Right back where we started from

Last night I dreamed about the Santa Monicas. I was hiking in the foothills and suddenly I began to cry when I realized how much I missed the mountains.

AIM no more

For some unknown reason, my company decided to block access to all instant messaging programs last week, a move which has frustrated me to no end. Yes, AIM was a total time suck but it also made the days where I have nothing to do go by much faster. Believe it or not, I actually used the stupid thing for business purposes from time to time so blocking AIM is actually counterproductive on many levels. Alas.

I just bottomed out my 4th bottle of Robitussin this week.

Cheeeeeese, Gromit

The Wallace Effect hits England!

The new monogamy

New York Magazine's annual sex issue looks at some interesting concepts, including the way some couples are opening the door to outside experiences.

"For much of human history, monogamy (or, at least, presumed monogamy) has been the default setting for long-term love. Hack the system, goes the theory, refuse to forsake all others, open the door even a crack—and the whole relationship will crash. Any dissenters have been pathologized as delusional idealists or worse. But now a new generation of couples is employing a kind of homeopathic hypothesis: that a tiny injection of adventure will ward off the urge to stray further—as long as it’s all on the table and up for discussion. (And just as with homeopathy, a healthy percentage of the population considers this premise bunk.)"

I kind of think this is a load of crap. Clearly there are people capable of having this kind of open relationship and more power to them. But let's not get all excited and make it out to be a trend. Maybe I'm just too traditional to be hip. I like the idea of a relationship strong enough to go through changes of all sorts, including the desire of one or both partners to branch out at whatever level is acceptable to them. I want the kind of openness in which everything can be put on the table without judgment. But at the same time, I feel like if what you really want is to screw around on a regular basis, why bother being in a committed relationship at all? I guess I'm just a one-man woman at heart.

The article's authors make the point that maybe being bisexual is the new requirement for being the perfect girlfriend. I hate the whole "perfect girlfriend" thing. It's a pointless, deadly trap that keeps you from ever being yourself, except when it's convenient or pleasing to your partner. Like Ariel Levy's book asserts, it looks like relationships and passion in general have become very consumerist. Levy, herself a New York Magazine writer, looks at the mainstreaming of raunch culture in light of how women are getting in on the act and participating in their own exploitation. Basically, Levy says that smart, intelligent women are buying into sexual stereotypes to make themselves feel more liberated and come off as supercool to their boyfriends.

Not that I'm saying monogamy is the only way to go, or that women can't be empowered by their own sexuality. I just question the motives behind the way these things are sometimes expressed.

Thank you

To whoever left a bag of sick supplies on my doorstep last week. My roommate brought them in and left them on the table, and I thought they were hers until tonight, when she told me someone had dropped them off. So I'm sorry it's taken this long to say thank you. THANK YOU!! I owe you a big batch of chicken soup or a good dinner. You're a lifesaver.

OK, it's time to put down the celebrity gossip magazines

On Friday night I dreamed that I saw Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson in the airport. I was on my way to Philadelphia (for no apparent reason) and they were sitting on the floor in a corner, trying not to be seen. They were fighting. Jessica was wearing some horrendous multicolored gypsy skirt and cowboy boots, and Nick was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. In the dream, I had some weird connection with them, like we’d been friends before they turned into fame-bound ho bags. When I saw them, I walked over and asked if there was anything I could do to help them get over the fight they were in. Then I offered them my Honda Civic so they could leave without being pounced upon by the paparazzi. Instead, Jessica invited me to this German class she was taking (at the airport)? I said yes and when the class was over I couldn’t find my luggage.

Kittens!

It is Friday after all...

My surrogate kitties:

Scully puss!

Shelter cuteness:

And the parking nazi holds sway over all

Let me just say that the Somerville parking police can kiss my ass. I got to my car this morning to find a ticket tucked under my wiper blade, despite the guest parking permit prominently displayed on my windshield. The $40 ticket was for “guest permit abuse.” Apparently it’s not kosher for me use my guest permit to park at Lunchboy’s house more than two nights a week.

Hence the “kiss my ass.” I used to think the Cambridge parking police were hardcore but this is insane. I live in Cambridge and if you have a parking permit in your car, they let you park wherever, whenever. My old roommate had a guest permit in her windshield for a year and a half and never got nailed for “guest permit abuse.” It’s a total load of crap. There’s never a lack of parking on Lunchboy’s street, so it’s not like I’m taking up any resident spaces. Most of the houses there have driveways anyway.

My theory is that this particular parking nazi lives on Lunchboy’s street. Why? Because he strikes at any time of day or night and he has no mercy. One friend parked there for a half hour in the middle of the afternoon when he came over to help set up the new grill and he got slapped with a ticket. Another person got ticketed at 10pm on a Friday night. Last week I got hit at 6am. This guy is nothing less than territorial. His boss must love his ass for pulling in so much revenue from tickets.

There are a couple of solutions to the problem. 1. switch guest permits; 2. park on the next street over where there are no permit restrictions; 3. bribe the parking officer; 4. get a Somerville parking sticker. The latter would require me to reregister my car in Somerville and change my address so I’d have proof of residency. Option 4 is what we like to call “forward-looking.” While there is some anxiety involved (because, well, you never know), even Mr. Spock would agree that it’s the most logical choice in the near term. I’m at Lunchboy’s house anywhere from 4-6 nights a week. We do our laundry, dry cleaning and food shopping together. My magazines are mailed to his address because someone in my apartment building started stealing them from the bulk mail bin. On the weekends I only go back to my place to get clothes and feed Scully. At some point we have to stop playing semantic games and face up to reality. Not that we haven’t discussed it—we have. But we agreed not to bring it up again until the spring. So in the end we’ll see. I’m still in no rush, though clearly the parking nazi has other ideas.

This, however, perked up my day. Whenever I tell people that I was Princess Leia for Halloween eight years running, people (ie boys) always ask, “Did you wear the gold bikini????” No, I didn’t but maybe now I will.

What I need

Even my girls couldn't poke through this.

From SFGate. It's the Warm Biz Bra, the latest in environmentally correct lingerie, in Tokyo. The soft, cushy bra lifts, separates and most importantly, insulates. I don't know if it fits under work clothes but hey.

A few of my favorite things

I am addicted to the cotton boyshorts underpantsfrom Target. Especially the Supergirl ones (why don't they have them online???). They speak to my childhood love of Underoos. Plus, they are super comfy and sexier than Hanes Her Way. I think Magpie once told me that boy shorts get rid of VPL but they kind of don't. Who cares--I heart them.

Digital ghosts

"The real secrets are not the ones I tell."--Mason Cooley

Everyone has secrets. They are a weight we all carry--that's just a fact of life. No matter how benign they are or how hard we try not to think about them, secrets are never a light burden. Holding things close to the vest is part of human nature, of individual identity, and it's ingrained in the ego because secrets make us feel certain ways that are secret unto themselves. Whether it's titillation, humiliation, pride, guilt, satifaction or despair, the things we don't tell anyone have emotional repercussions that lead us to do things we might not otherwise do. You might think something is secret but those who know you well can feel the veil of concealment behind what is said or unsaid. No matter how deep they are tucked away, secrets can be as tangible as lies.

Which is why secrets have a tendency to work themselves out into the open, whether it's by anonymous submission, subconscious oversight, or surreptitious investigation.

We all have things tucked away that we don't want anyone to find. Photos, letters, emails, IMs. Conversations that crossed a line but were too fun to cut off. Pictures that are inappropriate but impossible to delete. Doors that are kept open because it feels good to know you have options, to know you're wanted. Boxes of ex-boyfriend/girlfriend memorabilia that don't mean much anymore but that you can't let go of.

My friend T found lascivious videos of a coworker on the computer she shared with her ex-husband, and that's how she knew something was seriously awry. I found Glenn's letters to the trollop on the desktop of our computer because he didn't work very hard to hide them. The emails I had to go digging for, but I only dug because I knew there was a reason to do so. Another friend found suggestive photos that her husband's "friend" had been sending him just to keep things spicy, because that's the kind of connection they had.

When you have trust issues, it's hard not to go searching for the things you don't want to know. But it's imperative to hold back. I've only given in once and felt terrible about it afterward. Still, you have to draw the line between what's appropriate and what's not, what's acceptable and what's not. Some secrets are not okay, no matter how fun or flirty they might be.

My shrink calls it being hypervigilant--that overwhelming need to constantly be aware of whatever's coming down the pike. It's from the fear of being the last to know something, of having the rug yanked out from under me again at the last second. It's not fair or rational or logical. But how do you reconcile secrets and trust? How can you place any weight on words when you know there could be evidence to the contrary? Of course, it goes both ways. At some point I just have to let it go and have faith, so that I can be trusted, too. I have to shut my brain off because otherwise past pain ends up poisoning the present. But I do think that trust requires some level of evidence. Otherwise talk is cheap.

This is what I get for taking too many flu drugs and letting my thoughts run wild.

Blech

I'm home sick with the flu. Everything hurts. I can't get comfortable anywhere--on the couch, in bed, on the floor. Scully is no help. Animals are supposed to be empathic and supportive when their people get sick, but Scully is perfectly happy to nap on the other side of the apartment from me. Forget the fact that I provide her with food and love--she can't be bothered with my squirming around.

Because I'm never home very much, I have no sick food in the house. There's a random box of crackers and some strawberry jam for toast but otherwise I'm relying on my roommate's stash of chamomile tea. Oh, the packaged soup, soda, and saltines--they are so close and yet so far away. Brooks is around the corner but I can't seem to get further than the hallway before I need to sit down again. Everyone has their own sick food. My old roommate liked plain white rice when she was ill. An old boyfriend needed ginger ale and alphabet soup. I like chicken-flavored ramen and saltines with strawberry jam on them. It sounds gross but it works for me.

My mother would sigh and tell me to buck up and go to the store. If only I could let myself be a baby about being sick, but I always just feel badly for being a wuss. Unlike every man I've ever known--what is it about men and their ability to turn into complete drama queens when they're sick. It's like no one in the world has ever had a cold before. Instead, I'm perched uncomfortably on the couch and watching bad daytime TV. When exactly did it get to be this bad?? Somehow I found a Star Trek: TNG marathon on Spike, but while I was flipping channels, I passed a Who's The Boss reunion, some bad reality crap and about 17 different soap operas. When I was 11, I got into a couple of soaps and the scary thing is that Days of Our Lives STILL STARS the people who were on in 1986, and they don't look any older. Ah, the wonders of Botox and liposuction.

OK, I need more Tylenol.

Fleeing the shark tank

A bunch of us took my friend T out to the MFA First Friday last week. It's been about 7 months since she and her husband split up and she decided that she was ready to put her toe in the dating pool. We offered to be wingmen. Or wingwomen. Whathaveyou. But it was something of a disaster. I used to look at people who brought their SO to the MFA and think, "Don't mess this up for us single people!" It's hard enough trying to tell who's a normal person there without having to wonder if they're attached. But it's just as icky going there as a couple because then you have to watch your SO get hit on. Even when you're crazy happy together and you can think, "Ha ha, I'm going home with them," that's never a fun experience.

It was really loud and crowded. The shark tanky behavior of the men didn't make T feel attractive, it just made her sad. Lunchboy stepped up and tried to take her on a scouting mission, but they ended up retreating to the America's Cup exhibit because T loves boats and the boats made her happier than the men upstairs. I think she expected to meet someone that night because when your heart's broken you can't help but hope for a knight (or night) in shining armor, but the MFA isn't really the place for that. I felt badly for making her sad. Boston is a tough place to be alone.

Bow before her

Megan deserves these shoes because SHE PASSED THE BAR. Mean G, you're a rock star!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get knocked down, but I get up again

WEEBLES!!!!!

Running blind

Over dinner at Redbones tonight, I talked to my college roommate's sister about relationships. I wanted her advice. She's younger than me and has been married for four years. She and her husband have a spectacularly good, solid relationship. For some reason, dinner made me need to know how a good relationship works. Because I'm not sure I know how anymore. I know how to start off good, but then it always seems to trail off into months of need and expectation and distance. That's not the case right now, but I don't want it to be the case ever. So I asked how they made it work.

"When you really love someone," she said. "You don't ever want to hurt them. You'll do anything to keep from hurting them. So even when you fight, you don't get spiteful. You don't use what you know about that person that's hurtful. It's a really thin line but it's a line you don't want to cross."

She talked a lot about the importance of making sure you keep the foundational basics in mind every day: trust, honesty, respect, communication. If you respect each other, you'll never be afraid to open up with the person, she told me. You'll always feel safe.

"Did you ever read that book, He's Just Not That Into You?" she asked me.

"No," I told her. I haven't. I refused to read it because when it came out, I was in a place where I really needed to not distrust every guy I met.

"It has some good points. If you really pay attention to the little things a guy does, his unconscious behavior toward you, you can tell exactly where you rank in his life,"she said. "It has to be more than saying something for the sake of saying it. Love isn't just words, it's every day actions. You can say you respect and value someone, but if you act the opposite way, it's clear what's really going on."

I don't know why I needed to hear this from her tonight of all times. Maybe corn fritters and hush puppies make me want to know the way of things. Sometimes it's just disorienting to know that there's no logical path when it comes to the heart. You can't say, "If I do this, than this will happen."

On my way home, I rubbed my eye and found an eyelash on my fingertip. Eyelash wishes lost their power for me a while ago, but I blew on it nonetheless. I don't know why I'm feeling so skeptical about life, the universe and everything tonight but I am.

Beautiful and deadly

The Golden Gate Bridge is getting a lot of press these days. Lots of people want the bridge to have a suicide barrier, but a lot of other people think it would be aesthetically unpleasing to have a net or something up there. I don’t live in San Francisco so I’m not going to make judgments about the issue, but I can say that every time I’ve driven over the Golden Gate, I’ve thought about Tad Friend’s story in the New Yorker.

Mouse serenade

Birds do it. Whales do it. Bats do it. Now scientists have discovered that mice sing when in the presence of their mates.

When I think of mice singing, all I can picture are the mice narrators from Babe.

Look at your watch now

Last year I was a gogo girl for Halloween. This year I was a Gwen Stefani fan—same gogo boots but with a teenybopper attitude. Gwen was amazing. She pogoed in hot pants. She put the Black Eyed Peas to shame. Her Harajuku Girls were sassy dancing fiends. It was B.A.N.A.N.A.S.

The show kicked ass but Boston was not ready for La Stefani. From our nosebleed seats way up in the top balcony, we had a clear view of the floor and no one down there was dancing. No waving arms, no jumping on chairs, no gyrating. They just stood there, as if dancing to “What You Waiting For?” was the most uncool thing ever. Seeing as they were all about 17 (we were the oldest people there with the exception of the parents who were chaperoning their kids), their sense of cool was probably more well defined than mine, and apparently screaming and sending text messages to the giant screen next to the stage are cooler than dancing. But still--how do you not dance to “Rich Girl?” Gwen picked up on the audience apathy pretty fast. By the end of the second song, she was like “What’s up with this town? You’re all shy!” I was like, welcome to the land of the puritans, honey.

Today my feet are torn up from dancing in gogo boots, and I am definitely not a rich girl after dropping $80 at the T-shirt stand, but it was worth it.

Picture time

…and after the snow, we got a beautiful, sunny, 65-degree day. The weather here is schizo.

The Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA is amazing. I highly recommend. It’s one thing to see Adams' photos reproduced in books or posters, but it’s another thing entirely to see the originals in a lovely, curated show complete with lots of historical context. The photos are so achingly beautiful that I couldn’t do anything but be grateful that some people are gifted with that kind of perception.

Yosemite is now very, very high on my Must Visit list.

The exhibit was also excellent people watching because there were many, many women there who just wanted to be seen looking at the photographs, rather than going to the show to look at the photographs. The show’s been running for two months, so there was no need for the kind of couture clothing appropriate for an opening. But the flashing of the major jewelry and the vintage Kelly bags was a show unto itself.

There's no place like...home

Snow is falling from the sky. Not just flurries, either. We came out of Target to find a steady fall of heavy flakes coming down in wet splatters, thereby bringing an early end to fall. I've spent the rest of the day curled up in a lazy ball, reading and napping with Scully, who's comfortably ensconsed in Lunchboy's house due to the fact that the heat didn't come back on in my apartment until late last night. It's not a permanent arrangement but I'm enjoying the fact that we're all together under one roof and I don't have to feel guilty about leaving my kitty alone all weekend.

While we were at Target being domestic, I came upon a pair of shoesthat I had to have. They're technically for little girls but I found them enchanting. Now, whenever the weather gets bad, I can click my heels together and wish myself somewhere warm. Because I'm already home.

Keep asking

The good bread

I don't think he's responsible for the harvest pumpkin soup, but his work speaks to my stomach in that oh-so-special way.

As the temperature drops, my fixation with food gets stronger. Eating is not a problem for me but, as my friends and family know, cooking has never been my forte. I've been, shall we say, cooking-averse for most of my life. Raw food and its preparation always bored me to death.

Not these days. I’m not clear on what's changed—maybe it’s the fact that it’s more fun to cook for and/or with someone who doesn’t count calories like Scrooge McDuck counts his gold—but lately I am having fun in the kitchen. Over the past few weeks I've made a couple of soups, some banana muffins, an apple pie and last night I baked a big loaf of banana nut bread. It's certainly not gourmet but it also didn’t kill anyone, so that’s progress.

I can't even tell you how happy this has made my mother, who spent years trying to teach her only daughter to cook and, after watching me mangle such simple dishes as macaroni & cheese, despaired that I would ever be able to feed myself, much less a spousal unit or child. Somehow my aversion to all things culinary meant that she'd failed in her duties as a mother (that’s my theory at least). The day I cook a full Thanksgiving meal is the day she'll get down on her knees and thank god for saving me from a life of spinsterhood and Trader Joe's frozen chicken nuggets. Because she equates the two in her head. She'll never admit it but I know it's true.

The S-word

This does not bode well.

On the upside, I was just informed that Hostess is now making caramel HoHos. My winter might be saved.

Channeling Sylvia

My roommate's solution to our apartment's lack of heat is to turn on our oven and open the door. If we had an electric oven, I'd be okay with that. But we have a GAS oven. And all our windows are closed because it's cold outside. So I came home from work last night to find our place reeking of gas. My roommate and her boyfriend were happily camped out on the skanky couch, reading and eating dinner.

When I opened the door and got a whiff, I half expected to walk around the corner and find bodies, both human and feline, splayed lifeless on the floor. I'd already started to reach for my cell phone when I saw them on the couch.

The real kicker is that they decided to go back to her boyfriend's house for the night because he has heat, so I got stuck with the gassy apartment. Which of course became icy cold after I turned the oven off. Gah.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr

The heat in my apartment building is out. I’d say that this is not cool but puns are not my thing. Last weekend I came home to 5 fire engines parked on my street, firefighters bustling around in a very purposeful way. Instantly I had mental images of my roommate leaving a candle burning or putting a tapestry over one of her lamps and causing our entire place, cats included, to go up in smoke.

Panic.

The resident gossips were standing on the stoop, though, and they were only too eager to share the news.

“You missed all the drama,” said Cornell, an obese woman who’s lived in the building forever and who likes to know everyone’s business. “When they turned on the heat yesterday, they forgot to clean the boiler and the whole thing went up in smoke.”

“Literally,” said Kathy, a freelance graphic design writer with two yappy dogs. “There was this vile smell that filled the building and all the fire alarms went off.”

“Wonderful,” I said, edging past them to avoid getting sucked into their angry-sounding conversation.

The hallways did indeed smell awful—that nasty metallic odor that you get when you accidentally microwave metal. But my apartment and both cats were fine. I fully expected complete feline panic when I opened the door, but both of them were camped on the couches with this, “What’s the big deal?” look on their faces.

The net net, however, is that the building’s boiler is dead and my apartment is REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY cold. Like, bundle up in sweats and blankets cold. Getting out of the shower in the morning is bracing to say the least. Poor Scully has created a nest in my down comforter so her paws don’t get cold during the day.

I called the landlord today to find out when they intended to turn the heat back on, seeing as the temperature at night now hovers somewhere between 35 and 45 degrees.

“It’ll be fixed by Thursday,” the guy told me. “We’re working on it. Replacing a boiler of this size takes time. Just be glad it’s not February.”

I am glad it’s not February. But I HATE HATE HATE being cold. Maybe it’s time for a space heater.

Happy happy joy joy

Yesterday was our 6 month anniversary. Kind of amazing. How can six months have gone by already? It feels like it's been a lot less and a lot more, all at the same time.

Measuring relationships in months feels so 7th grade, especially since so many of our friends are married and measuring their relationships in years and kids, but that's how it goes. Time is an arbitrary measurement when it comes to love, though. It's not like being together for a certain amount of time guarantees that a relationship will work. And so I try not to measure at all. We are what we are, and what I am is happy. Completely, nauseatingly, mindbendingly happy.

I love being with him. I love who he is. I love the life we're building together. Griffin is curled up on my chest, purring like a helicopter preparing for takeoff, and Cringer is singing on the bed because that's what she does after she's successfully hunted one of the milk bottle tabs. Lunchboy is at the gym and I can't wait for him to come home. We're going to watch the big eights races at the Head of the Charles today (assuming the rain holds off) and there is nowhere else I would rather be than right here, in this moment.

Blown away

On Friday night, Lunchboy and I went to see "Carol Mulroney" at the Huntington Theater with a group of work friends. It was a fun play, a witty, smallish workshoppy production set on a city rooftop. The actors really seemed to relish their dialogue, especially the swear words that were dropped in just to show how hip the characters were. That was all fine until a monologue in which one of the female leads held forth on her desire to burn her current self into a small pile of ashes so that her spores, specifically her cunt spores, could blow away in the wind and be swallowed by some unknown man, who would then love her completely because he'd ingested tiny pieces of her crotch. It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was--I was trembling with silent laughter. The people in the row behind us were offended, though--they gathered their coats and left. The cunt spores drove them away.

We'll be calling everyone a cunt spore for at least the next year. The play was worth it just for that.

Brilliance in a bag

The most beautiful words I've heard all day:

"Dual controls on queen and king sizes for personalized comfort."

Translation: a blanket that allows for the fact that men are coldblooded ice machines, while we women, we need the warmth when we sleep.

At last, an end to the winter-time bedroom fan addiction.

Bring it on

Last night I bumped into an old crew acquaintance while I was walking down Mass Ave. It was appropriate, considering that this weekend is the Head of the Charles. This guy used to coach at BC. He made a special effort to mention that a mutual friend, a man I happened to have a one-night stand with a million years ago--had gotten married. It was so calculated, the way he dropped it into conversation and waited to see if I’d have a reaction. I didn’t. I haven't thought about that incident in years. All I could think to say was, “That’s really wonderful for him. I hope he’ll stop screwing his underage rowers now.” Then I grabbed a burger and walked away. For the first time in my life, I actually came up with a comeback BEFORE it was too late.

Free Buffy

Doesn't Fox have better things to do?

Where's the fishbulb?

For Bligh and Curt and Rob. And Megan & JD. And Dave. OK, this is getting scary. Anyway, a list of all the made up words from the Simpsons.

Five by five

I got my hair cut on Saturday. I never remember until it’s too late that I can't be chatty with my hairdresser. She works miracles with the highlighting foils, but if you get her talking while she’s wielding scissors, you end up with hair that’s a lot shorter than what you’d hoped for. She’s sort of like my college roommate, who can’t talk and drive at the same time or else she slows way down and weaves between lanes. Matilda’s been doing my hair for 4 years but every time I visit her I have to shut up and listen to all the other good conversations going on around us, or risk looking like a soccer mom at 30.

The upside was that I got to hear all about the party my flamboyantly gay eyebrow guy is throwing for some close friends at the Versace mansion in South Beach. He always makes my day. But I wonder what the hell he’s doing at a salon in Arlington, MA, a town that doesn’t allow liquor stores and prides itself on its bedroom community-esque atmosphere. Because something tells me that no one else in Arlington is dishing about Carmen Marc Valvo dresses or the black-and-gold mosaic tile near the pool at the Versace mansion.

Lunchboy and I went to see “March of the Penguins” later that afternoon. Yes, we’re months behind everyone else but by god we were not going to miss those penguins. Is it humanly possible to not coo over the incredible cuteness of the penguin babies? Or the silly belly flops the adult penguins do when they’re too tired to walk? I have a bad history of crying at nature movies and, predictably, I lost it during the scene when the mother penguin finds her baby frozen like a feathery popsicle on the ice after the last big storm. It wasn’t pretty. Somehow Morgan Freeman’s voice made it all better, though.

Oh, the irony

My mother is unreasonably excited about the fact that the dress shop in LA named my dress after me. It should come with a tagline: the dress for women who get out in the nick of time.

The Friday animal fix

Hooray for cats on a string:



Just hanging out:



OK, it doesn't get cuter than this:

It's not just us

It’s nice to know that Boston isn’t the only city suffering from this kind of thing. The new Franz Ferdinand CD just came out and already the first single is driving me batty. Why can’t they just leave it alone??

In addition to the staples of our “Call It” radio game, Lunchboy and I have added the following bands to our list of cutting-edge groups that Boston radio stations are spinning into the ground:

Nirvana
Smashing Pumpkins
Van Halen
Aerosmith

When exactly did WAAF become a 70s station?

Isn't that good?

The New Yorker is serializing Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (again) before Capote comes out later this month. Being a derelict reader who hadn’t read the book before, I was unaware that it isn't the kind of thing you can read in chunks, at least not without losing your mind. I read the first section online yesterday and got so sucked in that my evening plans got rearranged just so I could go to the bookstore and get my fix.

I hit three different bookstores before finding it at the Coop, all the while feeling lame because I was asking for a book that was about to come out as a movie. That's like going to a concert and wearing the T-shirt of the band you're about to see. In the immortal words of Dross, "Don't be that guy." Except I was.

There's also the sad fact that, as a former journalist, I should have read In Cold Blood years ago.

*thwack* *thwack* *thwack*
(that's the sound of my mental self-flagellation)

The other day, my officemate and I were talking about how rare it is to find a book so compelling that you can't stop reading at night. For some reason I feel like that happened a lot more when I was young, but these days not so much. So finding a book like that is satisfying on a level I can't even find a good analogy for. It's better than biting into food you know is going to be delicious. It's almost as good as hopping into bed with someone you know is going to rock. But really it's on a level all its own.

In the moment

One of my favorite yoga teachers in LA liked to end his classes by reciting the Buddha’s five daily remembrances. They've been on my mind lately.

When I first started taking his class, I thought the remembrances were kind of weird. Why spend mental energy reinforcing what seemed like overt negativity? But the more he recited the remembrances, the more they started to make sense. One of these days, I'll learn how to start a real mindfulness meditation practice--really, I swear.

The Buddha’s Five Daily Remembrances:

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Reading envy

Due to the complete lack of space in my apartment, my book gluttony has gone underground and is now manifesting itself in my ginormous Amazon.com wish list. It's big and getting bigger, and sometimes I wonder how big the biggest Amazon.com wish list really is. But then the question must be asked: is there really such a thing as a wish list that’s too big? I’m acquisitive when it comes to books. Libraries are fabulous, especially when the bank account and the shelf space are constricted, but generally I like to own what I read. I love finding room on the shelf for a book I just finished. Also, I have a memory like a sieve, so having books on hand helps me remember what I’ve read versus what I’d like to read.

The weight of books, the texture of their covers and pages, the way they populate a room—it’s one of the most soothing things in the world. Someone once asked me to define what makes a home and three things immediately popped to mind: books, cats and love. Cheesy but true.

Lately I’ve been missing my books. I brought one box of them to my apartment when I moved in last year, the rationale being that I wanted to travel light and there is nothing light about multiple boxes of books. But I miss having bookshelves that actually hold more than pictures. It’s a sort of rootless feeling, like being adrift without a reference point. Yesterday Renate and I were emailing about Sylvia Plath and I instinctually started looking for my copy of Ariel before remembering that it’s in a box in my parent’s basement, along with every other book I own. Grrr. I hate walking around a bookstore and hesitating about buying a book because I don’t know if I already own it. I tried to explain the book envy to Lunchboy and he said, “What books are you talking about? You don’t have that many.” I was like, “Oh, you have no idea.”

My life, like the life of any other habitual reader, can be traced in books. The ones my parents read to me when I was little, the ones I grew up reading, the ones my mother had to take away from me because I read them to tatters. The high school angst books, the summer reading, the college English references, the required course books, the books I dreaded that turned out to be revelations. I took a contemporary American lit class at Yale where we read 16 books and it was like Christmas every week. Everyone has their milestone books, the ones that were thought-shapers, defining every step you took after you finished the last page.

After college, I went on a book spree. The remainders room in the Harvard Book Store should have just garnished my wages and formalized the arrangement. The result: a mountain of boxes that my mother can’t wait for me to get out of her house. Somewhere in my future is a renovated Victorian house stacked to the ceilings with built-in bookshelves. Until then, or at least until I get to a living space with storage, my Amazon list will have to stay virtual. My boxes will stay in Sudbury and I’ll just have to go visit them.

In the words of Cher, I felt impotent and I hated feeling impotent

Today is one of those days. I get paralyzed by the number of things that I want to do, and so I end up accomplishing nothing. What I did do was leave my ATM card in the ATM machine, so now I'm praying that the machine ate it and I can get it from the bank tomorrow. I didn't realize I'd lost the card until I was standing in line at CVS trying to get my prescription for my happy pills, and arguing with the pharmacist because my doctor forgot to call in prior authorization (fucking HMOs) leaving me without happy pills for 3 days. I signed up to do the Tufts 10K for Women, but it poured and my running buddy bagged on me, so I lost my motivation and stayed in. Now I'm hesitant to go food shopping because the supermarket will probably be out of what I need or I'll get hit by a car in the schizo Porter parking lot or something. So I think I'll lie low until yoga tonight. So much for being productive on my day off.

Cats cats cats!

In honor of Blogacatmas Day.


And then, just because she's my awesome girl...

Only in Springfield

So classy.

Another reason to believe

I never win things. Like, ever. If there’s a lottery or a contest of some sort, odds are excellent that my name will not be drawn. I can say this with confidence because that’s the way it’s gone down for the past 30 years---until today. We had an office lottery for Red Sox tickets and my name got picked. So if our boys make the World Series, I’ll be there on October 22nd. GO SOX!

Since my luck isn’t great, I have to wonder whether being picked means that the Sox won’t get that far, but no! I will not give into that kind of negative thinking. Must focus full attention on willing team to win….

October

Things that rock my world:

--the first night of sleeping under flannel sheets and my down comforter.
--buying new fall clothes that I can't wear yet because it's still in the 70s.
--contemplating two containers of harvest pumpkin soup: one for lunch and one for dinner.
--being part of Red Sox Nation, whether or not I watch all the games.

Bite me

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who hates her.

Happy new year

The Jewish holidays are always sort of strange for me, like there’s something important going on that I need to remember but forgot about. I guess that’s what I get for being raised in a melting pot of religions—I’m never sure which traditions I have any allegiance to. Is there such a thing as a genetic predisposition for matzoh balls? Or kugel? That would explain a lot. Not that I grew up with any kind of model for good Jewish cooking, or for consistent tradition for that matter. But Jewish food is comfort food and I guess I like that I can dabble in the parts of the culture that actually strike a chord.

My mother converted to Judaism when she married my father. It wasn’t a popular match. My mother’s parents, staunch French Canadian Catholics, almost didn’t attend the ceremony, especially when they found out that my mother was leaving the faith. My father’s parents were equally unthrilled that their precious first son was marrying a shiksa. Her conversion went a little way toward assuaging their shock, but not much. My parents were not religious and my mother’s conversion lasted a few years at best. When they had me, my collective grandparents saw a great opportunity to get their progeny back on the good road, like if they got me board my parents would follow. Every time my mother’s parents babysat, they took me to Mass and made it clear that Catholicism ran in my blood. Likewise, my father’s mother would whisk me to temple and whisper, “You’re Jewish, darling” anytime the issue came up. It was very strange. Going to the Unitarian church helped with the identity issues, but made me wonder why my grandparents cared so much about what I was.

My mother never cooked Jewish food. In fact, I remember her making a lot of pork chops and shellfish. My grandmother cooked but she did it badly. There was a lot of salty soup and underdone gefilte fish. Then, in middle school, I met the ex-best friend. She came from a family of Superjews and they knew from food. To this day, H’s matzoh ball soup is still the best I’ve ever had. They had me over for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur (the part where they broke the fast), and every other holiday they could possibly celebrate. I babysat with H at her temple, attended services with her and my other Jewish friends, and generally enjoyed the side benefits of being half-Jewish without any of the religious obligations. But it never felt totally comfortable to me. Maybe it was the way H’s friend refused to date me because I wasn’t fully Jewish. Or the fact that I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do or how to eat. In the end, religion just wasn’t my thing.

So now, with the Jewish holidays here, I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m not quite sure what or how. Maybe tonight I’ll go to Zaftig’s and have some kugel.

Look at tihs

Oops.

Always take the weather with you

I could see my breath in the air when I left for work this morning. Everything was crisp and the dry leaves on the ground smelled so good. In honor of the cool weather, I broke out real shoes. Something tells me flip flop season is over, though by god I will keep wearing them until the snow arrives.

On a different topic, yerba mate tea tastes and smells like hay.

It was a weird morning. There were lots of men being obnoxious in different ways. The garbage truck kept blocking my car and I would have racked it up to garbage day and parking in the wrong direction, but the garbage guy who jumped off the truck sneered at me like I’d done something wrong. On the way to work, a guy in a minivan cut me off and then tried to pick me up by blowing kisses in the side mirror, waving out the window, wiggling his eyebrows and then honking when I finally passed him. Then I got glared at by some guy in the hallway when I bought breakfast in my building, as if my buying yogurt had somehow inconvenienced him in some way. Maybe I didn’t look uptight enough carrying the yogurt back to my desk. Who knows.

I tried the Manduka mat in class last night. It intimidated me—I just haven’t been practicing long enough to do the black mat yet. Somehow it feels like the domain of the hardcore Mysore ashtangis, and my three practices a week are not hardcore.

The vile commercialization of weddings continues apace

First there were Bridezillas. Now there are Groomzillas.

Who spends $30,000 on a bachelor party??? And why is Time glorifying them with editorial coverage??

Elope, people. Just elope.

Cranky

8am meetings are no fun. But 8am meetings are even less fun when the coordinator, who is absolutely necessary for the meeting to take place, forgets about the meeting entirely. Now today’s 8am meeting has been rescheduled for bright and early on Monday morning.

Grrr.

I am so not a morning person.

Done gone to mat heaven

My yoga mat has jumped the shark. Bit the dust. Stick a fork in it, ‘cause it’s done. That thing has had it. Every time I leave class, the mat sheds little bits of purple stickiness all over the place. The spot where my feet hit in down dog looks like it’s about to rip, and there’s a big chunk missing at the bottom. Despite lots of cleaning, the thing is now so sticky and gross that I get stuck every time I try to jump through. And then I fall over and look ridiculous. It’s not a good situation. So now the hunt for a new mat is ON.

Mats and journals—I am the pickiest shopper ever. I wish I were one of those people who can just use a basic 1/8th inch thick mat because that would make shopping so much easier. But no. I have wimpy wrists, so it's got to be ¼ thick. It's got to have a certain texture and not be too sticky or too slick. It can’t be an awful color, or have cheesy designs on it. It can’t have mommy issues or be into drugs or alcohol.

If only there were more places in Boston that sold yoga mats. There are nine million web sites but buying a mat over the Internet feels….weird. Like buying shoes—I’ve got to try them on first.

It's not what it sounds like

During spring break my senior year in college, I ducked into a piercing shop in Philadelphia and got my belly button pierced. Since then, my belly button has sported a variety of smallish silver rings, some cuter than others. But lately I’ve been obsessed with the belly barbell, that curved silver prong with a small ball on each end, one of which hangs down in the middle of the belly button. It’s tres Britney but oh so flirty and fun. I had to have one. Besides, I reasoned, my belly rings have been catching on my yoga clothes and creating unsightly bumps. A barbell is ever so much more aesthetically pleasing.

After combing through racks of tacky, rhinestone-studded crap at every jewelry place in the mall, I finally found it: a simple silver belly barbell. No bells or charms, no sparklies or tiny Red Sox insignia--just plain. I bought it home, cleaned it with alcohol, removed my belly ring and tried to slide the barbell into, well, my hole.

And tried. And tried. And tried. Until finally I grasped the truth of the situation: my hole was too small.

I felt like a belly button virgin. My hole was too small and no amount of poking or prodding with the barbell would make the new stud go through. The shaft of my belly button ring is about 5 times thinner than the shaft of the barbell and, unlike what’s possible in a real virginal situation, stretching the hole was not only impractical but pretty much impossible without getting the spot re-pierced.

In the words of Animal from the Muppet Show, “FRUSTRATED!”

With belly red and throbbing, I declared defeat and put the belly ring back in. The barbell’s in a cup in the kitchen, and every time I go in the room I glare at it, daring it to shrink so it'll fit.

That time of year

Somehow I missed that the fall equinox was last week. Where was my head?

Autumn is pretty. It smells nice, what with the leaves falling down and getting crunched underfoot, and people starting to get their woodstoves going. Fall also means *yummy food* I might have missed the equinox but I won’t miss what the turn of the seasons means in Moxie World: harvest pumpkin soup at Au Bon Pain.

Also, candy corn pumpkins. For some reason, regular candy corn is yucky to me, but the pumpkins are just so delicious. I allow myself two bags a year, and they must be eaten before Halloween.

But really, it’s all about the pumpkin soup. It’s an addiction. As in a daily indulgence. Just. Can't. Get. Enough.

The other day I walked down to Porter from my apartment and made a startling discovery. Rosie's Bakery is opening a satellite store on Mass Ave between Porter and Harvard. Resistance is futile. Cupcakes, come to me.

The hand of God smites down the sinners

Pithy

Seen on a T-shirt today worn by a girl having brunch at the S&S Deli:

"Attractive yet Functional"

Off the hook

Lately I've been getting random phone calls from someone in the 402 area code. They call and call but never leave a message and I've been loathe to answer the phone since I don't know who's calling. At first I thought 402 was Rhode Island but then I found out it's Omaha, Nebraska. I know people in Providence but not Omaha. Now that I think about it, I don't even think I've met someone from Nebraska before. Next time they call I'll pick it up and see who they're looking for.

Earth to Tara

Yes.

Change of venue

Last night Lunchboy and I took advantage of the fact that he's on a local project. Oh, the illicitness of it all. After work I hopped in the car and buzzed out to Western Mass, where he's ensconced at a Sheraton that's full of people attending an enormous fair nearby.

This week's moment of total and unnecessary humiliation: buying condoms at a truck stop convenience store. Oh, yeah.

I'm not a hooker, really I'm not.

Visting him was like being a guest in a world I couldn't really envision until now. It's one thing to hear about what it's like to be a consultant and it's another thing entirely to see it in person. On the outside it seems glamorous, but when I walked into his room I could see how lonely that life could be. He knows every hotel chain inside and out--which ones have decent room service, who has the good gyms, who has cookies in the lobby after 8pm, who will triple his hotel points.

We lay on the enormous king-sized bed and shopped online for all the things he could buy using his AmEx reward points, imagined all the places we could go on his frequent flyer miles.

"You just love me for the side benefits, don't you?"
"You know it :)"

When we first started dating, I looked at his travel time as enforced alone time that let me lead my own life during the week. Now, I still make the most of the time to myself while he's away, but it made me feel good to be introduced to the life he leads on the road. Like I'm a part of more than his weekends. And it feels good that things are happening gradually, in their own time.

Pret a porter

Today a friend asked me what she should wear to a sort-of interview at a hip internet news site, where the dress is casual but hip casual in that funky San Francisco bowling shoe kind of way.

"Umm. Cute pants with a twin set, funky jewelry and a denim jacket," I said, knowing that I was pulling the whole thing out of my preppy New England ass.

She smiled.

I have no idea how to dress. The editors at In Style would sneer at me if they could. Those women know how to dress for everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Every time I pick up that magazine, I want to tear out the pages that give ideas for outfits to wear to every conceivable event. A bris? No problem. A third wedding? A lawn party at your gay boss' house? There you go. It's an ability that I will never have.

My friend E is a flagrant clotheshorse, with an income to match her spending habits. Once, when I met her years ago, I complimented her on a dress she was wearing from some swanky store. "Thanks," she said. "But you couldn't afford it." She was right--I couldn't. But at least I had taste, right?

If I had my way, I'd wear tank tops and yoga pants to work every day. I appreciate style when I see other people who have it, but I'm way too conservative for my own good. One of the good things that living in LA did for me was it forced me to acknowledge the existence of colors other than black, navy blue, green and khaki. Pink?!?! What a concept. Now I own more pink than I know what to do with. But I still can't put together an outfit in Jasmine/Sola to save my life.

A few happy faces

One of the Noah's Wish volunteers took some pictures at the Slidell, LA animal shelter, showing what it's like there for both humans and their furry friends. It's nice to see some smiles after reading so many sad stories of animals in need of help.

Bush's War on Porn

The joke possibilities are ENDLESS.

The death of romance

"Partly, a model of shopping has overtaken our experience of romance. Love, historically, has been associated with a sensation of destiny. It's very difficult for us to attain a sensation of destiny where love is concerned anymore, because we think we can always look for something better, which is essentially a shopper's mentality. There's no destiny when it comes to buying pants or shirts or a dress. There'll be the nicest thing you can afford this season. But then a new season will [bring] more attractive styles and you'll actually be able to afford something better. I think that tremendous passion that we feel other generations had and that we missed was attached to a sense of destiny, and of permanent love that would survive changes in station and opportunity and fortune." --Benjamin Kunkel

Why you should avoid the 5 after a Raiders game

Is it a football game or a bunch of Skeletor fans at a He-Man convention?

Weiner dogs!

Just because.

And now, a few words from my womb

This article caught my eye today. At the family reunion on Sunday, there was a lot of talk about balancing family and career. The parents in attendance had very strong opinions on the subject, and the non-parents tended to get judgmental, as if they knew better. Frankly, I think it’s a deeply personal choice, just like whether to have kids in the first place. It’s kind of amusing, however, to watch my mother’s generation freak out when women my age and younger announce that they don’t even want to try and balance the family/career thing:

“For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.”

As the daughter of a career woman who continued to work full time after having me and my brother, I can say that I’ll approach things differently if and when I have a family (yes, I’m 30 but my clock is not ringing off the hook).

“For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a major factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with their own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all, took several years off or worked only part time….Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without breaks, also cited their mothers as influences.”

It's totally true. Kindercare, you forever scarred me and I will commit hari kari before carting my progeny off to your torture cave. I hated the fact that my mom was never there when I got home from school. She couldn’t chaperone field trips and she didn’t have the energy to help plan costumes, cupcakes, or big projects. Part of it was that we couldn’t afford for her not to work, but she also wanted to stick with her career. Once I was old enough, I appreciated her example, her dedication. I saw the value in her choice. But I’ll still do it differently. I’ve watched my friends slowly go insane staying home with their kids full time, and watched other friends resent their job because it kept them from being present for their child’s formative months. If at all financially possible, I plan on working part time when I’m a mother. I’ll never forget how uncomfortable my mom was on the one field trip she came on (she had to take a vacation day to do it), and what it was like to go home with my friends after school and have their moms there to open the door.

Captain excitement

My weekend:

--cooking a pot of Galician chickpea and sausage soup
--anxiety
--meeting cousins from Arizona who I didn't know existed until this weekend. I wish I'd known about them when I lived on the west coast
--suffering through three hours of bad football playing by the Patriots
--more anxiety
--eating crow
--20 strong sets of stairs
--Family Guy

And the topper: listening to a break on FNX saying, "We play new music so the other guy doesn't have to," and then hearing a Live song that's 7 years old.

Statements of truth

"Santa Monica is the chaturanga capital of the world."

Puella Anxia

There are times when I think that broken hearts are like the ghosts of Christmas past, but without the happy holiday connotations or piles of gifts. Broken hearts scare the shit out of you and teach you life lessons, but they haunt you without any hint of how long their odious presence will stick around. No one ever talks about the ghosts--they just ask if you're in therapy (hell yes). As always, the dirty work must be done alone, with no map of how to get out of the dungeon and back to the great outdoors.

I see myself get bogged down with the emotional detritus of last year and I hate it: the insecurity, the trust issues, the constant fear of being hurt and the anxiety that rears its head at the most inconvenient times.

I hate that when he says, "I need a night to myself," I hear "I'm sick of being with you." I hate that I tense up every time he gets a text message, or stays up IMing with a friend who happens to be female. It's an instinctual fear of being the last to know something that's blatantly obvious to everyone but me. I hate that I notice him noticing other women when we go out to dinner. I hate that it bothers me that he's still friends with most of his exes. I hate that I alternate between being empowered by and terrified of physical expressiveness.

It's oh so irrational and, often, hypocritical.

As always, there are no easy fixes. He can't do anything but be patient--I'm responsible for getting my shit together. Every day is another day in which I balance new happiness with countering the fear of getting hurt again. It's just that there are no guarantees, no absolutes. And just once, it would be nice to know that love is really a sure thing.

Better than Twister

I set a goal for myself of getting in three yoga practices this week and somehow I managed to pull it off. Today my shoulders are incredibly sore but it was so worth it. Last night I went to the primary series class at O2 for the second time. It’s refreshing to have some discipline to the poses, to pay attention to alignment and get some direction. Most of last night’s class was devoted to second series, which was a first for me. A lot of the poses were familiar but I’d never done them in sequence before and it about kicked my ass. In a moment that surprised both me and the instructor, I worked through pincha mayurasana into vrisikasana and then back out again without falling flat on my face or crashing into the wall (or herniating a disc). I’m excited about this class and hopefully I can get myself there once a week at minimum. After being burnt out on yoga for most of the summer, it feels really good to get back into the studio.

Stupidest. Thing. Ever

The perfect addition to your Hummer lifestyle.

A word from the peanut gallery

Scully says hello!

See the Citrus magic and candles on the table? That's my not-so-subtle arsenal.

Another one off the market

Heart in little pieces...

Play that funky music

Boston radio sucks. There’s no two ways around it. We’re a town ruled by Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel, and populated by loudmouthed DJs, a few of whom honestly try their best to mix things up a bit but are rarely allowed to get away with it.

After a summer spent channel surfing in the car, one thing has become painfully obvious. No matter what station I try—FNX, BCN, AAF, etc—there’s a pretty short list of artists that are being played and almost none of them are what I’d call cutting edge. It’s gotten to the point where Lunchboy and I have made a game of it. Whenever we turn on the radio or switch channels, we guess which of the following groups will have a song in rotation:

Pearl Jam
Beastie Boys
Stone Temple Pilots
U2
Live

Call the group before turning the dial and get a point every time you’re right. If it’s a song by Velvet Revolver or Temple of the Dog, you get half a point.

Just try it--the points add up fast.

Even good, classic music stops being good when it’s overplayed.

Double take

Headlines I thought we'd never see.

Good enough, smart enough and doggone it...

Are self-help books a crock or can they actually help people improve themselves? Either way, if you thought SciFi conventions were a little weird, it looks like self-help author's conferences are not quite the norm, either.

PF Chang's can bite me

On Friday night, a bunch of us went to see Lewis Black in a comedy show at the Majestic downtown. The show didn’t start until 8:30, so we hit the PF Chang’s in the Theater District for dinner. After a ridiculously long wait, we ordered drinks and a plate of shrimp wontons because I was so hungry that I was incapable of being social. Lunchboy and his friend S eyed me warily when the waitress brought the wontons, afraid that I’d snatch the plate away from her and eat the whole thing before the plate even hit the table.

Mmmm, tasty wontons.

As I bit into the second wonton, however, my teeth hit something that was definitely not wonton material. At first I thought I'd gotten a bit of shell in my mouth or something, because it is not the nature of wontons to contain things that are hard. But after sticking my fingers in my mouth and rooting around in an oh-so-ladylike way, out came a 1.5" piece of metal.

Now, everyone has occasionally gotten a hair in their food. I've seen bugs in food and I saw pictures of that fingertip someone "found" at Wendy's. But never metal.

We were all pretty shocked. I mean, food-related dinner dramatics weren't exactly on the menu. I sat there sort of stunned. Luckily, Lunchboy and his best friend were there and they managed to keep their brains in their heads long enough to point out that it was a good thing the piece of metal didn't puncture the top of my mouth. All I could think about was if I'd swallowed more of the metal and whether vomiting was considered an acceptable happy hour activity in the Theater District.

We called the manager over and he shared in our shock--it took about .5 seconds before his eyes started getting that panicked "Holy shit, we might get sued" look. He took the piece of metal (we were all too surprised to think of taking a camera phone picture of the thing before he whisked it away) and went to talk to the cook, assuring us as he went that he was "very sorry" and that he'd look at our check before we paid. He gave me his business card. No one, including the chef, could figure out what the piece of metal was.

So I was taken aback when our waitress appeared with the bill and announced, “The manager comped your drinks and the appetizer. Have a good night!” I honestly thought the restaurant would want to do the right thing. After I found the piece of metal I didn’t even want to eat dinner there anymore, but we’d already placed our orders and I’m not one of those people who tends toward restaurant histrionics. I certainly wasn’t expecting PF Chang’s to comp the entire meal, but covering my entrée would have been a classy gesture.

Getting in touch with my inner Eva

Magpie, queen of all quizzes, sent me the Desperate Housewives personality quiz. I don't even watch the show but I couldn't resist. And apparently I'm a Gabrielle:

"You could say that life's just about pretty dresses and expensive gifts for you, but you're looking for something more. You'll find it someday, as long as you can stay away from hot young gardeners."

No, really--this has to be the last of it

Yesterday, after a crappy day at work, I came home and almost tripped over a fat package sitting in the entryway of my building. It’s always fun to check and see if a brown box has my name on it, though that’s pretty rare. The first thing that jumped out at me, though, was the name on the return address label. The box was from Glenn’s parents. In my post-work burnt-out haze, I stood there wondering why they would send a package to someone in my building. Then, of course, I looked to see who it was addressed to—duh.

The box was big and heavy, and I knew immediately what it contained. Before Glenn and I moved to LA, we stored our winter jackets and other stuff like scarves, gloves and long underwear at his parent’s vacation house in Vermont. At the time, the decision seemed logical because we figured that his parents could bring it down with them when we came out for holiday visits. Cut to last fall, when I sent a few polite emails to Glenn’s mother, asking her if she could ship me my winter things so that I wouldn’t freeze my ass off when the seriously cold weather arrived. She hemmed and hawed in what I now recognize as the classic XXXXXX way—Glenn was a champion procrastinator, too—and then she stopped responding to my emails. Until the box arrived yesterday, I hadn’t heard from them in almost a year.

I lugged the thing up to my apartment, dumped it on my kitchen table and then sat down on the couch, unsure of what to do next. Should I open it? I didn’t even really want to touch it. But that was silly. It was just a box, even though it felt more like a big, brown emotional bomb. I busted out a kitchen knife and opened the thing up. Out fell a small, white envelope. Mary Jane had sent a note.

I called my mother.

“She sent my winter things, but there’s a note and I don’t want to open it.”

“So don’t open it. Stick it in a corner and ignore it until you feel ready to open it.”

“Am I 12? Why does this bother me so much?”

“Because she was terrible to you, and you had no closure on your relationship with her.”

I could hear my mother seething quietly on the other end of the phone. Her protective mother bear instincts were coming to the fore. She hated that Mary Jane could still make me feel badly.

In the end, I sacked up and opened the note. How one little white envelope can feel more dangerous than a loaded trap is beyond me, but that’s how it felt. On a simple Cape Cod notecard embossed with a blue scallop shell, she wrote:

Dear Moxie,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to send you your winter things. As always, I find that my job interferes with every aspect of my personal life. I hope this finds you well. Glenn tells us that you might move to San Francisco. It’s a wonderful city and if you get out there, I wish you all the best. We see a lot of baby granddaughter B and I think of you every time we see her because she will only sleep with the quilt you made for her.

Warm, best regard to you and your family.

Mary Jane


I cried then, curled up on the couch with the note in my hands. For some reason the image of baby B sleeping with the quilt that I stitched by hand just killed me. Apparently B was the only member of the XXXXXX family that still held on to anything connected to my presence in their lives.

As I tried to explain to Lunchboy over IM last night, the sadness had almost nothing to do with Glenn. I think I let go of him a while ago, but losing my relationship with his mother was a cut that hadn’t healed yet, and getting the package and her note caught me off guard. I’d thought that the soft place inside of me that used to be raw was impervious to further interaction with that family, but I suppose it’s good that I’m not made of stone.

Flat-out acceptance

When you're used to being in crisis, or even in constant transition, stability is sort of jarring. Suddenly, the horizon is clear of major goings-on: No moves, no job changes, no complete re-evaluations of life in general. And for some weird, screwed up reason, it can feel kind of boring. Then again, it's autumn and, like everyone else, I have that ingrained "it's time to go to school" instinct that falls flat when there's no more school to attend. Autumn always feels like a time of change and I keep having to remind myself that no change is a positive thing right now.

Last night I had coffee with an old college friend who I bumped into on Mass Ave randomly a few weeks ago. He was my cotillion date back in the day, someone I smooched briefly while on a "break" from my college boyfriend. Nice guy. We sat at one of Au Bon Pain's sidewalk tables and dished about everything that'd happened since we graduated and hit 30.

"I'm constantly daydreaming about places I want to go, or cities I'd like to live in," he said. "But then I realize that it's kind of nice to have money in the bank."

"Yeah," I replied. "I love the thrill of moving but the truth is that I don't have it in me anymore, or at least right now. The idea of having to make a new life AGAIN, or search for ANOTHER job--it just exhausts me."

"We're getting old."

"Maybe, but is it a bad thing? Aren't we supposed to nest now and then have another go at the wanderlust thing after retirement?"

"I think I'll feel better about that prospect after I have the whole 20s gotta-try-it all thing out of my blood," he told me. "I guess it's a stage of life."

He's right--it is. There are days when I fight it and days when I remind myself to relax and accept it, everything we learn in yoga. Maybe that's the change. And there's more of the same down the road.

A big IF

If you can foster an animal that was orphaned or abandoned during Katrina, here’s how. These furry friends need help, too!

My uncle and aunt, who live near Slidell, LA, managed to get back to their house, though it took them 3 hours to cut their way onto the property because their farm is surrounded by downed trees. Their house and barn sustained minimal damage, though. They're lucky.

Donating money is great but quiet stories like this make me all warm and fuzzy.

Without words

I just don't even know how to address Katrina and her aftermath. Adjectives seem pointless, and many, many other writers have described the situation better than I ever could. Giving money and donating supplies is good but they feel ineffectual in relation to the desperate need for help that exists in New Orleans right now. Blah blah blah. I don't want to be writing about this--I want to be down there helping out.

My uncle and aunt live on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain and they fled to Memphis before the storm, so I know they're okay. But who knows whether they'll have anything to go back to?

Sherlock I'm not

After a short, relatively peaceful interlude, the roommate saga continues. She went away for a week (woooo!) but left a sinkful of dirty dishes behind (booo). She's been back now for 3 days and the dirty dishes are *still there*. In case anyone wonders why I don't do much cooking at my house anymore, they need only look as far as the sink. Or the counters, which she didn't clean after our landlords did a mandatory building-wide round of rodent prevention, a process that involved them putting something toxic in the vicinity of our cooking surfaces. Will I clean it? Yes, only because I don't fancy the idea of dying an early death due to intractable stubborness.

Tonight I came home after having dinner with my best friend and found a path of kitty paw prints leading from my room into my roommate's room. Sure enough, stinky bully Clyde had been in Scully's box once again. Never the cleanest of cats, Clyde didn't manage to keep his rear feet out of the way when he took a whiz, resulting in a trail of nasty litter and incriminating paw prints all over my room and the hallway. I love the felines in general but this cat is just foul.

I cleaned up the kitty mess but I didn't touch the paw prints in my roommate's room. Maybe if she cleaned out his box once in a while, her room wouldn't reek and her fat, slovenly cat wouldn't have an excuse to avail himself of Scully's facilities.

Grrrrrrrr.

It's a walk-off

Watching Zoolander is an extremely dangerous activity, not just because of all the poor brain cells that commit suicide after being exposed to the depths of Derek Zoolander’s mental ineptitude, but because the movie coaxes forth certain aspects of my personality that I prefer to keep hidden. I’ve confronted my inner child but not my inner Wham! fan. There's no point to fighting the inner Wham! fan. Turn on “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and suddenly I'm dancing on the couch and calling up the lyrics from whatever deep, dark part of my brain they were hiding in (along with everything I learned in high school algebra).

Blue steel, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. Add some jelly beans or vanilla ice cream with caramel and you’d have the deadliest combination known to man.

In case you always wanted John Irving to be your tight end

007's take on Fantasy Publishing versus Fantasy Football:

"Pick your list of books for the upcoming season and score points based on how many weeks they spend on various regional and national bestseller lists.

I can hear you now…

But everyone would pick Bill Maher’s NEW RULES and John Irving’s UNTIL I FIND YOU. Where’s the challenge?

Ah, but anyone who had ever been on the New York Times List—the actual list, not the extended—would be ineligible. And there would be extra points for first-time authors."

My wallet heaves a sigh of relief

Premium denim is on its way out. It's about time.