeing physical money disappear, you'll be more aware of what you're spending, and that because when it's gone it's gone, you'll have a better grasp on when you've reached your limit than if you were just charging things on a credit card. In my world however, I blow through cash like a banshee. It doesn't matter how much I take out of the ATM....$20, $60, $100....it will be gone in two days. And I will have no idea why....so little in fact that I've acutually developed extensive theories about a very small family of Borrowers who follow me around, steal my money, then build little houses out of it under the eaves. The worst part about the cash thing though, is that as soon as it's gone I will go get more. Why? Well I get embarrassed that it's all gone. I can't believe it's all gone. I didn't even get what I got it out for in the first place! C is for cash, that's good enough for me!

Then there's me with a credit card. Give me a piece of plastic, and I'm as responsible and neurotic as one could ever hope for. She thinks carefully about her purchases, debates and never exceeds her alloted money for the month. So, I stick with credit, flying in the face of that oft mentioned advice.

When I made this comment, Alissa offered that she too behaved much better with a credit card than with cash, which got us pondering. Why was cash so disasterous for us? At this point, the sociology major in her kicked in, and she offered a simple suggestion....was it a generational thing? Were advice columns, written largely by people the age of those who spawned us, not taking in to account that we were a new breed, raised in an age where the electronic is become more real than the tangible? To be sure, part of the reasons we came up with for why we were better with credit cards had a lot to do with the fact that we balance our budgets by going online, accessing the statements, and dealing with the purchases from there. Money, to me, seems almost fake, some sort of thing you find on the ground or in the pocket of old jeans, or play with in Monopoly. But that little figure on the credit card bill? That's real.

The point of all this is, I'm curious....is this a generational thing? I asked around at work a bit, and the pattern seems to hold. Thoughts? Comments? Donations?

*VRA = Venerable roommate Alissa. It's a thing I'm trying.

My mid-week weekend, and other commentary

2007-08-31T02:49:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I realize how absolutely 100% worth it making the trade off between having every weekend off and having a mid week weekend every two weekend is. To clarify, since I'm sensing there's a strong possibility that last sentence made no sense, I only have every other weekend off. This means that on the week when I do work the weekend, I get two days off in the middle of the week, thus the phrase "mid-week weekend". Anyway, the end of August got rather busy for me, since I moved (which takes up an annoying amount of time) and my birthday's coming up (don't forget to buy me something!) so I decided to treat myself and take a little trip. The means to this end came in the form of my Aunt (and frequent reader of this blog) who had extended an open invitation for me to head up to Northern Vermont to visit her any time. Escape the city for a few days mid week? Fabulous! The trip was everything I hoped for...lots of fresh organic garden grown fruits and veggies, gluten free cooking, and lots of talking about just about everything. It's amazing the different perspective you can get on yourself and your family by spending two days with a family member you don't see often. All sorts of useful tidbits came up that I put deep in the filing cabinet section of my brain. My Aunt and her husband live on a dirt road, in a house that is hidden from view, and I actually got to wake up to rooster's crowing in the morning. They have fresh eggs from their chickens, a large and enviable garden, and lots of local dairy/meat/fruit suppliers that all added to their food tasting fantastic. I like Vermont. Anyway, I had a great time, and came home with a three part to do list:
1. See my very neglected feeling VCVAB
2. Write a thank you note, and possibly a blog post, or write a blog post, and possibly a thank you note.
and 3. Up the percent I contribute to my retirement account, because I seriously want to be able to have that life when I'm older.

Oh, and in case I don't get around to the thank you note....thanks Aunt Celine!

One more thing, my brain's feeling refreshed from the little jaunt to the country, so I should be posting more frequently in the coming days. Sorry for my delinquency.

Now this is the sort of girl for whom a "medium coffee cream and sugar" is gonna be a tough order....

2007-08-26T03:37:00.000-04:00

Tell me she doesn't have a future at Dunkin Donuts....

Country fest '07

2007-08-13T15:36:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now, but hadn't gotten around to it. It's a post commenting a bit on some 'tribal differences' I noticed about two weeks back, while spending a day at the New England Country Music Festival. For those of you having no idea what I'm talking about when I refer to tribal differences, go ahead and read this stuff here. For those of you to make the click, I'll break it down for you. Basically the venerable AVI has a theory about how society breaks down in to different groups or 'tribes' if you will, each with their own affiliations, priorities, prejudices, etc. Some of his examples are Arts and Humanities tribe, Science and Technology, God and Country, Business and Econ, and other such things like that, a lot of it generally focused on what your college major/lack thereof did to influence you, how you view the world, who you see as friends or enemies. Or something like that. Anyway, he, being originally of the Arts and Humanities tribe critiques them a lot. At first this made me slightly defensive, until I realized that as an engineer turned health care worker, I was not in that tribe at all. It was that tribe that used to get annoyed in college when I would comment on great books I'd read or movies I'd watched. You can't know anything about that, because if you do, then why did I get my degree???? That was the refrain I got from the worst of them. Kinda pissed me off. Anyway, the point of all of this is generally that people defend the importance of their own tribe, and minimize the importance of the other tribes, along with the things that are important to opposing tribes. Patriotism is a little naive, don't you think? Ever heard that one? Alright. Enough background. Let's get to Country Fest.

So I am not actually a very hard core country music fan. I have long since gotten over the stereotypical New England answer of "Oh I like all music. Except country.", but I have not gone so far as to put WOKQ as one of my radio presets. I'll listen to country quite happily if it's there, and have even downloaded a couple songs in to itunes, but I won't claim even a working familiarity of most of the music. With that mindset, and with the fact that my Dad was still sick and I was worried about it, I showed up to Countryfest in prime introverted observation mode. I did a lot of sitting and watching, and I noticed some rather interesting things. The first was basic: these people were not my tribe. Toto, I think we're in Kansas. On the way in, I found out that the main country station played the National Anthem every day at noon. Stuck in traffic on the way in to Foxboro, I could see people saluting in their cars. During the actual concert, one of the bands invited a bunch of servicemen on to stage, while playing videos of flags in the background. Cheers, tears, standing ovations erupted from the crowd. Let me just tell you, that would happen at an Ani Difranco concert. Coming from the perspective of a habitually condescending psuedo liberal intellectual from Massachusetts, it was the type of sight I hadn't seen in a long time. Had I been more awake, less worried, or drunker, I might have had opinions. As it was, I just was drinking it all in. For these people, loving their country is as natural as criticizing it is for me. I was surprised to find that this brought a tear to my eye. I had forgotten what it was like to feel that way, to truly feel like I lived in the greatest country in the world. To see someone in uniform and just want to yell "We support you!!!!" rather than to lean back and start a debate on the whole what are we fighting for topic was long forgotten territory. It was a beautiful sight. It made me begin to question myself yet again, and rehash why I think the things I do. All filed away to chew on sometime while laying in bed in the middle of the day when I can't sleep.

Another strange thing I noticed was a little lighter, but still quite interesting. While tailgating out in the parking lot, I noticed that while most of the dynamics (namely, drinking) were still there, the demographics shifted slightly from oh, say, the last Dave Matthews concert I went to at Foxboro. The population of snot nosed "are you even legal to drive let alone drink" teenagers was noticeably lower than normal, and the population of "hey you could be my Dad" type people was higher. In fact, a lot of people were there meeting up with their parents. Like, people my age. I noticed after a while how much more natural these interactions were than they were at most concerts I have been to. People were actually proud that their parents were there, and not just because they brought food. I was wondering why this was, and then I realized: we were listening to country music in New England. No one here was cool. Country music is one of the last great taboos in listening habits. Gangsta rap? Hells ya! Represent that East Coast shizzle beyotch!!!! But country? No that's lame. I just can't relate. (Viva Manchvegas!!!! Nashua 4 life!!!) Anyway, take away the status factor, and you just had a bunch of people who really liked the music they went to go see, which is more than I can say for most concerts. I would bet you anything that every single person there endured some sort of teasing for even showing up at something called Country Fest. With all the coolness factor removed, why not hang out with your parents. Also, with the whole God and Country vibe going on, doesn't cracking a beer and playing dizzy bat with your Dad just seem a lot more natural? I should say so.

There was a lot of other little differences I noticed throughout the day, from the bumper stickers, to the beer choices, to the seeming lack of pot smoking in the stadium. There was much less enraged estrogen than I normally listen to, more plaid, more boots, and everyone seemed a little bit, well, happier. I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. It made me think a lot about the benefit of purposely putting yourself outside your tribe for a day, if only to gratify some sort of compulsive analyzing bug that your science and technology tribe put in you. Next up? A wrestling pay-per-view and a Van Halen concert?

Oh, and I definitely went home and immediately downloaded 'She thinks my tractor's sexy'.

YEEHAW!!!!

On Bush copycats and intergenerational science geekiness...

2007-08-09T01:58:00.000-04:00

So for those of you who don't interact with me regularly, the update is that my Dad got diagnosed with Lyme Disease. It's a little strange because that's something we were always warned about as kids, but I never actually knew of any cases in my immediate or extented circle of acquaintances. Anyway, after having my Dad's illness be a very big deal in my life for the past couple of weeks, it was a little strange to read today that President Bush's annual medical report mentioned that he had Lyme Disease last year. Upon reading that, I had the sudden overwhelming urge to get Michael Moore to help me find a way to blame Bush for my Dad being sick, but I'll just chalk that up to "Being in the 128 loop-itis". I work in a hospital. That's totally a valid medical term.

Anyway, the really annoying part about my Dad getting Lyme Disease, at least for my mother and I, was that Lyme Disease is supposed to have a really nifty rash associated with it, like this:

See???? Isn't that cool???? A nice interesting bull's eye thing. Now I've seen a flesh eating virus, but never a bull's eye rash. And man, did I want to see one. Unfortunately, whether it's because my Dad is hairy to an extent that would do Robin Williams proud, or whether it's because he was one of the 25% of people who don't present with a rash, my best shot at seeing one of these rashes was totally foiled. My mom, being a nurse and possibly the genetic source of my science geekery, was also dissapointed. We had a good chat about this, consoling eachother with talks about how inconsiderate my Dad was. Later, when I confronted my Dad about this, he grew defensive, but that's probably just because he's not a science geek. He's a lawyer. It's what they do. Anyway, I'm still a little peeved at not getting to see the rash, but I'm getting over it. I am, however, still considering making myself a "My Dad got Lyme Disease and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" shirt.

And yes, it is all about me*....do we even question this any more????

*Just kidding love you Dad, get well soon! Call if you need anything! Hope you put on your glasses so you can read this!!!

Cowabunga dude!

2007-08-06T04:02:00.000-04:00

Has anyone checked out some of the promos for the new Simpson's movie yet? They're pretty cool. I have yet to see the movie, but I did however, find a site that let me simpsonize myself. I scanned in this picture:

And was told that as a Simpson's character I would look like this:

I was just happy they picked the "regularly sized" Simpson, rather than the "fat comic book guy" size. That would have made me sad.

I think I've found a new hobby....

2007-08-04T16:33:00.000-04:00

I think I'd be rather good at that, don't you?

Awesomeness....

2007-07-25T22:09:00.000-04:00

I don't know if that's a real word, but if it was, it would describe how I feel about making my jaunt to Budapest official. Yup, that's right, October the 5th I will be boarding a plane to go meet Kate over in Hungary (via Amsterdam). I've relieved my local library of all books relating to the topic, and Kate and I are going to coordinate our guide buying to make sure there's minimal overlap. I'm truly excited about this trip, in part because it's Budapest and new and different, and in part because I truly and sincerely miss exploring things and doing stuff with Kate. This trip is gonna be a really awesome mix of familiar and unfamiliar, and I can't wait. The last time I went to Budapest it was only a one night stay, so I didn't get to see much, but now, well, now it's on. Oh, it is ON.

Runner up (but no less important) for awesomeness of the week: getting to relive something I haven't done in two decades aka watching Gummi Bears with my Dad. My Dad bought me the Gummi Bears DVDs for Christmas and it had been one of the big regrets that thus far we had not gotten to watch them (when you work every other weekend and have a VCVAB in Boston it's tough to make weekend stays in NH all that frequent). Anyway, thanks to a nasty viral infection that my Dad still hasn't quite shaken, he gave me a good excuse to take some time off of work and go hang out with him. It was fun reliving the weekends of my early childhood, hanging out with my Dad while my mom worked and watching taped cartoons. I did have to draw the line at the nostalgia however, when he tried to read Green Eggs and Ham to me later in the doctor's office. There were pages missing, and he totally wasn't showing me the pictures. Ah well.

Get well soon Dad!!!!!

PS My passport expires in May 2008, and Kate's expires in 2012. Just in case you were wondering.

Lost in the shuffle

2007-07-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

So in all the excitement of skydiving and Dispatch: Zimbabwe last week, I think I failed to mention that I bought a new car. It's funny what you notice about cars when you don't know anything about cars. For example, if someone asks me how I like my new car, I will tell them it's great. Why? Well, I might say that it has a nice smooth ride, and that it gets great gas mileage, but in reality, it's because the front speakers actually work. And my clock display works. And I can see what radio station I'm on. Oh, and I have air conditioning. For two years I've driven a car where none of that functions. So basically, I could have bought a new stereo system and attached wheels and a fan to it, and I would be just as happy. That's kind of depressing.

Everyone has their reasons....

2007-07-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

So I promised to elaborate on my reasons for skydiving, so now I am going to do that. There are a couple reasons why I chose to hurl myself out of a plane, but most of it gets down to a little question I asked the VCVAB the other day while we were just chilling out: What are your top 5 dream jobs? This got in to a surprisingly deep discussion about what we would find most exciting to do in life. I was surprised to find that as my last spot, I blurted out one I'd never really thought about before: stunt double. After we finished the list, I started to consider why that came up. I came to the conclusion that a "dream job" list winds up reflecting some real talent, some real dreams, but in a big way reflects things you feel like are lacking from your life. I realized I think my stunt double dream reflects the fact that 1) I feel out of shape and 2) I feel an acute lack of adventurous behavior in my existence. I'd spent a lot of my adult life trying to reduce stress. I suddenly realized I was actually craving more stress. Acute stress. Life or death stress. I wanted to be terrified and pushed and uncomfortable. As I thought more about it, skydiving seemed like one of the fastest ways to get a shot of that. I began to realize I just might be a bit of an adrenaline addict. I realized that low grade stress was not my thing. Anyway, I've been asking a lot of people this question lately, and finding that a lot of other people have dreams that reflect things they're missing. I began to realize that in doing something that reflected one of my dreams or changing my life, I would be helping to inspire those around me to do more. The more other people did what they wanted to, the more I would want to work harder on my list. Basically, I'm trying to start a little revolution here. Lofty goals, but if I can dive out of a plane, I can do anything. Cuz that crap is scary. Also, I just finished my coffee. And I'm always more optimistic after I've had my coffee. So anyway, if you have a dream job list, or you need someone to come along on an adventure, hit me up, because I'm all about this right now. As a side bonus, it's making the rest of my life seem much less stressful. Buying a new car this week? No problem. Someone cuts me off in traffic? I just jumped out of a plane, what do I care? Drunk 16 year old girl on the train pissing me off? I'm trying to plan a trip to Africa here....I can handle her. It's a good feeling. I'm trying to put my God given rage to good use. No more wasting it on silly things. It's time to shake things up.

To be continued.....

They say I'm crazy (but I have a good time)....

2007-07-12T15:39:00.001-04:00

It's official kids, I have willingly fallen 12,000 ft. That's right: today I went skydiving.

And it was AWESOME!!!!

For the sake of full disclosure I will mention that I did get a little sick....it took us a while to get in to position, so the airplane (a very very small one...only one seat, for the pilot. I was stuffed in the back with my instructor) did a lot of twists and turns that even the staff said made them a little nauseous. Then, once the 'chute opened my instructor spun me around a couple times. I wasn't thinking totally clearly at the moment, so it took me a couple seconds to realize that this was for my benefit (to help me see the view) and not, you know, required for a good landing. When this was discovered I promptly made him stop. I don't do well with spinning things. Not the teacup ride at Storyland, and DEFINITELY not several thousand feet in the air. Other than that though....it was amazing. It was terrifying. It was fantastic. It's scary as hell when they open the door to the plane and make you get near it, and you think "but what if I fall?" and then suddenly, it hits you like a ton of bricks (a phrase that I have never meant so sincerely as I do now) THAT'S THE WHOLE FREAKIN POINT. After that thought I pretty much froze, which was really okay, since the instructor is the one who pushes you out. I was acutely glad that all that was required of me was to just, um, not protest. Then the freefall and you can't really even think for a while, the wind is rushing in your ears and you see the ground come closer. Then silence. I never thought about how silent it would be once that chute was pulled. Surreal.

So that's my review of skydiving, absolutely fantastic and well worth the time and money. I will definitely be going again, hopefully training for a solo jump sometime before the end of the summer. And the knowledge that now, when skydiving comes up in general conversation, I can just nonchalantly say "Oh that, yeah, I mean, I've only been once, but it was pretty decent." makes me happy. Being pretentious about things like this to acquaintances brings meaning to my life.

I'm gonna go take a nap now.

Oh wait, one more funny story. So ever since I saw the Transformers movie, I've been convinced that my car is talking to me through the radio (in case the connection isn't clear, one of the Autobots in the movie loses his voice box and can only talk through picking moment appropriate songs on the radio). Anyway, yesterday when I tried to go skydiving the first time (canceled due to weather) the first song I heard when I got in my car was that Bob Marley one that goes "Don't you worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing, gonna be alright". I actually heard it a second time on the ride down too. That made me feel pretty cool, and pretty happy, and not so silly for reading meaning in to the songs on the radio on the off chance that my car was actually an alien and trying to tell me something. Anyway, today on the ride down I was feeling pretty good.....right up until I was a mile from the drop zone, and Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" came on the radio. Stupid Transformers.

My momma done raise us good.....

2007-07-06T22:48:00.001-04:00

Some siblings fight. My brother Tim and I are no exception. However, sometimes I feel that our fights are a little....well....different from those of normal siblings. Prime example: tonight, we had our first conversation in several weeks. It lasted somewhere between 6 and 7 minutes. Here, I present to you, the highlights, and I want you to keep in mind that we were, for most of this conversation, speaking with very raised voices that came very close to screaming at each other. Bet you wish you were part of my family:

Tim: Hey Beth! I just got out of dancing lessons!
Me: Hey Tim! Awesome! By yourself?
T: No, with a friend. I went for three weeks by myself til I could convince someone else to come.
Me: Cool. I'm gonna jump out of a plane. I think on Wednesday.
T: Awesome. Have you signed up yet?
Me: No. My car died today. I have to make sure I have a car before I can sign up.
(This is where the yelling started)
T: That's no excuse! Rent a car! Do what you have to! If not you'll chicken out forever!
Me: No I won't! Don't talk me in to this! THIS IS MY FEMINIST EMPOWERMENT CRISIS!!!! DON'T TAKE IT FROM ME BY TRYING TO TALK ME IN TO SOMETHING I ALREADY WANT TO DO!!!!
T: That has nothing to do with it!
Me: Yes it does! You've never had a feminist empowerment crisis have you???? This has everything to do with it. I've had this idea for three hours, let me work out the logistics!
T: No! You have to do it Wednesday!

Then there was some more screaming where I explained all of my reasons for wanting to take off by myself and go skydiving someday, how I wasn't really scared, how there's a much greater life lesson to be learned here, and how it's just the first in a series of steps that made a lot of sense to my brother, but only because I never have to use full sentences with him. Benefits of having known him for 23 years I guess. Anyway, we screamed for a couple more minutes, then resolved that starting Tuesday, I have nine days off, so if I haven't jumped out of a plane by midnight on Thursday July 19th, he is officially allowed to unleash a world of crap. Which is kind of scary, if you've ever seen my brother do that. To answer a few questions now:

Yes, I really want to jump out of a plane.
No, I can't tell you why right now.
Yes, I probably will after I do it.
No, you can't come with me. I work alone.