9.30.2000
dressing the bride
is one of those cheesy sorts of games that you play at bridal showers. Well here is my dear friend Joanie, decked out in a toilet paper wedding dress (it's actually strapless but she's wearing a white shirt beneath). She looked great with the headband veil...the picture just doesn't do it justice. Joanie won the best wedding dress contest. Funny how at bridal and baby showers there is always the little games and strange rituals (Heidi managed to make it through the presents without breaking a bow or ribbon...they predict one child for each time you do break one). Joanie, by the way, has a very creative bent...I think she should go into business creating bow bouquets...the one she created for Heidi out of the ribbons and bows to use for practice at the rehearsal was magnificent.
5:04 PM | link | up| archives |
and now... a word from our sponsor...
this is jack... I am writing in place of crystal... well, I went cruising for boston boyz tonight on aol, but only found ugly and fat men... I suppose I will have to return to nyc where the beautiful people live. Of course, Crystal is more beauty than any male can take, gay or straight. She introduced me to this blogger thing, which is so cool. Why didn't I think of that? I could have written this program... well, I suppose it isn't about me... no, wait a minute... those of you who have followed Crystal's daily updates know that it is, indeed, all about me... Ah well. For those cubers reading this: I love you all. It was so nice seeing you tonight. xoxoxoxoxo... jack
2:21 AM | link | up| archives |
9.29.2000
houseguests and margaritas
going out with the cubers (see my Me/Superstars section) tonight for pitchers of margaritas at our favorite watering hole. Turns out that Jack is coming in from New York to get his teeth cleaned of all things...and so he's hooking up with us as well...and then crashing out with me because his friend Stephen is getting sick (grin...and mostly I think it's because I'm closer to the airport). It IS all about Jack, you know. Now if I could only get the man to update his Web site. Guess that's what happens when you are a barnes&noble.com big wig and off-broadway musical producer extraordinaire...
Funny how this has turned into the week of houseguests...first Michael, now Jack and next week Michael again I think. I guess it means the apartment is always clean. It also means I'm putting the toilet lid down a lot. Men! Well tomorrow will be the girly thing...heading to a bridal shower and dragging Joanie along with me.
Oh and I just discovered this latest tidbit of news:
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox have come together to co-finance and co-produce a feature film inspired by the 1960s sci-fi romp "Barbarella" and have hired John August to script the project for producers Laura Ziskin, Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen. Barrymore has long been attached to star in the title role. The new "Barbarella" is said not to be a remake of the 1968 film staring Jane Fonda which was loosely based on Jean Claude Forest's French comic book series. The new version, described as combining the world of sci-fi with Woody Allen sex comedies of the 1970s, will be based on Forest's "Le Semble Lune" (The Moon Like) and "Le Miroir au Tempetes" (The Mirror of Storms) - two later books in the "Barbarella" series. The story line will follow the adventures of a naive woman (Barrymore) who uncovers the secret behind her tiny planet's good fortune and finds herself leading a revolution.
Woooohoooo! Should be excellent. I really love and admire Drew. And besides, it's Barbarella! You know that's where Duran Duran got their name, now, don't you?
4:28 PM | link | up| archives |
disturbing
My aunt sent me this picture, and after some random looking on the Net for something only sort of related, I discovered that the picture is by John McColgan and it's of the Bitterroot National Forest, MT, taken on 8/6/2000. That's one thing that the East doesn't really experience, the forest fires that often devastate miles and miles of forest and sometimes even urban areas. This picture is so beautiful in its danger...those deer know that something isn't right and yet the idea of fire is so foreign to them. Haunting.
When I was in college, I dated a guy named Jared Ball (think, my first name is Crystal...ewww). He took me on the strangest date that I have ever had...to Lucky Peak Reservoir in Boise....which was EMPTY. Now this is no small reservoir...it's 12 miles long and 258 feet deep. I'm no math major but that's millions of gallons of water. So Jared took me to Lucky Peak for a picnic. We drove to the bottom of the reservoir (some people had created a new dirt road which would wash away in the spring). There was a forest fire ravaging the picnic ground (usually only accessible by boat) on the opposite side of the reservoir. We sat in the back of his hatchback and had our picnic and watched the fire burning down the bathrooms. Romantic? In a very odd sort of way, it was...it was just as the picture above, haunting, beautiful and yet strangely disturbing. This world is filled with natural forces that men still struggle to contain and fire is still one of them.
And so, go tell Scott Happy Birthday and visit Spoonfed.net. You old man you.
11:14 AM | link | up| archives |
9.28.2000
sensuality
I've been a big fan of Diane Ackerman for years now...in addition to some wonderful nonfiction, she has written some really beautiful, lush poetry. I finally managed to pick up a copy of her Natural History of the Senses. The book is a wonderful expose of sense in general. The first chapter is dedicated to that of smell. She talks about what an elusive beast that our sense of smell is...it is mostly indescribeable (how many times have you described a smell in relation to something obscure or to another smell), it is elusive, emotional, impactful. She manages to pack a myriad of facts into the pages, things that often you might have already known but not really thought much about. For example, how much of our food relies more on smell than taste. Have you ever described taste as a smell? I mean, I have before..."the candy tasted much like how violets smell," sort of thing. She mentions that some chemists say that wine is merely a tasteless liquid with a deep fragrance. It is true...wine is such a heady sort of thing and the fragrance is always a major part of the experience.
When I was young, I used to spend summers at my grandparents house in Burley, ID. They lived on a cliff above the Snake River. The sunsets every single night were breathtaking. Some of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen were from their beautiful green backyard lawn. In the Me/Pictoral section of my site you can see a bit of the landscape...lush and wild sagebrush behind me and my freaky new waver look in 1989. What you can't see in that picture is that I was standing next to a Russian Olive tree. In the summer they have the most amazing fragrance. I haven't smelled the trees since I moved to the East, but often driving in Washington state you would go by a field or a house with a tree and instantly I would be transported back to my grandparents house...where I spent many very happy summers. It is a comforting smell and yet it is a very sweet sensual aroma that I can appreciate much more as an adult, much like jasmine or really aphrodisiacal sorts of smells.
Speaking of sensual, I am loving the new Madonna album, Music,. I have more and more admiration for that woman as time goes on. I watched a VH-1 special on her tonight...her most memorable television moments...from Letterman to SNL to her controversial Rock the Vote ads in 1990 (where she was draped in the American flag and a red bikini). She has such amazing endurance, creative spirit and a savvy business sense that I greatly admire. Plus her music just gets better and better and better...
8:54 PM | link | up| archives |
The F-Word
so maybe you've seen this, maybe not. My friend Michele has her own folder in my mailbox...she is the goddess of humor...always discovering the most silly funny things. And so she sent me this list today...my favorite is number 7:
Top Ten Times in History...when using the "F" word was appropriate...
10) "What the FUCK was that?" - Mayor of Hiroshima
9) "Where did all these FUCKing Indians come from?" - Custer
8) "Any FUCKing idiot could understand that." - Einstein
7) "It does SO FUCKing look like her!" - Picasso
6) "How the FUCK did you work that out?" - Pythagoras
5) "You want WHAT on the FUCKing ceiling?" - Michaelangelo
4) "I don't suppose it's gonna FUCKing rain." - Joan of Arc
3) "Scattered FUCKing showers...my ass!" - Noah
2) "I need this parade like I need a FUCKing hole in my head!" - JFK
1) "Aw, c'mon, who the FUCK is going to find out?" - Bill Clinton
1:14 PM | link | up| archives |
9.27.2000
absolutely brilliant
Sylloge has put together the most amazing new site design. Talk about some savvy creative thinking. Very cool. It's a rip-off of the popular search engine, Google.
4:16 PM | link | up| archives |
to bitch or not to bitch
Got the new domain host...but go figure...they can't make the .ftp work. And they tell me they are the #1 rated by PC Magazine and all that. Will I be able to copy the site over before the transfer occurs? We'll see.
Add to that that my poetess@crystallyn.com address is only working sporadically. Stupid hosting service says that email will be down for the next 72 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Try me at crystallyn@nerve.com .
But the good news is that I have, in my hot little hands, the offer letter from this new company. Director of Marketing, reports in to the CEO. I just sign on the dotted line and start in two weeks. Woooohoooo! It's in the North End, which will be a culinary change for me...mmmmm I love Italian food.
I also managed to get the bridal shower gift for my friend Heidi who is getting hitched next month. I'm not a big fan of shopping really. Give me an online store any day and that will suit me. Still, there is something sort of fun about the cute little department store bags (not the crappy plastic kind) that you get to carry around. Sort of freaks me out that Christmas is right around the corner. Still it will be wonderful to be downtown during the holiday season...I love the atmosphere of a big city during the fall and the winter. Boston is a city so full of charm, especially when there is a slight chill in the air, brilliant sun and colorful leaves on the ground. Before I moved here, I think I had always pictured it being fall. I love the energy that is created as summer seeps away.
4:00 PM | link | up| archives |
so
no Othello last night with Michael. Mostly just hung out and watched cable and I made him tea because being a bloody Englishman he would die without tea. He's off at the hospital now and I am faced with another quiet day to myself, but broken up by my going downtown in the early afternoon to iron out the details of my new job.
This not working thing is great but is starting to get to me. I've asked Niki how she does it. She moved with her husband to Wisconsin where she has been in a pseudo retirement/freelance mode. I'm starting to get so stir crazy...feeling guilty that I'm not out accomplishing something. I think she often feels that as well...she reads a lot, she blogs, she has been fixing up their gorgeous house and she does freelance work on the side. Sometimes when we chat online though I can feel her frustration and directly identify with it. I can't ever imagine being a housewife, bound to the home cooking and cleaning. Ick. Not for me. Get me out! Have me interact! Have me create!
I did paint a bit yesterday...painting number six or so. I'm not happy with it at all...but I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm letting it dry and I'll come back to it I think. Back to it when I have some idea of what the hell I am doing. I did get Donnie's Daniel Smith catalog in the mail though...all those luscious paints...for me half the fun is the texture, the feel of them. Perhaps I should just finger paint.
I'm way too much of a sensual creature I think. It gets me in trouble. In museums I want to touch everything. With people I want to touch and be touched. I'm a sucker for visually, aurally and verbally stunning things. The world is far more hands off than I would like it to be.
9:18 AM | link | up| archives |
9.26.2000
switching
to the new domain host soon. Maybe today if I can figure it all out.
It's a wonderful grey cloudy day. I love days like this. They remind me of Seattle. It's funny though, how Boston just seems dreary when it rains. Seattle never felt dreary to me...there was always life in the rain, some wild energy that I absorbed and took in. I do here as well, but it is different somehow.
So no bicycling today...but painting instead. And I'll get to see Michael tonight (god I'm seeing a lot of you these days...lucky for you I have some tolerance for your presence, smile. Maybe I'll go to the toy store today and buy Othello so I can trounce you).
One of the things that has drastically changed my life in the last few years is learning about a typically fatal disease and how it can affect the lives of people I care about. Michael has two children with cystic fibrosis, a very devastating genetic disorder that affects the respiratory, digestive and reproductive systems. His daughter, who is in her early twenties, is in some of the most advanced stages of the disease and is going through the long, emotional process of waiting for a lung donor. Both of his kids go into the hospital from time to time (that's why I'm seeing Michael tonight...his daughter is in again so he'll see her during the day and is going to come by and grace my futon with his presence overnight) to receive an IV...more antibiotics to treat the disease, which is characterized by coughing, low lung capacity, digestive problems and often, asthma. The trouble comes when a CF patient becomes immune to all the known antibiotics to treat the disease. When his daughter was born, they told Michael she wouldn't make it to age three. When she was three, her life expectancy had increased to ten or something of that nature. When she was ten, it was in her teens. She's 23 now. His son is ten and is a rambunctious fun kid...who thankfully hasn't spent that much time dealing with IVs yet. For many years, his daughter was going in for a two-three week IV nearly every three months. Not a fun way to grow up. Thank god for the advances of modern medicine though...that keep producing new treatments and new drugs and have greatly prolonged the lives of many CF patients. Just twenty years ago a CF patient was not expected to live past childhood. Now there are some people who are living into their fifties and sixties. Some, but not enough.
What has happened though is that I have a whole new outlook on life and children and what it means to hope. Michael has lived most of his adult life knowing his children could die (or in his very fatalistic moments WILL die) before he does. A very scary thing for a parent. Over the years we have talked a lot about it. I often don't understand his entirely bleak outlook on CF...but then again, I think I do. I myself have a tendency to expect the worst, that way it won't hurt so much if whatever the situation is bad. Michael has been living for years steeling himself against a tragedy and the idea of hope is a much more foreign concept to him. And yet, it means that he has a relationship with his children that I KNOW most kids never get to have with their parents. I have often watched him at play with his son and felt a strange jealousy...jealous that while my parents love me and I have a good relationship with them, that bond that he has managed to forge with his son and daughter is different. He lives his life with his kids never knowing how long he has with them. It means he doesn't take them for granted, it means he spends a great deal of time with them, he works to understand and support them without smothering them or being overprotective. He wants them to experience and enjoy life and everything he does is to facilitate that. I admire the courage that he and his children have. I look at the tremendous adversity that he has in his life and yet, he has more happiness in his children and in those relationships than any parent I have ever met. There is a lot of good that has come with this bad. A lot of good that has to be examined...but truth be told, I can't imagine what sort of person HE would be if there wasn't CF in his life. He has patience, understanding, a very caring sensitive nature and an ability to enjoy the moment in a way that most people I know will never have. And I am very different too. I appreciate the fragility of life in a way that I'm unsure if I would have if I hadn't grown to really love his son and treasure the friendship that we have.
As I get older I understand that fragility even more. I just learned that a distant aunt that I am only recently getting to know, has liver cancer. I have a friend that has testicular cancer and he can no longer walk...he is in the stages of a stem cell transplant...scary shit. My father has prostate cancer. Another aunt is undergoing chemo for breast cancer. All very terrifying things. The first person close to me to die was my grandmother, earlier this year. I was lucky, to make it to nearly 30 before losing someone close. I find that I have amazing admiration for families with sick children, for people who have lost loved ones to the ravages of a terrible illness. I have more admiration for those families who find the good within those things...whose lives have been changed in good ways because of something so difficult and tragic...who can celebrate the lives that their loved ones had rather than lament their own loss.
Okay...its getting deep here and I am sans coffee and shower and so that is where I am off to...
10:31 AM | link | up| archives |
9.25.2000
small town
since I moved here, I don't think I've ever really ran into people I knew just randomly on the street. I've been in Boston for three years and just tonight, on the way to my class, I ran into Joanie. I like the thought of running into people I know. So we chatted for fifteen minutes...she was coming out of a lecture and I was near the place where my class is (see below). We talked about the woes of dating, made arrangements for the wedding shower that we're going to this weekend (i'm driving) and all those good things. I wish I could run into more people when I'm out and about...in weird random places...chuckle.
I GOT THE JOB, by the way. I go in on Wednesday to iron out the details.
I'll be blogging my results from tonights environmental biography class in my me/historical section. Be on the lookout later tonight. My instructor has a speech impediment which takes great patience to adjust to. I was struck by what amazing courage that he has to choose a profession that REQUIRES him to speak...that of a teacher. Serious courage. I dated a guy in college that stuttered pretty badly. It was genetic...his younger sister stuttered too. He was a handsome guy and he lived on Whidby Island and collected Jeeps. I think I was the second girl he ever kissed. I didn't quite have my way with him, but well, lets just say he suddenly understood a few things he never did until after me. I don't recall that he stuttered in all situations.
Oh I'm devilish, huh?
10:24 PM | link | up| archives |
hate mail
well, my mail server that is. I hate it. New domain host being looked into but for now send me notes at crystallyn@nerve.com...my mail at crystallyn.com is down again. Crazy.
Have a class in environmental biography that I'm taking for the next eight mondays. Should be interesting for my biography project. This class focuses on how to hone in on the places that have been important in your life. I found a postcard of the building in Harvard where I am taking the class. The house used to be owned and occupied by Longfellow's "Village Blacksmith" and adjoins the site of the Smithy. It still looks just like this even today. It's the same building where I had my painting class. Places do become very important in my life...that's why I'm so excited about this class. I find that I still have dreams about the house where I grew up in as a child. It is a happy place, with many good memories. I think I escape there in dreams when I am feeling especially stressed or worried.
3:01 PM | link | up| archives |
commiserating
with ex-coworkers is the plan. Meeting up with friends for lunch. The general consensus is that corporate politics are rapidly becoming the norm. vedddy intahhhresting...
and the offer is almost mine! They called me and want me to have the job...but the CEO wants to extend the offer personally, so I'm waiting to see...wooohoooo!
10:46 AM | link | up| archives |
9.24.2000
no more wenches for you
It was a postcard weekend (I'll post more over the next few days). I found this one, a very cheap one to acquire, but I think the value was very underrated. If the dealer only knew that the Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland has been completely changed by Disney to take away the idea of women being wenches being chased by pirates with wild sexual appetites. Apparently the attraction has been changed to reflect the women carrying piles of food and instead, the pirates are now hungry for material substance. Which makes this card a lot more valuable nowadays. I would be curious to know if this scene is still there at all. I would imagine not.
I used to work in New Orleans Square as a merchandise hostess. This meant that I worked in the retail shops, the hat shop, the kitchen shop, the pirate shop or one of the many carts. One of the really interesting things about New Orleans Square is the art gallery that resides above the Pirates of the Carribean (btw...the restaraunt in the pirates has the BEST monte cristo sandwiches). The art gallery is located where the original farmhouse was that the land was purchased from to build the park. The farmhouse was in the center of an orange grove...only one tree still stands now, and it is still in New Orleans Square. You'll never hear anyone talk about this unless you ask directly. If you go to Disneyland, head up to the art gallery and ask one of the employees about the ghost that lives in the art gallery. She moves pictures, opens and closes doors and is sometimes visible even to guests. She isn't malicious, just a little mischievious. She can often be seen in the little garden terrace inside the gallery. When I worked there eight years ago, there was a woman with beautiful white hair that worked in the gallery and had for the last twenty years. She will swear up and down that the ghost is there. You just need to ask.
11:59 PM | link | up| archives |
fucking ford winstar
I hate those damn cars. I hate how I end up driving behind every single one in Massachusetts when I come back from the Cape. I hate how they all drive in the left lane because no one taught them how to fucking drive. I hate how wide they are so you can't see around them. I hate all the cheery colors that they come in. I will never ever own a minifuckingvan as long as I live. Ever.
8:58 PM | link | up| archives |
9.22.2000
i should be asleep
because I'm getting up at some god-awful hour to drive down to the Cape. I'll be back on Monday morning so no blogs until then. Here I am, half asleep but with a desire to write some words before slumber takes hold.
I remember the first time that I went to the Cape, nearly four years ago now. Before that, I had only heard of it in travel magazines. It was the place where the Kennedys had houses...it was a place where rich people vacationed. Even talking to my mother on the phone last night and hearing how she perceives it, I remembered how little that many people in the West know about the Cape. It seems like such a grand vacation spot, and indeed, it is, but it surprised me when I first crossed that bridge into that sleepy little world. I remember how opulent (I have used this word a lot lately...I love the way it sounds when you say it...smile) that the Cape seemed to me before I arrived. I pictured grand mansions (much like Newport, RI, actually) and an atmosphere more fitting of Miami Beach or Monte Carlo. I didn't expect the long winding drives, the quiet cottages, the small town atmosphere and the miles and miles of beautiful beaches. Cape Cod is a very poetic sort of place. There is a quaint solitude about it, a lazy beauty that seeps into you. I know now why so many people retire there. The people I know that have grown up there are loathe to leave. There are many places that I hold close to me now...memories of the Cape that are burned into me. It is a place that breeds memory, grows new stories. There is a rich history in all the towns, old with generations of town ritual, habit and decorum wrapped around each little haven. I think that more poetry will come my way this weekend. I am anxious to spend time on the beach, quiet now that the tourists have gone, cool with the sea breezes and heavy with atmosphere.
I have to thank Niki, Neil, Wendie and Lars for their wonderful recommendations...your kind words helped me cinch this job. Neil really made me excited when he called during the early evening. He said that the company is ready to bring me on and they're really excited about me. I think the offer will be in my hot little hands on Monday. Relief is a wondrous thing.
11:13 PM | link | up| archives |
woooooooohoooooooooooo
in the home run stretch now! They're checking references (thanks again Niki) and then that's that...they want to offer me the job, it's just at this final stage. YES. YES. YES.
2:29 PM | link | up| archives |
the waiting game
is one that I HATE playing. I am not a patient sort at all. It's not actually the waiting...it's the not KNOWING. It's that control freak in me that just needs to have the information in my hot little hands. Funny how that is. I don't have a need to control situations per se, but rather i need to just have answers, knowledge...the info that I need to be settled or to make decisions. So I'm waiting now, waiting to know if this company wants me. I know they NEED me. I will transform their business...I just need to get into the door. I know the decision has been made...they were meeting at 8:30am this morning. So now...am I waiting while they put the offer together? Or are they finding a way to let me down easily?
And I booked a place on the Cape for the weekend...not for tonight, but Saturday and Sunday. Will this be blissful celebration or will it be relaxing consolation? Regardless, it will be much needed and enjoyed. Tomorrow is a postcard show with Michael. Mmm...all that paper with pretty pictures...and I'll be the only one under the age of 50 in the entire place. Always a source of amusement. ;-)
11:06 AM | link | up| archives |
9.21.2000
sweet yummy things
It's almost Halloween and that means tootsie roll pops!!! Do you remember the commercials with the owl...how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop? Did you ever get a wrapper with an Indian on it? When we were kids, the drugstores used to take the wrappers if we brought them in and give us a free pop. You only managed to get an Indian about 1 in every 20 pops. Sigh. I remember going with my cousin Rhett to the cornerstore and buying 5 and 10 cent candies then riding our bikes to the mall to hang out in the arcade and spend all the money we made mowing lawns and babysitting. Ahhh the days of Dig Dug, Q-Bert, Centipede and Food Fight...
11:21 PM | link | up| archives |
the dangling carrot
is barely in front of me now...I can almost taste it!! My interview went excellent..great conversation with the CEO, a really dynamic and interesting woman. They're having a morning meeting to convene and gather thoughts and then I should know by mid-afternoon tomorrow. I think this is it!! Whew.
And I am rewarding myself with crab rangoon....where is that damn delivery man?
pop server is still a mess. If you've sent me something in the last two weeks and I haven't responded, you can safely bet that I didn't get it. Write me at crystallyn@nerve.com until I mention otherwise...
7:24 PM | link | up| archives |
short circuit
I went to replace the lightbulb in the shower early this morning (I was thinking that maybe it would be nice to SEE my legs as I am shaving them) but when I went to take the fixture out, it was FILLED with water. Must be condensation that has gathered as the light is far too high up to get water directly inside it. I can't believe it didn't start some freaky fire or something...but then again, it's all tile and it was so filled with water. Just strange. I was glad that I had the wherewithal to turn the switch off...I could have completely electrocuted myself. I duct taped the switch so I can't turn it on again. So...if you see me and I'm a bit nicked on the knee, you know why.
And I need the new domain host DESPERATELY. I received an email today from someone that I had written to and not received the email that he sent on the 14th!!!!!!!! And I guess that other people have written me and I haven't received it at all. New host, new host...any thoughts?
Write me for now at crystallyn@nerve.com.
Speaking of...I posted my pretty mug on a whim a while back on the nerve.com personals. And this week I'm the FEATURED personal. My picture is on the front page! I'm getting people in Australia writing me. What is up with that? Sure, honey, let me hop in my Lear and I'll be right there! It kills me. I couldn't figure out why I suddenly was receiving so many email notices about it...and now I know. Most of them are New Yorkers. HULLO...there are how many people living in New York? Chortle. It amazes me that they can't find a woman in their own city...makes me wonder what is wrong with THEM....ooo that was mean, huh? I'll quit while I'm ahead.
And they laid off two other people at my old work. Wow. Wow. Times a changing at that once cozy little startup. Politics, politics, politics. Ick.
So I have an interview this afternoon...hopefully the one that will bag this job for me. Cross your fingers, send good vibes, light some candles, do a dance, but send me energy to wrap this job around my little finger. Merci!
1:03 PM | link | up| archives |
i can't win
my incoming mail has been down since mid-afternoon.
two lights in my bathroom are out, one of which I am not tall enough to reach.
my cat is ignoring me.
some long-distance calls are difficult.
12:02 AM | link | up| archives |
9.20.2000
i hate my email server
Anyone know of a cheap, reliable domain host? I HAVE to get rid of this one...their POP servers are always going down...write me and let me know, but do it at crystallyn@nerve.com. Then maybe I'll actually get your email. Sigh. Hopefully they'll have it fixed when I get back from dinner with my friend. Drives me crazy to be disconnected.
Just a short blog...but the interview went well, I think. The meeting with the Biz Dev head was excellent. The meeting with the client manager was stilted, but I think that was just her style. I got the sense she didn't like me at all...but then again, I thought that of the President of my last company and it turned out that he had liked me...so what do I know? They're trying to get me in with the CEO tomorrow...keep those fingers crossed. She'll be the one to make or break it.
6:47 PM | link | up| archives |
wish me luck
second interview is today...that company that I'm so hyped about. Cross your fingers...this not working and not knowing when I'll be working thing is starting to get to me.
Last night found me in the midst of a thunderstorm. My apartment has a little turret area...which is where my office is. I keep a big old green chair there (which Romeo is rapidly trying to destroy one leg of) where I can curl up and look down the street. Last night I pulled up all the blinds, shut off the lights, lit a few candles and found myself lost in the shimmering sky, the pounding rain and thunder rumbles. I find such amazing energy during these times. Thus, Cloudburst was born.
And I find that my dear friend Donnie is a guru at Daniel Smith. He's sending me a catalog...ooo luminescent oils...
11:17 AM | link | up| archives |
9.19.2000
time passages
and speaking of time sweeping by me at a record pace...one year ago today I was at a wedding, probably one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been to. The bride was so beautiful and when she walked down that aisle, I lost it. I don't normally cry at weddings but here was someone who had become such a great friend to me, someone that I truly loved and cared about and to see her so radiant and so HAPPY...it was extremely moving.
Happy Anniversary Nicole and John.
11:34 PM | link | up| archives |
searching for that fountain of youth
just got off the phone with my mom...she was talking about how she babysat my nephew tonight. She kept calling my father, Grandpa. It was the strangest thing to hear her call him that. Then she proceeded to tell me about a kid that I used to babysit when he was only a few months old...his 18th birthday is tomorrow. THAT hit me like a ton of bricks. How could he possibly be that old? That made me realize that his sister is probably 21!!! Wow. I just sat there, jaw agape, wondering what happened between now and then...the years have moved so fast.
I talked to an old friend tonight, probably the oldest friend that I have still...we grew up together. It was so strange to hear about her life, which hasn't changed much in the year since I last talked to her. She's approaching 30 and still living at home...which is not so strange knowing her and her family (very very close knit). Now don't be confused...this is not a homely girl. She's a swimsuit model and has been a hostess for many of the parties held by Mr. Rich Man (I can't remember his name) who lives in Coeur d'Alene, ID...you golf freaks should know the course...it has a floating hole (which my father actually helped to build, funny enough). And here I am...my life one huge massive soap opera of some sort and she is still at home, with the same job for the last ten years...there is some of that sense of calm that I envy. Some.
Today's Forgotten English Word: idle-worms ~ worms bred in the fingers of lazy girls, an ancient notion alluded to by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet:
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.
~James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms, 1855
Guess that should keep me from being slothful, you think?
10:16 PM | link | up| archives |
in that space where I can breathe
Met up with Joanie today who is just back from California...god it's good when you have time to catch up with old friends. She's working at the Medialab doing work on intelligent agents. As we were leaving, I had the opportunity to watch a semi take out a light post and nearly decapitate two peds with the pole on its way down. It was wild watching the sparks of the electric wires, the crumpling metal, the way that the rubber tires climbed up onto the base where the post once stood. I watched it happening...sure that the truck was going to stop as the side of the container began to screech against the pole, but no...he kept going. It was wild.
Then I got my hair cut. :-) There are at least 8 different hair salons within two blocks of my house but the one two doors down from me is the one I went to. There is this wonderfully flamboyant older man that works there and we always chat on the street here and there. The salon is such a lively place and everyone that walks in the door knows everyone. It's a place that people start to go to and they go for years. It's such a treat to go, to just sit within that warm friendly atmosphere and listen to all the conversations of what is going on with people's lives, their children, their wild stories.
And now, off to do errands before the money in the meter runs out...
11:49 AM | link | up| archives |
9.18.2000
sad memories and machina II
Funny how life is such a strange circle. I used to work at Virgin Records in promotions so I know a lot about the behind the scenes thing at record companies. I was working there just as Cracker started becoming popular, Lenny Kravitz was taking off and they signed on the Smashing Pumpkins (beautiful site...amazing artwork, beautiful tarot deck and great music). Now, eight years later, the Pumpkins are leaving Virgin behind, and they're so angry that they are giving away their entire new album away for free on MP3. So I go there and start downloading and then I realize where I am...at the 99x site...and then I'm thrown briefly back into a strange reverie...one of the lowest moments of my entire life came during a time several years ago when I mistakenly thought that meeting someone off the Net would be a smart thing. He was a DJ at 99x (I was in Seattle, he was in Atlanta)...no longer there....but his favorite band was the Smashing Pumpkins. A nice guy (okay so maybe he became really possessive and jealous and obsessive in the end) ...just not the right guy. He, like me, was young and misled. What it did though was to put me in a place where my entire life pivoted sharply at age 24. Here I am again, with the Pumpkins and 99x and my life has pivoted sharply yet again this year. Everything is different now than it was even six months ago. I am different, my relationships are greatly changed, my job is gone and I can look back and see the amazing progression. I have had so many things happen in my life...there is so much drama in my past. I have often been foolish and I have been wounded and yet I have grown at every twist and turn.
I live my life with a really wonderful sense of knowing that I have no regrets. Not any really. There are only a few small things in my life that I would change and mostly they would be so that other people I care about would have had less hurt. There is so much adventure in the learning and the growing and even the hurt and difficulty.
I'll stop before I make you gooey sick with my waxing philosophical...
10:59 PM | link | up| archives |
flesh and ink
can be both a sensual and a lethal combination. I watched The Pillow Book for the very first time tonight...another recommend from a friend years ago. I'm making great use of my "vacation" time, can you tell? The movie was intriguing and there is a lot that I could spout about it, but this Salon review and interview actually says a lot more than I could. High recommend...but the white subtitles (it's only partially subtitled) make it difficult to read at times.
And in looking, I discovered this beautiful journal much in the style of The Pillow Book , but with a San Francisco theme. Never fear, although it looks rather Japanese on the exterior, it is perfectly readable by those of us who mostly read English.
9:26 PM | link | up| archives |
surprise me!
I collect postcards, right? Well, not just antique postcards, but interesting wacky sorts as well (much like the tongue for rent card here). And now YOU TOO can help me grow my wacky collection.
Crystallyn
P.O. Box 410136
Cambridge, MA 02141-0002
So send me some crazy postcard...I tend to like the very artistic black and white types or the really really off-the wall kind. It will make my day, promise. :-) I'll post the cool ones on crystallyn.com. Tasteful erotic postcards will go into my personal collection.
Or hey, even better...my wishlist at Amazon...for those moments when you are feeling especially charitable. I set the list up (it's taken me several weeks) because my parents are pushing me to tell them what I wanted for Christmas...and I have no idea what I want with the exception of a digital camera and a DVD player. So given that I have loads of free time, I threw the list together and voila! Amazon is moving like a fucking SLUG today. I would be using barnesandnoble.com but for some godforsaken reason they haven't managed to put their wishlist in yet (What is UP with that, Jack?)
One good thing about hanging out at home...the Xena marathon on Sci-fi.
3:25 PM | link | up| archives |
a blatant ripoff
from kottke.org, here is Discover Magazine's list of Twenty Things that Won't Disappear in Twenty Years. It fascinated me and yet it was not a surprise, so I wanted to share. And of course, Sex is still on the list.
9:51 AM | link | up| archives |
nearly in the mouth of jaws
had a chasing dream last night...I was with three or four friends and we were wandering around a school trying to outrun a great white shark that lived under the floors and could sense movement. You had to keep running because it could come out of the floor just like it was water, and devour you. So my friends and I were trying to make it run into walls and were trying to figure out how to blow it up. We found a way to trap it in a room that was too small and we left a flare bomb of some sort on the floor and then raced off to the cafeteria where we started playing cards as if we hadn't done anything wrong (we knew we could get in trouble for blowing up part of the school). The cards were strange...they were yellow with words on them. The name of the game was called Tumble Me and I didn't know the rules but I had five cards with the word tumble on them so I was hopeful that I could win. While we were in there, another friend came running into the room to tell us that the cops had arrived. I don't think we managed to hurt the shark but I knew that we were in serious trouble if the cops started to question us.
Then the dream shifted and I was in a vast field with several really monstrous trees with lots of low cut branches you could climb. There were three of us then, but different friends, and we were modeling for some magazine ad. I was the hand model and the male friend I was with was the naked model. The other guy was the photographer. The nude model would pose against a tree and I would stand out of the scene with just my hand in the picture somewhere, which sported a smokey black jeweled silver (or perhaps platinum?) ring of some sort. The magazine ad was for the ring. Those trees were magnificent though. Each tree was simply massive, the branches each several feet in circumference, with the largest branches low to the ground, twisted and filled with big knots. It was a tree climber's paradise. It was also rather spooky and easy to get lost. We would run from tree to tree, my photographer friend and I fully clothed and the nude model covering up with a white paper napkin as he would run. Very strange. The model, I knew, was gay and my photographer friend was interested in him. I remember that in my dream I was sad that they wouldn't let me be more in the picture, but they insisted that the naked man would sell more rings than I could. There was a lot more to the dream but I'm too awake now to remember.
And as always, my dream was in bright, vivid colors. Who knows?
9:00 AM | link | up| archives |
i have had much joy
from Lance Arthur's [New Sex Toy].
And now I sleep.
12:39 AM | link | up| archives |
not of the orient
But Three Kings the movie was pretty damn good...my friend was right in suggesting it ages ago and I finally got around to renting it. Besides, Marky Mark has a daughter named Crystal in the movie...you can't go wrong there, right? I didn't think I'd like it...I mean, George Clooney is not really my favorite and neither is Mr. Wahlberg. Always nice to be pleasantly surprised.
And yes, I do need to get a more comfy bike seat I'm thinking.
12:16 AM | link | up| archives |
9.17.2000
angst
Sunday nights are Sex & the City nights and it always brings me both a little bit of levity and sometimes too much familiarity to watch.
Now, at the end of a mostly just a long day, I am curling up with a movie, courtesy of my favorite encourager of laziness and sloth, Kozmo.com.
10:11 PM | link | up| archives |
burn baby burn!
It is true that you never forget how to ride a bike. I think it's been nearly five years or more since I hopped on a bike. I was a little bit wobbly at first, just trying to get the hang of it all...trying to figure out if my seat was adjusted right and the like. So I got a bit of the burn going in my thighs and I'm thinking I should get some gloves for my hands. When I got home my palms were a bit sore from the grips on the bike. Not a long ride (hell, it's my first in five years!), but over to Memorial Drive, down the Mass Ave bridge and down the otherside to the Hatch shell and back again the same way. Not too long but not too short. I stopped for a bit along the Charles, near where I was yesterday, and watched the sailboat races and wrote some more poesy. It was a gorgeous morning with just the little bit of a crisp feeling to the air. Now I want a nap. :-)
1:49 PM | link | up| archives |
9.16.2000
falling back ONTO the earth
Donnie wrote me! Delirious Donnie that I've known since I was fifteen. He disappeared for a few years in there...I mean, I sort of knew where he was and I stayed in contact with his ex, but Donnie found me! When I met Donnie, I was such a sweet innocent. I'm not so innocent anymore...funny what the years will do to you. How many nights have I been silly with Donnie, talking for hours on end, giggling, laughing, discussing art, literature and sex (what else is there?). God, I've known Donnie for nearly fifteen years, just slightly longer than I've known Greg, but not as long as I've known Lauren and while all of them knew each other way back when, I'm the common thread still. Seems so funny, all these years later. I've known them half of my life. Donnie, send me your phone number, dammit!!
Delightful lunch at Ciao Bella...can't believe that I lived across the street from there...very literally across the street from this Italian gem on Newbury street...and I never ate there. The tiramisu was to die for. But I think that I needed more amaretto and certainly a whole load of strawberries. I was in a mood for many of them. And sailboat watching on the Charles. Such a gorgeous beautiful day. The sailboaters were amazing, trying to (and not always successful) at remaining upright. I couldn't do it...I would have been knocked out at the first time I needed to tack and the sail nailed me in the forehead and sent me flying into the water.
My middle name is certainly not grace...smile.
8:00 PM | link | up| archives |
my sister ROCKS
This is a picture of my sister Misty and her adorable 15 month old son, Cameron. Misty was always the beautiful popular one when we were young and I was the brainy, voluptuous, punk-rock freak. I used to be so jealous of her beauty and her ability to attract the cute boys. She used to be so intimidated and jealous of my smarts. She always had the misfortune of having the same teachers I did, after I did. My father never liked how I looked and he never liked Misty's bad grades. Too bad you couldn't mush the two of us together...we would be perfect!
Misty works as a manager of the cosmetics department (the most lucrative department) in a major department store. Every few months she boxes up all sorts of things for me, expensive perfume, lipsticks (wooohooo...you got the colors right, sis!), nail polish, pricey beauty creams. In the shoebox that arrived today there is probably several hundred dollars worth of product and the sweetest note. All these little presents remind me that it's often really fun to be a girl.
11:55 AM | link | up| archives |
9.15.2000
attempting monet
or at least a little bit of his style. sorta. My fifth painting. I started out wanting to embody more of the blue grey that I felt today but this is what emerged. A vivid, brilliant spring sort of thing. I was thinking a lot of my mother when I painted it...what would appeal to her...i'm unsure why.
Again, this is from the webcam so the picture isn't the best. It looks SO much better when you see the canvas itself.
So, the morning has been fruitful.
12:07 PM | link | up| archives |
the shadows are on your side
it's a dark day. physically dark that is. the grey clouds moved in overnight and with it the heavy thick humidity, the serious wet that slicks the street, the gurgling boom of thunder and the quick flashbulb bursts of lightning. so much for the bike ride. my friend was right...I SHOULD have gone last night and yes, hindsight is 20/20.
I do love these sorts of days though. there is a wild poetic feeling about such seemingly dreary days. it puts me in a place where I want to be writing, creating, changing the world in some abstract sort of way. I think that it's a day for painting as well. I wish I was learned enough to be able to paint this day, to paint the transclucent drops of water on the window, the way the shadows become less than shadows, to make people feel the dreamlike wonder that I do on such rainy days.
Days like this do give me serious Seattle nostalgia.
Greg and I messaged each other most of last night. He was telling me about a murdery mystery party that they were having that evening (actually it's probably going on as I write this being that they are 12 hours ahead) and that he wished I could be there. He would make me the murderer, he said...the sweet seductive temptress. Dang...that sounded fun. But he left me with all sorts of links, some that I knew of and others that I had forgotten or haven't been to in far too long.
utne
new york review of books
troikamagazine
motherjones
And he ranted about Conde Naste not being able to put out decent sites (Vanity Fair, New Yorker) like they can decent magazines. He doesn't see many of the American print mags except when he can get to Hong Kong so he has to really rely on online mags. He says when he gets to HK, he finds a newsstand and devours the most recent New Yorker. I can't imagine being so disconnected in that way.
We're so fucking spoiled in this country.
9:44 AM | link | up| archives |
9.14.2000
speaking of...
i want to kiss the man that invented caller ID.
9:30 PM | link | up| archives |
fortune
I've been ordering chinese food from the same place for the last three years. In all that time, I've never had a duplicate fortune (which you often would in chinese places) until today. Three months ago I received one that says... "The greatest danger could be your stupidity." Today, I received it again. Hmm.
9:25 PM | link | up| archives |
call backs
are an excellent thing--when they are from a potential employer, that is. This one looks like a hot ticket...I didn't think I would hear back till Monday but they called already to set up the second interview next week. Nice to be in a spot where I can be choosy...the recruiters are starting to come out of my ears and the emails and incoming calls are steady. Plus Neil and Lars both came through for me today and promised me excellent references. It's such a strange, cool thing to be in a position of such strategic advantage in looking for a job...my skills are highly needed, my experience is significant and I have references from Vice Presidents in my company.
I'm SO money.
So those of you who are "worried" about me. .
This picture (from a postcard of a 1940 photo by Walter Carlock) reminds me of Romeo when he was little. He looked just like that...little sweet furry fuzzball. he's still sweet and furry and fuzzy but not so small anymore. When I was bringing my bike in, I completely forgot to shut the door to my apartment and he got out to meander the hallway. I found him upstairs near the freaky guy's weird shoe collection. silly kitty.
8:31 PM | link | up| archives |
being on hold
totally sucks. Got to love mediaone/at&t, who still have yet to figure out why I'm not getting all my pay channels all these months later. Billing transfers me to technical and technical transfers me to billing...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I'm still on hold fifteen minutes later but in between there they did tell me that they are crediting me $40 for the last four months because of their error.
Reparked my car this morning and took out the trash and found this flyer on the top of my mailbox. Not quite as harsh as the flyer I found on my car a couple weeks ago but the message is still the same. Psychiatric drugs can make kids go insane!!! Got to love that. I agree, we do overprescribe medication when the problem is clearly the fault of poor parenting, but on the other hand, some of these kids need the drugs in order to feel some semblance of normalcy. I already ranted way back in this post so I won't do it again here.
The postcard you see here is one from my antique postcard collection. I collect turn-of-the-century postcards of Boston/Cambridge, Seattle and I also have a collection of nudes. This card is one that I know my friend in China, Greg, will appreciate...and Michele will too...she's still in Seattle. I don't even think that these water towers are there anymore. They're on Queen Anne Hill, which is one of the oldest districts in the city. It's where I used to live when I was there, although I was on lower Queen Anne rather than the top of the hill as in this postcard. Queen Anne Hill is one of the steepest grades in the city. The hill is so long that it's easier to walk backwards for a bit as you go up the hill because it is so strenuous. It's not unusual to see people walking backward up that hill. When I first moved there I didn't understand why but it didn't take me long to figure out.
I'm picking up my bike today!
Wish me luck on my interview...
11:26 AM | link | up| archives |
9.13.2000
so I discovered MY version of monster trucks
it was after South Park...the show came on and I found the geekgrrl in me very intrigued. Yes, it's true...Battlebots suckered me in. I can admire violent machines of this caliber. Perhaps it is the old experience of working with Open Sesame, that personalization company I was with. They dealt with intelligent agents and those agents were born of bots, short for robots, of course. While the Battlebots aren't actually inherently intelligent, they do take a great deal of intelligence and strategy to create. I could watch this show...live robotic combat...and really get into it (okay, so I DID get into it)...there is considerable thought that went into the creation of these machines...plus no mindless idiot is inside the machine to get hurt during the battle. The design of these mechanisms is amazing. I don't pretend to understand the guts of these creatures but the external design is often just as if not more important. One freaky sort of sport that I would get a rush out of going to. :-) Too bad they're in Vegas next.
11:11 PM | link | up| archives |
optimism
things are looking up...interview tomorrow with a company that I'm extra hopeful about. cross those little fingers of yours.
and laundry is done. laundry is now one of my most hated chores (behind dishes of course). sometimes when I go to the Cape to visit Michael he lets me drag my laundry with me because he knows how much I abhor the laundromat. I just find it such an amazing drain to be there when I could be spending it at home or with friends. At least when I visit Michael I can do my laundry while I kick his ass in othello, go to dinner or rent movies. I swear, next place I move to has to have laundry and a dishwasher to help me handle my most hated chores. Dishes are definitely the absolute worst. Give me a brush and a toilet bowl anyday over sticking my hands in icky soapy dishwater...eww.
The advanced poetry class I wanted is full, as is the abstract art class (grrr) so I am instead taking a class on writing the memoir, which should be good. I am of the belief that all things happen for a reason and as I'm starting to really embark on the autobiography project (that's how I spent today at the laundromat, writing), I think it will be a good thing. Starts the 26th...for eight weeks. I figure that I better start recording all the drama in my life now while I can somewhat remember it all.
That brings me to Titus. One of my passions is Shakespeare and so I had to succumb. I haven't stooped to see the terribly reviewed Love's Labour Lost just yet, but I will have to see how Branagh managed to botch it all up (that and see if I can manage to sit through a whole movie with Alicia Silverstone in it). But back to Titus. I liked it. Salon gave it a terrible review and Entertainment Weekly wasn't all too sure what to do with it. But I'm a complete sucker for pretty pictures and while the subject matter in this was amazingly gruesome, the film itself was artsy and intriguing. I liked all the bizarre camera angles, the surrealistic feel, the meshing of ancient and modern. I loved the way the violence transcended time. Titus is often described as one of Shakespeare's more banal, uninspiring plays. It is exceedingly gruesome and this rendition spares no shock value. When Lavinia is found, hands removed and replaced with twig fingers, her tongue cut out and her chastity lost, you feel such sheer horror for the state in which she was left. I felt amazing relief when her father, Titus, broke her neck in mercy many many scenes later. I think that it took an extreme film like this for me to really appreciate this often underappreciated play. Anthony Hopkins was wonderful, as always. I'm not fond of Jessica Lange but that merely lended to my ability to hate her scheming as the Queen of Goths, Tamara. The costuming was brilliant and the musical score was divine (run out and buy it, I am). Here is the trailer if you are so inclined...or more reviews to help you decide.
9:18 PM | link | up| archives |
fabric softener
I don't understand how a laundromat could be a singles place. The only laundromat that I have seen that has ever come close is Sit & Spin in Seattle where you can drink and listen to live bands while you get your undies clean. In Boston at least, the people at the laundromat are akin to the same crowd that hangs out at Dunkin Donuts. As I dump my laundry into the machine, I realize that I'm the only semi-normal person in the joint. I always feel funny and out of place, as if I should suddenly revert to becoming a neanderthal to fit in. I should stop bathing, grow a hump, quit shaving or the opposite, and wear really high heels and thick eyeshadow and a really-trashy-too-small-for-me tube top.
So, I am off, to experience it yet again. Curse that landlord for being such a stingy wench and taking the machines out of the basement. Grrrrrrrr.
9:24 AM | link | up| archives |
9.12.2000
riots, peace and chocolate
Heading down into the Park Street T station, I was able to witness a small little riot of some strange Boston kind. It was around 3PM so it must have been right after school. There were about 75, mostly black teenagers congregated around some sort of fight. It quickly grew so that several kids were involved. It didn't last long. I was impressed at the speed at which the Boston police arrived, with dogs, handcuffing about five of the main perps and rounding up the rest of the kids to send them out of the T station. It was a bit freaky before the cops got there...I was looking around and realizing that I was one of the only white people and one of the only people over the age of 20 on that side of the T (heading toward Lechmere), not that it matters at all, but it left me feeling out of place. I didn't know where to stand...the kids kept storming off and moving around the T, stopping trains by walking in front of them. I was seriously a bit concerned about one of them pulling a gun...ricochet factor in there would have been pretty intense. But the dogs and the cops came. I jumped on the Government Center T even though I knew I would have to get off in one stop to grab Lechmere again.
And all after a very sweet time in the Boston Public Garden watching the ducks and geese, writing, enjoying the sun and wind and taking a moment to talk to friends, one of which is quitting her job because she wants to go to dog grooming school and own her own business...something that she's always wanted to do because of her love for animals. At first it seems laughable, a highly successful women wanting to put it all aside to work at a job that might seem less meaningful...and certainly without the monetary influence. But then again...what a great opportunity! I think that's so amazing when people finally put aside all the crap that they have dealt with for years and take time out to do what they want to do. Bravo I say! I hope someday I can be saying that to myself as well. The other friend turned me on to discjockey.com where I find that I'm glued to the 80s channel. Ooo got to love it when you hear The Waitresses after so long... "I know what boys like..."
And chocolates are something I find that I am suddenly craving. I think it's been part of my job search though, checking out local networking boards to find out what companies are in the area. I was hoping that Dan's Chocolatesmight be hiring...but alas, not for marketing folks. Actually that's a really good thing. I have far too little control around such delectables. But I did buy Halloween M&M's today, smile.
7:30 PM | link | up| archives |
nostalgia
overtook me when I came across this blog about Seattle commuting. Pretty funny that I miss driving on the other end of I-90. I do so miss Seattle. Terribly. I think that I need to be ordering Market Spice Tea for the winter. Mmmmm.
meeting with a recruiter at 10:30 am.
and meeting up with friends this week, those that still need updating on my job saga.
I was looking for a synonym for a word earlier today and was once again delightfully reminded of the Plumb Visual Thesaurus. I got lost looking for words. Type in desire and see what you get. Type in communication and see what you get. Type in tempestuous. I love the way this thing connects and twists and suggests. Excellent writing tool.
1:05 AM | link | up| archives |
9.11.2000
forgotten english word of the day
phooka: A phantom horse which is believed to carry off belated travellers on its back. ~Ireland. Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905.
The Irish phooka takes the shape of a horse, and includes children to mount him, then plunges over a precipice. ~William Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern England, 1879.
3:36 PM | link | up| archives |
waking
up to big boards being thrown into the dumpster outside the building across the street is what started my day. That and someone who called up at 8AM and started interviewing me over the phone without telling me anything about their business. I shut them down pretty quickly...the job would have involved commuting that I wasn't really too keen on.
It is interesting though how my street is changing. When I moved in three years ago it was a lot more run down. just this year they have really been cleaning up the place. They painted my house, they are putting on new fronts for three buildings across the street...more houses have been painted. Maybe Cambridge is figuring out that it can be a pretty city if they just start cracking the whip a bit. That was something that I really noticed when I moved here from the West, how unclean it is. The city is covered in litter, sidewalks with weeds, the streets themselves full of potholes. No flowers really anywhere. Buildings with peeling paint and sagging awnings are the norm. Now, that's not the case in all places. Harvard is clean and pristine but that's because Harvard does something about it, not the city of Cambridge. Maybe I'm just spoiled. Grin, probably that's exactly it.
2:41 PM | link | up| archives |
9.10.2000
so i took
an updated purity test (found courtesy of this nifty blog) and didn't come out so clean. I'm actually slightly embarrassed to put down my score...so I won't. I think it would freak my mom out. So if you are reading this, mom, it would really really freak you out and I'll spare you that. Pray for my mortal soul, s'il vous plait.
thing that is making me angry...dealing with not so altruistic intentions.
thing that is making me frustrated...my stubborn father.
thing that is making me sad...friends falling off the face of the earth.
thing that is draining me emotionally...looking for a job and the ongoing prospect of looking for a job.
thing that is bringing me comfort...my anam cara is never far.
thing that is making me feel loved...my kitty curling up around my foot.
11:03 PM | link | up| archives |
things I don't understand
1. freaky obnoxious religious street festivals with really bad music that I can't understand. I live in this very Catholic Portugeuse neighborhood and right now there are three really tacky green, white and red floats out in front of the funeral home next door (but right down the street from the church a block away which has been ringing its bells since 10AM this morning...GRRRR). They're not moving anywhere, there are all sorts of people (mostly old people) in normal clothes on the floats, except the band, which is singing in either Portugeuse or Spanish, I can't tell, but it has a lot of accordian in it and that's enough for me. It's loud, it's disorganized and confusing and it's right in front of my house. Now the marching band has come along, with the statues two saints...they have shiny gold foil halos and they're draped in money. The band sounds like something out of Doctor Seuss. I don't get it. god make that music (and those damn bells!!!!!) stop.
2. Why it is going to take till Thursday for them to put the bike I just bought together.
3. why my tailpipe had to fall off from my muffler and dangle down, making loud metallic noises every time I go over a bump. God knows how long I've been driving with it like that...I usually have my stereo up so loud I wouldn't notice. new task for tomorrow morning, sigh.
4. EEEEEEEEEK...why the church bells, the freaky spanish/portugeuse accordian singing band AND the really sad terrible out of tune marching band has to play ALL at the same time. I still don't get it. I don't live in the North End...if I did, these festivals would make sense...sigh.
2:40 PM | link | up| archives |
orange and red
it's all changing, the colors of the trees. I love that...the way the air smells, the temperature is different. I am feeling especially creative today...and a desperate need to be outdoors. Perhaps it is the Charles that is calling my name today. Sitting on the bank and writing would be an excellent way to spend the afternoon.
Brimfield was wonderful and Paulette and I regaled each other with guy stories on the way there and down. I spent far too much money on antique postcards but I found a beautiful moonstone and a gorgeous silver locket plus a 1920's handstitched silk scarf so it was all worth it. Paulette snagged a cool vintage pink hat and a fur stole...and a sparkly ruby ring. Even the rain wasn't a serious thing...it added to the fun and atmosphere of it all.
And I watched the Princess Bride last night for what must be the gazillionth time and I still laughed as hard. My favorite movie. Next time we're going to have to play the Princess Bride drinking game, however. *smirk*
12:30 PM | link | up| archives |
9.8.2000
simple pleasures
tomorrow will be filled with lots of walking, lots of looking and antique buying...heading down to Brimfield to find postcards...yippee! Michael is probably quite jealous...he's the one that got me into collecting them in the first place. Well, he was nice to me today and we managed to make it through the day without completely disagreeing on everything so maybe I'll look for cool English postcards for him. Maybe.
several recruiters calling me today...one for a company that is three blocks away...would love to work for them. we'll see.
11:36 PM | link | up| archives |
forgotten english word of the day
tyromancy: divining by the coagulation of cheese --John Gaule's Magicall Astrological Diviner, 1651
10:57 PM | link | up| archives |
van gogh
did really interesting things with paint, I tell you. I remember now why I don't much like a lot of his art...except the stuff he created in the asylum (go figure) but I was in awe at the variety of techniques, how much his works changed over time and how his life affected his art. I think I'm just extra fascinated because I'm reading his letters to his brother Theo right now and I can connect better when I am seeing the art as well. It was the first time I had rented one of the audio boxes and that was great...being able to hear more about each painting, hear his letters read aloud and to know more about the techniques and choices of models.
And so while the story of my friend's broken bones isn't probably as dramatic as this story of broken bones, my friend is now at home enjoying the therapeutic effects of percoset and wondering about the complexities and inconsistencies of the doctor's diagnosis...cast or no cast? Ouch, regardless. He says he breaks an ankle every year...I can't imagine that. I have never broken any bone, ever. I sprained a wrist once in a bicycle accident and I have all sorts of scars but no broken bones to boast of. A bulge in one of the discs in my neck (and ongoing neck, shoulder and arm pain five years after that damn car accident), but no fractures, no casts, no crutches. I was talking to someone at work before I left who told me that over the years she figures she has broken nearly every big bone in her body. She says her mom keeps all her casts in the attic and that all of them nearly comprise a full body cast at this point. Seems so surreal to me. The only times I have ever been to the hospital were for a catbite when I was ten, that car accident five years ago and gall bladder surgery four years ago (after which I too discovered the wonderful grogginess of percoset). But that's it...knock on wood that it is always thus.
7:31 PM | link | up| archives |
oh and
niki, darling, it's cerulean blue.
12:32 AM | link | up| archives |
meditative
So this is the painting that I did tonight. We worked from a model and I need to reiterate that I don't doodle or draw...the whole thought of painting a person was sort of freaky for me...but I find that I am pleased with how this turned out (keep in mind this is only the FOURTH painting I have ever really done). In my apartment, I have lined up the paintings from my classes and I can really see the difference. I love that feeling though...the way I end up feeling so absorbed, so mesmerized by the canvas, the colors, the way my brush moves. The picture here is from my webcam so it's not the best quality...plus it's still very wet...I managed to get it home in my car without it sliding all over the seats. I'm impressed...grin.
Things that I think are interesting: a. the light after you come out of the tunnel from Harvard onto Cambridge Street...it stays green but if you are going too fast there is a yellow light that pops on (the motion detector is closer to the tunnel) to "slow you down." b. every night between ten and ten thirty, my phone does a very tiny subtle double ring...more like a clicking than an actual ring. It's hard to explain. happens every single night...no clue why.
And so I have two ankle sagas going on in my life right now. First, my brother who was in a car wreck a bit ago...broke his ankle and can't work for six weeks (he's in construction)...which doesn't matter because he was unemployed. But top that off with the fact that he is supposed to be moving out of his apartment and has nowhere to go, no job and now can't really walk...might be moving in with the parents at age 25. No more pot smoking in your bedroom, buddy.
The other ankle saga is the same friend that had the ankle problem earlier in my blog. He left me a message early on this eve that he had messed up the OTHER ankle (this is all playing softball, btw) and that it hurt worse than the other one but he was going to try and drive home...that's the last I've heard from him...so unsure what that story is...but he gets the double gimp award of the year, that's for sure.
Tomorrow Michael is gracing me with his presence (oooo ahhhh) and we're hanging out with his stepdaughter and her boyfriend as they wander around Boston...doing the touristy things. But I'm mostly looking forward to seeing Van Gogh, finally. I've been reading Letters to Theo, a collection of letters that he wrote to his brother Theo over the years...combine that with my new found painting love and I'm so excited to go. I found this wonderful site that showcases all of his paintings, drawings and letters.
Saturday is the Brimfield Antiques Show with Paulette (see my Superstars page in the me section)...I can have a chance to find postcards. I collect turn of the century postcards from Boston and Seattle. And...I collect turn of the century nudes (which can be pricey but very cool). I do get perverse pleasure out of the little old men (I find that most people my age do not collect much) that leer over my shoulder at the nudes...they're not only embarassed to look for themselves, but I think they are fascinated by the fact that it's a woman flipping through them all.
And Greg and I had a great conversation on IM today...about men and women and relationships...I'm wondering why I wasn't a psychology minor at least when I was in college. Smile.
12:10 AM | link | up| archives |
9.7.2000
i think it's in the genes
I was walking through Harvard after my interview (which I think went okay) and this construction worker in a hard hat passed me on the sidewalk. Now, most guys that would think I was cute might stare for a second, but what is up with construction guys???????? Does it come with the job that they have the innate, unabashed ability to stare down the woman (or catcall on occasion) for the full two minutes she's in view? I was walking to work a couple weeks ago and the construction guys in the building next to me were leering...one threw a cookie at me from a half-finished floor above just trying to get my attention. Funny how it's both extremely flattering and HIGHLY annoying all at the same time.
oil painting tonight...my last class, pout. signing up for a poetry workshop soon.
2:37 PM | link | up| archives |
wish me luck
job interview at 10AM...pretty fast, huh? so, cross your fingers for me. it's a marketing director position at a startup in Cambridge inbetween Central and Harvard squares. i got up too early though...i could have slept in for another hour and been on time and more rested...*whacking myself on the head* ooo...and a recruiter already calling me this morning (I posted my resume on Monster yesterday) about a position in an agency (asks self do I really want an agency?)...so I have a second interview lined up right after the first now...
I picked up a Self magazine yesterday and there is a blurb in it that says "The reason couples don't talk about sex...both women and men believe that the opposite sex is not interested in a partner who will openly discuss the finer aspects of physical intimacy, finds a new study in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy. The irony? The same men and women said open communication about sex was important to them personally." Hello! Maybe that's it...I am too willing to talk about sex? *chortle*
8:44 AM | link | up| archives |
9.6.2000
paper
I had to do it...stop at Office Max and buy paper. I had an excuse though...I needed to buy resume paper and envelopes. I couldn't help but wandering the aisles, buying pens, looking at the stationery, ooing and ahhing over the notebooks. I had a conversation with someone else recently about stationery stores...the allure, the subtle excitement of seeing the different kinds of paper, the texture, the stacks and stacks that are waiting to be filled with ink upon ink.
I drove through Harvard today and all the students were back, with their parents, all carrying COOP bags. It gives me such a sense of nostalgia. I loved college so much, loved school so much. And it being fall...there is something so amazingly romantic about the season. The changing light, the slight chill cold, the brilliant colors of the trees, the way the air smells so crisp with the slight touch of decaying leaves...
I might have an interview tomorrow!! From a company that hasn't even seen my resume yet--they're just going off of the recommendation of someone I used to work with...pretty exciting...and so fast!
5:42 PM | link | up| archives |
it's the little things
flowers from your best friend when you are sad.
places like this that are so out there you have to laugh a little...how to cure your lip balm addiction...
finding your cat rolling around in a patch of sun
telling silly stories over beers
the satisfaction of finishing something (okay so perhaps it would help if I STARTED to clean my office, finalize my resume and vacuum the floors)
remembering being a batcave waver punker chick before it was ever called "goth" and now I'm terribly glad that I never officially learned how to dance gothic. i was a little more on the how to dance punk end of things, but mostly it was mood based...or band based.
that it's cold enough to take hot hot showers again
singing The Housemartins really loud in the car so that people look at you funny at intersections. this led me into looking into what is going on with The Beautiful South and I discovered they're playing at Avalon on October 22...yay! At least I know about this one before, and not learning AFTER the fact that the Posies were here in Boston a couple weeks ago, sigh sigh sigh sigh.
11:07 AM | link | up| archives |
9.5.2000
the end as beginning
today was a hard day...saying goodbye to people. strangely validating in a way. i was not prepared for the vehemence at which people reacted to me being let go. it felt very surreal, having everyone around me echoing the sadness and frustration that I felt about going. i knew that i had done good things at the company but i hadn't really understood my impact. it's very humbling and i find myself in a state of awe.
now i am officially a professional job hunter. but a job hunter with a severance and with the backing of numerous people with thick rolodexes. the CEO is writing my recommend this week. everyone else i know knows someone else as well so i am confident that i won't be bench sitting for long.
plus i have a long list of things to do that i can do now...take care of my cable problem, find out why the webcam freezes all the time, call the phone company and have my caller id name changed, buy the bike...and pray that I win the lottery so I can have the $10k that I'll need to buy out my stock options within the next ninety days. i was flabbergasted when i heard that i had to purchase these invisible things that i have no clue about their future worth.
it's cold in my apartment.
and by the way, thanks niki.
7:19 PM | link | up| archives |
9.4.2000
driving back from the cape
is always stressful for me...not the driving, just dealing with the crazy people. it's frustrating when you have to deal with the loonies because I really actually like driving...that meditative sort of driving where you have the straight road, good music, and your sense become heightened. during those times I feel especially poetic. It makes me sort of restless...that feeling...because I want to be writing or creating rather than stuck on the freeway. It's a very interesting conundrum to be in. If driving makes me feel that way...but I have to stop to be creative...I think I need more free time and decent scenic picnic spots to stop at.
strange weekend for me...filled with all sorts of mixed emotions at the end of it all. tomorrow i head in to deal with all the co-workers, to tell them that I'm not going to work there anymore and at the same time beg them to help me look for a job (Director of Marketing at a high tech firm...if you know of any in Boston, send my way!!). I'm more and more and more grateful that I have that two months severance (and three weeks vacation paid out). It will be hard to be there tomorrow...hard to leave people I love working with, the company that I helped build and yet at the same time, it will be very validating. Meeting with the CEO tomorrow and a couple VPs to get letters of recommend and to have them start going through their rolodex.
perhaps I take it too personally. one of the core values of that company is passion, and well, that's something that I always have too much of, in all my life. the feeling part of me is a pretty intense thing. someone I once knew said that was the thing he liked most about me...that I was not afraid to feel.
these are the types of times when I wish I didn't feel at all. sometimes it just mostly sucks.
11:01 PM | link | up| archives |
i thought i was going to be a masochist
but I surprised myself. drove to the Cape to have lunch with Michael, which is often a masochistic exercise...we argue a lot, in constructive ways, but it can be draining. Plus he likes to try and convince me that I never win when we play Othello and then I'm reminded at how much older he is and I have to be good and pat his arm and reassure him that it's just the alzheimers setting in.
smirk.
but it wasn't as bad on the driving end as I expected (thank you Michael). on the way down, near 11am, the traffic was backed up for several miles trying to get over the Sagamore bridge. What a bunch of SHEEP those tourists are. I was a bit nervous, driving back at 3:30, that I would face the same sort or worse traffic, but being a native, Michael managed to give me excellent directions to Bourne and I BREEZED home. stupid tourists...they're probably just now getting over the bridge. smile.
Oh, new stuff in the ME section.
7:38 PM | link | up| archives |
confused
I realize that mostly these days I feel a great confusion. Work, men, friends, who the hell I am, what the hell I am doing. Where do I fit in? Do I fit in? It is hard sometimes to understand...I am wanted, yet I am not wanted. Work is a great case in point...they don't want me, but they're going to help me find a job (go figure, I found a position rather similar to the one that I was trying to move into posted on the web by the company...thought they didn't have room for me?). I mean, I have an appointment with the CEO tomorrow to ask him to go through his rolodex and write me a letter of recommend, and I know he will. So I don't really fit in, but they care about me?
When I was in high school, I never dated much. I'm not entirely sure why...I was thinner, cuter and just as gregarious. But somehow I always ended up being the best friend. I had the MOST attractive best friends...beautiful men who would always tell me their girlfriend woes. I didn't really fit in, but they cared about me. I pined away, not at a distance, but at their side nearly every day. I find that I'm not in a spot where I am the best friend anymore, but in a lot of ways that is equally if not more confusing...because in most cases I still have no clue what I am.
Of course I'm just rambling, but it is a confused sort of thing and I have no idea where the fuck I'm going with it or why I started it in the first place. Perhaps this is just a continution of the sex post of last night.
10:17 AM | link | up| archives |
9.3.2000
sex
it all rolls back around to sex, doesn't it? interesting thing, desire...
i don't always have the best self-image and i know that 98% of other women in the world, regardless of their beauty and weight, feel the same. it's hard for me sometimes to understand what men (or women) find desirable about me. i used to be worried that because i don't have the Kate Moss waif thing going for me that it would hinder my chances at men finding me attractive. in a lot of ways, I still wonder that...how much it hinders me. i'm a very sexual creature and i know that the men that I meet realize that very early on...but how can I tell if they are interested in me beyond that sensual exterior? I had a conversation recently with someone (Michael? Payman? Greg? i wish i could remember) about how men will sleep with a woman if it is offered to them, regardless of how truly attracted they are to her. That the libido takes over and the one-track mind falls into place. I know my sexuality is a powerful thing...but there are times when I wish I could just shut it off, extract it from me and see if that makes any difference. I want men to appreciate me for my mind, for the way that I see the world, the way that I see them and appreciate them. Sex is sex, but what is interesting to me is the cerebral aspect of it...I don't just want a good fuck here and there (not that there isn't something great about that sometimes). Ultimately, I want to feel desire, arousal and in the end, succumb to something that has been working up to a lot more for hours or perhaps days. It's rare, I think, to meet a man who can appreciate that. Hell, I find that it is often a challenge to find the guy who respects you as a person, who can take the sexuality out of the equation and like you just as much. They are there, and I do know them, but the wading through the masses to get there is an amazing task in itself.
8:30 PM | link | up| archives |
target markets
I'm going to join in with Emily at Smug in that I'm a target market too. Oh, and for enticing erotic poetry, go here...
10:15 AM | link | up| archives |
9.2.2000
psychobeachparty
Great campy movie to see...nice way to end out the summer. Plus I didn't ever think that Nicholas Brendan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer...Xander) was very interesting until I saw this...
Ordered chinese tonight...mmm...crab rangoon... Two fortunes (I still don't have the heart to tell the wonderful sweet woman there that the husband is an ex-husband) and they are both good:
~Negotiations move along smoothly, the outcome is favorable!
~Today it's up to you to create the peacefulness you long for.
10:21 PM | link | up| archives |
men
So the Internet men thing is something that I find pretty damn fascinating. The freaky guys just sort of seem to come out of the woodwork and seek you out (I'm not talking looks necessarily, either)...the anonymity of the Net makes them say the craziest things...or gives them the power to assume particular things about me and my life. Nicole at the wonderwomanchronicles actually sums up exactly what I am thinking.
Was drenched today...torrential downpour on my way out of the drugstore. I really love the rain. Makes me homesick for Seattle. I remember once that a girlfriend was telling me how there is something about the rain that gives women some sort of positive ionic charge, rejuvenates them, sensually enhances them...probably a load of crap, but hey, I'm willing to buy it.
11:34 AM | link | up| archives |
credit where credit is due
in my web wanderings...I have come across the following quote numerous times over the last few days...it's very well known but most people don't know the poet... Arthur O'Shaughnessy.
Ode
We are the music makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sifting by desolate streams;---
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
We are the movers and shakers
Of the world, for ever, it seems.
For the billionth time, Willy Wonka QUOTED the first two lines above...he didn't make them up. Drives me nuts. But I did realize that the Wonka site is pretty nifty.
and i'll shut up now and sleep.
1:00 AM | link | up| archives |
9.1.2000
hopeful
it's good to have friends that care...and the people at work that do. Several people called today to see how I was doing. And Michael and I fought about my "finances." I guess that's what you get when your best friend is a financial advisor. Lucky for us we're good at arguing and we can work through those disagreements and resolve them, even if it is because we finally agree to disagree. He wouldn't be so adamant if he didn't care.
funny how losing my job can become one of the most validating things that has happened to me in awhile, both from a work perspective and friends. It is true, it's good to be loved. Even the loverkitty is being extra sweet to me. *grin*
6:17 PM | link | up| archives |
numb
my eyes are so tired. the day after I've been crying heavily my eyes tend to be heavy and they feel so weary. yesterday was so emotional for me. I was in such shock (still am), sadness, confusion, anger. I was reading somewhere about how women really identify a lot of who they are by the work that they do. It's interesting, the types of feedback I get from my guy friends...it's very much a move on sort of attitude, which I do have (truthfully this is not a bad thing for me...I know I can get a better paying, more satisfying job elsewhere), but it is harder for me to disconnect emotionally. I've talked about this with niki before, and she's in agreement. It's good having friends who have been in the same sort of place.
~~~~~
But on a better note: I'm an extremely sensual person according to Queendom.com: You are one sensual human being! You are titillated by the sensual stimuli of everyday life. The smell of flowers, the sensation of silk against the skin, the taste of food, the sound of music, and the rich colors of life tickle and tease you to ecstasy. Yours is a hedonistic attitude, and you deeply enjoy the physical pleasures that life has to offer. This is great-a good smell or beautiful color is often enough to keep a smile on your face and a song in your heart. You are into long, emotional lovemaking (which is usually followed by an earth-shattering orgasm). This is fabulous for you and one would wager that your partner doesn't mind either! Your senses are also inextricably linked to your emotions and certain sensual stimuli can evoke strong feelings. Therefore you tend to be emotionally passionate. Because you get so much pleasure from your senses, you are eager to experiment in life. This is positive since you can make great discoveries and experience a lot of pleasure. However, being pleasure-driven can sour you from persevering if an experience isn't entirely pleasant. If that's your case, your lack of persistence might be keeping you from attaining worthy goals (sometimes it is necessary to wade through dull and insipid periods of life). But most importantly, remember that 'too much of a good thing' can be harmful. People who delight is sensual pleasures are at a slightly increased risk for addictions (substance, sex, love, etc.). So keep yourself in check. Careless sex, too much chocolate, and fine wine can all be wonderful in reasonable doses. And though they induce pleasure, too much can lead to your demise. All in all, you have the innate ability to use your senses to enjoy what this life has to offer!
~~~~~~
Oh, and my Bondgirl name is Fawn Allovermy...
And my Wu Name is: Womanly Panther
10:44 AM | link | up| archives |
