families start and stop at a distance. i could write a laundry list of things i didn't know or forgot, i can't tell the difference except this weird nagging somewhere really far in the back of my head "mom told you this, mom told you this". my closest cousin is engaged and his grandmother died. both of which i sufficiently stuck my foot in my mouth regarding at some point or another. my grumpy is being admitted to a v.a. home sometime this fall. there is this image of him i have in my mind. christmas, 1996. we're at a reststop in grande ronde. he's travelling closer to my aunt than to me. we pull over. bathroom breaks, snacks and gas on our primary list of cosumable goods. he's shouting and laughing, his hands are at his waist. probably at donna, i'm not sure. i'm laughing and thinking that nothing compares to this. not anything. he's being belligerent in a way that only a grandpa can be and i'm forgetting a laundry list of adolescent offensives as a result. i remember camping trips and stops at his house after we moved and my brother and i entagled in an endless game of monopoly and ping-pong and the crash test dummies and quarters from condom machines. and i forget most anything else. i don't remember when things got so bad. but the thing about distance, i don't really care to recall.

"Smile awhile, grumpy" --table 107 to me on their dinner check.

i really don't think it occurs to him that he was just a jackass and that the table next to them thought i was charming as hell.

i've just returned from vacation and even though i didn't physically >go< anywhere (except by bus or rental car or duckboat) I am finding that my life feels as much in disarray as if i had just come back from a month stint in Laos. i >phew!< found my bank card in the couch cushions (the lack really made me sweat in the new york bus terminal two days ago), i have lost two roommates and gained two more (one of whom subscribes to US Weekly which does not bode well for me. especially since she leaves it in the bathroom. that is the thing with "guilty" pleasures, there supposed to come out >after< face-to-face interactions), my phone died, my battery in my camera died, i think i am eight pounds heavier and i promised someone (probably myself) i wouldn't drink anymore. or maybe for a week. something like that.

if you've ever worked in a restaurant you'll understand why i really, really don't want to go to work today.

when moms come to town, it's all martha's vineyard and the isabella stewart gardner museum. when dads come to town it's all baseball games and beerfests and day trips to maine for lobster. and i don't know if it is only because i am so hopelessly middle class, but dammit if i am not a flexible little hostess. though i must admit, buying vitamin water and pancakes for premeditated hang-overs is the fun part about dads and brothers.

when referring to society's "underbelly" i imagine that i am supposed to consider such individuals as 'jim' sleeping in the bank of america atm, 'joe' dragging a dunkin' donuts chair mid-way between the coffee shop and the liquor store or 'tim' walking up and down between st. mary street and coolidge corner in the middle of the road with his fly undone. yet the late modern connotation of an "underbelly" indicates not only how the "other half lives" but also how the "other, other half lives", that is, any aspect of a society that induces the form of an emotion that results in the sort of "someone ought to do something about this" conviction. in this vein, i would like to proclaim that Mantra, the hot-hot night club in downtown boston out-horrifies any housing project i have seen to date.

i don't belong at clubs. well, i mostly just don't belong at clubs with names like "Mantra" famous for its steel "M" and the seven-foot male bouncers at the door. and i certainly don't belong there in holey, ratty jeans that haven't been washed in two weeks, a graphic t-shirt and flat shoes of any kind. yet i am convinced that if one does stand by a "life is as interesting as you make it" sort of principle (which i am not saying i do) than certainly night clubs committed to the weekend entertainment of the nouveau-riche with loud music and armani sunglasses count. in our modern day and age such an excursion should to be linked with, even morally perhaps, to the visiting of homeless shelters. boston night-clubs chock full of cocaine and girls in lame tops who let boys take pictures of their thongs really ought to be addressed on a socio-political scale.

but i kind of had fun, too.

aaaand..i just filed my taxes. in the nick of spankin' time.

i've been walking this dog for awhile now. shanti is her name. we'll offer her a proper name. her owner, who apparently has no shame and/or no doubts that about my integrity (i did tell her i study philosophy), has this funny habit of leaving around paperwork that should properly be stowed away in filing cabinets where they can't be >happened< upon by my incorrigibly wandering eyes. today it was unpaid energy bills, an oustanding credit card debt and a card indicating her next appointment with her psychotherapist. not that any of these are terribly surprising, she is forty-four (oh yeah, an expired drivers liscense was among the conspicuous), unmarried and hopelessly devoted to her nearly entirely personality deficient dog. anyway, i posted to craigslist in a fit of existential academic angst. i thought an hour every couple of days away from the computer screen/library/desk would do my >soul< wonders, a sheer testament to how one can live with oneself for twenty-six years and still not "know thyself". of course i wake up every walking day and think "shit, there is just no way to get out of this". I've already feigned sick once and now that excuse is bunk for another six months at least.

today we walked through brookline village. i wondered if this is how having a child would be. it sounds like a great idea, but in the end a little more commitment than you were bargaining for and no good excuse to be rid of it and still be qualified as a human being (you know, there is another living, breathing thing at stake. it's not like flaking on an intramural soccer team). so i tried to chart my relationship with shanti, whether we were getting to properly "know" one another yet. she barely responds to my commands (even with food in hand), resists my feeble attempts to pull her out of the neighbors budding front yards, and couldn't care less if i take her to a dog park or around the block six times. most of the time she walks me. she >does< know the neighborhood a bit better. she is more interested in trees than small children on tricycles (can i pet your doggie?) and more interested in the dog bones i'll be giving her when she gets home than in how >my< day is going. i tried thinking of her as an obstinate eight year old. in this scenario, i am her babysitter whose seeming indifference only serves to enamor the child to me (i cannot tell you how many children adored me as a babysitter almost entirely because i did my best to be disinterested in them) . i tried thinking of the ways in which i was morally obligated to complete the whole walk and to allow her time to relieve herself in the meanwhile. i tried to think of her waiting for me every monday/wednesday/friday in anticipation since i, unlike her owner, lack a certain flavor of crazy. to no avail. don't get me wrong, i'm not a bad person. i take the dog for her full thirty minutes, talk cheeringly with her, let her eat the crushed goldfishes left by her counterparts at the playground.

the playground. this is where the story finishes. while walking shanti through the park (naturally, more for my enjoyment than hers) i noticed a quite normal looking, late-thirties woman eyeing shanti and myself as we crossed the distance between us. i was convinced she was planning on chastising me for bringing an unfriendly dog (she isn't vicious, just so obviously disinterested) into a place where nearly a hundred small children and their families were. i had judged her before she had the chance to judge me: a liberal, rich woman in her late thirties who had postponed child-bearing while getting an M.B.A. at Harvard after finishing law school in order to work for Fidelity Investments for the past six years. Alas, she asks me, as we are whisking by (the dog doesn't stop for anyting but trees, remember, not even oncoming traffic), what kind of dog she/he is.

"oh, i actually don't know. she isn't mine" i say, halting as much as i am allowed.

"isn't that just like a peter sellers' movie?" she laughs

i nod dumbly. only in brookline.

i love diversification. i love five colors for iPod shuffles and vitamin-enhanced Coke and seventeen different espresso combinations (double shot over ice is my current favorite). I love that practicing yoga comes with at least one adjective (mine is properly "baptiste power vinyasa yoga"). I love American Apparel and Chuck Taylor's and never picking the same toothpaste/dish detergent/hair product twice. watching synthetic products that no one ever even considered needing and wondering, even while it lies on the shelf unused, how i had ever gotten by without it (warming facewash anyone? electrolyte enhanced water?). It's undemocratic, anti-humanitarian and probably contributes to global warming, but i just can't help myself. i could probably waste days walking through CVS pharmacy alone in quietly sober, quasi-orgasmic pleasure.

ritual "om"'s and mantras about life being all about the "transitions" aside, i sortta dig yoga. except the arm/wrist/hand numbing part. i am assured that is the result of childhood injuries and will subside as my body and >mind< grow stronger. whatever, eventually cigarettes and beer don't abate ennui as they used to and, being the intrepid individuals we are, new methods are advanced. yoga. yoga and tea and not going to espresso royale are this year's model.

in accordance with folk psychology, your grandmother's recipe and eric's snarky claims, running actually >does< cure hang-overs. and otherwise general malaise.

i like canadians. salt-less bagels, expensive booze and cheap eats.

in a terrible turn of events, i discovered in the wee hours of the morning that i actually >like< dick cheney. a lot. i think he is about as bad-ass as they come insofar as people >come< when they are forced to spend their days tooling around with lesser mortals.

it's also terrible to admit that i resent having my wine-key, lighters and face wash thrown away at international airports. i mean seriously, since when was a apple-toting twenty-six year old female graduate student a threat to national security? i think >never< is the correct answer here and i am tired of democracy.

boston/beacon street should be declared a national disaster area. at least that way we could blame FEMA for the terrifying incompetence that has descended into my neck of the woods in the last thirty-six hours. the mooninites have nothing on the public works bureau within my four block radius. i walked to work through nearly a foot and a half of standing water last night and skated across sidewalks on the campus of the largest private university this side of the mississippi. whatever.

on another note. i would not recommend asking someone for a date over IM. it's really terrible awkward for the askee (read: me).

there is something very, very disturbing about this post to "Craigslist: Missed Connections".

Feb 13th: Walmart- You wearing blue "cheer" sweats and red sweatshirt - m4w

what the fuck? perhaps i am only bitter because someone with "cheer" sweats had a missed connection in WALMART and i can't get one if i wore nothing but stockings strutting down beacon street. I think my obsession with the missed connection phenomenon is a bit juvenile, a bit outdated and very, very compulsive. if i just had one, maybe i could finally be done with this thing.

a man approached the podium at lunch today. we are a small cafe, i grant him that. coffee after a day museum-ing is a nice break, i can grant him that too. what i cannot concede is belligerence. can you come in for coffee? sure. can you sit at the only table of four for your 2.50 cup of coffee? no, not right now, thank you very much. "so actually there isn't anywhere i can go for coffee?" no, that isn't >actually< the state of affairs. you asked me a spatio-temporal question about the possibility of having coffee here. yes, but i'll need you to wait another ten minutes or so. i'm quite sorry if i can't accomodate your immediate need. i want to ask: "are you a grown man-child?" as he huffs and stalks away. "I don't appreciate your attitude", i do say, desperate for a counter. I really wanted to lay it out for him, right there in front of the other patiently waiting would-be patrons. are we a service-industry? absolutely. is there any circumstances under which we should be required to tolerate grown wo/man-children? absolutely not. it is a simple maxim. if my niece (albeit, theoretically three-year old niece) has more manners than you, i reserve the right, categorically, to refuse you service. just once i would like to meet these people on the street.

beware. nobody remembers your bad behavior better than your waitress. our memories are infinite.

does anyone else think that maybe we kinda should put some sort of a "cap" on the number of individuals one party can allow to open "presidential exploratory" committees? my head is spinning and we have over a year and a half until the nomination. in the end, the parties are infighting nearly seven times longer than they try to defeat actual opponents. not that i don't love bill richardson, but holy shit. what are we at already? seven? i get the whole "anyone can run for president thing" american democracy heurism of our youth, but this is a little silly...we all know that doesn't mean just >anyone<.

anyway, this is pretty funny. especially nancy reagan at the end.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flowgo.com%2Ffunpages%2Fview.cfm%2F6660

i left my cellphone at the washington square tavern a few days ago. the thing is, i literally had not had a phone call in over a week and figured it wouldn't be such a big deal; it is fucking cold outside. of course there were seven messages that started with "I really wish you had picked up, listen i was wondering if you could (fill in favor here) tonight (the night my phone was sitting safe in a canister on the bar two blocks away). "

i'm feeling a bit bored and socially dysfunctional, so i "youtubed" jon stewart clips for two hours or so--jon stewart calling tucker carlson a dick, bill o'reilly calling jon stewart fans "stoned slackers", jon stewart banning christmas, jon stewart pointing out that his constituency is actually far more educated and more informed on political issues than o'reilly's constituency....it really has a significant impact on my emotional health. if you should find yourself in a similar state of mind, i strongly recommend fox news' "most read" column. titles like "half-animal woman is discovered after spending 19 years alone in a Cambodian jungle" and "Artist serves friends meatballs cooked in his own liposuctioned fat". seriously. see for yourself:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244522,00.html

when is a heap a heap? there are these funny little ambiguities in logic. when determination becomes intuitive and is unquantifiable in degrees or discrete measures. how we just >know< we've had too many cigarettes or too many drinks, but we're not sure which drink or drag it was. it wasn't the second or third. maybe the third drink of the fifth glass of wine, but what part of that third drink and what drag from the fourth cigarette? it's like looking back on the last two weeks and realizing...wow, i'm really angry about x, y and z to the point of doing w. it reminded me of those little "catch" sermon metaphors from youth groups in years gone by...the way it is never the "big" sins that get you, but the little teeny-tiny ones you barely notice that suddenly become a big pile of something unpleasant and call for expedient and often violent removal.

and now, i am counting down the minutes until e-music refreshes for this month so i can buy the rest of this album:

http://www.bonsavants.com/

because it is inappropriate to post where i want to (as the following will clearly delimit), i am announcing four etiquette rules ready for application to this quaint yet altogether rhetorically decrepit world of >blogging<

1. It is never okay to morally/ethically/teleologically denounce someone for being honest about an experience, how they feel, their lifestyle, etc. if you don't agree with their lifestyle/opinions/state of mind, don't read the thing. and dear god, please please do not post your moralizing "concerns" publicly. reply privately, in an email (remember email?). start with: "look, i am concerned about you" as opposed to "what you are doing/saying/thinking/writing is lame and here is why"


2. don't argue things you don't know with people you don't know.


3. you are not beatnik wanna-be "Dig" or "The Stranger" writer. besides, that shit gets old even from them.


4. if you are going to write concerning subjects that are generally offensive (e.g., abortion pro or against, spouse-swapping or American Democracy), especially if there is some sort of public exhortation following to a. pray or b. riot in the streets, please make your settings private or "friends only" and then i don't have to be tempted to break every one of my three previous rules when i have had too much to drink and i blame your narrow-sightedness for all of (my) life's problems.


good night and good luck.

i tripped today walking into the post office. it was one of those silly things. like all good brookline grandmothers, i hadn't bothered to box any of the over-sized christmas presents that had no chance of making it in carry-on luggage. i chose instead to wait and do it at the post office while waiting in line, fumbling with tape and trying to borrow a pen off some nice employee or a fellow post office patron. delicately balancing slippers and glass coasters on the box with my new coffee pot in it, i was stepping up on the curb when the side of my second foot miscalculated how far it needed to go. granted, i had a pint of beer with lunch and was wearing chinese slippers and it has been raining for days....

so three broken coasters, one broken plastic ring and unexplainable bloody fingers later, s. came around the corner as i was picking myself up off the floor: "god, are you okay?"

it's funny how when i am a touch blue the silliest physical pain can bring me so close to tears--some subtle affirmation that god actually >doesn't< love me and >doesn't< want me to be happy.

but the blood always dries and the package gets sent and the >cutest< coasters don't break, and really i am mostly fine now. but ready to go home.

i've suddenly been thrown into working--not at the husband-wife-down-to-earth spanish restaurant i was initially sold---but at something that resembles one of those scary places on newbury where employees do coke in the bathrooms. everything from estranged co-owners who lovelove to talk shit about the other--on >His< or >Her< night off--to any of the regulars that happen to come by. and then there is E. offering me >contraband< she's trying to get rid of before the holidays.

as A.T. resigned, the only real addictions in life these days are the internet and cigarettes. Unfortunately both tend to make studying a bit more complex and a bit more disjointed, and an illegal subscription to adderall sounds a bit more appealing. she invited us back last night after work, thankfully R. and I wisely declined and avoided any weakness of will that inevitably accompanies two or three glasses of wine...

On the flip-side, i've acquired four new albums (all via the internet of course--The Hold Steady (Boys & Girls in America), Pavement (Slanted and Enchanted), Mission of Burma (Obliterati) and Joanna Newsome (Ys)---one of these is not like the other.

oh. and there is also the unholy amount of Tom Waits paraphernelia on e-bay that i have been bidding on. did i mention aristotle? oh right. I'm writing on weakness of the will of course, using myself as a test case pretty much all the time.

I was musing to A.B. a few days ago, on my way to The Department that there was probably something wrong with >her< and not me if i felt like i needed a shot of tequila before i did something as simple as fill out a registration form. my worries have proven justified, as we have just launched off an exchange of restrainedly hostile emails concerning my "full-time" status and whether or not i am eligible for tuition assistance. I deigned to point out that for my >field<, my department boasts only TWO professors. of those TWO only ONE is offering a course at the graduate level (and even then, it is cross-registered). whatever. three years ago this shit would have turned me inside out, but i am learning diplomacy, slowly and surely.

two, PR had their >perhaps< annual christmas party last night meaning the five guinesses i consumed were on the house. it was a winter wonderland.

lastly, insomnia struck saturday night for nearly four hours. hoping that it was a mind decompressing and not the result of a clean and sober day, i laid awake in bed and mapped the contents of my room the way i used to--closing my eyes and trying to remember just right where everything was in case, someday, i needed to re-create it. i tried to remember how many old rooms i remembered, and realized sadly that i couldn't conjure up familiar sounds about rooms i had occupied in the last four years nearly as clearly as rooms from high school or middle school or the old house in willamina. i listened to the T, the cars going by and the way it played with the light coming in from the bay windows, sliding across the ceiling. I actually lived in my room instead of just napping there...for a few hours anyway.

might i suggest taking caution if ever you happen to encounter a friend hanging out inexplicably in >your< neighborhood (it's not a weekend, they are alone, they don't live there, they aren't coming to see you)--chances are their answer could be: "oh, well, this is where my shrink is".

so we both laughed and i asked her for a reference. really, the only reasonable way to respond. and anyway, i probably should see a shrink.


i had another david lynch-ish dream chock full of sexual deviance, standing water, cabaret-esque mansions and live rat-eating by one of my professors.