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.