8.29.2001
chopped
and cropped and shorter than I have had it in the last ten...maybe even fifteen years. Not so sure how I feel about it. It's a big change to grow accustomed to. I'll post pictures eventually...probably after the wedding this weekend. I did see one of my ex-coworkers at the mall today though and she thought it looked great. Sooo we'll see what the boyfriend thinks tonight when he comes home from work...
The mall is such a strange phenomenon. I walked in today and it was positively reeking of teen hormones. They dripped off all the little girlies with their tight clothes and bell-bottomed jeans (wearing those once in my lifetime was enough, thank you) and the boys that still can't figure out how to find pants that fit them right. Reminded me of how much I hated high school. All the pressure to be popular or to fit in with particular cliques. Even me, with my punked out hair and black clothes...trying desperately to get the skater guys to think I was cool or cute and to want to hang out with me. I succeeded...they all thought I was cool and they all wanted to hang out with me, but well...that was the extent of that. High school was just depressing all around in my opinion. Teenagers have SO much drama and emotions run so high. I am always boggled by the people who say that their high school years were their best years. So much peer pressure...sex, booze, drugs, rock and roll...that was the extent of the pressures for me growing up, thank god. I was never terrified about any kids with guns or knives in their locker...that just didn't happen. And now...reading the papers makes me wonder if I ever really want to have children.
It's funny though how some things just don't change. The pit-rats in Harvard Square don't look that much different than I did fifteen years ago...or than my boyfriend did twenty years ago. Still black clothes, still freaked out hair...just more holes in their bodies than we had. There is literally nothing original about them. The music is a faded memory of what real punk rock is like. Being goth is so mainstream now that they have friggin jeans commericals on TV featuring some white faced mysterious girl.
Just like how going to the mall for the fluffs and the jocks (god knows what they call them now) is still the same.
So I'm off on some tangent...god knows what. It's hours later now. The boyfriend likes the haircut...gave seal of approval. Tomorrow...cleaning the dregs of his apartment and packing to head out of town...getting up at 4:30 AM. Guess that Heidi is joining us in the hotel room--she grabbed a last minute plane flight. Will be interesting...four of us sharing a room (personally I am just holding out for that jacuzzi suite in Niagara, alone with the boy).
Sooo if I don't write again...will chat more here next Wed or so.
6:28 PM | link | up| archives |
8.27.2001
the winds have changed
summer is falling out from underneath us. The weather is confused...unsure if it is summer or fall. It's hot but shadowed and rainy. The light has changed as well...it is dark so much earlier than before. At 8 PM it is dark. School busses are back on their routes. Halloween decorations will go up soon.
I'm heading to Pittsburgh on Friday morning, very early. Long drive...longest drive the boyfriend has been on. Joanie tells me twelve hours...we are hoping to cut that down a little bit. I am really looking forward to going, to seeing Joanie and Nicole. I'm looking forward to ending the summer and starting the fall again. Changes...Joanie getting married is a big change--a really wonderful one. I really do love weddings. I think I like them so much because my own was such a disaster. It was truly one of the most disappointing events of my life... the dress I had was terrible. I couldn't have the reception that I wanted. We had no money to go somewhere nice for the honeymoon. My evil ex-mother-in-law made the whole thing very hellish to boot. Now, I have found that I enjoy watching my friends get married...I find tremendous joy in it. They seem so happy, they look so beautiful and I hope such wonderful things for their future. It's just a great feeling to go and watch someone you care about on what should be one of the happiest days of their lives...and to be truly happy for them.
I need to get out of this house. I need to travel some, to see friends, to witness change to help facilitate my own changes. I have started and I need to keep this train on the track.
walking observations: The gondola I saw yesterday is part of a new river gondola tour that starts near the mall. The little dock I passed had dozens of rowboats tied along it--all of the boats were moored today--a very cloudy Monday. The little black metal cat with marble eyes (discovered that it was a French good luck charm) that was on a bush of a house along my walk for the last four years was gone.
4:52 PM | link | up| archives |
8.26.2001
observations
On my walk today: a boat made from a small 60s sporty convertible in mint green (no I don't know make and model, sorry); a shiny black gondola boat tied up at the docks; a cormorant balancing, wings spread on a tiny rowboat lashed to a buoy. Fountains of Wayne's "Red Dragon Tattoo" has to be my new favorite song.
The boyfriend is out alone with my car today for the first time since I taught him to drive a stick shift. He's later than I thought he would be...and those who know me know a bit about my tendency to worry...
9:25 PM | link | up| archives |
8.24.2001
balance
I realized that I have none. All my chakras are out of whack. I'm completely ungrounded and most of my life reflects it. I have looked at my life and discovered that I, amazingly, have WASTED the last seven months. Seven months of my life literally wasted. Except for one, extremely important thing...that being the relationship with the very understanding and loving boyfriend. I can't begin to explain how that is for me...how much that has kept me from sliding in upon myself all together. He has kept me moving forward, kept me breathing, kept me believing when I am not sure what to believe in. That relationship has been one of the only things these last few months that has been anything but a waste. That and the fact that I finally went through with my divorce and my social security card with my maiden name arrived today. Two things of the utmost importance...that's all I can come up with during the last seven months. I could have done a billion things but I have been stopped in my tracks by such complete frustration, self-doubt, and downright depression. I never anticipated that I, of all people, would be reduced to what I have been during the last seven months.
I look back at all I could have accomplished and I feel sick to my stomach. And angry. Angry at myself for not taking advantage of this spare time. For not working on my physical well-being. For not better nurturing my creative spirit and for not bloody taking care of my own damn apartment even. The billion legged 4 inch centipede thingy (it was quite literally the most disturbing thing I have seen in any place I have ever lived...a rat or a cockroach would freak me out far less) crawling up on my wall showed me that my apartment is in a terrible state of clutter...not filth or anything...just clutter...I couldn't find that damn bug to kill it if my life depended on it.
Wasted. And I can't do it anymore. I have to change it all. I don't know what to do about the job...that is the one part of my life that I haven't as much control over...but the rest of it is sitting in front of me, wondering what the fuck I've been doing. I've been wasting my time, scared, doubtful, inert.
I am 30...and I feel more beautiful now than I ever have in my past years...yet I am not happy with how I look. I could have been doing something to bolster my self image and I wasn't. I will now.
The apartment begins tomorrow morning...with the spare room and all the STUFF that doesn't have a place...it will get one. It's going to take me a long time to get through the apartment but by the end of September it will be done.
My writing has been sluggishly coming along the last month...I need to step up the pace and stop putting stumbling blocks and diversions in front of myself. I mean, how many episodes of Quantum Leap do I need to watch in a week?
I'm going to get my haircut this week.
On a really really bright note...something to look forward to. I didn't think I would be so excited for the movie...but I saw the trailer today and I am literally in awe...I think it will adhere to the book and be just as magical.
That and combined with the fact that I get to go watch my dear friend Joanie get married next weekend in Pittsburgh...and see Nicole who I miss terribly and also Eddy, who I haven't seen in ages. The boyfriend and I are heading out on a roadtrip to the wedding and stopping off for a night at Niagra Falls on the way back--jacuzzi suite and view of the Falls.
It's almost fall...time to rejuvenate and change with the season.
11:13 PM | link | up| archives |
8.21.2001
catching my interest
~ A rare recording of J.R.R. Tolkein reading from the Two Towers. You have to listen to the voice he gives to Gollum...it's awesome. I can't wait till the Lord of the Rings arrives in December.
~ Look! It's a modern day Lysistrata! You have to wonder if those Turkish Women ever read Aristophanes or not.
~ Frenchie and family can't BBQ on the back porch this week....it's been raining. Awww.
~ The way my kitty can sleep with his face in the chair. I mean, how on earth does he breathe?
~ Zen and 120 Seconds. God I love Broadband.
~ The final battle in Fantasy IX. That is, quite sadly, my goal for the day. That and visiting my friend John...the boyfriend is going to sublease studio space to him so he can paint the painting that my dear friend Jack is commissioning. Well, and to paint other things as well. :-)
(Oh, and those are close up shots of a sunflower on the left. It's not sexual, it's not alien, it's just pretty damn close in funky light.)
10:21 AM | link | up| archives |
8.17.2001
lawn ornaments
baffle me. I can understand those that have some basic functionality...a windmill of some sort to scare wildlife out of a garden, but other lawn ornaments confuse and often downright scare me. My English Professor back in college made an off-hand comment once about the how you can tell, for the most part, what sort of income family it is when you drive by a house littered with plastic lawn ornaments. I remember just nodding my head back then. The truth of his statement really hits home though when I'm wandering around my neighborhood.
Now, you have to understand that for the most part I'm not talking about the simple stone frog that decorates a tasteful garden pond or the sometimes cute gnomes that peer out from behind a rock or a shrub. I'm talking about the garish lawn ornaments...the ones that immediately draw your eye when you are driving or walking by a house. Plastic deer, flamingos, sheep, etc. What about those strange shadow silhouettes of people or animals?? Or those terrible horrible uglygazing globes. Blech!
One thing that baffles me even more is a phenomenon that I didn't quite really get to see until I moved to the East which is much more predominately Catholic than the west side of our country. Not only more Catholic, but much more ethnic as well. I've noticed that immigrants have tended to be much more showy about their religious leanings than we Americans (note this is very much a generalization) and one of the places where this is quite evident is my Portugese (NO I DO NOT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE SO DO NOT WRITE TO ME IN IT) and Brazilian neighborhood. Every other house with a yard in my area has a bathtub Mary. I'm not talking about a simple figurine of the Virgin decorating a corner flowerbed, I'm talking about a predominately placed Virgin Mary shrouded by a bathtub shape(which I have discovered in my lawn ornament research to be called a "grotto"). They are EVERYWHERE around here. Can't go a full block without seeing at least one if not two or three. I don't understand it. Then again I'm always a bit baffled by the Catholic obsession with iconography when it comes to the Virgin. I think it makes less sense to me in my neighborhood because over half of these statues are grubby, covered in dirt and grime, chipped or broken or just surrounded by junk. There is one house a couple blocks away that has several bathtub Marys in their yard (which is not grass but blacktop) accompanied by a complete Nativity scene (with a bevy of saints standing around looking at the plastic Jesus as well) in a Taj Mahal style house with a glass front. They light candles in there at night. But the worst part is that the yard around this strange house is covered in broken toys, garbage, dog shit and just plain filth. I don't understand it. Personally if I were to place some religious belief in a statue or an icon that represents my faith, I would uphold it...keep the area around it sacred. I just don't get it. This is not an isolated incident...I see similar yards with similar bathtub Marys in junk covered yards all over the East. In the west you would see plastic lawn ornaments surrounded by abandoned cars (bigger yards there than here) and broken plastic toys...but here it's not the same without your token bathtub Mary.
I have to admit that there are other places in the country where the lawn ornament thing has gone way out of hand. Cheektowaga, NY has it particularly bad it seems.
Another lawn art phenomenon that seems particular to the East are lawn-jockeys. In fact I hadn't ever heard of them until the boyfriend pointed one out when we were visiting his hometown of Pittsfield (also where Jack hails from).
I also discovered the best news of all...the PALS or People Against Lawn Sculpture (Sh*t)! The must see portion of this site are the definitions. The rest is, sadly, in disarray.
But honestly, I have to admit. If you HAVE to put a gnome in a yard...make sure he's carrying a barrel of whiskey!
3:49 PM | link | up| archives |
8.16.2001
things that amaze me
~that the boyfriend sees Natalie Portman all the time in Harvard Square. He saw her yesterday (I guess she walked right in front of my car--I had just dropped him off...of course I didn't notice) wearing a Heaven 27 t-shirt. She's a junior at Harvard so he sees her from time to time...she must be back early before school starts. One of her most amazing movies is The Professional, filmed when she was a wee one.
~that the boyfriend has finally almost completely moved in. And where in the heck are we going to put all the stuff? And why on earth is he so attached to that silly Jabba-the-Hut yellow plastic blob? Boys...I swear, they are puzzling sometimes.
~that every man in brazil seems to think that a. I need a boyfriend and b. that I read Portugese. Grrr. Some STUPID webcam site listed me in their top webcams last summer (I haven't updated my cam in nearly a year) and I get letters all the time from Brazilian men who don't read one iota of my site, but send me poetry and mush that I can't read. Drives me batty. I mean, come on...do you see me writing in any foreign languages? No, I don't think so.
~news from the hometown...Jimi Hendrix's old house is on auction on eBay...
~and THIS! wow. I knew that the Industry Standard was getting a bit thin but wow...now that frightens me most of all bout marketing in today's economy. No one is buying enough ads to keep them afloat, sigh sigh sigh. Which means no one is hiring the ad buyers either. :(
~that someone painted Niki's old house pink and purple...and I mean GARISH pink and purple.
~that my dear friend Joanie is getting married in a mere 16 days :) Roadtrip to Pittsburgh!!!
~
9:09 PM | link | up| archives |
8.14.2001
french fries
so my neighbors downstairs are nearly fresh off the boat from France. They've been here for about five months or so and damn, have they adapted! I think they are more American than me. The townhouse I'm in has a back patio area that technically all three apartments share. I even have a back stairway that leads directly down to the patio. However, Frenchies sort of took over...
The back patio, which we no longer feel comfortable using, has been overtaken! It is complete with BBQ, lighted torches and most amazing of all, a picnic table...a nice, expensive one with a very nice big green umbrella to go with it. Every weekend they have a little cookout for all their Eurotrash friends. The boyfriend and I manage to have much amusement from their little soirees. Last weekend they had nudie magazines scattered all over the table while they were cooking (one of their friends had a little girl there...maybe 4 years old). Half the weekends, Frenchie (we call the guy this mostly) is surrounded by about 8 women and only 2-3 other guys. He knows how to score!
In the meantime, while they are down there pounding beers and using way too much lighter fluid in the BBQ (they set off the house smoke detector the other day) to cook their burgers, the boyfriend and I are upstairs dining on lamb, eating cheese and drinking fine wine. Go figure.
11:51 AM | link | up| archives |
8.10.2001
musings
on my words page.
The Others was good...suspenseful, with a twist. Then again I really like Nicole Kidman. The children were amazing, believable actors.
2:52 PM | link | up| archives |
heat index
The boyfriend thinks I'm crazy when I mention it. It's the equivalent of 103 degrees right now if you factor in the humidity with the 88 degree temperature. Regular temp is supposed to be 98 today...what will the heat index be then? It sucks...my poor air conditioner feels like it isn't working at all. Sigh. Michael knew I would rant about the heat wave...I called him today and he says to me, "I knew you wouldn't be doing very well in this heat." And he's right, of course. The boyfriend is ready to go insane from my moodiness, my edginess. It makes me crazy and irrational. I find myself complaining and whining...highly unattractive traits, yes I know.
Mostly I find that I am YEARNING for the fall. New good things always happen to me in the fall. I always find new work in the fall, I fall in love in the fall, I feel better about myself in the fall. The cooler weather, the nearing holiday atmosphere, the change in seasons always brings about profound change in me. I want it to be mid-September right now. Cool but not too cool, the air smelling different, some leaves starting to change. I am more social then, more motivated, more excited. I don't know how to explain it at all but the energies are decidedly different and in a very good way.
Today, doing what millions of Americans without air conditioning do during a heat wave: go to the movies. Going to see The Others then I think I'll hole up at the Boston Public Library for awhile and do some more background research for my book. Gets me out of the house.
10:58 AM | link | up| archives |
8.9.2001
my mom sent this to me
For those of you who think they know everything:
1. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
2. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
3. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
4. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
5. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
6. There are more chickens than people in the world.
7. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
8. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
9. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the
Parliament building is an American flag.
10. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
11. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange,
silver, or purple.
12. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
13. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial
on the back of the $5 bill.
14. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
15. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
16. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable
17. There are only four words in the English language which end in
"dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
18. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina
de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
19. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
20. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
21. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
22. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
23. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
24. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert
the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
25. A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
26. A Goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
27. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
28. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
29. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
30. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
31. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar
tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
32. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
33. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
34. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
35. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the
left hand.
NOW you know everything!!
1:30 AM | link | up| archives |
8.7.2001
perception
my friend Greg FINALLY wrote me from China, so he is, thankfully, alive. :-) He always writes me the most amazing letters...I read them and take so much inspiration from them. Not just because he sends me these poems that make me salivate with jealousy at his skill, but also because the stories he tells me are so unusual and personal--they make me both warm and sad because we can't just get together over a bottle of wine to laugh and cry together. He's in the FINISHING stages of his novel...well far more so than I am. I'm planning, he's finishing...chuckle.
I've realized that a lot of what I feel on a day-to-day basis is guilt. Maybe I should have been born a Catholic...then a few Hail Marys and I could be done with it. Sigh. I feel guilty for not working. Guilty for having to rely on someone to help me with my bills. Guilty for letting inertia take me over. Guilty for not writing. Guilty for a myriad of things. The guilt often moves into a stage where it becomes dread...the terrible "wrong" feeling overtakes me and I get restless and moody. Or sometimes it just takes me into depression and I feel near on the verge of tears for a few days. I DO feel like I'm on a rollercoaster and the problem is that most of the time it isn't very fun. I'm not a terrible load of no fun to be around...I go through stages where I'm upbeat and hopeful then times when I just feel the weight of the world on me.
I'm wracking my brains trying to figure out what else I can do besides marketing right now...because no one is hiring marketing people now and if they are, there are 400 people just like me sending in their resumes too. It's just very disheartening. I temped yesterday...stuffing envelopes for 8 hours straight. Papercuts and rough hands later, I walked away feeling quite literally degraded. Here I am, finally feeling like I was starting to get ahead careerwise...building and shaping company identities, managing millions of dollars of marketing budget, directing significant exposure creating projects...and now, I am reduced to stuffing fucking envelopes in an office where people are polite but treat me like I have less than half a brain in my head. It IS disgraceful how some people treat temporaries, btw. Keep that in mind next time you hire one...they might just be down on their luck trying to make a buck while they get on their feet...just because they are temping doesn't mean they are blithering idiots or that they got fired from their last job or that they are only fit for secretarial and assistant work. Sigh. Now I'm ranting.
I just never thought that *I* would be one of those statistics. I look at my resume and my jaw sometimes falls open---is that me? Did I accomplish all that? Then the anger creeps in...why the hell doesn't anyone want me?
But amazingly...after only a few short months creating havoc with the economy...monkey man is taking a month long vacation. That will make 1/4 of his presidency residing in Texas and not in the White House. Honestly, there is no other figure in the media today that I see in the papers, on TV, hear about...and actually feel physical revulsion for. My pulse races, my anger grows and I literally have to turn the channel, flip the page.
Dang this post is all over the place today. Sort of representative of my poor head I suppose.
2:22 PM | link | up| archives |
8.4.2001
oh and
Stephanie....
I miss you. :-) Hug your mom and dad and brother for me. Wave at Nine Mile Falls when you drive by it. Remember how we used to scrunch down in the car and pretend that the trees were monsters and they were going to come get us. How your mom used to spray perfume on all five of us at the Crescent when we would go in. How I ripped my pants playing on the inner tube in your front yard and you and Misty made fun of me. The Dolphin club (chortle). Swimming off your dock. Riding our bikes around and around that stupid dead end at the end of our street. Running around in the Greenbelt picking flowers. I remember so clearly the look on your face when Lizzy was hit by the bus...and I remember Gary O. picking you up at your house and tossing you off the dock. And a hobo party we had one time...and the crazy hat party. And you, there, at my wedding.
You deserve a much bigger mention than all this. I think we even drew blood once, in a pinky sort of ritual that kids did (sort of like the pineneedle where is the booger game). You are a sister to me always. *hugs*
1:45 AM | link | up| archives |
8.3.2001
kickass little tool
to get rid of all those annoying popup ads. Adsoff is a cool little download program that eliminates popup ads (and even the regular ads on a page if you desire). Best little freeware program I've seen all year. Woohoo!!!
10:22 AM | link | up| archives |
8.2.2001
writing
is a precarious thing for me. I always feel out of balance, sort of teetering on the edge of something fantastic or something that could resemble a pile of mud.
Right now I'm doing a lot of research and setup for this novel...it's a new approach for me. Usually I just sit down and hammer out a story but now I am trying something different. I often get stopped in mid-story, losing interest or feeling stuck as to where to go next. Instead of dealing with that dilemma, I'm discovering the plot ahead of time, which sounds a lot more logical, huh? I'm not typically the most logical of creatures, however. It has a time travel element in it, which I have discovered is a MASSIVE challenge. A good one for me and I'm learning about the 4th dimension, about new myths about the births of gods and goddesses and great sci-fi/fantasy resources. In a way, I love the research. I love the surfing, the discovering of new angles and aspects to the things that I am writing.
Niki thinks people will laugh if they discover she wants to write a romance novel. I think that rocks...plus the market is always good for romance. One of my English professors in college got his start writing romance novels. There will be an element of romance in my book, even if it is a fantasy novel. The boyfriend, who is instrumental in helping me figure out plot holes, thumbs his nose up at throwing the mush into the book...but the truth is, we all love the mush...and I can write the mush and write it well and so why would I leave that out? It just needs to be more unexpected when in the midst of a fantastical story with unlikely characters.
Doing the research keeps me motivated when I'm not in the place to write just yet. I've thrown together a good 30 pages already but in putting the plot in place ahead of time I'm realizing that I need to rewrite them all. I've been looking for information on how other authors have written their books...do they just write and hope the story comes out of it? Do they have everything in their head before settling down at the keyboard? Do they have the barebones outline and they fill it in as they go? I'm always curious to know what works for some people and doesn't for others.
1:27 PM | link | up| archives |
