Warning: MBTA/CharlieCard rant ahead

The past few days on the T have sucked. Usually I just stick my head in my magazine and pay no attention to why the train is stopped/dark/packed beyond capacity because the MBTA is incapable of trafficking more Lechmere trains during rush hour, but after today I can't ignore it anymore.

This morning I tried to use my handy WageWorks credit card to buy my Linkpass for February. On my first try, the machine at Lechmere told me that the WageWorks card, which is automatically loaded with $59 from my paycheck every month, had no value on it. I tried again and the machine told me the card was denied. I tried a third time and the transaction went through up until I waved my CharlieCard at the target to finish the transaction and then the machine magically voided everything and cancelled the transaction. The MBTA lady at Lechmere was no help—she’d apparently never seen a WageWorks card before, which strikes me as weird because everyone who used to get their T pass in the mail—and that’s a lot of commuters--now has to use these faux Visa cards to buy their passes at the CharlieCard machines. Pissed off, I got on the train and went to work. At lunch, I decided to try again at Copley. Again, the machine gave me three different reasons why it wouldn’t accept my card. The MBTA guy at Copley sent me to Back Bay, where the same thing happened—no card luck and no help from the MBTA lady hovering near the CharlieCard machines.

Now really freaking peeved, I went back to work and called up WageWorks to find out why the hell my card wouldn’t work in the CharlieCard machines. After being on hold for 15 minutes, a guy named Cass got on the line. Cass told me that my card did indeed have the $59 required to buy my monthly LinkPass but since the CharlieCard machines had malfunctioned and I’d tried to use the card so many times in one day, the funds were frozen until Friday. I tried to explain that Friday was February 2 and that I needed my pass for February 1. This was very perplexing to Cass—he had no idea what to tell me. He couldn’t tell me whether the people at the MBTA office (which is apparently at Downtown Crossing and not Back Bay) would be able to help me or whether they could unfreeze the funds. He suggested that I buy the pass out of pocket and then fax WageWorks a form so they could reimburse me.

PAIN IN MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why bother having this stupid credit card system if the CharlieCard machines can’t read the cards??? What was so wrong with the old system of tokens and nice, easy passes that came in the mail? Why bother having people at the T to help you if they have no clue what's going on? Why do I have to fork over because the stupid MBTA can’t make their machines work in the cold? Hello—it’s Boston!!!! It gets f*ing cold here—plan for it!

Ice ice ice

It’s too cold to do anything except drink tea and huddle by my contraband space heater, which is technically illegal in my office but is the only sane option other than wearing my gigantic, poofy green parka at work all day. A few friends asked if we wanted to go see Pan’s Labyrinth tonight and we passed because all I want to do is go home and huddle under the blankets by the somewhat less illegal space heater in our living room. I do want to see Pan’s Labyrinth, though.

It’s cold at home, too. The cats wait for us to sit down and then immediately try to burrow into our body cavities. The walls in our house are cold. This morning I asked Lunchboy what kind of insulation we had and his response was, “Maybe none?” He’s one of those people who are permanently warm no matter what the weather’s like, so maybe he didn’t ask the insulation question when he bought the condo. As someone who’s cold when it’s 80 degrees and sunny, that question would have been at the top of my list. I’m so glad we had a non-winter until this week because we are too wedding poor to do much about the fact that the house is a heat sink. It’s another excuse to share body heat 

Tasty tasty

There are large chunks of this past weekend that I’ve blacked out, partly due to massive alcohol consumption and partly from denial (that would be the Patriots game).

The bachelorette party was on Friday and it was a total blast. Sassy women + lots of drinks + Chippendales boys + late night of dancing = good times. I seriously do not remember the last time I was up until 4am and I don’t know if I could do it again soon, by my god that was a night to remember (if I could remember all of it, that is.) I have pictures but they are kind of incriminating.

Call me naïve but I had no idea that a Chippendales show was interactive—I really thought it was a stage show with assigned seats etc. Silly me. And thank god for the multiple peachy drinks the girls fed me at Red Fez because otherwise I would have been paralyzed by mortification. Those Chippendales boys are not shy.

After the show, we went down to Encore for a while and listened to the piano. Across the room, two tables of impeccably made-up trannies were watching us and laughing. Then we headed back up to the Roxy. That was my first time getting patted down by club security—it made me feel my age.

We danced until all hours and then headed home. Lunchboy had waited up for us. If it were me and I had four loud, drunk people on my couch at 3am, I might not have been as easygoing as he was, but he was a total trooper. He made sure everyone got home and got to bed safely, that we all had greasy food for breakfast, that I didn’t have to get off the couch all day Saturday (which was huge because I wasn’t capable of being anything other than a lump.) I know the bachelorette party is all about having one last night of fun before marriage, but I was just so glad to come home to him. The Chippendales boys were hunky but they weren’t Lunchboy. I get the best one out there.

Kind of in shock

There’s a lot of badness in Sudbury today. Things like this don’t happen there very often, if at all (not because they can’t, they just don’t usually). But in addition to the awful fact that a high school kid was stabbed to death in one of my alma mater’s bathrooms this morning, my father shared a fragment of conversation that took place in his gym this morning, a tidbit that displayed what he termed “an unfortunate predisposition” that is not alien to the swanky suburbs west of Boston. As a group of people discussed the tragedy in the locker room right after the news broke, one man piped up with, “Was it one of those blacks?”

I wish I was kidding.

My heart goes out to the family of the victim.

When I graduated from LS almost 15 years ago (!!), the most trouble the school faced was a student body-wide protest march from the school to the police station on the day of the Rodney King verdict. Were we more idealistic or just blessed with luck?

That's my girl

I once read an interview with Fergie in which she claimed that her new album was about important, intimate events in her life. After listening to "London Bridge" and "Fergalicious" at the gym (and, I admit it, on KISS108), and having been completely incapable of getting their catchiness out of my head, I kinda wondered what happened during her crystal meth days that contributed to the writing of those songs. And the pants peeing that's happened to her in the past. But then I saw these pictures on Dlisted and forgave all. Because Fergie's running my stairs and I can't diss a girl who runs those stairs.

TMI

Litter isn't pretty. I’ve never understood why it’s so hard to put your trash in a trash can as opposed to throwing it on the ground. Then again, I didn’t understand why my former roommate left her Keeper on the top of the toilet—call me a neat freak. Perhaps this explains the quadruple take I did last night as I was leaving my gym and came eye to eye with someone’s used pregnancy test.

I am not kidding.

Whoever it was must have wanted the results known because she left her EPT stick sitting on top of the retaining wall around the entrance to the gym. I had looked down to avoid a patch of ice and looked up to find the white stick with one pink line in the little window right in front of my head. No idea whether one line means positive or negative.

Did she take the test on the sidewalk? Did she bring it to Twin City Plaza so she could show her boyfriend? Inquiring minds want to know. Then again, not really.

Kinda shady

I read this today on Kottke. It’s nice that people actually follow through on generous intentions. A lot of praise and attention is given to Heifer Project International and I personally don’t think it’s a great organization. I spent a weekend volunteering at a Heifer Project farm in Massachusetts back in the early 1990s. It was a disappointing experience and left me with the feeling that the organization was not all it said it was. When our group was preparing to wrap up the weekend, another man arrived on the farm. We asked him if he was there to volunteer. "No," he said. "I'm here to put a few of the animals down." Now, undoubtedly there are sick or elderly animals on farms that need euthanizing but we'd just spent all weekend feeding and mucking out stalls, and no one said anything about animals being put down--we were given the impression that these animals were being sent to needy families using donations given by organizations and individuals. It was just a feeling but it seemed pretty seedy. Ever since then I've donated money to other places that I know will actually put the funds to use.

Here goes nothing

It’s official—I am unbalanced. Seriously. As if being on antidepressants for the past 14 years wasn’t enough of a clue, my PCP has informed me that I am suffering from a hormonal imbalance, which is why I’ve been mutating into the Tazmanian Devil for a week of every month.

In the fall, I started noticing that my normal levels of PMS (read: moody, weepy and slightly needy) were becoming exaggerated. Instead of scarfing gummy bears and crying when Tim and Jason didn’t make up on Friday Night Lights, I was *raging* against the little old lady who cut me off in the bus line. I screamed at the cats. I went off on friends who hadn’t done anything wrong other than, you know, not reading my mind. The Danger Week meant extreme, irrational anger and irritability. Calm was restored once my period arrived, but in three weeks the whole thing started all over again.

How did it take me 5 months to notice this? Good question. I was starting to wonder if my brain was secretly trying to pull an Incredible Hulk, or if I was going to end up as a case study of what happens when you take SSRIs for too long. When I mentioned the anger to Lunchboy and asked if he’d noticed, he smiled that boy smile, the one that says, “I have to be very tactful or I might get castrated,” and said, “Yes.” Then I asked a few other friends and they were like, “We just figured it was wedding stress.”

I am living one of those bizarre pharmaceutical TV commercials.

So now, with 5 weeks to go before the wedding, I am going on the Pill and going off the SSRIs. If I turn into one of those creatures from 28 Days Later, you know what happened.

Insight

On my way to visit my new PCP today, an elderly man got on the elevator. He had a wide smile and a lot to say.

“It must be my lucky day, riding the elevator with two lovely women such as yourselves!” he said to me and the other woman in the elevator.

We grinned. It’s hard not to grin when you’re getting effusive, unexpected compliments.

“Everyone in this town always walks around with a frown. They all keep to themselves,” he continued. “I like to talk and get to know people.”

He’s right. Bostonians are like that. It’s too bad that we’re like that, too. This guy was like a ray of light in a very dark place.

As he got off the elevator, the other lady told him to have a nice day.

“I always do,” he said. “Who knows—it could be my last!”

“I never looked at it that way,” she replied. “That just shot my day to hell.”

I thought it was upbeat and refreshing. It’s nice to hear people live their lives so fully.

In the doctor’s office, the old man kept talking to another patient in the waiting room, though the whole room was listening. He was that kind of interesting, the kind I wish I saw more often. He had died once, he said. He got electrocuted and the hospital declared him dead, but he had an out of body experience and knew he couldn’t die yet, so he came back into his body. Now every time he closes his eyes to go to sleep, he sees a crowd of friendly faces smiling at him. “They never say anything, though,” he said. “They just look at me. Sometimes they laugh but it doesn’t feel like they’re laughing at me. Now I’m never alone.”

Every so often, he sees a face he recognizes. “I had a friend I hadn’t seen or talked to in years,” he continued. “One night he came running up to me in my dream. He was so excited to see me. I figured he had passed on and was coming to say goodbye.”

After he told the story, the doctor called him into the office. I was sad—I wanted to keep hearing about his dreams. There were lots of elderly people in the waiting room and they all seemed afraid of what was coming, but not this guy. He looked like he wasn’t a day under 90 and he had no fear. I suppose if you’ve already died once there isn’t much that feels scary.

Fourth and goal

Playoff time is trying. Or at least it’s trying for me.

Unlike regular season football games, which I find soothing and amusing and somewhat brainless, playoffs are extremely tense. They are especially tense if you happen to be watching the game with die hard fans of the type that shriek and stomp and get so tense that their shoulders crawl up into their ears. They are even more tense if people come over to watch the game(s) and don’t leave…EVER. After dealing with football guests for eight hours, guests who stretched the boundaries of good manners to the point of obliteration (stiffed us on the pizza bill, left the house a mess, drank all our beer and didn’t get more, invited other people over without asking first, and generally wore on my last nerve), I was crispy fried and capable only of sitting mutely in bed, trying to find enough energy to read US Weekly.

Also, forget doing any wedding planning on playoff weekends. It’s just not possible. I tried to write thank you notes and got laughed out of my living room.

I guess I’ve just hit a point where I have a hard time giving up my weekends to the television. Calgon, take me away.

Nein

The Morning News would have a killer teaser for this story, but I’m tanked up on cold medicine and I can’t come up with anything good. I will say that, given the lowbrow humor that passes for witty conversation in our house, it’s a good thing we’re not getting married in Austria.

Bonne annee

I'm not much for New Years resolutions, mostly because when I've made them in the past I find it impossible to keep them. This is why I'm almost 32 and I still pick at my fingernails. Still, a new year feels like a nice, new start. I'd like to set some intentions but I haven't figured out what they are yet.

After kicking the stomach flu, I promptly came down with a bad cold. I normally associate colds with cold weather, but it's still above 50 during the day so this is a little bewildering.

The RSVPs are trickling in. People seem to be in one of two camps--send in their response card as soon as the invitation arrives, or wait until the very last minute. Even if I know people are coming to the wedding, we still need to know what they want to eat because the hotel has a thing about catering numbers. At the same time, we're observing a family phenomenon that is completely to new us. My parents insisted on inviting about 100 extended family members because if these people weren't invited, they'd allegedly never speak to my parents again. Somewhat predictably, almost none of these family members are attending and now my parents, genuinely surprised and hurt, are on the verge of not speaking to their extended families anymore. Families are very, very strange. It's really a shame because I don't think it's worth getting that angry about--people come or they don't.

Bachelorette party in two weeks. Chippendales, baby. Woo!

Scary

Read this. Then read this.

Scarred for life

We got back from Florida last night and I have never been so glad to be back in my house. Somehow both Lunchboy and I thought that escaping the clutches of elderly drivers, rural sprawl and alligators meant that our Christmas experience had blessedly ended, until I woke up this morning with his stomach flu. Now I am parked on the couch with a blanket, fuzzy socks, and clear access to the bathroom.

Despite the flu, we had to go to the hotel tonight to do the food tasting and choose linens, etc. Rescheduling wasn't an option simply because our wedding planner, who we'd never met before tonight, has been very difficult to get ahold of and I had a real fear that backing out of tonight's tasting would mean that we'd be choosing hors d'oeuvres the night before the wedding. So to the hotel we went.

In between tasting courses, I made strategic trips to the ladies room, becoming more feverish as the night proceeded. Perhaps this explains why, on my third not-so-subtle flight from the dining room, I blundered my way into the closest restroom, which just happened to be the men's room. The guy at the urinals seemed both shocked and confused, but he cheerily pointed out that because he was at a urinal, I was not in fact in the ladies room. About face. Exunt.

Strangely, it wasn't my first time surprising a guy in the loo this weekend. On the flight down to Fort Myers, I went to the back of the plane and, seeing that the little sign on the rest room was green and said "Vacant," I opened the door. The ten-year old boy on the toilet wasn't amused. Maybe the lock was stuck or he didn't know that he had to slide the little lever over to the right? Either way, I had a feeling that it was one of those moments I'd forget about in a few days but would stick with him for years. And I felt badly for that. When he came out, I made sure not to look at him so he wouldn't be any more embarrassed.

Ho ho ho

Parents will tell you that one of the big faux pas of holiday (or birthday) gift giving is presenting small children with toys that make noise. Though I am not a parent, I can now confidently state that another gift faux pas is giving toys that make noise to grown men who have too much time on their hands. This includes, for example, a life-sized Star Wars light saber that whooshes and zhooms and shrieks whenever you hit something with it. Give such a toy to a man who grew up during the Star Wars heyday--and give it to him on a day so rainy and windy that leaving the house is not really an option, given that the beach is off limits and everything else is closed for Christmas day--and you have a volatile situation on your hands. This gift might qualify as Worst Gift Ever in the history of Lunchboy and I will have it on the record that it is Not My Fault. Lunchboy's mom bought it for him and even she is beginning to regret her generosity. Suffice it to say that the light saber might end up living in Florida because I can just see the glee in the eyes of the TSA agents at the airport when they lay eyes on such a device. They'd throw us in the clink and then go play with the light saber in an empty plane hangar, a la George Michael.

Christmas in Florida is an adjustment, even more so than Christmas in LA was. Until today, when the skies opened up and a mini-hurricane rolled in off the Gulf of Mexico, it's been sunny and 85. The sun and heat are wonderful. But it makes all the fake snow in windows and wintery Christmas shlock even more incongruous. Then there's the sprawl. And the radio stations that play bad Christmas music 24 hours a day. Did you know that those stations existed? Because I didn't and there have been moments in the car with Lunchboy's mom, who loves bad Christmas music and keeps her radio tuned to those stations non-stop, that we have both allowed blank smiles to spread over our faces while we both secretly and very silently fantasized about throwing ourselves from the vehicle.

In addition to the festive holiday atmosphere, we can chalk up fun stars for the following memorable moments during this trip:

1. Lunchboy comes down with the stomach flu the day after we arrive and is unable to leave the couch, except for emergency trips to the loo
2. Lunchboy, valiantly but feverishly attempting to help his mother move a 200lb television, drops said TV on his foot
3. Lunchboy's mother and sister, whom I like very much, watch a record-breaking 5 hours of plastic surgery-related reality TV
4. Number of trips to the mall so far: six

First day of winter

How we know when it's really cold outside:

Not a drop to drink

Last night I dreamed hard, one of those intense dreams so vivid that when you wake up, you're unsure for a few minutes about whether it was just a dream or if it actually happened. In the dream, the world ran out of water. People were lined up for miles to get water from the last existing reservoirs and there were gunfights in the streets over access to water from water heaters, emergency stores, and even toilets. I was dying of thirst--literally--and as the dream progressed I got more fuzzy-minded and miserable. When I finally woke up, I was completely parched and I've never been so thankful for the bottle of water I keep next to the bed. I drank the whole thing in one gulp.

Speaking of dreams, Gimp was kind enough to share this with me. Anything with Damon is great by my terms, but with a headline like this one you just can't lose.

Sidenote--did anyone see Matthew McConaughey on Monday Night Football this week? Was it me or does that man need to wash his hair in the worst way?? And he was wearing a shirt, so booooo.

I went to the dentist on Monday. In the waiting room, there was a table full of donuts and cookies. Mixed messages--hello? Don't tell me to floss three times a day and then ply me with sugar.

I've been meaning to post all week but work was insane. Now I'm off to Florida for a few days to spend the holiday with Lunchboy's family. I intend to sleep late and be extremely lazy. Maybe go skinny dipping in the pool :)

The bachelor/bachelorette parties are in the works. weird weird.

Tilt a whirl

I picked up our rings at the jewelry store yesterday.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes it feels like we’re planning this fake wedding that will never actually happen, but the rings made it real. And soon—72 days. My grin almost broke my face. They are simple bands, with only a bit of finishing and filigree work. The saleslady clearly didn’t trust me, though—she didn’t want to let the rings go. “They’re safer here,” she told me. “Plus, you can get them engraved.” True and true. But we wanted them home. “Don’t leave them out somewhere visible,” she warned me. Because, you know, I was planning to leave them out on the front porch for all to see. That said, I still hid them in the house. Who am I to tempt fate?

Rehearsal dinner—done. Now we’re setting up various meetings with vendors and doing things like choosing linens and flowers. My mother is a gardener and so I asked her opinion on the flowers—mistake. As it turns out, my mother is in love with baby’s breath. She cannot comprehend a bouquet that does not include baby’s breath. I am flawed for not wanting baby’s breath in the floral arrangements. She is not, however, paying for the flowers so thankfully I get the last word on baby’s breath and that word is NO.

I am flailing a bit with Christmas this year. Usually I put a lot of effort into buying thoughtful gifts. Right now that’s translating into gift certificates because I have given up trying to decipher my family’s wish lists. Also, holidays + work stress + wedding planning = fried Moxie. Thankfully, my family is doing a delayed gift exchange closer to New Years so that gives me a little more time.

Failsafe way to torpedo my day

Say to me, when I walk into the salon, "Oh, are you here to get your mustache waxed?"

No, no I'm not. But I am now in frantic need of a mirror because really, what have I been missing???????????? (am thankfully mustache-free)

Bizarre celebrity dream, Part 4

Last night I dreamed that I was flying to France with a group of friends, but my passport was lost somewhere in Matthew McConaughey’s house. It was a gorgeous house, full of shiny cookware and exotic bongos. But with my flight leaving in less than two hours, I didn’t have time to gawk. I frantically rummaged through drawers that were not mine. Then Matthew came home and was completely unfazed that a total stranger was ransacking his house. He got me a beer, a bikini, and a cab to the airport, all without putting his shirt on.

Envy

Lunchboy is going to Cancun for business next week. I'm so jealous.

I’ve got enough to do, and little enough to get for it, without thinking

Despite being an English major in college, I never read much Dickens. Nor did I catch the version of Bleak House that the BBC did last year, the one with Agent Scully as Lady Dedlock. But oh happy day---Lunchboy got me a subscription to Netflix as a
Christmas gift and now I am up to my ears in lovely, dreary British drama. It’s the best of both worlds,really, because I can watch Bleak House in peace while Lunchboy is on the road and is therefore not present to whine, groan, and make violent retching noises whenever the BBC logo comes onscreen. If it doesn’t involve superheroes, science fiction or things getting blown up, he’s not interested. So it’s just me and the cats, all curled up on various fleece blankets and that’s just the way I like it.

The invitations are out. Now we have to track down the hotel wedding coordinator, who is MIA. There are lots of detail-y things that remain to be done. Strangely, we seem to be reversing roles right now. The less stressed out I am, the more anxious Lunchboy becomes. He keeps asking, “Is it done? Are we married yet?” Almost, baby. Two+ months to go.

Carmen has another great article in the most recent issue of the Improper Bostonian. Check it out if you get a chance.

Last gasp

There's a tree near Back Bay station that hasn't lost its leaves. I walked out the door today and was struck by the unexpected blast of green in the midst of all the winter gray and brown. The leaves are clinging stubbornly to the branches with a defiance that I have to admire. Maybe those leaves know more than we do about how warm this winter will be. Those leaves are not giving up.

Thanksgiving

I won't lie. I was kind of dreading the holidays this year. There was so much family tension around who was doing dinner with whom and where people would be for meals. Thankfully (no pun intended), the long weekend went smoothly. Our two families met and our parents got along, even if there were a few awkward gaps in conversation. We somehow averted a salmonella outbreak after a massive, accidental spillage of turkey blood all over the kitchen floor. I'm still not sure how the cats missed out on that one but they did so there was no cat illness, either. There was some new catnip, though, and a lot of silliness as a result.

It's almost December and it's still warm enough to run outside in shorts. The invitations are almost done.

If you are in the mood for something uplifting, don't go see Little Children. I read it with an old book group years ago and forgot about the dark story line. So it's kind of my fault that I ended up having nightmares for two straight nights.

Felinus Nintendoica

Scully lets us know what Nintendo system she prefers.

And just because it's been a while:



Griffin gets immodest while measuring her growth against the closet door.

Wiikend

Today Lunchboy and I were interviewed for a CNET story on fantasy football leagues and how they drive traffic to sites like Yahoo, ESPN, and CBS. The reporter was endlessly amused by my less than subtle obsession with my team, as well as the fact that 3 of the top 5 teams in our league are run by women who've never played fantasy football before. MeanG is second. I'm third. The men in the league who have been playing for years are a little bitter but also, I suspect, kind of turned on.

Who knows if what either of us said will make the article, but if it does I'll post it.

If we're talking about technology, what CNET really should have interviewed Lunchboy about is the Nintendo Wii. He is intimately familiar with everything about the Wii except actually owning it, and that's only because it was a toasty 37 degrees outside on Saturday night and he couldn't convince himself to stand in line/camp out all night when he could theoretically wait a week and get one in a nice, warm store. His logic lasted until Sunday morning when he found out that his best friend scored a Wii after waiting at midnight up at the Toys R Us in Peabody. Then the envy set in hardcore.

Here's what conversations in our house have been like for the past few months:

LB: What do you want for dinner?

M: Pizza maybe? I could also go for pad thai.

LB: You know what I could go for? A Wii. Can I get one of those to go, please?

M: If you can wait a month, sure.

LB (channeling Cartman): C'mon!!!!! C'mon!!!!!!!

I'm all for the Wii acquisition if only because it'll mean we don't have to have this conversation another 40 times.

Quailtards

There is no excuse for Newark Intl. Airport. None. It's a black hole, an extension of the Bermuda triangle, a place of darkness and depair. Apparently, it's a running joke among consultants that every flight to or from Newark will be delayed at least 2hrs. Infamous for its scheduling inconsistencies, it's part of that grand New Jersey tendency to make every little thing as confusing or difficult as possible. Can you tell PMS is making me cranky? Can you tell I'm not a big Jersey fan? Sorry, Magpie, the tomatoes just don't make up for it.

Right now Lunchboy is stuck in the Newark airport where, he reports, his flight is delayed indeterminately. The air conditioning has gone out, the post-security food stations are out of bottled water, and none of the airline staff can tell anyone when the flight will depart. All this because it's cloudy outside and that automatically means the entire airport gets shut down. You'd think Newark was in the deep South when a whole inch of snow shuts the place down.

Stupid Newark.

Bounce

Weren't these the most fun ever? I had neighbour friends equipped with four or five of them, mostly with handles shaped like animal heads. We used to bounce around their back yard pretty regularly, until the time I accidentally bounced over a wasp’s nest and got stung 13 times. That pretty much put a stop to that.

Wherefor Lechmere?

When was the last time the MBTA surveyed their rider’s usage patterns? It’s pretty clear that they haven’t figured out how well-trafficked the Lechmere stop is, judging from how few Lechmere-bound trains there are during rush hour. In the morning, as long as you get to Lechmere before 10, you’re good. But in the evening, if you don’t get to the T by 5pm or 5:15pm at the latest, you’re out of luck. Six or seven Government Center trains—mostly empty--go by in a row before there’s any sign of a North Station train or the even rarer (and always packed to overflowing) Lechmere train. Why aren’t there more Lechmere trains when Lechmere-bound riders need them most? Not everyone is going to Government Center, and some of us need to get to Lechmere in order to catch a bus home before it gets so late that we end up waiting 25 minutes for a bus.

So when I heard about this, I was really excited. Maybe building up Lechmere means that the MBTA will put more Lechmere trains through to serve an increased Lechmere-area rider concentration. Given how perceptive the MBTA is about rider needs, though, it
will just mean more people waiting for fewer trains that can’t handle the increased capacity.

That

Or, you know, ovaries.

There but for the grace of God

N: "We're having people over to my place. I'm making a big pot of chili con c---."

Lunchboy thought she'd said chili con carne or chili con queso. But what she'd actually said was chili con cocoa.

Specifically, tofu chili with a tablespoon of cocoa powder and 6 cups of melted Hershey's kisses.

I begged off the dinner, pleading exhaustion. Lunchboy went, however, and reported back that chili and chocolate are two dishes that should never, ever be combined-- information he shared after he got out of the bathroom.

Take that, peanut butter bacon bread.

With this ring

Saturdays in the Jewelry Exchange are busy. Outside, the Veteran's Day parade was going by. Inside, an endless parade of happy, hopeful young couples rode the elevators, bouncing between jewelry stores, juggling a desire for the best price with the ability to maintain stamina. There are a lot of jewelry vendors in those buildings. Having a successful day there requires a game plan--the kind we didn't have, similar to the kind you need to shop the Wrentham outlets without literally dropping from exhaustion.

Other than the fact that all the stores seem to have the same inventory, and that Barmakian heats their showroom to tropical levels (perhaps hoping that customers will become so incapacitated by the temperature that they'll buy something just to get the hell out of there), what struck me was the attitude of the salespeople. Generally when a salesperson wants you to buy something, they're nice to you. In the Jewelry Exchange, not so much. Sullen, impatient, pushy, resentful, annoyed--yes. Helpful or nice, no. And if you don't want the biggest bling possible, or if you don't want to break 4 digits on the price, god help you. Going on what we encountered in 4-5 stores, we were not worth the salesperson's time.

Buoyed by emergency Starbucks, we visited 8 stores and ended up getting rings at the very first place we'd gone. Isn't that always the way it works?

And it was in the summer, too

Last night I dreamed that it was our wedding day and we were totally unprepared. Our ceremony officiant backed out and some stranger was going to marry us. We hadn’t rehearsed anything and hadn’t confirmed any of the vendors. My dress was poofy. I forgot to pack the right shoes, and no one could find them for me because I’d stored them somewhere that only I knew about. Neither of us had had bachelor or bachelorette parties. I sat at the end of the aisle instead of walking down the aisle. Scully was there and I was chasing her all over the place trying to keep her from eating the flowers, even though no one was supposed to see me in my dress yet. The hotel was huge, the size of the resort where Lunchboy’s ill-fated company retreat was, and there were weddings going on all over the place. All the other couples were prepared. They had beautifully set tables, gorgeous flowers, perfectly outfitted wedding parties, and flawlessly coordinated receptions. We, however, were just trying to pull our wedding off without the whole thing falling to pieces.

In reality, we finally booked the honeymoon: ten days in Hawaii— I cannot wait. This weekend: rings and invitations. Lunchboy, glorious consultant that he is, created a Gantt chart tracking all the remaining wedding tasks so we know when things are due and who’s in charge of getting them done. Brilliant. Such organization should really keep the anxiety dreams at bay but I am me and given an opportunity to freak out, in waking or sleeping life, I will take it because that is, apparently, how I roll.

New Day

In 2000, I was living in Washington, DC. I spent election night at a huge DNC party at the Mayflower Hotel, where there were young, drunk people everywhere, scarfing up free hors d’oeuvres and watching what seemed like 50 TVs that were stashed on every available surface. The mood was positive and upbeat until Florida flipped for the first time. And then flipped again. That night I couldn’t sleep. I woke up every 15-30 minutes but was too afraid to turn on the TV to find out what had happened. What if I the news said that Bush won? No, thank you--I preferred my state of sleepy, anxious ignorance.

Last night I couldn’t sleep again, couldn’t turn off CNN because I didn’t want to wake up and learn that the House and Senate were still Republican strongholds. That would mean endless newspaper images of Bush’s smirking face and more years of badness. But oh happy day!!! For the first time in 6 years, I actually want to read a newspaper again.

Taking care of business

Voting felt momentous today. It felt like a bigger deal than usual, even though Massachusetts is not really at risk of going red. I saw a good friend and a couple of our neighbors while I was waiting in line. There was a line! At 8am! That seemed like a good sign.

Voting is fun. Flu shots? Not so much. My company had a clinic at work today and I decided to get pricked. I’ve been told that this is responsible but I also know that flu shots ensure at least one day of feeling flu-y. I suppose that’s a good tradeoff considering that the full-fledged flu lasts for a week. Still, I’m such a needle wuss. Needles are right up there with sharks and ticks as things that make me scream and writhe. I once bit a nurse (accidentally!) when she jabbed me with a really big needle. What can I say? She put her arm right across my face.

I keep checking news sites for voting results but of course it’s too early. Gah!

I like his style

On the T ride home tonight, the train stopped between North Station and the Museum of Science and sat on the tracks for a good 5 minutes. Finally, with no oncoming trains in sight, the conductor opened the door, stepped out onto the tracks, flipped a switch on the wall, and got the train moving again. It was nice to see someone take charge.

Usually the full moon has me all in a tizzy, but this month I feel grounded and balanced. Happy. Present. I kicked up into handstand and held it in yoga. Five times. I managed a phone call with my mother without losing my patience. There's so much to do but tonight..I can handle it.

The shower was wonderful. My best friend has a new house near Groton and it's a homey house, the kind that makes me want to procreate immediately after walking in the door because it's a place where you want to have a family. And we did have family--30 people showed up with food and drink. We ate, we drank, we played only one silly game, and we opened gifts. Amazingly, everyone seemed to get along, which is always a miracle when you're mixing people from 5 different worlds. I'm always struck by the people who make an effort, the ones who are there through thick and thin, even if you don't talk to them every day. I wish I had pictures to post but the batteries in our camera died almost immediately after the party started.

I will crush your skull like a clam on my tummy

The dawn of the sea otter. Sometimes a little South Park is all that's needed to get some perspective.

I got cider doughnuts at the Copley Farmer's Market today at lunch. Lunchboy and I meant to get them on our pumpkin/apple excursion a few weeks ago but couldn't find any. Tonight there will be doughnuts and Borat.

The cats have become heat seeking missiles. They follow me around all evening until I go to bed and then they attach themselves like burrs to whatever appendage suits them best. Scully on one arm, Griffin on my feet, Cringer under the covers along my left side. Resistance is futile.

Tomorrow--shower!!!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!

What are the chances of that?

That dream I had? I told my friend J about it and he shared a piece of news:

Glenn's getting married. On February 24th.

The married part honestly doesn't bother me. But the fact that it's happening on the same day that Lunchboy and I are getting married kind of blows my mind.

All the things I've been denying and trying to ignore

My best friend is throwing us a Jack and Jill wedding shower on Saturday. Yesterday LC asked me if I was excited and for the first time I realized that guilt has replaced happiness, a realization that made me feel even more guilty. In the best of circumstances, I hate being in the spotlight and parties like this are all about focusing on the couple at hand. I don’t feel like I deserve the attention. After all, this is the second time I’m doing this, the second shower. The happiness I felt the first time around didn’t exactly bode well, so maybe it’s a good thing that I feel more scared and guilty than ecstatic. My friends and family are doing this for the second time, too, and I worry that I’ve put them through too much. Too many ups and downs, too many parties and gifts, too much hope that got dashed. I wonder if they resent this second round of festivities, if they wonder whether this one will stick, if they think I’m defective or demanding.

Lunchboy is the best man I know, the best I may have ever known. He is on a different plane than Glenn was and there is no comparison between the two of them. In my brain, I know that Lunchboy is not the leaving kind. When he says he’s here for the long haul, I know he means it. I trust him implicitly. But in my heart, which still bears scars that pop up in dreams I cannot control, I am scared that getting too excited about the wedding will end in more heartbreak. I’m scared that it will happen again. And I have to find a way past the fear because I can’t let the past color the present. I can’t let it affect Lunchboy’s experience of the engagement because this is his first time and it’s not fair. This is our time. So when I wake up in tears from a dream that came out of the blue, I am glad that he’s on the road and can’t see the fear in me. I want to put it aside for his sake, for our sake. And I’m hoping that writing this all down will help.

Monster mash

Until last night, I’d forgotten how great it is to live in a neighbourhood with excellent trick or treating. I haven’ t been trick or treating in 16 years, the dressing up and hunting for candy being one of the first childhood pleasures to get dropped in the name of adolescent holier-than-thou angst. Then came college and the dressing up to attract boys (but no candy—not a great trade), and the lean post-college apartment years in neighborhoods where sane adults didn’t let their kids out of the house at night, much less let them ask strangers for candy. Last year I lived in an apartment building filled with grad students and couples who didn’t have kids. Needless to say, no one rang the doorbell.

Last night I walked home from Kendall and my street was filled with kids and parents going from house to house. Three of the houses on our street had huge, inflatable Halloween decorations on their lawns and one of our neighbors threw a Halloween pizza party for parents on their lawn. Everyone was out, even the extremely private neighbors whom we suspect are the owners of Dali but aren’t really sure. Wearing my Wonder Woman T-shirt (my grown up replacement for my old Underoos), I manned the door, wishing we’d done more decorating so parents knew it was ok to try our house. Best costume: a 3-year old Curious George who roared like a lion. Worst costume: a 10-year old gypsy who ran around the neighbourhood screaming, “I’ll dance for money!” God, I hope someone told her to stop saying that.

Watching the kids go parading down the sidewalk, I had a moment of nostalgia for being young enough to think that people will mistake you for whatever you dressed up as—a pirate, a princess, Lemon Meringue, Spiderman. It’s the only time you can really get away with pretending to be someone else and that’s still cool.

A new leaf

Things that make me happy:
1. Quiet time on the couch with Lunchboy and the cats
2. Clean sheets, a down comforter and cool fall nights (read: good sleeping weather)
3. The end of baseball season—no more packed Green Line trains at rush hour
4. The little dances that wide receivers do after they get a touchdown
5. New issues of Vanity Fair, US Weekly and the New Yorker on my nightstand
6. The walk home from the Hancock tower to Union Square
7. Harvest pumpkin soup and any sandwich from ABP. I eat there 3-4 times a week—it’s getting out of hand.
8. When Scully falls asleep on my arm
9. When Cringer catches a milk bottle tab and sings so that we’ll know she’s killed her prey
10. Griffin curled up on my chest purring so hard that it’s a miracle she doesn’t have smoke coming out her ears
11. 200 pages left in a book I can’t put down
12. The clean calmness that comes after a good yoga practice
13. Coming home after the cleaning crew has been there
14. The ability to let go
15. When Lunchboy walks through the door on Thursday nights.

Not done baking--warm, delicious cookie me only months away

I feel like I blink and the week is over. There is no time and when there is time there is no energy. Work is good but very busy, which means no time to blog. I’m not complaining—I’d rather be busy than bored. By the time I get home at night, the last thing I want to do is look at the computer. Hence the lack of posts. Also, I can’t think of anything to write about. Every time an idea comes to mind, I feel like it sounds complainy and since my New Years resolution for 2006 was to think positively, I am trying finish up the year strong.

I could write about our weekend at Lunchboy’s company retreat in Pennsylvania this past weekend, but that was definitely not a positive experience.

Last night I dreamed that the Armstrongs lived around the corner. I kept going by to hang out with Heather, Jon and Leta, but I was doing something wrong—I don’t know what it was, but I just had a feeling that I was behaving inappropriately even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing that was inappropriate, so they politely but firmly asked me not to come back.

The dream had more to do with the fact that I feel like I’m not being a very good friend right now than with the excessive number of blogs that I read (although who knows—I only realized my celebrity gossip habit was out of hand when I got a pedicure in LA and recognized 4-year-old Ava Witherspoon-Phillipe before I recognized her mother, so maybe dreaming about people I have only ever read about online is not a good sign). No time and no energy make Moxie a less empathic person. Now that daylight savings is in effect, I feel extra hibernatory. I don’t feel like I’m being very genuine or present in my friendships, and I’m certainly not putting as much effort into them as usual. I’m sorry—I will try to do better. My parents complained about this and all I could give them was that analogy from Buffy—right now my life is cookie dough. Once it’s cookies I’ll be back in the game. That should happen right around the beginning of March. My shrink says I have to stop trying to make everyone in my life happy, and while that’s easier said than done I am giving it my best shot.

Two point conversion

I’m sick from dinner last night and also from the fact that thank you cards at Paper Source cost $24 for a box of 8. That’s highway robbery. Did I buy them? No. I know crafty people who make their own stationery and I admire them but I’m a bit too lazy for that. It could also be the bad chicken/shrimp that’s making me want to go back to bed.

We have a cake and a menu, but still no honeymoon. The honeymoon is proving to be surprisingly challenging, mostly due to the scarcity of travel agents. Mark that—the scarcity of good travel agents. We’ve found a couple that were more than willing to book us into hotels with terrible reviews or onto cruises that we didn’t want to take, but we’re still looking for someone who can help us find what we’re looking for. It would help if we really knew what we wanted, but that’s the fun of spontaneity. Hawaii? Sure! The Caribbean? Me likey the sun. But please, no open-air hotel rooms where the likelihood of spiders on my face at 2am is incredibly high.

Last night I dreamed that I was Deuce McAllister’s high school girlfriend, and I’d come back from the future to tell him what college football program he should pick to jumpstart his NFL career. This probably means that I need to cut way back on my Sunday football watching, but hey—it’s such a lovely way to zone out.

Asclepias syriaca

On Sunday, we took advantage of the Patriots bye week and went apple picking. Which is to say, when the concept of a Sunday without mandatory football was broached, I latched onto it like a leech on those kids in Stand by Me and decided it was time to do something involving fresh air and seasonal fun. Don’t get me wrong—I am enjoying the football this year. But it’s good to mix things up a bit.

We went to an orchard in Groton because it’s late in the apple season and most of the orchards we found online were closed for picking. On the way out on 119, we passed a pumpkin patch. Not one of those roadside stalls piled high with pumpkins, but a real pick-your-own pumpkin patch. Neither of us had ever been to one of those before, so we pulled over and walked down to where the pumpkin vines covered a ten-acre field like old, gnarled knuckles. As we walked, the patch’s owner passed us on his tractor and roared out an extremely loud greeting. We giggled. Everyone was happy at the patch. Among the misshapen, the rotted, the still mostly green, and the way too big for our needs pumpkins, we found one that was just right, as well as a couple of brightly colored gourds. Carrying our finds back up the hill, the jocular farmer passed us again and roared out something else to the group he had on his hay-covered flatbed. If Santa Claus was real, he’d sound like this guy. We are so going back next year.

The orchard, once we found it, was perfect. Though we were late enough in the season that most of the trees only had apples on the top branches, this meant that we almost had the place to ourselves and that was better than picking at the height of the season. No jockeying for ladders with 6-year olds, no getting clocked on the head by apples that someone high in the tree shakes down by accident. We filled our two bags leisurely, climbing trees when we wanted to and walking between the rows in whichever direction seemed best. Along the way, I rediscovered a childhood obsession that I’d completely forgotten about---milkweed pods. They were everywhere, sprouting big white tufts of silky seed pods just begging to be flung in the air. So I flung—and flung and flung and flung. At some point in life I want milkweed in my back yard so that I can regress to age 5 whenever fall rolls around.

Then, tired and jonesing for apple cider doughnuts, we went home and watched football.

Strange Celebrity Dreams p.2

Last night I dreamed that Lunchboy and I had a threesome with Kristen Bell, who plays Veronica Mars. She was an active closet lesbian and snuck up on me in the shower.

No Colbert this time--sorry.

Now, let it be known that while Ms. Bell is certainly pretty, she is not on my "women don't do it for me but she would be an exception" list. Nor is she on Lunchboy's list (he says), though I'm sure he wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers. His response to me telling him about the dream went something like this:

"Ewww. She's not very hot. But YAY for the concept!!!"

Right. That'll happen as soon as I can hop in the sack with McSteamy and Clive Owen.

Been there

Cats + road trip = chaos. Hysterical.

Random NFL thought

Is it me or does Jerious Norwood sound like a Sith lord's name?

Driven

Last week on Grey's Anatomy, Meredith had a great line in the middle of one of her great rants. "You have no idea how much effort this takes!" she yells at McVet and McSteamy. "I am plucked and waxed and shaved, and I have a clean shirt on. And all you can do is look at each other!"

It's no secret that upkeep is a bitch. In relationships, it can get easy to let things slide because really--what are they going to do if you aren't as polished as usual? In the past, with other men, I let things go a bit because I felt strongly that the men should love me no matter what I was wearing or how smooth my legs were, an argument that still rings true but only to a point. Lunchboy WOULD love me no matter what, but I choose not to walk that line.

That said, I had a moment of reflection last night while on the aesthetician's table. "Why do you do this?" she asked, after watching me flinch and bite my lip in pain. "I don't understand why this is all the rage." She's Indian and salt of the earth, and is clearly befuddled by all the women she sees who dislike their body hair. I didn't know what to tell her. Everyone has their reasons for the things they do. I know what mine are, but I wasn't going to say them out loud.

Morning sugar

Jelly Belly jelly beans are by far the best beans out there, but they have one downside: you have to eat them one by one. Otherwise, instead of getting a pleasant mouthful of generically yummy sweetness, you get a mishmash of flavors that, separately, taste delicious but together taste like cough syrup.

Pick up this week’s issue of the Improper Bostonian. C-love has a kickass article about eating solo. There’s a lot to be said for eating alone and she does a really good job at explaining why it’s fun, even for people who avoid eating by themselves at all costs.

Tastes like sugar

Last night I went to Cambridge Naturals to get a refill of my daily multi-vitamin. After prying my way through the safety seal and the wad of cotton before breakfast this morning, I discovered an object with which I once had a very close acquaintance: the silica gel pack.

When I was about six, I somehow got ahold of a bottle of vitamins—or maybe it was something else, I don’t remember but whatever it was had one of the silica packs. Anyway, I thought the silica pack looked like a single serving piece of candy, so I ate the whole thing. Down the hatch. Noticing that I was chewing on something, my mother figured out what I’d done, promptly had a small coronary and called poison control, who told her to feed me lots of oatmeal. Not feeling sick in the slightest, I had no clue why she was so upset. I was only disappointed that the silica hadn’t tasted like candy. It turned out fine. But now I smile whenever I see a silica gel pack.

I don't keep going and going and going

My batteries are running low—literally. Last week the battery on my Mac laptop gave out, leading to a series of frustrating and disillusioning interactions with the people at my local Apple store. Then last night, the water bottle in my yoga bag spilled all over my cell phone and the battery did a little vibrating jig before it kicked the bucket. Apple is sending me a new battery but I have to head over to the Cingular store at lunch to see what I can do about the phone. What’s next—my watch? My car? It’s been an anti-Midas week, where everything I touch breaks. I won’t get into the mishap with Lunchboy’s Gamecube on Saturday, except to say that it was totally accidental.

After three blissful months of local projects that kept him home, Lunchboy is back on the road again for the foreseeable future. We are back to weeks measured by the time between when he leaves on Monday and gets back on Thursday. I get lonely and miss him when he’s away, but he’s the one stuck at Logan for 4 hours after getting up for a 6am flight. He’s the one who won’t get home until 11pm on Thursday. The cats don’t know what’s going on. They keep giving me these looks like, “WTF? Where IS he?”

Last night was the first night in months that I’ve slept alone, and I kept having extremely vivid dreams that there was someone else in the house, or that there was an intruder in the condo upstairs (I’m catsitting for our neighbors while they’re on their honeymoon). Usually I feel very safe in the house but without a working phone I felt vulnerable and powerless. In the dreams, I’d scream “Get out! Get out!” at the intruder, but then realize that I couldn’t call for help. Today, very tired.

Chicken or fish?

Was it me or did last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy suck big donkey balls? The Office, however? SO GOOD.

Today was my first windy day at work. Until now, I’d forgotten that the Hancock tower is in a wind tunnel but I’ll never forget again. I was sitting in my boss’ office and the room filled with a very loud creaking sound, like a porch swing on crack. Judging from the noise, the building was moving several feet back and forth. The swaying was so marked that our design director’s office door kept swinging open and closed of its own accord. It’s kind of freaky being this far up in the air and knowing that the building is moving underneath your feet, even if the building is constructed to respond to wind pressure. I hear it’s even worse being in the elevators because they SWAY as they zip up and down.

Must think about something else now.

The weatherman on the evening news last night said the F-word. Luckily there was no frost on the ground this morning. But when I woke up, all three cats were huddled on the bed, seeking as much warmth as possible. The formal countdown to the first fur-pile begins…now.

Too punchy for paragraphs

1. Photographer—check. I agonized over this decision but it is made. Moving on.

2. Seeing florist this weekend

3. Seeing mother this weekend, as we are going with my matron of honor to have her dress fitted. I am actually somewhat annoyed that we have to do this on a Sunday because it means that I will miss football. And football is much more relaxing that being with my mother. Also, I did not win last weekend. I blame the Patriots defense. They let me down. Am on pins and needles until Steve Smith plays again.

4. For the record, I argued long and loudly in favor of eloping. And was overruled.

5. We are being stalked by our neighbour, who’s a wedding planner. She zeroed in on my ring about 24 hours after we got engaged and does not allow either of us to walk by her house, stand on the porch or, sometimes, stand in our kitchen without her asking how things are going and if we need her help with anything. For a while we weren’t sure whether she was being neighbourly or trying to drum up business, but then she quoted me a price a few weeks ago and even though I tactfully told her that we didn’t have the wherewithal to cover her services, she’s being very persistent. We used to chat over the porch railing all the time but now Lunchboy and I keep conversations with her as short as possible.

6. All this will be put aside at 9pm tonight, when the new season of Grey’s Anatomy begins. My drama is nothing compared with Meredith’s. No drama is comparable to Meredith’s.

Little G and Ms. Puss understand

The evolution of the cats’ nicknames is an ongoing source of amusement in our house. I’ve written before about the litany of names that Scully has born, but now that our brood has grown to three, the nicknames have developed a tendency to snowball. For instance, Lunchboy sometimes calls Cringer “sweetmeat.” Somehow sweetmeat has been truncated to “meat.” As in, “Hey, meat! Are you a fluffy girl?” It always catches me off guard, probably in the same way it would if I actually knew the Veals.

Not a record I'd want to set

OUCH

Warning: wedding rant ahead

This weekend, my fantasy football team is playing Lunchboy's fantasy football team. Inter-house tension will ensue. But seeing as my quarterback is Donovan McNabb and his is Eli Manning, I think we know what's gonna happen. That said, I have a feeling that bets will be placed and rewards of a slinky nature will be placed on the table. We shall see what Sunday night brings.

On the wedding front, things are moving along nicely. Place--check. Date--check. Officiant--check. This weekend we are interviewing a couple of photographers. After doing some online research, I discovered that I am a total photography snob, the result of spending almost four years with a former photojournalist/sports photographer/narcissist/sometime wedding photographer. What can I say? I got spoiled by watching Voldemort shoot friends' weddings for $1000 and then hand over the proofs and negatives without getting testy. Most wedding photographers, I discovered, do not do this. Instead, they charge phenomenal amounts of money to take pictures and then hold the negatives hostage unless you drop even MORE money on a wedding album. It's a total racket.

My morning triumph today was finding out that a really good photographer is willing to drop his astronomical prices by almost half because he doesn't get a lot of business in February. Go winter weddings!

If your eyes haven't glazed over by now, you deserve a medal.

I put some thought into starting a blog for all my wedding-related rantings, mostly so that I could rave about my mother, who is proving to be the main obstacle in most of the planning, primarily because she is insane. She was like this last time, but I racked up her obstinate behavior to the fact that she didn't like the fact that I was 3,000 miles away. No. No no no. Her obstinacy is no illusion and it is trumped only by her desire to make this entire event all about her.

It doesn't help that my brother has moved back into my parent's house for the umpteenth time, and so now my mother can indulge her inability to cut the apron strings. She can also channel her time, money and energy into my brother, who is 27, employed, and just doesn't like paying rent. Translation: when I ask her to help with small tasks, I get answers like, "I can't--I have more pressing things on my mind. I'm too busy taking care of your brother and father to think about this right now."

Those "things" become less pressing if she's given the opportunity to make planning as complicated as possible, usually by exercising guilt and passive-aggressive tendencies the likes of which neither Lunchboy nor I has ever seen before. She will help, but only on her terms and only if we acquiesce to her Nutcracker-like vision of a winter wonderland wedding, complete with theatrical lighting, white frosted branches, a mysterious fabric tent-thing for the ceremony that bears a distinct resemblance to several BAD costumes on the original Star Trek, and the spending of much money, which she assumes we will front because "I just don't have a lot of disposable income right now." It doesn't matter that we're aiming for simplicity and elegance--her ideas are BETTER but not so good that she will pay for them.

I'm not being nice, I know. But if you'd been exposed to the full force of her guilt-tripping passive aggression, you'd be keeping her at arm's length, too. The wedding is 6 months away and she's already driven me into two sleep- and appetite-vaporizing anxiety attacks. Hence the wine and Ativan.

OK, done now.

Did you know you brought me home

Early last year while standing in a bar, my friend M made the astute observation that Boston men are, as a group, very short. M is one of those blonde Nordic goddesses and short she is not. But really--are all Boston men shorter than average? I poo-poohed making that kind of generalization until last night, when Lunchboy and I hit the Zero 7 show at Avalon. Lunchboy, who's a respectable 6', towered over most of the men there. As we stood to one side of the room, I looked out over a wide swath of male pattern shortness. Tom Cruise would love this city--he could throw out his expensive shoes with the not-so-hidden lifts and walk with his head held high. Why are there so many short men in Boston? And why was the short guy who insisted on standing RIGHT in front of me wearing so much cologne? My god, the cologne. I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and tell him that too much Drakkar does not compensate for lack of height.

The concert itself was fun. They did Destiny and Somersault, but not In the Waiting Line. Sia bounced around the stage like a coked-up sprite and flung her voice to the sky in the most breathtaking way. It's a testament to my naivete that I had to ask whether she was high or just relentlessly happy. I think we were literally the only sober people there (where's Nancy Botwin when you need her?). At least being stoned would have kept me from realizing that I was ready for bed at 10pm and that I might be getting too old for Tuesday night shows.

All made out of ticky-tacky

Yesterday the basement flooded again, this time for no apparent reason. It turns out our neighbor's water heater exploded. Now our plumbing is making very angry noises whenever we try to use the water. I am sore in strange places from mopping. Also from sprinting to our seats at the game yesterday. Everything is moving swiftly these days and my body hasn't quite caught up.

The Metrowest Daily news printed our engagement announcement last week and they got some crucial facts wrong. According to them, Lunchboy and I share a father and our parents both live in Somerville. Neither of these things is true. Another thing to set straight--getting married in February does not mean that I'm knocked up. Like 6 people have asked us this. So: 1, I'm not, and 2, if I were, why would I schedule the wedding to coincide with me reaching maximum density?

Scully is becoming more and more of an outdoor cat. Her latest favorite thing is taking dirt naps in the garden, an activity that leaves her extremely messy and a distinct shade of gray. Her new nickname is Pigpen. She has also taken to climbing the rhododendron bush/tree and we keep finding her perched in the bushes about 4 feet in the air.

Things are fine and yet they are slightly off kilter. Then again, could this day be normal. So much raw emotion in the air. I spent this morning reading the portraits of grief section of the New York Times and feeling as if I were standing on the edge of all the pain and loss that still rules so many people's lives. Horrible.

Special teams

I'm not sure why fall decided to arrive in the middle of August, but I remain in denial about the fact that summer is over. The spring was so rainy and gross that it feels as if summer only lasted a few weeks. Bring on the Indian summer, I say. Although the dry chill in the morning air is actually pleasant. So is the fact that ABP has started serving harvest pumpkin soup--the best part of fall (ok the apples are nice, too).

The Miami-Pittsburgh game is on TV right now. Lunchboy is not home. I am actually watching football by myself. Assimilation is complete. Last weekend I drafted my very first fantasy football team--and it was FUN! I don't have anyone playing tonight but now I'm excited about the season. I'll be more excited if Steve Smith's hamstrings heal nicely in time for Sunday's game.

Lunchboy's boss gave us two tickets to Sunday's Patriots season opener. WOO!

I know how weird it is

: Last night, once I fell asleep, I dreamed that Brad Pitt wanted to have anal sex with me. But I wasn't into it, so he had anal sex with Steven Colbert instead.

Today I was in NY for work. Concept--work travel. I love business travel and my last job never let me do it. When I got to the NY office this morning, one of my coworkers had fresh bialys from Kossar's on her desk. It was a true hallelujah moment.

We are watching the first season of Weeds on DVD. Nancy Botwin may be my new hero.

Going through the motions

When I was at my last job, I was perpetually tired and perplexed by that tiredness because the job required so little of me that I had no idea where my energy was going. I needed naps and late mornings on weekends. I slept as late as I could during the week and left as early as possible in the evenings. I wondered how I'd ever function in a job that actually needed me to DO things because where would the energy come from to get it done.

The new job is intense and challenging and good. I actually have to think about my work and I LIKE what I'm doing. Do I know anything about economics? No, but it's fun to learn. Suddenly 7am rolls around and I'm awake. No naps, no late mornings. And my energy is boundless.

Today was one of those days when I was rushing around from place to place, and every five feet a cab would pull out in front of me and drive 20 miles per hour. I was moving fast but everyone else was ssslllllooowwwww. But I'm still excited to go to work tomorrow.

Discovery--if you hurt your back runnning, the doctor gets free with the muscle relaxants. This makes sitting on a heating pad for hours almost worth it.

Respecting the delicate ecology of my delusions

4am--bolt upright in bed. Anxiety. I don't know anything about what my company does--how can I possibly write about it? Do they expect me to know the style guide after only a week? My eyes glaze over when I read about economics--what if I really can't write about it because I'll never understand it?

So much to do for the wedding. And only 6 months to do it in. I want to get it all done *tomorrow* so that I can get back to sleep and not spend the next 6 months having anxiety attacks. I remember this feeling. I remember lying on my old couch, zoned on two Ativans, watching "Angels in America" on HBO and thinking, "Oh my god, I'm turning into Harper."

Scully sat on my feet and somehow I fell back to sleep.

Armani don't make polyester

I want to know exactly when tapered pants came back into vogue. I mean really--whose bright idea was that? It must have been the same person who's behind the whole skinny jeans phenomenon, ie someone with long, thin legs and no hips. "Let's make everybody look pear-shaped!" they said with glee. Yesterday I went to the Gap at lunch to try and find some new work pants. Lo and behold, all I found were skinny jeans and pants with tapered legs. I have issues enough with my lower body--I don't need to be buying clothes (or even being in the position of unknowingly trying on clothes) that exacerbate my hips and thighs any more than necessary. It's totally unfair.

On the wedding front (speaking of things that make me pay attention to my hips), we officially have a place and a date. Mark your calendars: February 24th, here we come. That means we also have...6 months. As Franck said in Father of the Bride, that is not very much time. I need Franck right now. Xanax? MeanG?

Scenes

"Watch out for the 15," she said, smiling as if she was sharing a vital piece of information.

"The what?" I asked.

"The XXXX 15. We're very food oriented here and if you're not careful, you'll gain a good 10 or 15 pounds."

I'm lucky, I thought. My willpower is hanging in the downstairs closet, shrouded in plastic. March isn't that far away.

She wasn't kidding, though. Our group is very food oriented. Today the entire department went to Chinatown for dim sum at lunch. Three of the women are from Hong Kong and their presence made the dim sum experience entirely new. To them, dim sum was a way to visit home. In lovely sing-song accents, they got us seated, chose dishes from the carts with extreme care, making sure everything we ate was traditional Chinese food. Accordingly, the staff brought out dishes that I'd never seen at dim sum before--for example, a brownish concoction that turned out to be tripe. No, I did not have it. But I wasn't grossed out with it on the table. New is good.

Tonight, all I could think of in savasana was "Open Water," that movie from a few years ago about the couple who got left behind on a diving trip and ended up drowning/getting eaten by sharks. I never saw the movie but the trailers still haunt me.

Walking back to my car, I passed the two men who sit on their porch every night listening to Italian opera and 40s boogie woogie. They seem jovial, of a different time. Tongight they waved.

The laundry marauder

...strikes again. She wormed her way in there all on her own.

Postus Interruptus

Pros of the new job: my boss took the whole department to see the 1:15pm showing of "Snakes on a Plane" today. The field trip came complete with plastic snakes, free cab rides and brown paper bags full of nips so people could spike their sodas. Mfn snakes!!

Cons of the new job: the company monitors email and web use, so posts will definitely be fewer and further between.

I am now boycotting the wedding planning. Too many people want too many things and until there's consensus, I prefer to focus on being happy with Lunchboy rather than stressing about things like menu cards.

In between

The theme of the day for me is calm. I feel calm about...everything. Except maybe the new job, which starts on Thursday. I'm a little anxious that I'll get there and they'll discover that I really don't know what I'm talking about and see that hiring me was a huge mistake. That's totally my confidence issues coming to the fore, but in general new jobs are a bit nerve wracking.

We might have found a location. There's one more place we're going to check out tomorrow, but if it doesn't pan out then there's a place that we like a lot and I feel confident in choosing. Plus, the people there totally have their shit together and I have a feeling they'd make sure we have a bang-up wedding.

But yes, other than the fact that Griffin totally scratched my boob on Saturday (my fault for picking her up when I wasn't wearing a shirt), things are very calm. I feel content and grounded and good. I'm a little mystified at feeling this good after the dream I had last night, in which Lunchboy and I were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit and we were trying to get out before the towers collapsed. This is totally rooted in my fear that a plane will hit the Hancock tower (where I will be working as of Thursday), hence the news hiatus I imposed last week after that terror plot was uncovered.

I am running a million errands today and getting shit done. Off to Whole Foods and then to catch up with Bligh and Hendrik, who are in town for the week...

No skeletons, I swear

So the new job requires all incoming employees to go through a background check conducted by Kroll. I used to cover Kroll occasionally when I reported on security issues back in the day. They are big and serious and kind of scary in a silent, stealthy, Men in Black kind of way. Today I got a call from one of the Kroll people saying that they couldn’t get in touch with any of the HR people at one of my old jobs (ironically, the one where I covered security), and did I happen to have my W-2s from 5 years ago on hand? Because, you know, I carry all my W-2s around in my bag for just such an occasion. In fact, I do not have my tax returns from 5 years ago. I’m of the “keep your birthday cards but not your old bank statements” school of thought, so my records only go back 3-4 years. Also, I was not under the impression that I was going through the checking process for government security clearance, which is what this suddenly felt like.

I called the woman back and gave her my old boss’s email address because he’s still with the company. She seemed satisfied with that, but I still got the distinct feeling that she thought I’d done something very, very wrong and was trying to cover it up. Do people really lie on their resumes that often? I’m scrupulously honest about that kind of thing because that’s how I was brought up (and also because I get nauseous just thinking at the kind of humiliation that such lies would cause), so I wasn’t worried going into the background check. But I kind of felt like she expected me to fess up about my pot use in college or something. It’s just a job, lady.

Redundant TMI

Last night in yoga, this semi-heavy woman fell over while working on her handstand. She hit the floor really hard and she was okay, but the first thing she said after everyone rushed over to make sure she was all right was, "Well, that got the flatulence out."

You think?

"Use of prescription sleeping pills is up nearly 50% since 2001, and a report released Monday by Consumers Union of United States Inc., publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, attributes at least part of the increase to a surge in direct-to-consumer advertising of such anti-insomnia medications as Ambien and Lunesta."

I tend to think people aren't sleeping as well because the general anxiety level has skyrocketed since 2001, and there's only so much you can do about anxiety when it's really, really bad.

I say this with confidence today because I'm still groggy from the Rozerem I took last night. Ambien made me forget things, Sonata didn't work, and my doctor refused to give me a trial prescription of Lunesta, so my dad was nice enough to pass along some new stuff. My father, the walking pharmacy.

For the record, Rozerem works like a charm. After weeks of sleeping lightly, intermittently, or not at all, I crashed at 10pm and I slept so hard that I *I didn't wake up* when Lunchboy moved me over to my side of the bed after he turned in. The grogginess I attribute to the fact that I took some Tylenol PM and an Ativan before I saw a Rozerem commercial on TV and remembered that I had some.

Yes, job changes and wedding planning are stressful. Don't judge me.

Recap

The California trip was a complete blast. The weather was spectacular. We saw lots of good friends. Also, lots of mountains, lots of ocean and lots of sea creatures.

SEALS!



OTTERS!



RANDOM FURRY CREATURES!



For some reason, the HBO Family channel in Monterey only showed a picture of Katie Holmes for two days straight. It was a little weird.

Now we’re home and the questions are flying left and right. Here are the only answers I have so far:

1. small
2. March-ish
3. in the Boston area

I will say that several spreadsheets and Powerpoint slides have already been created. The Team Love project has officially begun :)

Celebrity magnet

After I moved to LA in 2003, it took a good three months for me to see a celebrity on the street. Considering how everyone else seemed to see celebrities in the mirror when they got up to brush their teeth in the morning, it was frustrating that I appeared to repel celebrities like a magnet turned the wrong way around. Where I went, the celebrities were not.

Lunchboy, on the other hand, attracted the celebrities like flies. After lunch last Friday, we went to the Santa Monica stairs so I could fulfill my stairs fetish. As we stood at the base of the stairs, I looked up at the people on their way down and recognized a face.

"Look! It's Luke Wilson!!"

In fact, it was Owen Wilson. Hansel in the flesh. And he totally heard me get his name wrong. We managed to get some distant, sweaty pictures of him on the stairs with his trainer (maybe training for Zoolander 2? Wishful thinking?) That's him in the blue shirt, shielding his face from my extremely inconspicuous picture taking.

I can smell the ocean salt in the air

Off to California tomorrow morning. We are boarding Scully for the week that we’re gone and my heart is breaking for her, although she’ll be in a nice, air conditioned space during what’s supposed to be a very, very hot week, so she might actually be better off than the other two cats. Still, I feel like a terrible cat mom for leaving her somewhere that isn’t home.

Craziness—at this time tomorrow, we’ll be having lunch at Poquito Mas with Vance and his chica. I wonder if I’ll get there and feel like I never left. Will I remember how to get around? Will I hate it? Will it be extremely weird? No matter what it’s like, I can’t wait to share it with the man.

Lunchboy is bringing his laptop so I’ll try and post at least a few pictures during the trip. I guarantee we’ll be swilling wine in at least a few of them :)

At the same time...

The interviews from the other week? Well, they panned out. The company made an offer on Tuesday and I gave notice at my job today. I start at the new place on or around August 16th. My head is spinning a bit from all the (positive) change. The new job is downtown, so I have to come up with a completely new workday routine. I'm scared and nervous but it feels like that time between high school and college, when you hate leaving what's safe and known, but you know it's time to move on.

C-love just laughed at me because she said I wrote more about cat pee than about getting engaged or taking a new job. Bear with me :) Once my feet are back on the ground, I’ll write more.

Promoted

Lunchboy, from boyfriend to fiance.

QT

Big things afoot on both the personal and professional fronts. I can't talk about them quite yet, but it's all good. More soon.

Attack of the glove snatcher

This is funny because Griffin is also an unapologetic glove thief. During the winter, she waits for me to take my gloves off and then she steals them—out of my purse, off the table, from the laundry—to chew on and mangle. If I try to take them away from her, she stands on her hind legs and tries to snag them with her claws. What’s up with the gloves?? Were she an outdoor cat, I’m sure she’d been burgling garden gloves from the neighbors, too.

Got to get us to the shore

I keep dreaming about our trip to California. The dreams are mostly about us driving around LA and being unable to do all the things we want to do because we’re too busy doing what other people want us to do. All I want to do is see the ocean, take some pictures (because I have none), do the stairs and do some yoga. We’ll see friends and explore a bit, but I don’t want to try and fit a week-long trip into three days before we head up the coast. Maybe the anxiety over wanting to do too much is what’s causing the dreams. Ativan, you are my savior.

Overthinking

The interview went really well. I was there for 3 hours, so I think they liked me. By the end, I was brain fried and starving, and wandering around Back Bay in the heat trying to get my car out of the parking garage left me spaced out and shaky. They want me back next week and I have no idea how I’m going to swing another 3-hour interview during work hours. There are only so many bogus doctor’s appointments I can manufacture, especially when I have actual doctor’s appointments coming up. My boss is probably wondering how a healthy person such as myself has so many medical issues, and I feel like I’m calling down bad karma on myself by lying about my health.

Now I’m grappling with the concept of leaving my job and whether it’s really a good idea. I’ve never been one of those people who can stay at one job for more than a few years. My resume reflects this and I’m sensitive about having moved around so much. Maybe I should suck it up and stay where I am so I can BE at a job for more than 2 years. My job isn’t perfect but I’m in a groove here and I feel like I know what I’m doing. Do I really want to make a change for the sake of change? Am I a commitmentphobe when it comes to jobs? Part of me thinks I should stick it out—through the weeks when I have nothing to do and the times when the office politics are lethal—just to challenge the part of myself that always wants a change.

Really, if they make me an offer, the salary would be the deciding factor. The job would be very similar to what I’m doing now, except it has an actual career path and the possibility of travel. And it’s in the Hancock building, so I’d be downtown instead of in the burbs. Everything has pros and cons.

Act of contrition

You know that tired old saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his XXX(stomach, head, chest)?” Well, I don’t know about the heart but last night I learned that the way to a man’s libido is through his Nintendo Gamecube. How? Well, if you happen to, say, accidentally trip over the controller cord and pull the whole game system away from the power source right after he finishes a really hard section in Resident Evil 4 but before he has a chance to save, you can pretty much guarantee that you’re not getting any that night.

Not a pretty sight

There are tiny, black spiders dropping down onto my desk from the lighting fixture above my cube. I saw two of them out of the corner of my eye and now I’m wondering how many I didn’t see. Suddenly my head is very, very itchy.

I feel like this is the first scene in a bad horror movie. Any moment now, the mack daddy spider is going to fall down on my head and suck me dry. It is Monday after all.

Brought to you by Haagen Dazs

Today we went to the mall to escape the heat and also to look for some "professional" clothing for me to wear to a job interview on Tuesday. It's predictable, really. Every time I decide to look for a new job, I realize that I need a suit to wear to interviews and so I go on a frantic, stressed out shopping trip that inevitably ends with me throwing up my hands in defeat, going home and picking a non-suit outfit from my closet. I'm terrible with clothes, just like I'm terrible with decorating. In high school, my friends used to quote that line from Heathers where Shannen Doherty says to Winona Ryder, "You can't accessorize for shit." They weren't being mean, they were laughing with me because it's completely true.

After I decided against buying a beautiful black skirt suit from BR (because I honestly can't afford the $300 right now, even though I can hear that evil Shopaholic girl in my head saying, "It's an investment in your career!" I NEVER should have read those books), I went home and tried on my old standby, a lovely pants suit that I always forget about. I love that suit because it's always a surprise and it's always flattering. Except this time it didn't fit. The pants were too tight everywhere.

Horror. Shame. Self loathing.

Overwhelmed with mortification, I fled to the basement with the half pint of Haagen-Dazs light cookies n' cream that's been hiding in the freezer for the past two weeks, intending to drown my sorrows. What is it with ice cream and self pity? It never makes anything better, especially if the issue is weight-related. Lunchboy sat with me, patiently listening to me moan about the fact that I'm 31 and I don't have any decent clothing, and the clothing I do have doesn't fit, and I don't own any pumps and really I should just be shot for being a failure as a modern woman. Alas, alack, woe is me. Then he told me I was beautiful, brought me back upstairs, fed me Haagen Dazs and helped me pick an outfit. It's not a suit but hopefully the company won't toss me out on my behind for dressing too casually. Really, who needs suits for writing positions anyway? Aren't we supposed to be all arty and creative and shit?

It's too hot. I need a drink and then it will all be better.

It's a compliment, really

This made me laugh. It also reminded me of why I read this yesterday and realized how lucky I am to have Lunchboy.

One of the joys of dating a management consultant is that I rest easy at night knowing that Lunchboy is happily optimizing our weekend errands to ensure maximum performance and efficiency. He’d deny it if I asked him, but I’m convinced he has the day broken down into one-hour increments. I think his addiction to Excel and Powerpoint would drive some people nuts but it makes me smile. I know that if and when children enter the picture, he will consult the hell out of fatherhood until it’s no longer an unknown quantity. He’ll analyze the nuts and bolts of parenting until he’s successfully created a value proposition outlining best practices, systems and processes for raising kids. There will be spreadsheets calculating the increments of sleep training, Powerpoint presentations outlining the benefits of cotton versus disposable diapers, and Outlook reminders listing the proper contents of a well-packed diaper bag. When I’m not looking, he’ll duct tape a roles and responsibilities document to the stroller, the fridge and in the car underneath the driver’s side visor. And inevitably, I'll find spelling and grammatical errors in his content, and shriek about his misuse of "myriad" in a slide.

When I shared this with him, he laughed--because he knows it's true.

Jody Sawyer had it good

The downside of having watched Center Stage about 50 times is that now, every time I read an article about ABT, I automatically scan for Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy’s names. Their story makes my heart melt.

A few years ago, ABT performed Giselle at the Wang Theater in Boston. Both Ethan and Sascha Radetsky were performing. MeanG and I seriously considered dropping $75 a pop for good seats but in the end we opted not to mess up our Center Stage crushes with reality. That and the fact that we were broke.

Aim for the flat top!

The apocalypse is truly nigh. It’s 3:30pm and it’s pitch black outside. The thunderstorms will break the humidity, I hope, but right now it looks like there’s a strong probability that the Eastern seaboard is alive with incidents of paranormal activity. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria. From my office window, I can see lines of cars with their headlights on. I love bad, strong weather but this is a little freaky. The rain is so loud that it sounds as if there’s highway traffic on the roof of my building. Lightning is coming down all over the place. I'm seriously waiting for the power to go out.

Auf wiedersehen

Why pretty much no one I know will be accepting phone calls between 9pm and 10pm on Wednesday night.

Tactical extraction

Target is a wondrous place in that it makes me wonder how I’m so incapable of entering a Target store and spending less than $80. Usually that amount is closer to $150, so really $80 is a step in the right direction. Target may be an evil corporation, but it’s still the closest and most convenient place to buy things that Scully will eventually pee on.

This weekend's Target mission? Clean up the downstairs bathroom enough so that it’s usable when J and K come to town tomorrow night. The imminent arrival of houseguests has made the cat pee eradication situation more urgent, but of course Scully is not cooperating. The bathmats in the upstairs bathroom are now her favorite places to misbehave. So we bought new bathmats and put the old ones downstairs under her box. Then we bought gallons of Nature’s Miracle enzyme cleanser and poured it on the bathroom floor to let it soak into the grout. The idea of forcing guests to live in a space that smells like cat just makes me cringe. I’m not that mean of a host.

Lunchboy turned 30 on Friday. We took him to Ginza and force fed him sushi. I tell him every day how old he is because he’s spent the past year and a half harping on the fact that I’m no longer in my 20s and payback, it’s a bitch. I’m not too worried, though. Work is sending him to India next week for 6 days and he has to take malaria pills. And worry about cobras. Ha. When the trip first came up, we tried to see if I could go along. I mean, it's India! But then we found out that he’ll be spending roughly 3 of those 6 days traveling to and from Hyderabad. Since tickets are about $3,000, it wasn’t worth it. We’ll go back sometime and do a proper visit, hopefully once they’ve eliminated malaria from the planet.

Bits

*I am in love with peonies. Most. Beautiful. Flower. Ever. I want to plant them everywhere and look at them for hours. Love them.

*If I hear that "Hips Don't Lie" song one more time, I will reach into my head and yank out my eardrums as a form of preventative medicine.

*Since it's the summer and my attention span is nil unless I'm reading something fluffy, I picked up "The Devil Wears Prada" at the airport last week. Surprise--it was actually good. Then I borrowed the first two installments of the Shopaholic series from ElleCharlie. I wanted to throttle the main character after the first chapter. Lunchboy almost took the book away from me because I came very close to hurling it off the porch while screaming, "Get your life together, you twit!"

*There is nothing better than retreating to the nice, cool basement after hosting what felt like a never-ending BBQ for people who either didn't RSVP or showed up 4 hours late. I left the boys upstairs doing battle in Resident Evil 4 and fled to the the guest room, a frosty beverage in hand. Cats, book, Nilla wafers, first season of Veronica Mars on DVD---ah, blessed retreat.

Don't Cha

New York was GREAT. I loved every minute of it, up to and including the torrential downpour on Thursday night that stranded us in an endless cab line and left us hunting for umbrellas in order to make a dinner reservation for which we were already late. I loved every thing that made NYC different from Boston. My first morning there, I woke up to an overwhelming anxiety attack over being in a city that big. But then I forced myself to remember that I’ve lived in cities that were bigger and lived to tell the tale, so I got myself out of the hotel room and realized that all I wanted to do was walk. I wanted to get lost and discover all the wacky things that pop up when you round a corner, to lose myself in the crowds and remember that there is an enormous power in anonymity. I tried to count the number of Starbucks and Ann Taylors in Midtown but got too distracted to keep an accurate list.

Gimp came into town on Friday and we spent most of the day lounging around a table in Bryant Park, soaking up the sun and people watching. If you ever find yourself near Bryant Park and you have to pee, they have gorgeous, $20 million public bathrooms there that are actually pleasant AND clean. Megan suggested I go stalk Tim at the Parsons School, but after having way too much wine the night before, Bryant Park was all I could muster the energy for.

Friday morning we went for a walk up Madison and found….the Pussycat Dolls. No, they weren’t hooking in Central Park—they were performing in front of the Apple store, surrounded by a very small crowd of people who had to be persuaded to scream, even when the Dolls gyrated so hard that I thought their hair extensions were going to fly off their heads.