12.31.2000
happy new year!
on to the millenium we go...so wild to think this year is done and gone. Lots of bubbly tonight and a party that I'm off to...new webcam pic for those of you fans out there...and yes, I know exactly who you are. ;-)
10:04 PM | link | up| archives |
busted
I wondered how long it would take. Brad Pitt got his panties in a bunch and probably threatened a lawsuit against the man behind the fake diary blog. Go read the public apology...too bad that you can no longer read the diary entries themselves. Jeesh...he wanted to be a star...he married a star...they're in the public eye. You have to have a tough skin to be in that business. It was a simple, fictional blog that actually made more fun of other celebrities than it did Brad Pitt. As my friend was saying...in ten years, Pitt will be begging for someone to pay attention to him. Chortle. And to think, after Fight Club my opinion of him was starting to change a little bit...
11:52 AM | link | up| archives |
12.30.2000
stupid weather man
doesn't know what he's talking about. 10-12 inches my foot. It's pouring out...40 degrees and not a flake in sight. And here I wanted a blizzard. Hmmph. My friend Jack posted pictures of New York this morning...gorgeous and covered in snow, but Boston? Nada. Before I moved here everyone warned me of the "terrible Boston winters." Funny how Seattle has seen more snow in the last four years than Boston has. Must be me...I'm taking the warmer weather and the rain along with me. But dammit, I wanted a blizzard. I wanted to have two feet of snow, the power off, curled up with candlelight, blankets, wine and a board game or something of the sort.
When I was a young child growing up in Nine Mile Falls, WA...right outside of Spokane, the snow days we had every year were so magical. When the power went out, we spent the day sledding and making snowmen. The three of us kids would head down the street to my friend Stephanie's and then we would all go take our inner-tubes (what a great summer and winter toy!) and go sledding. The winters were always heavy there and having several feet of snow on the ground for weeks on end was the norm. Snow days only occurred when the power went out at the school, which was rare, but did happen at least 2-3 times each winter.
And then there were the snowforts.My father would help us make forts...they usually took up most of the snow in the yard to make, but that didn't matter...there was always more snow around the corner. He would take a shovel handle and make peek holes...but then during the ensuing snowball fights (of which the neighborkids always came to take part in), he would proceed to plug up the holes with snowballs. We had the best times with those forts. Some years we would put roofs on them and turn them into igloos, but usually they were just like in the picture you see here.
Cursed weather man. Leading me on to believe that we were going to have a blizzard tonight. Getting my hopes up. Grrrr.
6:30 PM | link | up| archives |
12.26.2000
cool christmas things
~tacky star trek postcard greetings...damn that split my sides
~not having to eat tripe for Christmas eve dinner (giggle)...but I have to admit that that would be 600 times better than icky oyster stew...
~painting (of me...I'll post on my return when I can upload to my site directly) from my favorite Swiss barbarian warrior
~watching my nephew's face light up when he sees his Buzz Lightyear toy
~seeing my grandparents once again after nearly four years
~annihilating my brother and father in Risk
~getting socks that have toes built in...like gloves...how crazy is that?
~knowing that there is expensive champagne in my future
~that there is no snow in the forecast for Boise, Minneapolis (where I connect) and Boston between now and when I go home
~that the bleeding from my razor cut on my right index finger finally stopped (god there is a lot of blood in your fingertips)
~my cold is nearly gone
~my mom's wonderful cooking...serious comfort foods :)
~getting my favorite perfume from my sister (single gals (or randy married ones) out there...Tommy Hilfiger's Freedom is a definite winner...just trust me on that one...always scores points)
~being able to look forward to a fun, happy New Years eve!!
12:50 AM | link | up| archives |
12.25.2000
sliced
open my finger on my razor this morning. Don't ask...just know there was a lot of blood and I'm whining about it. Other than that, Merry Christmas everyone!
Watched the Midnight Mass from Rome on tv last night for the first time...the poor Pope, he looked so weary and tired. I wanted to just go bring him some tea and send him to bed. When will they appoint his successor? He looks so frail anymore. My friend and I hotly debate (well, not hotly...more gently than that) the point of the Pope...me not being Catholic, am fascinated by his power and the masses that worship him. The service was beautiful though...it was amazing to see how orderly the 40,000 people in St. Peter's square were. All quiet, standing in the rain, listening to the service with rapt attention. The announcer said that 1 billion people around the world watched on television last year. Pretty wild.
Opening presents, here in Boise, ID. My grandparents are on their way up from Twin Falls, my brother is heading over from his place and my sister and her family will join us this afternoon. And tomorrow, hooking up with my old, good friend Lauren for coffee...funny that while we live an hour away from each other on the East coast that we have to hook up when visiting our folks on the West...
11:16 AM | link | up| archives |
12.24.2000
ritual
is something really universal. I just came back from candlelight services (the contemporary version with the hokey band...the traditional would have been much more to my tastes) and while sitting there, watching the pastor (who is sporting a new, stylish goatee I might add) light the advent candles, I was thinking about how religions all over the world have so many of the same rituals. The basics are the same in every one. Candles. Singing. Chanting. The basics are all the same although the words might be different. All religions have some sort of ritual, some sort of rote practice. Incense, candles, prayer mats, choirs, kneeling, praying, singing, dancing, chanting. For centuries, the basics have been pretty much the same across the board...just the versions that are different. Interesting how we are all connected at the very base level when it comes to the way we worship our deities.
And the rituals of family at Christmas...even now, we are waiting for my sister and her family to arrive so we can open one present this Christmas eve. The rest of the gifts will follow in the morning, but tonight, one single present. Another year, another ritual.
10:53 PM | link | up| archives |
boise
still smells like cows. It's amazing how white-bred, corn-fed, mormon, big-haired, jacked-up pickup truck, sort of place this is. Niki, you know what I mean.
Heading out to do last minute shopping for my brother and grandparents. I am braving...gasp...the Boise Towne Square Mall. If you don't hear from me for awhile, you know I didn't come back alive...
3:19 PM | link | up| archives |
12.21.2000
forgotten
English word of the day: liplabor ~ Action of the lips without concurrence of the mind.
I am, unfortunately, too prone to such things.
5:24 PM | link | up| archives |
happy
Hanukkah, Paulette, Jack, Keren and all the others that read my site that will be celebrating! Happy Solstice as well!
The holiday season is in full swing now and it seems so wild that Christmas is less than a week away. It's so hard to imagine that the end of the year is nearly here. 2000, come and gone, all in the blink of an eye. This year has been very tumultuous for me, both on a professional and personal level. Work has been crazy, up and down. My personal relationships have gone through a lot of difficult changes as well. Finally, during the last few months of this year I feel like my feet are on firmer ground. But to look back at the year is so mind-boggling for me. Did all THAT happen to me in the span of twelve months? That being a rather ambiguous sort of term that no, I won't define in such a public forum, sorry.
I remember being about 8 or 9, sitting in my desk at school thinking, wow...in the year 2000 I'll be 29 years old. Could I ever be that old, I wondered to myself. And now, here it is, and I am that old, although I often feel older. Am I wiser? About some things. More confused about others. My body isn't as young as it used to be...and it often seems to, very disconcertingly, work independent of the plans that I have. In the new millenium, I'll be turning 30...a milestone which seems so great to me, to have lived so long and yet feel like the time has been so short. How can it go so fast?
It's almost dark now, on this shortest day of the year. After this it will start to change again...getting lighter...the mood will turn toward New Years (and my dear friend Greg's big 30 as well) and champagne and fireworks. And Resolutions...fodder for another blog entirely. But the energy of a new year is an exciting one...new hopes, plans, intitiatives. A dedication, however short-lived, to changing the way things were the year before. What will the new year bring for me?
I am already a much different person now than I was January 1, 2000, and even in mid-year, say June 2000. I am amazed sometimes at how different I have become. Different in good, strong, positive ways. My life in the last six months has become something new and good. The things I believe in and the way I live my life is so different, so positive, so new....and happy.
4:36 PM | link | up| archives |
12.20.2000
surprises
are a great thing in my book. Like the little thing that Joanie put into my Christmas card that she sent...a really great picture that was taken at Heidi and Brian's wedding in October. Yes, girl, it WAS worth the wait! Thanks for the very sweet gift.
And the check from some freelance project that I work on in my spare time...it arrived today, a really wonderful relief for the money woes I was feeling.
Plus the gratification that my company will be adding on sales directly from a marketing effort that I executed...marketing is such an intangible thing in many ways...to see clear, direct results is a great feeling, especially when I have been feeling unsure about the impact I have been making in my work thus far.
And talking to an old friend from my last company today, out of the blue when I hadn't heard from him since I left. It's always great to do the catch up sort of thing, something that is on my agenda to do with several people once the New Year rolls around.
Now if only Santa would bring me a winning lottery ticket...THAT would be a delightful surprise indeed!
6:46 PM | link | up| archives |
12.19.2000
Things that drive me fucking crazy
I love playing video games--online Internet RPGs that allow me a semblance of escapism. But some people really don't understand that I have no desire to incorporate the online world into my offline. I mean really...why would I want to get involved, long distance, for hours over the phone when we aren't playing the game, with someone from say, Ohio? Some people just don't get it. Games are games and real life is real life. I want to hang out in my offline world with people that are in my near vicinity. I don't have the time or energy to nourish a needy long distance relationship. Besides, it's more fun when you can play the game with someone who is sitting in the same room with you, ya know?
11:16 PM | link | up| archives |
Another fun pic of me
Go check out Niki's blog...to see a picture of me and some other cubers (see my Me/Superstars section). Paulette, Joanie, Heidi, Niki, Me and Eddy. I have my arm around Niki, who is now far far away in the wilds of Wisconsin. Okay, maybe not the wilds, but at least the snow-covered lands or something like that. I saw a lot of the cubers at my recent party, but it's always great to see pictures of us together. I wonder if we'll ALL ever be able to be in the same place at one time ever again. Even this picture is just some of us...
But there is definitely something to say about good friends who have gone through a lot together and who have weathered all sorts of storms.
10:18 PM | link | up| archives |
Yummy Yummy
Crystal's Coconut Rum Ball Recipe ~ perfect for those Holiday get-to-gethers!
(flavor improves after 24 hours)
4 cups (1 12oz package) vanilla wafers, crushed
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1 can flaked coconut (3.5 oz) (I use regular coconut from a bag and it's fine)
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (I use fat free)
1/4 cup rum (I usually put in a little more)
Powdered Sugar
In large bowl, combine crumbs, nuts and coconut. Add sweetened condensed milk and rum; mix well. Chill 4 hours or overnight. Dip palms of hands in powdered sugar. Shape by teaspoons into 1" balls; roll in powdered sugar (rechill if mixture becomes too soft.) Cover and store in refrigerator. If desired re-roll in sugar before serving.
10:11 PM | link | up| archives |
12.18.2000
disturbed
Just go here. Read the song titles. Chortle, puke, or write your congressman. Whichever tickles your fancy.
11:10 PM | link | up| archives |
12.17.2000
wild weather
very wild. Yesterday there was snow on the ground, today it is 66 degrees and winds with gusts up to 60 mph. The day started as a Christmas shopping day but it was cut short on account of the strange severity of the elements. It's been dark outside since about 1:30PM, all the street lights on and the puddles up past your ankles in many places. Thank god I wasn't driving. Downtown we were looking for a parking spot in the Back Bay and at the newstand on Boylston across from the Library next to the outbound T-stop, a lightpost had come crashing down on top of a Ford Bronco. It was bizarre, seeing the crumpled post with the First Night banner draped across the hood of the car.
My whole house shakes in the rain...I live on the second floor of a three story townhouse and during windstorms, the entire house seems to move. It's very disconcerting to be lying in bed and feeling as though you are on a moving ship. Even now, in my little office where my computer is, the floor is shaking and moving a bit. I don't worry too much...it's a sturdy house, built back at the turn-of-the-last-century and I'm sure it's weathered wilder weather than this.
Still raspy. I hate not being able to talk. I woke up this morning in a wild coughing fit but strangely enough, my voice was back a little. I took cough syrup and went back to sleep and three hours later when I got up, the voice was gone again, sigh sigh sigh.
Crystal's list of great places to buy gifts online:
Red Envelope
Send.com
Sundance Catalog
Chiasso
Pottery Barn
Restoration Hardware
Reflect.com
4:31 PM | link | up| archives |
12.16.2000
silence
well, nearly. I have proceeded to lose my lovely voice. I have been reduced to strange, cracking raspy whispering. The worst is that, for the most part and for the first time in a week, I actually FEEL better. I just now sound like crap. Wonder how it will be at 11PM when I stumble over to the party I'm supposed to be going to, late because the friend that I'm heading over with is working late.
My voice is a pretty integral part of me. In the last five companies I've been at (current company excluded), I've been the voice on the answering machine. You can still hear me on the Event Zero machine and when you dial in to certain extensions at Bowne Internet. I used to do radio and for awhile thought about doing voice-overs. It's one of my better assets and to suddenly lose it is very disconcerting. At first, the Kathleen Turner sexy quality that it had was a good thing, but that has passed and it's no longer sexy but instead, it's minimal, it cracks and breaks, half of my sentences only coming out in a wrangled whisper. Honey and lemon tea isn't helping. The codeine cough syrup last night didn't help (but it did keep me asleep). The Robutussin today hasn't helped. Sigh. Time and not talking are probably my best bets at this point.
Party tonight and then just one more of the season...one the night before I head home to my family in Boise...at 6 bloody AM on Saturday morning. Ewww. Niki, hope you are ready to see me looking a little bloodshot on my layover in Minneapolis! I can't wait to see you! Just excuse me if I seem a little groggy when I arrive, grin.
4:03 PM | link | up| archives |
12.12.2000
sickly
it is the time for sickness, I suppose, but damn, why does it have to find me? Groggy, congested, sore throat. I hate feeling so lethargic, so befuddled. I hate waking up in the middle of the night coughing. It's the tiredness that gets me the most though...just sheer exhaustion that seems to overtake me.
I was messaging Michael today and he tells me that he knows three people with pleurisy. Pleurisy...what the hell is that? Isn't that an old person's disease? Well upon looking it up, I came up with this definition: Inflammation of the pleura, usually occurring as a complication of a disease such as pneumonia, accompanied by accumulation of fluid in the pleural cavity, chills, fever, and painful breathing and coughing.
Okay...I'm nowhere near having pleurisy methinks. This is more head cold right now....the moving to my chest is still slow, thankfully. I came home from work early today but before I left, I went to Kozmo and had them bring me chicken soup, which arrived just after I got home. That helped and then I piled myself into bed for three hours. What a wasted day. I hate that.
So I'll stop whining now. But where else should I be able to whine if it's not on my own site?
9:08 PM | link | up| archives |
12.10.2000
morning after
the party that is...
It was fabulous. Great people, wonderful food (thanks Paulette for so much help!) and now I have enough alcohol in my extra room to last me for the next three years. Guess I need to start planning for my next party soon.
I've always wanted to have a party and this was my first. I am so pleased that it went well and that so many people showed up. I love the feeling of being in a room full of people who are happy, laughing, and having a great time. There is something in that that is very fulfilling.
And my cat...my bizarre, suddenly very gregarious furball, decided to make his rounds in the middle of the party. It was so funny...forty people standing around drinking and suddenly the white cat makes his entrance, tentatively, looking around in wide blue eye curiosity. Everyone turns to look at him and coos about how big he is and how beautiful he is...then ten pairs of hands start cuddling and caressing him. What a life! I was telling my friend Keren this morning (she came up from NY and crashed out on my futon) how it would be so wonderful to be a cat...and to have ten people touching you and fondling you and to have it not be lewd or strange, but to be perfectly, pleasurably acceptable. chuckle. Truly, if reincarnation is a reality, I can assure you my cat was a very very very good person in his former life.
Cleaning won't be too terrible...most of the food is gone and it's primarily just alcohol now. Where on earth will I put it all?
So a nap is in my very near future at this point.
Thanks, everyone who came to the shindig and might be reading this...it was such a great party. What a wonderful way to start the holiday season.
Party one was a dinner party last weekend...two was mine...and party three and four and five (oh my!) coming up next weekend with party six to follow the next!! Wow. Thank god I love to schmooze. ;-)
2:03 PM | link | up| archives |
12.8.2000
let it snow
but only tonight! Tomorrow night the roads need to be clean and clear so my holiday party isn't marred by scary traffic. The snow is falling and it looks so beautiful...but the reality of it is that I wore the WRONG shoes to work and now it's going to be a nightmare walking to Haymarket for the T. Thank god these Italians are pretty fastidious and they keep the sidewalks and streets in the North End pretty clean. Still...the last thing I want is to fall into an undignified crumpled heap in front of a bunch of swarthy hunks heading home after work. Chortle.
4:54 PM | link | up| archives |
12.7.2000
leaving your mark
On my way to work everyday I walk down to the corner near my house past where someone etched their name into the sidewalk when it was still wet. JOE it reads in big huge letters. It always makes me smile a bit and I wonder how many other Joes have left their mark somewhere in the world's sprawl of concrete paths and buildings. Humans really are animals...leaving their mark, scratching out their territories just like dogs. Think about all the gang graffiti you see everywhere...not just artistry, but a statement. It is fascinating to me, why humans we do this, scratching our names in desks, on tree bark, park benches, on the sides of buses and trains.
Outside of where my grandparents used to live in Burley, Idaho, there is a place called City of Rocks. It's an amazing phenomenon, the way that these granite rocks pile up in wild, weird, climbable formations, smooth all over. Settlers coming across on the Oregon Trail found this spot and they were the first to mark them up with their names and dates, written in axle grease, which you can still see today. Visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York, you can see part of an Egyptian temple that has several hundred years worth of graffiti scrawled upon the sides as European visitors first came to that land to explore the wonders. Amidst the heiroglypics are the carvings of explorers from the 19th century...it's disturbing to see it there, defacing such ancient beauty.
There is a tiny "M" etched in to the top of the wooden desk in my home office. I like to imagine that it was scratched there lovingly by some separated and forlorn lover, thinking of the apple-of-their-eye somewhere else. It's about sentiment, it's about territory, it's about leaving behind something that represents the self.
That JOE will be in that concrete for years to come and I know that I'll look at it a hundred more times to and from work. There is a little piece of that person left there, behind on my corner...but the irony of it is that I don't know that JOE...and that I would probably be more likely to think of a different Joe, someone that is in my realm, not the world of the person who left their name etched onto that little space of city property. So much for leaving a mark...
5:00 PM | link | up| archives |
12.5.2000
empathizing
I read Jag's blitch blog a lot...she always seems to be on a similar wavelength or knows people who are. Today she had a hug linked up for Zehava. And all I wanted to say about it all is that I can relate to some of those things that you are feeling, Zehava. How people will react, how people will frown and fail to understand, will be unsure how to be around you. And that fear....oh god, do I know that fear...that you can't let go because then it will mean you are alone. It's a rocky road...the right roads often are both bumpy and terrifying. Hold your head up, you aren't alone and you won't be alone...that is the truth that underlies it all and that you will see that when the road smooths out, which it always, eventually does.
3:51 PM | link | up| archives |
drugged
writing for me is a terrible conundrum, a serious love/hate relationship. I feel it in me, burning always, wanting to write, desiring, needing to write and yet sometimes the more I want and need it, the more I push it away. My muse is often elusive, sliding in front of me then back away again just as I have the gumption to write. Blogging here on my site is the closest thing I have to keeping me on task, enabling me to splutter some words out on a regular basis. Still, I have not been writing here on a regular basis as I have before...in fact, for the first time since 1993, I have barely been spending time on the computer at all...funny how that has changed.
Saturday I was getting ready for my party, having dropped my friend off in Harvard Square, dropped my laundry off and ran to the grocery store. I came home and began baking the yummiest cookies and realized that it was nearly 2PM and that I hadn't yet turned on my computer that day. What a shock. For the last seven years I have been a slave to the machine, waking up first thing and flipping that switch to check my email and various web activities that I might be involved with. And even then, when I did go turn it on, I spent maybe five minutes there at the most. My attention has clearly shifted to the real world, finally, and I can't tell you what a good feeling that is.
But it means that in some ways, I am writing less and that is a nagging feeling. I do have the makings of a story in my head, notations from a tale that a friend has spun and now it sits with me...when will I begin it? After my party most definitely, but hopefully soon after. I want to write, create, be one with the words on the page.
At work that's what I do for a living--messaging--esentially, writing. But it's not the same. It's not inspiring, it's not as energizing as writing fiction. I love to weave wild stories and somehow the corporate speak just isn't the same. I was dying, when I looked at the recent Fucked Company site to see the rants about my former employer, Event Zero. Down along the bottom is a blurb about Moral Compass...and a paragraph that someone says, "what fucking crap." The funny thing is, I wrote that...or most of it. The old meanie boss changed it around a bit before she was canned, but most of that paragraph is "marketingese" that I churned out. I was the first to go from Event Zero, so it's funny to see those particular words singled out now, long after I'm gone. But that's just it...they are words that people know are full of fluff, all corporate writing is, for the most part. It doesn't change your life, it doesn't impact you emotionally, it doesn't make you think. And so the excitement of writing it is different for me.
I have two, half-written novels sitting on my computer. One that I was writing by myself and I read again and it needs a complete re-write. The other was one that I was writing with a friend, and it has been abandoned, probably forever, which makes me sad as I really liked the characters and where that piece was heading. I hate that I start things and then don't finish them...it is the unfortunate part of my Gemini personality...always on to the next more exciting thing. That's why poetry is such a good thing for them...I can write them, finish them and polish them and feel accomplished. And yet, I still yearn to write those novels, to see my words in print.
Writing is a fickle mistress for me, teasing, tempting, rewarding and addictive, yet difficult and consuming and frustrating. I love it and I hate it. Love it, hate it, always wanting and needing it.
11:35 AM | link | up| archives |
12.4.2000
Tis the Season
This weekend was a flurry of activity getting ready for my holiday party next weekend. But best of all was getting the tree. I had splurged this year on a bevy of beautiful brightly colored glass balls and on some new funky colored lights. The tree is gorgeous, in the living room, with a wild red ball of lights on top and a quirky pattern of purple, chartreuse, teal, orange, red and lavender lights. I can't wait for everyone to see the tree.
I went to a dinner party this weekend and was amazed at the tree that they had...filled with wild glass ornaments of space aliens, dead presidents, devils and arty fun Christmas designs. It was magnificent, that tree...you kept looking for the wilder ornaments, taking in all the nuances and fascinating details of the shapes and faces. I love seeing something so different, so innovative. Top that off with the fact that dinner was cozy and tasty. I had never had goose before and it was wonderful. Oh, and mom, I branched out and ate brussel sprouts!
So my hope is that I'll come home and lovely little Romeo won't have knocked over the tree and destroyed half the ornaments. Lucky for me he's a pretty uninterested sort of feline and shiny objects don't really do much for him. Catnip, however, is another story and I replenished his scratching post so hopefully that will keep him occupied. It is the funniest thing to watch him run around stoned.
He talks a lot and his eyes get so wild and wide. Funny how catnip makes cats so lively and it acts as a sedative for humans (catnip tea!).
And I'm trying to avoid the cold before the party...the sore throat keeps creeping in and my tiredness factor is high. Not such a good thing. Must shake it. Will shake it. Shaking it. My resistance will NOT be futile. Cannot be futile. Will not will not will not.
2:13 PM | link | up| archives |
