Things I Wished I Had Remembered To Blog About

I am back from my business trip and settling into a Friday night of catching up. YG is out grocery shopping (his week) and MG is in bed reading Beverly Cleary with a flashlight. I would have totally let her read with the light on, but she's very invested in the flashlight idea so go have it. She already wears glasses so I have no worries about stunting her development or anything. I'm all over the place so try and follow along.

1. I wish I could have live blogged my trip back from Orlando because it was weird upon weird upon weird, and I'm sure I've forgotten some of the details. It all started off with my misguided and somewhat insane thought of "I should try and save the company money." WTF? Dumb. I figured that the meals at a Disney resort were expensive so I should try and save money on the trip back. I think this kind of thinking is good when you are the CEO. When you are clawing your way up to middle management? Not so much.

My first mistake was taking a bus to the airport. I told my traveling coworker companion about this, and he immediately thought this was a dumb idea. I was not to be deterred. I had already spent (wait for it) $19 on my ticket and hoped to make the most of it. Only two people got on the bus at my stop so I felt most triumphant. At the next stop, a travel group of about 30 middle-aged women in a wide variety of poly blend "slacks" and "blouses" boarded. They were happy and Southern, and they wanted to talk. And they wanted to talk to me.

My second mistake was choosing a discount airline. Note to friends and family: NEVER choose a discount airline when you are traveling back from Orlando on a business trip. You will be one of few business travelers on the flight. You will spend much time at the check in line as various people attempt to justify that their small moving van is actually a carry-on bag. You may get into an argument with a woman about the size of her carry on bag, or actually, in a rare moment of clarity, you may decline to argue with the woman who wants to know what's in your carry on bag and why it's "approved" for, you know, carrying on. You will hold your tongue, smile, tell her it's regulation size and that it's holding ALL of your items from the past three days. You will not add "unlike your bag which is holding your much needed 'hot rollers' and probably some additional poly blend and white sweat socks from the Faded Glory collection." It will take you a while to get through security because non-business travelers apparently live under rocks these days and don't know all the rules and regulations. And then you'll end up in the last row, seated next to a woman with a small dog under her seat. She may take the dog out on the flight. The dog MAY lick your laptop screen as you attempt to read analyst reports. You may find talking to the lady with the dog more interesting than reading the reports and just give in.

Third was taking the subway home. Enough said. In my own defense, it was rush hour and I didn't feel like sitting in a cab in traffic. Plus, I started a great new book on the plane. I finished Marianne Pearl's book on the trip and was having a minor panic attack at the thought of being on an airplane and having nothing new to read besides work crap and Skymall. Terrified of buying towel warming racks or some Skymall shit like that on the plane, I picked up Evening at the airport. It's lovely. I read over 100 pages on the trip and can't seem to put it down.

2. The Detroit/Yankees game. That was awesome. We had dinner in Manhattan afterwards and given my family's need to make an adventure out of things that shouldn't really be an adventure, we drove all over the place: the Bronx, Bronx to Penn Station, Penn Station to Upper East Side, Upper East Side to the Park, back to UES, back to Park, FDR, GWB and finally a short stop over in the Whip. I miss Manhattan. We need to get back there soon.
And YG didn't die being at Yankee Stadium. Visual proof:



More from the game here.

Note my fancy new green glasses. Wrong prescription that will cost an arm and a leg to change, but I love them.

3. My parents came up the weekend earlier and we took them all around town. The Harbor Islands were gorgeous and the North End was awesome as usual. The night before they got here, I had a lovely Boston evening, walking around town and buying fancy new shoes on Newbury Street and watching a free concert with Fountains of Wayne.
Pictures here.

4. There was other stuff, but there is pie on the table and baseball on t.v. You understand.

The Happiest Place on Earth

I am on a business trip in Orlando, staying at a resort on the Disney properties. It's surreal, with a weird combination of people in suits and lots of families and more white sneakers and jean shorts that I ever imagined existed. The happiest place on Earth feels slightly depressing when you are by yourself and your dinner plans fall through. I did my work today and then went to the pool and read, and then went to dinner by myself and read. And then I watched the fireworks because I love fireworks and they never cease to make me happy.

If I was a good worker, I would have brought my analyst reports to dinner and read them, but I needed a break, and I can't put down my book.

I'm reading A Mighty Heart by Marianne Pearl, and while I knew how it was going to end -- it's a true story and we all were there -- I still sobbed out loud when she writes about finding out that Danny Pearl was dead. I couldn't help myself. I cried a lot with this one. Highly recommended.

It made me miss YG and the MG more than I already miss them. It's a weird place to be in when you miss your family. As much as I despise Disney and want to rant about their corporate culture and their insistence on marketing crap to kids (Disney Princesses? WTF?), I know that the MG would totally dig this. When I left for the airport, she told me to look for Mickey and to tell him that "MG says hello and that I will come to visit soon." Fuck, man. Who wouldn't be into that?

The plane ride down here was bumpy so I read a lot and then wrote for over an hour. Here's what I had to say about writing:

I used to write a lot more. In college, I filled a journal the same size as this in my semester in London alone. I always carry this journal with me, but I don't have the urge to document everything anymore. Maybe because it's the same old shit I'm dealing with all the time. But I haven't been documenting all the everyday coolness of living in Cambridge and the people watching in Davis Square.

I'm taking a creative writing class in the fall and I'm excited and nervous at the same time. What if I suck? The last time I took a writing class was Writing Studio in London, well over 10 years ago, and I had Jane and at least some of the class convinced that I was a good writer, and even better, a funny writer. Was that talent? Or just that rare occurence of being suitably charming and funny at the right place and dtime? And already I'm getting ahead of myself because I took the class to get into the better practice of writing and not to impress anyone. I just want to do it. Be forced to put pen to paper and come up with something with a beginning, middle and an end. That isn't a journal entry on a plane or a blog entry.

The blog thing is just weird. I read tons of them and am practically obsessed with some. And I'll see these things on the street or I'll have an interesting conversation with someone or see something funny, and I think, "hey, I should blog about this." Yes. And then I die from the weight of my self-importance.

I guess I'm looking forward to being held accountable for my writing. In Writing Down the Bones, one of my favorities, she talks a lot about just putting it out there and writing to write-- that eventually it will find some shape eand flow, or that maybe there will be a kernal of something that you can use later on. And yes, maybe. I'm thinking of all those old journals, diligently kept from age 10 to now. Over 20 years. There has to be something in ther somewhere.

It's very weird to type from a journal. The awareness of my bad grammar and spelling is great, as is my urge to edit. RESIST!

And Tomorrow, We Go To The Bronx

Go Yankees! Half a game back in the Wild Card!

Why I Don't Go To The Doctor

I realize that not going to the doctor is kind of dumb. And I am not anti-doctor -- I have regular dentist appointments and ob/gyn appointments and yearly eye check ups, along with being rather obsessive compulsive about the dermatologist. I'm good about the regular stuff. But with irregular things, I seem to have adopted my family's attitude that whatever the problem is will either go away by itself or you will die first -- no need to bother the doctor.

So when I went to the eye doctor this year about the chronic eye infections I keep getting AND the headaches I was having, I was suprised when the doctor said, "for how long?" and I was even more suprised when he nearly dropped down dead when I answered "oh, on and off for about 15-16 years now." I KNOW. Stop judging.

The headache was an easy fix. I had the wrong presciption. Now I have new glasses and they are cool and green and I would show you if I wasn't too lazy to upload the pictures to Flickr. For the infection, we first tried an antibiotic and then we tried another antibiotic and then we tried a steroid and then all that shit together made my eye swell and it interfered with my sight. And then I couldn't see for shit.

And then the kicker? I have dry eyes. REALLY dry eyes, and that is making this whole mess even worse so my doctor suggested that I try this stuff. It was awesome to an extent -- my eyes feel great. I can see. No crusty skeeve eye in the morning. No YG smacking me in the back, telling me to stop clawing my eyes out. Good times, no?

No. I am so fucking tired and lethargic, and I could not figure out why. I thought it was all the running, but I'm getting TONS of sleep along with running so that didn't make sense.

If you read the fine print on the eye vitamins, you'll see that I'm getting 614% of my recommended Vitamin E intake. Add on my "one a day" vitamin and my "hope your ovaries don't dry up, you divorced thirtysomething hag" vitamin which both also have tons of vitamin E and you get a bit of a Vitamin E overload. Oh, and random projectile vomiting when you are certainly not pregnant or don't have the flu.

Side effects of too much Vitamin E? "Symptoms of a vitamin E overdose may include fatigue, weakness, nausea, headache, blurred vision, flatulence, and diarrhea."

Awesome.

I apologize if I haven't called you or written to you or returned something I owed you. Me and my skeeve eye will be all over that shit soon.

Funny Things Your Partner May Say To You

-----Original Message-----
From: YG
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:27 PM
To: JM
Subject: For future reference

When you are going for a brisk walk at lunch and forgot to bring in a
change of underwear, your choices are:

1) Go commando on the walk so you have a relatively still fresh pair to
slip into after your shower, or

2) Use underwear for support during the walk (especially if you are the
owner of a large pair of swinging testicles) and go commando for the
rest of the afternoon.

When faced with this choice, ALWAYS choose option 2. Always.

Owwww :-(

I snorted out loud over that one. It's only fair, as he's been listening to me bitch about my chub rub for weeks now. When you Google "running" and "chub rub" you get a number of interesting hits, and by "interesting" I mean "weird" and "porny." I finally settled on "running" and "inner thigh chafe" and found that I'm pretty much doing what I can in terms of shorts and that I should try BodyGlide or Vaseline. Lubing up for an activity of one. Nice. I also learned more than I ever need to know about how to handle your swinging testicles when running. Serious design flaw.

For those following along, this is my 100th post -- it's fitting that it's about balls and lube. :-)

Do I Hear A "Woot!"?

I did it! I finally got my 3.2 miles or my 5K and to reward myself, I registered for this. If you're reading this, that means we're probably friends or related, so I'll be hitting you up for a donation soon. September 23 -- that gives me a little over a month to get my times down. Right now, I'm running at about the same pace as 14-year-old girls and 60-year-old men.

Other things I am happy about or have giggled about in the past few days:

* Ann Taylor "Julie fit" pants. "Julie -- the new curvy fit. Contoured through the hip and thigh." Margo, that slut, sold me out, but Julie -- Julie, she's a doll, with her freedom from camel toe and ass support and whatnot.

* Knocked Up. Bourne Ultimatum was sold out, so I got to see MY movie choice. "Don't let the door hit you in the vagina on the way out." Hee. That shit was hilarious.

* The Restaurant Week menu at Harvest. Corn soup...mmm. I chose the beef, and it came out as fancy beef should (not totally dead), and I was slightly embarassed to ask them to ruin it for me by charring it up. But they did, and it was awesome. Tonight, we went to Red Bones. It's a plethora of meat.

* 0.5 games back in the Wild Card. Boston fans starting to freak a bit.

* I was driving to an eye doctor appointment in Burlington over the weekend, and I saw a bunch of signs in the road for "Pride Day: Burlington" and thought it was really cool that this sleepy, little suburb would have it's very own gay pride event. And then I drove by -- minivans, cat sweatshirts, funnel cake and hot dogs, thousands of kids -- and quickly realized that it was just a typical civic pride gathering, exactly like those from when I was a kid, back when I was rockin' my Z.Cavaricci's at Malpardis Park. Still, it would have been awesome if a bus full of drag queens pulled up and danced around on the trampolines with lots of glitter and good cheer. That would have totally made my day.

* Lazy weekends in Cambridge. YG and I hung local and made dinners on the grill and bar hopped and read the Sunday paper and drank coffee. In essence, what I would do if I was unemployed.

Quickie

1. Three miles! I completed two three mile runs this week. I'm sore, but not dead. And I hope to head out tomorrow.

2. Woot! We found a babysitter. YG and I are doing a test run tonight to see how this works out. We have a few Friday night out evenings planned in Sept. (Rilo Kiley!) and we wanted to find someone local to help us out on the nights we have the MG but have scheduling conflicts. Fingers crossed. We're going to the movies. I want to see Knocked Up, but he wants some testosterone-filled man shit, so we're seeing The Bourne Ultimatum. He's lucky it's getting fantastic reviews.

3. I am the biggest douchebag ever. I was all cranky driving home and marginally cranky about the movie choice, and I walked into the bedroom and there was a vase full of sunflowers that YG bought because he knows I like them. He also brings me coffee in bed every morning. Yeah, I suck.

4. I quit WW this week for reals. Fuck that noise.

5. My family is visiting next weekend and I'm excited. It's also Restaurant Week. Yummm.....

6. Lily Allen. That album? Is too much fun.

7. Reading: The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler.

8: Listening to: Lily Allen (see above) and really, really bad workout music for when I run. I knew that Poison's Greatest Hits would come in handy someday.

9: Watching: Rescue Me (yay!), The Bronx is Burning (meh), baseball. As much as I love Baseball Tonight, I'll be happy when some of my crap shows come back. And that new VH1 show "I Hate My 30s" is a very unfunny attempt at being another version of the very funny and soon coming back "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

10. I don't have a ten, but it seemed weird to just have 9.

The Worst Part of the Weekend

This is the worst part -- when all the work is done and you've just settled into knowing that you have to go back to work tomorrow and that the weekend is over. This blows. I am still not independently wealthy.

I AM very sore. I pulled a muscle in my lower leg when I went out running last Thursday night and decided to rest a bit. It's been hot as balls here, or what the media calls "oppressively humid." The Thursday run was miserable and I nearly cried walking back. Today, I decided to wait until it was a tad less opressive and went out around 5. I've mapped out a few 3 mile routes in the area, using my new best friend, Google Maps. Unfortunately, my new best friend does not tell you when your selected 3-mile-run-in-humid-90-degree heat is almost all uphill because she is a bitch like that. I made it about a half mile, then had to walk, ran another 10 minutes and had to stop, and then had to stop again. I did get a solid mile in toward the end, but I was panting and my fucking chub rub was so bad, I wanted to scream. I HATE wearing shorts. Absolutely hate it, but it's frickin hot. I dragged my sweaty, red raw ass into the house and YG commented that he had never seen me looking so wet. And...heh. I'm twelve.

And then I cooked dinner for the three of us. For reals. I used THREE burners.
Very exciting.

Other than that, a nice low key weekend in Cambridge. I got my car cut yesterday morning and then we went to the Museum of Science. The cab we were in got in a minor fender bender on the way home, but nothing terribly interesting. We had some pizza at Mike's, people-watched in Davis, and then took the MG to see The Simpsons movie which was frickin' hilarious. Today: church, brunch, bill paying, a very glamorous cleaning of the litter box and disinfecting of the recycling bins, and the run. Ho hum.

I'm making an effort to not talk about work right now because it will only make me sad. And everything else is good and normal and content. I need some angst. I need some angst so I can pen my opus. Right now, my opus is reading a bit "Slouching Toward The Dry Cleaner in My Suburu Outback." Whatevs.

I Could Use Some Wine Right About Now

And a lot of it.




More vacation pictures here, plus some of Plymouth with the rock (yep, that one). It's more like a boulder, not the huge beckoning cliffs I imagined.

When Others Say It Better or WW-related Stuff

I briefly wrote before about how I'm thinking of quiting Weight Watchers and "watching what I eat"(read: diets) in general because I end up feeling like shit about myself. I've even read Intuitive Eating and all the Geneen Roth books, and I've talked to people who said that (amazingly) when you stop obsessing about the food, you feel better. But then I get really, really scared and go back to that thing that I know -- the points, the meetings, the sameness -- because it's worked for me before and I am deathly afraid of being out of control with my eating. Like if I give up the points, I will do nothing but loll about and stuff myself with cookie dough all day. I am a creature of habit.

Lately, though, I'm not feeling the WW so much. I read this post about a month ago and had this strange feeling that someone had gotten into my head and stolen my thoughts while I was throwing up a little in my mouth at the Sweat, Tears and The Sea meeting. I'm haven't been too happy with our WW leader for a while, but I've noticed a distinct change in this past 12-week session (I'm an at-work member). She covers the topic at hand and ONLY the topic at hand, and the "featured product of the week" makes me want to scream.

Last week was the meeting on exercise. I should be feeling really good about exercise. I've always been good at the gym and walking and working out because I ENJOY it. It's not a chore -- I like this stuff. And I've been feeling like a rock star lately with all the running. I am RUNNING, people. For MILES -- plural! I should feel awesome. And most of the time I do. Except for when I get on that scale at the WW meeting. Then I feel like a schmuck because either the number doesn't move or it goes up, and I come up with a list of things I "should" have done. I should have eaten better. I should have ran more. I should be biking too. I should drink more water. And seriously, what the fuck? Regardless of the scale, I should still feel fantastic about achieving something. But I don't for that one hour on Wednesday. I feel fat and I feel like a loser.

This has been going on for a few weeks now, but last week's exercise meeting pushed me closer to a decision about leaving. Even though the vast majority of our group runs or regularly goes to the gym, WW Leader insisted on doing a full frickin' meeting about desk stretches and other random shit designed to put "at least 10 minutes of moving around into your day." And we weren't allowed to call it exercise because then, supposedly, we wouldn't do it. I get that, and I get that there is a large majority of people who have trouble getting any physical activity into their day.s It's fantastic that WW has designed a meeting to help them get over that. What I do have a problem with is when the Leader refuses to change the meeting when it doesn't appeal to anyone in the room -- because that would mean not following the meeting guidelines. Grrr....

And the kicker? WW Leader: "We just want to lose weight. Nobody here wants to be an athlete." Huh? Speak for yourself, Crazy. Maybe I DO want to be an athlete. Maybe I want that more than to lose weight. Maybe I want to lose weight by being more athletic. Maybe I use the points system to help me figure out what is the best food to use their dumb terminology, "fuel my body." Like, seriously?

And now here's the point where I tell you that is all bullshit. I am enjoying my new-found athleticism, but I would really, really like to be thinner. Do I hate myself? Am I delusional? I don't think so, but you never know. I talk a good game about wanting to be healthy, but most of my quest-for-health-activities have always stemmed from a deep desire to be thinner and to escape from my body. I've ALWAYS been this way, and I have always had body issues -- and I've never been that heavy or that thin. I just am.

So, where was I going with this? I've been reading all the recent blogosphere posts about weight loss vs. fat acceptance with interest, because I'm not sure how I feel or what I feel, but a hell of a lot of people are much more literate than me.

All of these found via Elastic Waist [yes, I've plugged it before, but seriously, read it]:

Fat Loss vs. Fat Acceptance, redux

Do I really hate myself?

Poundy, of course. I have loved this blog for years.

And not related to the debate, but awesome anyway -- this thing on J.K. Rowling's site. I should note that I've never read a Harry Potter book, nor do I really care that much about Harry or Rowling for that matter. I just like this.

And oh so unrelated to anything: right after I gave up all hope, the Yankees are on a tear again. 5.5 games back in the Wild Card. I'm giving a respectable, restrained "woot!" at this point.

Fat Lard in an Ugly Shirt

File under: this is what an "adult relationship" looks like
Also under: thank god for giving me someone that can deal with the crazy in me head

JM: Do you ever have days where you wake up and look at yourself and think "I am so frickin' busted looking and old?"
YG: Um, not really.
JM: I do. I look gross.
YG: Is that the shirt from California?

[Editor's note: The shirt from California can also be described as the only thing in the JM warddrobe that YG said he didn't like. And he did not technically say he didn't like it. He technically said that it didn't play up JM's many good assets. His words, not hers. JM was very riot-grrll and super-feminista about it and said that she could keep the shirt even if YG didn't think it looked good on her because she doesn't need a man to tell her what does and doesn't look good. And then she threw it out a few weeks later, because he maybe might have been a teeny bit right.]

JM (with look, you know, that one): Noooo, it's not the shirt from California. It's a different one that may be cut similarly.
YG: Oh.
JM: (looking, looking, looking)
YG: (examining shoe, folding underwear)
JM: So you HATE this shirt?
YG: I don't hate the shirt. I asked if it was the shirt from California.
JM: The shirt you hated and said I looked fat in.
YG: I didn't SAY that. You make these things up because you are so very, very, very crazy.
JM: I'm not crazy. I am just, apparently, a fat lard in an ugly shirt.

And then we laughed hysterically for a while, because, really, that's funny. Fat lard in an ugly shirt. Hee.

In other news, I just finished reading How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to The Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time and OH MAH GOD, the nostalgia. Sassy was the first magazine I ever subscribed to, and the only one besides New York Magazine. I loved it, loved the writers, loved the music and it certainly made the idea of giving up my dream of being a writer to go major in the more parentally-acceptable journalism more palatable. I think, in high school, that I had a brief moment of thinking that I was going to grow up and be Christina Kelly and that I would FINALLY be cool.

And alas, it's more than a decade later and I am still me, not being all that cool and kind of a nerd but kind of okay with being kind of a nerd. And while you grow up and accept all the life choices that you make and sort of understand why you make them, there's this little part of me that thinks if I just find that right job or write the best short story or live in the hippest neighborhood and see the best band, then I will finally, finally be cool. I will be Kim Gordan and YG can be Thurston Moore. The MG can be Cocoa. :-)

[Note: I understand that wanting to be cool is so not cool. And so, so lame. While I'm at it, can I say that I want to be skinny and cool? And have really great, cool hair in a perfect shade of rebellious-yet-corporate-acceptable red?]

What a trip down memory lane, though. All the fashion articles (Kim France pants? Under my kilt with fishnets and a combat boot?) and the music articles (Ween!) and the Kurt and Courtney cover and the Junk Food Taste Test. It makes me want to go read all the old issues of Sassy which I think may still be in the basement at my parents' house if my mom or I didn't throw them out in a fit of making room for other stuff that we don't need. [Note: if anyone is looking for any birthday present ideas and you might be somebody related to me that might have access to the cabinet in the basement, check that shit out pronto]

Sassy, man -- I am frickin old. Sigh.

What I Meant To Say

I am running 2.5 miles THREE times a week. Not just once a week. And I was indeed up at weigh in. Violence was avoided. Boring talk about stretching more and the horrifying mention of Curves For Women was not.

Banned

"There will be no using of the ass word from now on."
--The Management
[Otherwise known as the MG]


In other news, my job can blow me.
In other other news, my job blowing has seriously helped my work out regime. I am almost done with Couch to 5K and am now running 2.5 miles a week. Hope to finish the program in two weeks.
In other other other news, the running has helped save my sanity during weigh ins at WW. I am stuck, stuck, stuck in the same place, gaining and losing the same three pounds. And when Neurotic Fakey Happy WW Leader asks me "were you expecting this?" when the scale points up, the running helps me from beating her face in and shouting, "were you expecting THAT, bitch?" and then running [quickly] approximately 2.5 miles away.

First Post From the New Digs

Technically, we've been here a month, but YG set up the desktop PC today. That should tell you how much of a technophile I am -- I haven't missed it, I didn't die and I don't need an iPhone.

Things are settling down. We moved here and then YG went to Chicago for a week, then we were in Long Island, then I went away, then we had a family party and that's our first month. It's already the middle of the summer and we're only now getting around to hanging pictures and going through the piles of mail that have accumulated. Here's hoping this is the beginning of our "normal" life. We still need a desk and some other odds and ends.

I keep justifying that it's the PC and the desk that are preventing me from writing, but that's such bullshit -- I can write in Word and post later and it's not like I don't have a laptop. I just haven't had much to say that I really would like to deal with or process. I am so down on work -- the fact that it's 4 p.m. on a Sunday and I "should" be online checking work mail makes me die just a little bit inside. I've had a couple of days where I've seriously contemplated quitting, figuring that if I was under diress, I would figure out some other way to make money. It's not that the job itself is horrible and I do like my coworkers; it's just that it's not for me. And beyond my small circle of coworkers, there's nobody that I'm overly impressed with. I like working in a place where you look at the people above you on the chain, and you want to be like them or work with them or work for them. I don't have that where I am now, and I haven't had that for a long time. It isn't like my last job where I was convinced everyone was seriously mentally deficient -- I'm just not...impressed.

I'm just to a point where I can't contemplate doing this for the rest of my life. Or even for the rest of this year.

But what then? That's why I don't want to talk about it. Because what then? I'm blocked on my next move. Writing? School? Bleh. I'm lucky that I'm fortunate enough to have such "problems."

In the meantime, there are plenty of things going right. The new house is great. Living with YG and the MG has been a non-issue. I've gotten home enough to enjoy the time with my family. And I've survived this first year in Massachusetts, and it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere. I've been reading a lot, eating at a lot of great restaurants and generally just enjoying the city. So, if you've got any ideas for what I should be doing job-wise [or ways to make money other than stripping or selling drugs], comments are open.

Bitch, Please!

Internet access in Long Island? Seriously? We just got cable a few years ago. And now? Now, we have the untapped power of the Information Superhighway.

Missing in Inaction

Two quick notes:

* Not dead -- moving, crazy at work and getting ready to leave for VACATION. One week in Long Island and then a weekend with some girlfriends up here in Mass. One week of NOT WORKING. Thank you, Jesus.

* I love you, Jeff Tweedy. You rocked last night, and you played everything on my "best of Wilco" playlist: Hummingbird, Handshake Drugs, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, I'm The Man Who Loves You, California Stars. Everything! I lurve you! And I'm still on my concert high.

Last Few Nights of Living Alone

I should be packing, but I feel I should relish this special moment of being alone prior to moving in with YG: because in a few days, I will probably be embarrassed if anyone else came home and saw me on the couch drinking beer and eating cheese in my pajams trying to pretend like I wasn't thoroughly enjoying "The Starter Wife" on TBS.

Weekend Visitors

How could you not love this face?






Or this one, for that matter?






More weekend fun here.

P.S.

Memorial Day weekend was beyond awesome, but I haven't written about that yet because it would require, ya know, effort and a can-do, winning attitude.

Moving Blows

I have spent a glamorous evening vacuuming, cleaning the fridge and will now embark upon the mess that is the bathroom. There are boxes everywhere. I'm desperately cleaning so that when NN and K come up this weekend (yay), I don't let their offspring choke on a hairball that I've left to rot on the floor. Seriously, I could construct a whole army of cats with all the hair around here. Sigh.

Does this constitute writing? Or whining? Or both? Maybe? A little? Whatever.

On more whining: I am still chubina despite the Couch to 5K program AND 26 miles on my bike this weekend. I drowned my sorrows last night in this lovely concoction mixed up of foods in the house that I don't want to move with me: one pound pasta, lots of salt, lots of pepper, glob of olive oil, grated cheese. Hawht!

I am TIRED.

Sticky, sticky, stuck

From an email message that I sent to YG. Edits made to assure that I don't get my ass fired.

"Today was a little meh. I talked with [boss]and he doesn't see [boss'
bosses] hiring somebody for [position that I am doing, but shouldn't and
position in which I am not particularly happy] for at least six months.
:-( I don't know where he's getting that from, but it just put me in a
bad mood and I did a LinkedIn/Monster search at lunch just to see what's out
there. Again - one year later. I *really* don't want just another job, but I
think I need to talk to somebody (maybe a [life coach name] person or a
career counselor or whatever) because. . . I think I'm
stuck. Sigh. "

I know I'm smart. And a hard worker. I just don't know what I should do with that. And all of the "what should I do with my life?" and "what color is your parachute?" and "Zen and the art of making a living" shit that lines my bookshelves is apparently not helping.

You Should Read This

You should be checking out Elastic Waist anyway, but this is a worthwhile read. I am horrified.

This is Your Life

I’m not sure how I discovered the blog East Side Girl, but I love it. It’s well written and usually makes me laugh. This post, though, got me thinking about all the wonderful “nothing special” days that I’ve been having lately. It’s been busy – very busy. We’re moving and packing and in a general state of harriedness, and YG has been crazy at work, managing the ECT, and working to make sure the MG can stay in her current school system. Emotionally, everyone is all over the map.

But it hasn’t been all bad. In fact, it hasn’t been bad at all. It should be really stressful, but we’ve been managing, and I’m actually looking forward to moving in. This past weekend, we didn’t do much. I had a fever and a horrendous cold last week so I worked from home on Thursday and Friday, switching from sleeping to working to sleeping to feeling sorry for myself to sleeping. On Saturday morning, I was DYING to get out of the house, but we were entering into Day 4 of craptastic, rainy weather. YG went to yoga class, while MG and I ate breakfast and watched What Not to Wear. I took her down to SuperCuts and we both got blowouts and then picked up my drycleaning and filled the car up with gas. None of this was glamorous by any means, but the MG kept talking about how much FUN she has when she’s with us. It makes me both happy and sad. Happy that she’s happy, but sad that she’s not when we’re not around. I’ve analyzed and am analyzing what it is that I do differently that makes it so fun for her, and I’ve found….nothing. I don’t really act different around her. I certainly swear less, and I try to keep all my opinions (i.e. usual rants and raves) in check, but I don’t go out of my way to do any kid things with her. I just don’t exclude her from what I’M doing. Maybe that makes her feel special? Maybe it makes me a selfish asshole? I’m not sure – I just know that it’s easy to drag her around while I do my errands.

Later that afternoon, we went over to the new place to measure and try and map out where all of our stuff is going to fit. It was just as good as I remembered. I’ll have to get rid of more items to make the place work, but I’m not as angsty about it as I was a few weeks ago. I’ll be sad to see some of these items go – I can remember exactly where they sat in my grandparents’ apartment in Brooklyn, but it’s time to move on now. And I think we’ve come to a good compromise. I am still excited about the massive amount of closet space, along with a cubby devoted to just my shoes. Oh joy!

We left the car at the new place and then took the *bounce, bounce* miniscule 10 minute walk to Davis, grabbing pizza and subs at Mike’s before taking the T to Berklee for a Dan Zanes show. THAT was a blast. I could write a long post about how craptastic “kids” music is (see: Hannah Montana) and how annoying it is to have the MG repeat the same horrendous song over and over again (see: Hannah Montana), but I won’t because I made my parents take me to A New Kids On The Block concert when I was 11 and I put up posters of Donnie Walberg all over their basement, so Hannah Montana is probably my karmic payback. Dan Zanes was fun for the MG AND for me. Lots of cute kids and hipster parents bouncing around. The usual “cult of the child” people and some anxietymoms overly obsessed with their kids not being able to see or bounce properly, but overall, a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon. We walked in the rain to the Prudential Center stores to kill some time shopping before heading back to dinner at an Italian place in Davis.

Sidenote: YG and I watched Before Sunset on Saturday night a few months after watching Before Sunrise, a movie I adored when it came out. It started off bad, mainly because I think Ethan Hawke is and plays douchebag really well, but then moved into enjoyable. Overall, it made me think, though, that people my age aren’t really that interesting.

On Sunday we woke up and the sun was out for the first time in four days. YG took the MG to Sunday school while I stayed around to pack. It was still relatively sunny when I left for church, but opened up into a downpour on my walk. Of course, I had no umbrella. L I was late and cranky and wet by the time I got there and not entirely enthused by the idea of sitting in wet clothes for an hour, but our church always manages to rock it out. The pastor gives wonderful sermons, but we had a guest speaker this week who talked about the meaning of Ascension Sunday and how pragmatic Protestants have trouble with the “mysticism” and “mysteriousness” of the event. (not something the ex-Catholics like myself have problems with). She talked about how the disciples were all real people with problems (not belivieving, lying, betraying and the like), but yet they were able to get on with spreading the good word. I took away that I don’t need to spend so much time worrying about my various states of disbelief, I could just get on with it. So yeah, nice time.

Afterwards we had Beatles brunch at Cambridge Common. The music, duh, was good, as was the food. The mimosas are not nearly as good as Temple Bars, but I just discovered that Temple puts vodka in their mimosas…hence the excellence. As we were leaving, it downpoured again and while we trying to figure out how to fit 3 humans under one small umbrella, YG heard the voice of one, John Malkovich. He lives in Harvard Square, but I’ve never seen him before, and I know I should mention that he’s an awesome actor and acclaimed enough to have a movie made about people entering the portal to his brain, but I’ll always know him as I’ll always know him as Dr. Jeff/Ulysses the Android. Words cannot express how much I LOVED that movie when I was about 10 – around the same time as I loved NKOTB. The fashion stylings of PR consultant, Frankie Stone, were sooooo 1987. I digress. The Malkovich didn’t seem too happy that we were staring, but whatever – random celebrity sightings don’t occur that often in my neighborhood.

We walked back home, and YG described it this way, “You, me, MG, in the rain and no one complaining about it. At all. Just happy to be together, soaked to the bone but content.”

The perfect weekend.

Placeholder For Very Important Things

Sometimes I have the best intentions. I noticed last week that my first blog post ever was last year on May 11, 2006 and I was going to write this very epic, yet totally not self involved, year in review about how much things have changed, how I've been remiss in not keeping this up to date (but have kept it up longer than I thought I would), and what's next in my epic, but not self-involved life. And then I didn't. I watched t.v. [sidenote: can we all have a hand clap for Lost regaining its awesomeness? Yes? Thanks.]

And then I was going to write another post about how it's Mothers Day and how awesome (and totally insane) my mom is, and then I really wanted to write it after and spending yesterday with NN and K and offspring, and NN said, "Can you write a book about your family? They're so funny." But I didn't. I stayed up late and watched the Yankee game [Yes Network, how I've missed you] with my parents and wrapped Mother's Day gifts and finished reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (um, meh).

And I was going to write about the wonder of the Acela "quiet car" and how great it is to have total silence for four hours and not have to listen to douchebags talking on their cell phones. And why you should always put vegetables in peanut sauce. But I didn't.

So consider this a placeholder for very important things.

Happy Birthday, MG!

Feliz cumpleanos. Numero ocho.

We Have A Place To Live

After a series of misses and a lot of freaking out on my part, we have finally found the perfect place to live. Great neighborhood, great place, great perks -- I'm really excited. I know that we'll be happy there and the MG gets a really cool room, and we get an office...and relatively important, I get to keep all my shoes. :-)

Now on to the packing...

In other news, the bad news stuff that I alluded to in one of my last posts is getting better. I really wanted something at work. It didn't work out, and I thought I was okay with it, but after a particularly bad week last week, I ended CRYING...AT WORK. In front of my boss. I am horrified and mortified and so goddam pissed at myself for getting so emotional. I feel like it makes me look like someone that can't be taken seriously, that shouldn't be given big tasks, etc. I'm still sort of shaken, but am hoping that I can put it behind me. Or better yet, hoping that everyone that witnessed my meltdown can. It's not a regular occurance, but I loathe anything that makes me appear, well, ...human, to anybody else.

On the good work news, we have a new person on the team that I'm very excited to work with. Things didn't work out for me, but she was the only person that I considered a real asset and that I really wanted to work with. Back to the mortification -- I'm absolutely horrified that my sniffles and crying and meltdown occured during her first week, but fingers crossed that she doesn't think I'm a total dipshit and will let me prove how good I can be. I haven't been this excited to work with a bunch of people in a long time.

That's the abridged version. I had a long drawn out post about how I should just quit my job and work at Starbuck's because I am obviously incompetent. But I'm not. I'm pretty fucking smart, and I had a pretty great weekend so I declare an end to the wallowing.

Anxiety Attack

I am moving. With YG and MG. We're looking for a place in my neighborhood, but bigger and with a yard and/or deck where MG-aged people can play. This should be relatively easy. It should be quick. It should be FUN.

But I am wracked with anxiety. We've looked at a number of places, and none have been perfect for various reasons. I was ready to sell my firstborn for an apartment we looked at on Sat. in the perfect location, but a not-so-perfect pricetag and no room for expansion. Then last night, we found another almost perfect one with a OMG-I-could-save-so-much-$ pricetag and perfect yard in the perfect neighborhood, but two closets and a teeny tiny master bedroom that would fit YG's big bed and not much else. In short, I would need to get rid of most of my big things and A LOT of my clothes and shoes. I already signficantly pared that stuff down when I moved up here last year and some of it has sentimental value (my grandparents' furniture) so...ack.

Of course, I know what this is all about because I read self-help books and take yoga and am all self-aware. It's about security blankets. It's about MY stuff and ME and protecting ME. If I get rid of all my stuff and it doesn't work out, I end up with nothing again. And what if it doesn't work out again? I'm moving in...with a boy. The last time I did this, I got married, and as you know, my track record for unsuccessful marriages and bitter, painful divorces is stellar. Do I need a china cabinet? Am I the type of person who even uses china? I eat hot pockets and take out. Do I need 6 pairs of black boots and twelve pairs of Classic Fit straight-legged black pants? Probably not. But this stuff is mine, and I'm possessive and weird and obviously FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.

And I have two months to find a place so all of this is premature and we will find a place, and I won't be relegated to the only two other obvious options for me if I don't find a place to live:
1. selling crack on the streets
2. living on my parents' couch back in the NJ suburbs, watching WPIX reruns and wearing velour sweatsuits

Sigh.

Estoy Cansado (Vacation Recap: The Mexican Edition)

I’ve been back from Mexico for about a week, trying to slowly ease myself back into work, and it’s just not fun. My life would be a lot easier if I could have mimosas every morning at breakfast, and someone came around with margaritas around 10 a.m. Do I start with the bad or the good? Hmmm….

The good. I’ll start with vacation. It was awesome, incredible, relaxing, and all the other good adjectives that one could imagine. We left early Saturday morning and drove down to NJ for a belated Easter (the Lord rises late for us), Brian’s birthday and a stop at Forth & Towne – before, sniff, it closes. I had made a New Year’s Resolution to stop spending so much money on clothes, and I gave up shopping for Lent, so it had been a while since I bought anything new. Of course, everything was fantastic and I have some cute new wrap dresses and funky t-shirts for summer. WHY is this store closing? I ended up talking with the sales girl for a while about how sad we were about the shutdown and why the clothes fit so great (the secret is the fit model. It’s a size 10 woman). All the 14-year-old aneoerexics and the un-boobed have their own stores. Why can’t I have mine?

We had dinner with the extended family down in Freehold (Broooce!) and ate like fat bastards and with the exception of a minor delay last Sunday morning due to the Noreaster, got the hell down to Mexico. Our seats were spread apart, but YG ended up swapping and got a seat next to the MG. I was seated next to a young couple who were going on their honeymoon, and were perfectly pleasant minus the fact that they were wearing glittery “just married” t-shirts.

Immigration was long and hot, but uneventful. I am always amazed by Americans and their sweatshirts when I travel. Granted, I am not a fashionista, but a corporate-logo-ed crewneck sweatshirt as travel attire? Please. There’s always a little part of me that secretly hopes that all the people wearing ill-fitted America: These Colors Don’t Bleed sweatshirts with eagle artwork are all engaged in some form of group performance art. That would be awesome.

After some haggling with the crazy airport timeshare people and a bus ride, we finally arrived at the resort. It seemed nice enough, but YG’s persistence, the MG’s cuteness and my jugs helped us score a nicer room with a terrace and a balcony, overlooking the resort and the ocean at no extra cost. The MG and I quickly put our swimsuits on and ran down to the pool, while YG got some “alone time” to unwind and develop some strategies to not kill the two of us during a week’s worth of family fun. The MG swam while I provided the best supervision one can while drinking margaritas and reading Allure.

The rest of the week provided much of the same. I’ve never done an all-inclusive resort before, and if it was just YG and I, I might not do it again. But with a kid? Awesome! She made a few friends at Kids Club and we never had to worry about where we were going to eat or go for entertainment. None of the food was fantastic, but none of it was bad either. It was middle of the road, with the exception of some fantastic guacamole. And I never developed a raging case of the poops, so….all good.

The grounds were beautiful. We spent a lot of time lounging by the pool and on the beach. I thought I’d spend a lot more time reflecting, writing, figuring out all my big issues and shit, but I didn’t. I just RELAXED. I drank a lot. I ate a lot. I swam a lot. I read a lot [4 books: finished the Barack Obama book, finally read Housekeeping, and started both Intuitive Eating and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius] and listened to my iPod. I did some writing, but nothing intense – a lot of “wow, the water is really blue and warm and I am very happy, blah, blah, blah” stuff. I didn’t obsess about my body. I spent most of the week in a bathing suit and nobody died. I even showed a coworker some of the pictures from vacation with me in a bathing suit and again, nobody died. The MG and I rode the waves, and the YG and I spent a lot of time making eyes at each other and being happy to be around each other. Kind of gross, actually. J

On Wednesday, we took a boat to Isla Mujeres and rode the waterslide and did some “shopping” at some of the crappy tourist shops downtown. It was sort of a cheesy trip and could have been bad (i.e. the promised “beautiful beach and waterslide” was actually more like ghetto plastic slide running into the skeevy lagoon where the boats dock), but we tried to have fun and actually did. I nearly cracked my skull on the waterslide. Those things are wicked fun (see, I’m getting the lingo!). On the ride back, the MG entertained the whole boat with her sick moves and interpretive dance. We walked along the beach that night and laid on the lounge chairs, watching the sky. I saw a shooting star and a few satellites and got a little teary because the whole night was very pretty and Walton’s and nice.

MG played with her Canadian friend from Kids Club on Thursday, and we had dinner with her parents. On Friday, we set up camp at one of the small beach huts and stayed there for the whole day. It was the best day all week with lots of swimming and playing and shell hunting and snacks and candy bars in the sand. The MG won a dance contest that night, and YG and I were able to watch ESPN and the Yankees/Sox game. [sidenote: Yankees. WTF?]

Saturday it was back to the airport and long, sweaty lines and nasty people. The take-off was smooth, though, and I saw our resort from the air. And then we were back. In New Jersey. With Godfather and Maggie Moo's.

I don’t feel like getting into the bad quite yet, so I’ll just leave it at that for now.

And I'm trying to upload the pictures to Flickr, but she's totally being a bitch right now. Grrr...

Photo Goodness...or BB and Phil Come to Boston

Stop pushing up my headers, Blogger!



If this were ten years ago, there would be somebody grabbing somebody else's boob.

Letter to the missing party.

The happy couple.

Group shot.

More over on Flickr.

A Good Day Ends With Projectile Vomiting

One more work day until Mexico!

Unfortunately today's work day ended with being projectile vomited on by some drunk hozzle on the T. Good times. Adding insult to injury, a group of fratties felt the need to imitate said projectile vomiting every time she heaved.

The worst thing about this -- I have to dry clean a pair of pants I wore only once.

40 Days and 40 Nights

That seems about how long it's been since I've updated. It's not that I don't want to -- and I even have these flashes of "that's pretty funny, I should put it on my blog for the 3 people that read it," but then I forget or the "hassle" of logging on (all 1 minute) seems insurmountable. Blame it on Tyra Banks -- she's the one that puts on America's Next Top Model. And when it comes down to it? Writing about my life vs. watching rappers throw aneorexics in a pool? The aneorexics are going to win every time.

Things that are going on:
* One week until Cancun! I'm going to have to earn this vacation with another hell week at work, but good lord, I will be in Cancun, hopefully doing shots, entering a wet t-shirt contest and riding a mechanical bull in one week. Not really, but that would be awesome.

* BB and Phil came up to Massachusetts last weekend and we had fun trudging around the city, looking at old photos and eating lots of food. I hadn't seen them in over a year so it was good to catch up. Plus, we got to tell YG the "heh -- remember when your dad slipped me the beef" story. Lesson learned -- if it tastes better than chicken, it's veal. And second lesson -- cutting out beef, but continuing to chow down on salted pork does not make a vegetarian.
I'm hoping that we can get up to Syracuse some time soon and all hang out in spandex.

* Baseball season started! Carl Pavano lives. And sucks.
A work friend has extra tickets for a Yankees/Red Sox game at Fenway and offered them to me, but we'll be in Cancun. Muy mal.

* Being bummed that I'm missing all sorts of good shows because I'm old and not all hip and cool and camping out overnight for tickets. All of the following were on my "I absolutely have to see these guys live" list, and by the time I got my shit together, were sold out: Spoon, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, and Cowboy Junkies. Also sold out -- the Toasters. The Toasters! How frickin' cool would that have been? I saw the Toasters in London in 1996. I'm bummed.
However, I am going to see Morrissey this summer with cool work colleague, the Doctor. Yes, I'm a little old for that. No, I really don't care. I plan to wear all black, smoke clove cigarettes and write in my journal about my pain, my deep and heartfelt pain. The anguish.

* Of the things I was going to blog about, but keep forgetting due to Tyra: open letters.
Like an open letter to my ass.
Dear ass, I like it that you're loud and boisterous just like me. But please, keep it down at work. Really. Thanks. -jm
Dear makers of low-rise tights, Was this really something that we, as a society, needed? Seriously? Did someone come up to you and say "hey, I really need something that's going to hang over my belly roll, threaten to fall down all the time and force to me to be rootin' around in my ass every five minutes"? There must have been asking for them. Because only a dick would invent this torture device otherwise. -- jm
Yeah, they sound much funnier in my head.

* Easter. Woo hoo! Cadbury cream eggs. Beer! Ham! Mmmm.....pork and Jesus' return. Good stuff.

Snow Day

After a few days of 60 degree weather, we're back to snow and ice again. So strange. I was relishing my few days of skirts, and shoes with no socks, and the banishment of the dreaded winter granny sock. Yeah, how hot is that? You know you want those legs.

Now it's all snowy and icy and rainy and bleh. I did make it into the office this morning to have what's becoming a ritual panic attack about how much I didn't get done, and then I left for the trek home in the snow, narrowly missing getting sideswiped by some dumb motherfucker in a SUV who deemed himself invincible. :-(

With the exception of today, though, it's officially the brown season -- that crappy couple of months between the prettiness of the white winter and the beginning of Spring. Honestly, I've been busy but not busy enough to justify not writing. I've just been feeling sort of blah and uninteresting with lots of daily rants about the people that cut me off on the road and people that talk too long on their cell phones and people that move too slow, but you don't really need to hear about that. I save the real, juicy details of my glamarama life for you, dear readers.

What I have been doing:

* I went back to the Whip a few weeks ago for my dad's birthday. I took YG and the MG and we had a good time, but as usual, it seemed too short. The three of us slept in my old room. Me in my bed, YG in Beckshack's and the MG on an air mattress between us. I think that's the first time a boy [that I wasn't married to] has ever been allowed to sleep in the room with me at my parents' house. Woo hoo -- those crazy hippies! It's a slippery slope now. We're all slouching towards Gomorrah from here.

* I saw Dean & Britta at the MFA last week, and it was divine and lovely and swoon-inducing. YG and I were having some wine and appetizers at the cafe, and they both walked in and I didn't think either of them were quite as attractive as I remembered. Attractive, but....weathered. But then they started singing and I was transfixed and convinced it would have been an even better show if we could have all made out. I had no idea that Britta was Jem.

I think it would be really awesome if she just busted out with "Showtime Synergy!" in the middle of a set sometime. Don't even pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about.

* I just finished Fast Food Nation. Shout out to East Hanover for manufacturing the "flavor" of some of this stuff. Helped me understand why people become vegetarians. I think I'm going to have a hard time with hamburgers for a while.

* Work. Still one man down. Still busy. I'm getting more responsibility and I still do like it, but somedays I wonder where I'm going with all this. I had a day earlier in the week with a bunch of nagging shit and it was 60 degrees out and sunny, and I had this very, very, VERY strong urge to win the lottery. I wouldn't quit working. I just wouldn't care so much what people thought of me. And I'd do a lot more clubs and sports and reading and writing because if I got fired for slacking? Suck it, bitches -- I won the lotto! :-)

* Obsessively reading other people's brilliant blogs, rather than working on my own. I absolutely adore Big Fat Deal. And, as always, am a religious reader of Go Fug Yourself, although their warning about the immient arrival of shorts jumpsuits gave me hives.

* And I have some fun stuff coming up in the next few weeks. BB and NN and their respective other halves and spawn will be coming up for a weekend soon; I finally get to see SKB sing; Easter, another visit to the Whip, and MEXICO!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YG!

Happy, happy, happy! The last birthday in your 30s. Let the hookers and crack commence.

Oh Self Loathing, How I've Missed You

Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. I haven’t written about WW and my weight for a while because it’s boring, and to be more honest, it hasn’t been going so hot. I’ve been unmotivated and then I was traveling for a while – three meals a day on the road, eating at weird times, lots of drinking, etc. Still, when I was in San Francisco, I got my ass up every morning between 5:30 and 6:30 and went to the gym; I walked about 10 miles over one weekend, I wrote down every freaking bit of food and drink I put into my mouth.

And I gained 8.8 lbs since my last weigh-in on January 24. 8.8 pounds.

To give you some context, it took me about a year to get to my 10% goal on WW a few years back. That was 18 lbs at the time. I lost a little over a pound a month. I just gained 8.8 pounds in ONE month. I have about 3 pairs of pants that fit and I’m totally in the middle of eating a big slice of my own messed-up headcake.

I wish it didn’t matter so much to me. I know that I was able to work out, walk, and have fun without getting out of breath, so I’m obviously in okay shape. I wish this was all about my health. I also logically know that being overweight doesn’t equal being a “bad” person, or an “unworthy” person.

I KNOW that stuff. But it never actually feels that way when you’re staring at that number on the scale and making all sorts of wide-ranging assumptions about your self-worth because it’s much higher than it’s supposed to be. I can tell myself about a million good things about me that I think are pretty cool, but when I see that number on the scale, I hate myself just a little bit.
And that’s so wrong. And so stupid. And let’s face it, so self-involved.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The three traditional practices people usually take up during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving(justice towards neighbor). Maybe in the next 40 days, I can stop loathing myself over stupid shit, treat myself right and free up some time to help somebody other than myself. When I think of all the time I could be spending thinking about “important things” and not my weight/WW/good food vs. bad food/the size of my ass in jeans….I am amazed.

ETA: Went and had a glass of wine and then went to the mass?/service (whatever the UCC calls it) for Ash Wednesday, and it was really nice and I feel much, much better.

Normal Life Returns

This is the first weekend in a looong time that I have not been traveling or planning on traveling or packing for traveling. It's nice. I'm not doing much of anything glamorous, but it feels ....normal.

The work week was back to normal, with the exception of a snow storm on Wednesday that crapped things up for a bit. Given that this is Massachusetts and it's supposed to be cold and snowy in the winter, I figured that everyone would be at work. Wrong. Drove an hour in the snow and discovered only a handful of folks there, so I went to a bunch of meetings and then drove home again in near white-out conditions. That took another hour, and when I turned into the parking lot, it wasn't plowed and I got totally, utterly, awfully stuck. Shovel. Gun it. Shovel. Gun it. Shovel. Gun it. Nada. By this time, it was freezing rain; I was soaking wet, and getting a tad freaked out by the guy in the truck staring at me while I was doing all this. He got out of his truck, walked over, and I assumed he was a Good Samaritan coming to help out. Nooo. He said, "Are you going to be doing that much longer? I really want to get out of here." Then he walked back and sat in his truck. WTF? Usually I can come up with a snappy comeback or just the tried-and-true "go fuck yourself," but my jaw just dropped. Thankfully YG responded to my Bitch Call and came and helped me out. I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between laundry, conference calls and email, before we went to Sandrine's for Valentine's Day dinner. The food was yummy, we got a bottle of white burgundy, and then spent a romantic evening shoveling ice.

Last night, I saw the MG for the first time in three weeks and we went to Friendly's and played balloon volleyball -- standard fare. I missed her while I was gone. This morning, we went sledding and she's downstairs now on a "play date" with her friend, frosting cookies. YG is reading, I'm up here and it feels good to be doing nothing that requires actual movement or aerobic exercise.

We're heading back into Cambridge tonight for our usual Sunday -- church and then Temple Bar for brunch. In preparation for Lent, here are the things I'm giving up:
1. shoes
2. beer
3. chocolate
4. dropping f-bombs

JC would be so proud!

I suppose I should think about DOING something, rather than giving things up, but it's hard to erase what's ingrained. I had thought about committing to doing this (the blog, writing, etc) for at least 40 days, but that's sort of selfish, and more for me than anyone else. But then again, happy me = happy others. I dunno -- it's a bit shoddy logic, ya know? What's the difference between that and say, "Well, hookers and coke make ME happy so....everyone wins!"

I'm not feeling very inspired right now. Just content. And that makes for boring reading.

So I'll just link you to some funny shit that made me nearly pee my pants:

* Brenda Dickson -- Welcome to My Home Part One
Despite the frightening return of leggings, the 80's seem so very far away. "There was a time in my career when I wouldn't be caught dead in a gown like this," said while wearing a gold lame dress with shoulder pads.

* Part Two.
Make-up and diet tips.

During this religious season, I personally want to thank Jesus for Youtube.

Public Service Announcement

Jet lag sucks. The red eye sucks. Too much "urgent" email in my inbox after only one day of vacation sucks.

San Francisco does not suck. Cellophane noodles with Dungeness crab at Slanted Door does not suck. Drinking lots of champagne and wine in Napa does not suck. The chicken at The Rutherford Grill does not suck. Having an extra vacation weekend with YG does not suck.

The fact that I experience all these great moments and do not think to write them down -- that, does in fact, suck.

No, I'm Not A Missing Person

Just busy with work, and today, busy with recovering from a tequila hangover. 4 margaritas = a LOT.

In sad news, this week, an old buddy died. Finn -- my college roommate and best friend's cat. She got Finn at the same time as I got Alistair, and we all lived together for a bit. Finn and Alistair would sleep at the bottom of my bed. It's hard to mourn the passing of a pet. It's all just very....melancholy.

My next post will be from California.

Itchy, Painful Things and Other Crap

And another ten days passes without posting...sigh. I wish I could say that I was out living it up and rocking out, but I've been either working or hopped up on Benadryl.

If you've known me for a while, you were around for the great painful welt incident in winter 2001 and the allergic rash incident in 2004 complete with my favorite 'roid, Prednisone. This week marked the beginning of Itchy Painful Welts 2007. I had an allergic reaction to something that is, at this point, still unknown and broke out in hives and an itchy rash EVERYWHERE. It was horrible, so I met a dermatologist at the hospital, had him take a look at me, had him determine -- AGAIN -- that I am allergic to something AGAIN, and then had him give me a topical steroid. Yes, topical. I guess the medical community frowns on giving oral 'roids if they're not needed, so for most of the week, I've been dousing myself in something with the same texture and consistency as Vaseline. Gross. Along with that, I was given a ton of Benadryl to take and ended up sleeping through most of "work at home" day on Tuesday. I woke up with my face against the keyboard, drooling. Totally and remarkably hot. And oh, did I mention that this is the busiest time of the year at work? So, not only do I get to deal with the shame of being the freakshow on Floor 2 covered in greasy welts, but I'm also falling asleep because of the medication, so I'm the unproductive, useless, good-for-nothing freakshow on Floor 2 covered in greasy welts. :-(

After a few days of feeling sorry for myself and covering myself in grease, I'm now feeling and looking a little bit better. It's remarkable what a good whine will do for you.

I'm spending the weekend in the burbs because YG and I are taking the MG to a dance tonight, and I'll get to meet the MG's mother for the first time. I'm trying to pretend like I'm cool and collected and not nervous at all, but I am. I feel this unbelievable pressure to be perfect, to say the right things, to not make waves -- in a sense, act completely unlike myself -- so that I don't upset this woman. It gives me a little glimpse into what it must have been like to be YG for so long, and that makes me very sad. I'm trying to remember all those lessons that I used to give to executives when I did media training, and stick to them. Our main rule was "Be pleasant and a little bit boring." I have no doubt that I can be a little bit boring. I can be quite a pro. Pleasant? Eh...not so much. Interesting is probably the best word to describe how this night will be.

In other news, I finished my book: God's Politics. I highly recommend it, and loved it. I'm now reading Reading Lolita in Tehran. I bought it a while ago because it seemed like everybody was reading it, and I thought it would be entertaining in an embarassing DaVinci Code sort of way. But I'm impressed. The memoir part is interesting, but I really like what she has to say about the books. I ended up flipping through The Great Gatsby the other night after reading one of her critiques. I love books about books. When I am independently wealthy, I am going to read, read, read all the time and have tons of rooms filled with books and magazines. That part of my childhood dream has never died.

Listening to: a lot of Joshua Radin and some old Clash stuff. And eagerly anticipating the new Shins album on MONDAY! I'm embarassed to admit that I made a ridiculous playlist for driving home from work this week -- I've been working late and feeling nasty (see above: grease) -- that includes Motorhead, AC/DC, Twisted Sister and Poison. So if you saw a crazy lady in the parking lot of the Fresh Pond Whole Foods screaming out all the lyrics to "Talk Dirty to Me," that was me. I am a sad, sad human being.

What else? Not much. Work and steroids pretty much sums it up. Oh, and wasting two hours of my life watching this on Lifetime because I thought, or hoped, it might have something interesting to say. Note to self: Lifetime Television for Women = BAD.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks flying by and getting my "reward" weekend in Napa. Later.

Things I Should Be Writing About

There's a lot of things I should be writing about, but will more likely just link to. I should be writing more often to make my anonymous commenter happy, so I guess I'll start with that one:

* My whereabouts these days.
I am BUSY. I did a lot in NJ and NYC while I was on break, came back to MA for a few days of NYE entertainment, a wicked cold and end-of-year cleaning, and am now back at work. I got out of a trip next week to Buffalo, but I'll be in DC for two days the week of the 22nd, and then on the 30th, I leave for TWO WEEKS in California. There's a lot of moving parts, and I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by this monster work conference. It's my first year doing this Conference so there's also that whole I don't have any idea what I'm doing thing. I remember the first year I did SUPERComm at my old job -- same feeling, same stress, lots of tears in the bathroom pretending not to be a big pussy. But every year after that, it got better because it was known stress as opposed to I'm-going-to-get-out-of-this-with-job-and-sanity-in-check? stress.
So I'll either be gone from blogging for a long while, or I'll be posting all the time because nights during business travel can be a bit boring. We'll see, anonymous commenter.

* Nancy Pelosi. One of The Nation's blogs does a better job of articulating the conflicting feelings I had about her wife/mother/grandmother photo op on her first day. I loved it, I didn't like it -- I dunno! In my reading, though, I did stumble across a blog that questioned Pelosi's feminist credibility because of the way she looked, and it just made my blood boil. Because feminism is all about making sure we all look the same. Look, bitches, I wear lipstick! Get over it!

* This book I'm reading. I absolutely love it. If you had told me a while ago that I'd be all gung ho for a book written by an Evangelical preacher, I would have assumed you were insane. If you Google Jim Wallis, you'll finds all sorts of shit-stirring stuff about him by right-wing nuts that is fun to read. I've had this book on my bookshelf for two years. I gave this book to people as Christmas gifts last year. But I never read it. I picked it up right around the time that YG and I started going to this great new church, and it's just helped me get my shit together in that compartment of my brain marked "spiritual."

* Bush, Bush, Bush, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. I was going to just link to this story on Slate because I think it offers an excellent critique of the "new strategy" on Iraq and I basically agree with everything Fred Kaplan is saying. Link, and then call it a night. But....arghh. I'm thinking about this A LOT. And here's some of my thoughts:
-- I really did TRY to listen to his argument. Put aside my usual disgust with Bush, and listen, because this is important.
-- I agree that failure will send the region into total chaos, about the only thing I agree with the President on.
-- I believe that we have no good options in Iraq. ZERO. We have to figure out how to choose the least bad option.
-- He's seriously lost his grip on reality. He's lost the support of the people. He lost the support of his commanders on the ground so....he replaced them, with people that agree with him. Wha???
-- We can't rehash the past, and I believe that we need to find some political solutions without pointing fingers. That's logical. But I'm not logical all the time. There's a part of me (especially when I hear the president attempting to apologize for mistakes he's made) that still would love an apology for sending us into Iraq in the first place. Apologize for that mistake. You never found the WMDs and we're not safer now -- most people think we're less safe. So what was this all for?
-- People are dying. SO MANY PEOPLE are dying. THOUSANDS of people have died. 3000 soldiers, so many more Iraqis. For what?
-- What is that least bad option?
-- What can I do? How do I stop feeling so helpless about this?
I'm torn.

And now I've kind of forgotten the other mundane stuff I wanted to write about, or it seems rather silly to talk about how important my budget is right after talking about thousands of people dying, so I'll call it a night.

And Happy New Year

I'm still alive, have lots of resolutions and lots of recaps to post when the time comes. For now, I wish you a very happy new year.


ETA: I'd post the pics of YG busting out all the lyrics to Gangsta's Paradise on NYE, complete with hand gestures, but he is on a plane to Germany right now and can't grant me permission for such a thing.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, all! I'm feeling just overwhelmed with how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends and family, and am definitely feeling the spirit of the holidays right now.
More later...after I have fully stuffed myself with wine, manicotti and butterfly shrimp...as Jesus would have wanted it.

It Runs In The Family

In case you think it's just me that's insane, here is my sister doing her version of performance art.

Indoor Skating

The Pussycat Dolls Move

WARNING: Sappy Melodrama Attack

I have a lot of stuff to write about, but I'm finishing up some work stuff and my brain is fixating on one point. I get a lot of questions about who YG is, where we met, how long I've known him, what he's like, etc. I answer them, but I really don't feel the need to turn my blog into some gushy "look at how awesome my boyfriend is" diary. Ack, I have the feeling I've used that same sentence somewhere in a post before. Anyway, moving on...

I'm going home to NJ on Sat to spend the holidays with my family. YG and the MG will be joining us from Tuesday through Thursday for some NYC fun time, so I guess I never gave a lot of headspace to Christmas morning and what it would be like. I'll be home doing the same thing I've done for the past 30 years, except for the years I was married. YG will be alone. He picks up the MG at 2 p.m., but he will be alone on Christmas morning and that just makes me heart-breakingly sad because he's such a good father and I would like nothing more than for him to spend Christmas morning with his little girl. But he can't -- it's not his year. So I wanted to do something nice for him on Christmas morning to take the edge off a bit. After a fruitless morning on 1800Flowers, FTD, Edible Arrangements and a variety of other craptastic sites, I decided I don't have to GIVE anything. I just want to write about him and tell all my friends how great he is because that's not something I usually do, and it feels all "ew, gross, boys!"...a little bit anyway.

Note: If you happen to BE YG and are reading this, you need to stop until Christmas morning. Plus, I'm stealing gratiutously from my Christmas card and it would lame if you read this before that

The Abridged Version:

I met YG at one of my previous jobs. I worked with lots and lots of men, and I was married, but there was something about him that cut through the clutter. Something that told me that I should be friends with him because he seemed like a genuine person, in a world filled with kind of crappy people or at best, people that don't quite know themselves. We became work friends, and then became outside-of-work friends. When our respective marriages started to fall apart, he was one person that could relate to what I was going through and didn't judge me when I was leaning in one direction on marriage/divorce and then would seemingly do a 180 the next day. He just got it.

For a while, we lost touch and didn't speak to each other, as you do with work friends after you move on to another company. Sometimes you realize you don't have much in common with those work friends after you move on. When we started talking again, I realized that he would always be a good friend, and not just a work person that I sometimes exchange emails with. And now we live in the same State.

We both were seperated. We both started sniffing around each other. We started dating. I fell HARD.

At the beginning, I was really prolific. I felt like I had words and feelings just tumbling out of me that I had to melodramatically proclaim to the world and to him. I wrote lots of long letters, I did a lot of journaling, I talked to a lot of people. I had been unhappy for so long that I felt that the world needed to hear my testimony. Yeah. * eye roll*

And things are different now. I'm not floating around like a poet anymore, but I do have this FEELING of things in my life being right and happy and GOOD. As a writer, how do you say that? How do you make that real? I am happy. YG makes me happy. It isn't pretty, it isn't poetic -- it's just true.

In the past year, I've gone through a tumultous and heart-wrenching divorce, a family death, a major slump and depression last spring, the soul-sucking numbness of my last job, the ups and downs of adjusting to being part of the MG's life, and a major location change from New Jersey to Massachusetts.

And he's always been there. And he's always been cool. He's supported me, he's had my back and most importantly, he's called me on my bullshit when I act like the little fucker we all know I can be. I know I can count on him, I trust him, and I feel safe with him, and I hope he understands how much of a big freakin' deal that is.

To YG (a repeat, but I liked it, and I hope you're reading this on Christmas morning): I think I knew I loved you early in our relationship, but I wasn't really sure what that meant. It was fun and exciting and a welcome breath of fresh air after all we had been through with our previous spouses, but it doesn't compare to now. The more I get to know you, the more shit we have to deal with together, the more I change and the more I see you grow, the more I realize how lucky and blessed I am. Thank you for being you. I hate that you have to be alone this morning, but I want you to know that I'm thinking about you, the MG is thinking about you, your family and friends are thinking about you, even some strangers to you are thinking about you -- and that we all think you're just wonderful. Now go read the comments section to see what I mean.

To everyone else: Don't hold this sappiness against me. I'll go back to scaring children and small animals after the holidays are over.

Mission Impossible

Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to keep your "widely-read" blog relatively up to date. Heh. That worked for three days in a row. I impressed myself, and then let it slide for days.

Other things I am not doing besides writing the blog:
* Finishing my holiday shopping
* Writing holiday cards
* Going to the gym
* Sticking to WW
* Returning emails
* Keeping up to date with friends
* Watching tv. It took me three days to get to my Tivoed finale of America's Next Top Model. What's up with that?

Things I AM doing that are kind of cool:
* Work, work, and more work. I was expecting a lull, but that didn't happen. My boss moved into a new position that is really great for him, but that means that our relatively small organization is one man down. And my work and WW buddy is also taking a three-week holiday so that means I will have lots of work AND not have someone to bitch and moan to. The positive is that I'm taking on more responsibilities and product areas, and while I'm completely overwhelmed, I still like it and don't want to kick or bite anyone...yet. :-)
* Lots of holiday hoo hah. I sent out all my Secret Santa presents, went to a bunch of holiday parties, went out to dinner last night on a "school night" with work friends, and have lots of other fun stuff lined up too. YG and I are going here this weekend, which promises to be enjoyably cheesey, and then I'm taking him to XXXXX as a Christmas present on Sunday night. More on that to come.
* Helping YG and the MG set up their Christmas tree and decorations. We listened to Christmas songs and danced to "Santa Claus is Coming To Town" and made cookies and gingerbread houses. It was lovely and bittersweet. Lovely because we had a lot of fun. Bittersweet because I think each of us, in our own way, was missing the idea of what Christmas used to be. They had their family traditions, and I had mine. And I still, four years later, can't forget that my Pop-Pop died on Christmas day. I can't say that it's never been the same, but I can say that that memory has colored my view of Christmas and eeked its way into my library of holiday memories. :-(
At one point during the day, the MG came up to me and said, "I'm having fun and I love you, but I really wish my mom were here instead. I miss my mom." It DOES break my heart a little, but she's right and the only thing I can and did say was "I know. It's okay to miss your mom. I miss my mom sometimes too." Still, we had a good day. We had fun, and we're making our own traditions.
* Also did some "couple dinners" and a charity pub crawl because nothing says "I love kids and the baby Jesus" more than getting drunk.
* Entertaining out of towners.
* Reading. Did I mention I started John Irving's A Widow for One Year? I kind of love it.

And blah. I will be back with my good cheer and all that.

Serious For A Minute

I really don't GET the anti-gay marriage people. I consider myself a fairly educated and logical person, and I'm willing to listen to a logical argument, but I just don't GET why we should deny gay people the right to marry. Then again, I don't think that mo's are Satan-worshipping, flag-burning pyschotics coming to sodomize the Young in a town near year either. So maybe I'm a little bit biased. Anti-gay marriage sounds more to me like discriminating against a certain section of the population, and how is that right?

Thank God Mitt Romney is around to protect my "right to petition." Whatever. Putting minority rights up to a popular vote? Ummmm.....yeah. That works.

Not entirely unrelated: I kinda love the slippery slope folks with their logical arguments and all. If we let the gays marry, then what's to stop people from marrying their pets? The horror! That would have totally destroyed the sanctity of MY marriage.

Anyway, blah. I gotta eat. I am not on the CR. I promise I'll have more on these muthafuckers later.

I'd Rather Be Watching America's Next Top Model

But I said I was going to do this thing, at least for three days anyway. Plus, I need something to drag me away from the Thai food before I put myself into a noodle-and-soy-sauce-induced coma.

The day:
I spent last night at YG's so this morning was play time with the MG. Being around children is so....weird. I don't know how parents do it. On the one hand, I remember being a kid and how my parents' bad moods affected me. On the other hand, sometimes I get annoyed, and I can't always be in a perfect mood. Right? Someone back me up.

We've been having this "issue" with the bathroom. The issue being that I'm not really down with people being in there with me when I'm going about my biz. I have very few boundaries, but this is one. I believe that peeing is a solo sport. Maybe I'll change my mind after I have my own kids, but for now, that's MY space. The MG had this habit of just barging into the bathroom while I was in there, and I spoke to her about making sure she knocked first. After the kid volley of why?but why? and no, really, why? I thought I made my point, and I've had a large expanse of solo peeing time lately. But this morning I heard her creeping into the bathroom without knocking, and I must have snotted at her or been much more bitchy than I thought, but she threw her hairbrush on the counter, crossed her arms, thrust out her lip, and gave me Evil Kid Glare. And continued to give me Evil Kid Glare until I started jumping around and fooling around and acting generally spastic. Weird. I spend way too much time wondering about whether or not these little things are going to affect her "development" and if she's going to end up a Serial Killer because I snotted at her once. Sigh...Anyway...

Work was work. Busy, but quiet.

I had my WW weigh-in and was only up 1.2 over the holiday weekend. Given Thanksgiving, the party, the road food, the leftovers, etc. I'm really pleased with that. My goal is to finish the year within 2 pounds of my most recent low -- which was 153.2. We'll see. YG has been a fucking Superstar lately with this stuff, so that helps.

Had a doc appointment after work and then went home, walked up to Porter and ordered Thai. Walked back, watched Gilmore Girls, and am now uploading a bunch of my recent cds to my iTunes library. I'm so excited about Starland Vocal Band -- everyone I know is TOTALLY getting a mix with Afternoon Delight on it for Christmas. :-)

I know you want this glamorous life.

Embarrassed

I'm a bit embarrassed because at the beginning of this month, I committed (to myself, and thank God, not to anyone else) to NaBloWriMo. Yep, I was going to write everyday and if I didn't, at least, link to all the funny shit that makes me giggle like hell. Now that it's Nov. 28 and there are three days left in Nov., I'll figure I'll start.

Funny shit:
* Kevin Smith's iTunes playlist: Brilliant, with a strong Jersey contingent.

* The Youtube shoes video: This made me pee in my pants a little. If the link doesn't work, try searching for "i love shoes" or "Liam's shoes." I'm going to betch slap you, shitbag. Hee.

* The brilliance of The Fug Girls.

* Kermit singing Radiohead.

In other news, I made it back from NJ in one piece. After 6 hours though through NY and CT, my car crapped out at the first rest area in Mass. I'm convinced this was God punishing me for ordering large fries after I had eaten like a starving refugee all weekend. I managed to get it home and brought it to the nearest Honda dealership. Needed some belt replaced and a new battery. Exciting!