I seem to have become unable to fall asleep in a timely fashion. I stay up too late, waiting until after the Daily Show to walk the dog and brush my teeth, and I'm yawning and bumping into things on my way to bed, and then I just lie there in the dark, wide awake. I'm not really even thinking about much, though I guess there's a general existential crisis. I think I'd sleep better if I didn't spend all evening inside my apartment, making crafts and watching TV and reading stuff online. It's almost like being half-asleep, doing those things.

Yesterday I did the very bad thing of taking a nap after work, which worked against me in two ways: It made me miss the show at P.A.C.E. I had wanted to see (and would have gotten me out of my apartment), and it made it just as hard to fall asleep later. Thank God the weekend is here to help put a stop to my secret shame.

Anyway. My blogging friend Jennifer wrote about her own overhearing-her-mom story, and you should read it because she is a hoot.

Remember way back on February 27th, when I went on and on about an old video game my sister and I used to play, and we couldn't remember the name of it?

Well it is found. It's called Agent U.S.A. I have my sister to thank. She downloaded a PDF of "Classic Gamer Magazine" from a link provided by the wonderful boingboing, and that zine had an ad for the game. I love the internet!

p.s. I was totally right about the "people" in the game being just a hat and feet.

Another highlight of the weekend was my sister and I overhearing my post-menopausal mother sing the praises of Astroglide to her also post-menopausal best friend. After she listed a few of the lube's various qualities, I blurted out "Oh my god, stop! We can hear you!!" They were standing not five feet from me, yet they acted surprised that we had heard. I blame the wine.

I spent the holiday weekend at my parents' house in New Jersey. It was fine. It was all very baby-centric, because my sister and her four-month-old was there. Which is fine, because I Believe That Children Are Our Future. I did remark at one point that I could lose an arm and no one would notice, which caused the people around me to joke, 'Yes we'd notice because then you couldn't hold the baby as well.' Ha ha. Ha.

We all went to a family friend's house for supper and fireworks on the Fourth, and because I had no choice, I had to bring my dog. The house is very close to the park where the fireworks are set off, and you can get a great view from the yard. I knew this would not go well. When the shells first started my dog just seemed startled, but then with each explosion she kept trying to back up, to get away from the noise and the flashing. Then she started panting and trembling, and I didn't want this to develop into a full-blown anxiety response (because I've heard other dogs who were upset by fireworks went on to become nervous wrecks during thunderstorms) so I took off. The group was busy seeing how my baby niece was reacting to the show, so I just told them I had to go, and we walked as fast as we could down the street in the other direction from the fireworks. Walking seemed to calm her, or at least give her a purpose, so I kept going. The friends' house is in a charming little town with historic buildings onstreets lined up nicely in a grid. It was cool to see them illuminated by the fireworks, the sidewalks mostly deserted except for the occasional person sitting in their yard watching the show. I turned onto the shadiest streets, trying to get some sizeable buildings between us and the noise. I kept walking and walking, onward and upward and away. By the time the big finale began, the dog was relaxed enough to stop and sniff at interesting things. So I turned us around and started walking back. About halfway there I bashed into the river of people walking home from the park. I had to swim upstream. When I got within a block my dad was waiting on the sidewalk as though he had been about to come search for me. "There you are," he said. My sister was worried I had been kidnapped, but my dad seemed more concerned that we were now unable to get a jump on the traffic. The drive home was slow and grim, the baby crying because we weren't moving (she had been calm throughout the fireworks show).

I was so good. I got into bed, lights out, before midnight last night. Finally, I was going to get at least 7 hours of sleep on a week night! My productivity at work was going to be phenomenal.

Then at around 2 a.m., I started dreaming that the city was under attack. I drifted up through a few layers of awakefulness and realized it was a thunderstorm. The lightning was non-stop. Flash, flash-flash! Flash, flash, FLASH-flash! And the thunder seemed to be rolling in both from nearby and far away, surrounding me. I had been in the deepest level of sleep, so I could barely move. But with my windows open all the way just a few feet from my head, I felt endangered by the violence of the storm. I live in an attic, after all - I'm high up and have nothing above me except a flimsy roof. So with all of the energy and adrenaline I could muster, in a desperate attempt to try to save my own life, I managed to turn over onto my other side and lay an arm across my head.

It seems to have worked, for I survived the night. But I did not get my full-night's sleep. Curse you, Thor!

This is all purely hypothetical speculation.

If a girl, hypothetically, has an online personals ad, and that girl's profile says she is looking for a certain age range (a range reasonably centered around her own, clearly posted, age), would you contact the girl if you were the same age as the girl's father, and seriously expect a response?

Similarly, would you expect a response from a girl if your "More about what I'm looking for" answer said only "a woman who knows how to pleasure a man"?

Say you're about ten years older than the upper end of a girl's age range. And you also say, without irony, that one of your favorite songs is the James Taylor/Carly Simon version of "Mockingbird." Would you still think you had enough of a shot to spend a credit sending a message?

Wow, has it really been five days since I last posted? So sorry, dear readers.

For my first step in becoming a celibate groupie, I went to Provincetown with some rockstar friends this weekend. H and L rented a huge 15-passenger Chrystler Behemoth (actually I believe the model name was "Express") for the occasion, though there were only 6 passengers out of an expected 8. No matter; we filled the vehicle with music and gaiety. We listened to B's Rio, which he claims is better than my iPod (though then he couldn't remember why). He had it on shuffle, which somehow translated into a lot of Mike Nesmith interspersed with "When Doves Cry" and "Birdhouse in your Soul" and that creepy Capt. Beefheart song about "the blimp, the blimp!"

We got to the Cape around 6:30 Saturday, and wandered around Commercial Street for a bit before dinner at the venue (the Squealing Pig). I lead the group to the salt-water taffy place and the Marine Supply Co., and on our way back to the Pig we walked right past M, who blended in so well we didn't even see him, dressed in a tight lavender t-shirt, gelled hair, and pink, heart-shaped, rhinestone-framed glasses. For dinner I took the band's recommendation for the lobster toastie (grilled cheddar cheese sandwich with fresh basil, tomato, and lobster meat: heavenly).

During set-up I wandered off alone. I had never been in P-Town after dark. The vibe is laid-back and fun and just a little libidinous and carnival-esque.

Back at the Pig, the Fawns and SFTD each played two short alternating sets, and both were extremely well-recieved by a diverse crowd. Groups of people kept arriving and then leaving and then re-arriving. There was a lot of freeform dancing, and simulated sex acts, and some singing along. The meme of "woo!"ing H's arm movements during "Omnivore" was perpetuated. It was loud and rockin' for such a small room, but it fit perfectly with the mood of the night.

After the show we packed the van, and then waited for our patron to come by after work so we could give her a ride to her home, where we'd be staying the night. There was some expectation of a party at the house, but everyone was tired and our benefactor had a plan to get up early for the Wellfleet flea market, so we stayed quiet. We took every available inch of free floor space for our beds. T and M got an air mattress, B and A got the absent-roommate's bed, and H and L got the fold-out couch (I was invited to share it with them, but frankly I have trouble sleeping in the same bed with people I'm actually sleeping with, so I declined). I ended up using three couch cushions, my circa-1980 camping mattress, and my sleeping bag to make a bed that just barely fit on the kitchen floor. I couldn't fall asleep for hours. When it started getting light outside I crept around the air mattress to the bathroom (noted: M sleeps on top of the covers), crept back to bed, and then had to creep back to close the bathroom door which kept clacking semi-shut in the wind. Then I fell asleep and woke up just 3 or so hours later to almost everyone all dressed and awake and going into the back yard to see the horses.

We had a bleary breakfast at a random place on Comm. Street. I got a short stack of blueberry pancakes, which was more like an extremely short stack. We walked to the shore and I took some band photos with H's camera. Then the Express took us to Race Point beach just so we could all touch the ocean and collect rocks and pile rocks and look at the amazing colors of the sky and the water and the dune grass. Then we headed home, stopping at PJ's for some soft-serve (medium twist, rainbow sprinkles). And then I couldn't stay awake. I am pretty sure that at one point I even made a pre-snoring "snerk!" noise, but my friends are too polite to say anything. (I wasn't the only one having trouble with consciousness.) Thanks for the fun adventure, everybody!

I had a really disjointed sleep last night. I think I may have been sleeping with my eyes open again. First, it took a while for me to fall asleep; every time I'd be about to slip into unconsciousness, my sleeping dog would start "dreaming," which means loud, closed-mouth barking. It sounds like "Mouf! Merf!" and is actually quite funny and adorable, though less so when it wakes you up on a nightly basis. Once I fell asleep, I soon woke up with a start to find myself staring into the out-of-focus darkened room, with what looked like bits of pink fluff or fabric floating through the air. I even reached out to touch them, to find out if they were really there. It's an unpleasant sensation, to wake up in the middle of the night and discover yourself hallucinating something in the room, even though it quickly coalesces into normalcy after I wake up enough to focus my eyes a little (in the case of the fluff, it just disappeared; in previous times, shapes that looked like people or looming objects turned back into the collection of pictures on the wall or my pillow). I did a tiny amount of online research on this eyes-open-sleeping phenomena today, and no, I am fairly certain I'm not being probed by aliens, nor do I take any hallucinogenic drugs, nor do I fall asleep drunk every night, nor do I have a thyroid problem. So I think maybe I'm just a little weird.

Laurel Park, the neat converted-summer-homes/former-Christian-camp housing development a little ways out of town, had a big tag sale going on Saturday morning, so I stopped by. The tag sale in the common house wasn't very inspiring, but about 8 of the little houses nearby were having their own sales. It was great to have a reason to just wander around. The houses are all slightly smaller than what you'd imagine a house to be, and most of them are very close to their neighbors, and so people have gotten creative with their gardens and with making the most of their space. They run the place like a co-op with monthly fees and community events.

One of the people holding a tag sale was a woman, she couldn't have been more than forty, with a ridiculous bouffant wig on her head. It was obviously fake. She looked like an early Loretta Lynn. And it didn't go along at all with her casual clothes and lack of makeup. The stuff she was selling was cool - some neat old books, just like the ones I collect, and some old wooden toys, among other flotsam. A shopper picked up a small red elephant pull-toy and asked how much it was. She said, "Oh, I don't know... I always have second thoughts when it comes to selling my things. I just really like old things, you know? They just have more meaning for me... Okay, let's say $5, because I don't care if I sell it." Later I bought a $1 book from the 1920s about women's sex lives, and she gave me a half-full pad of watercolor paper for free.

All right, the story's not that interesting. The point is that I could have been her, a few years down the line. A couple of years ago I contemplated buying a house in Laurel Park for $90k - a price unheard of nowadays for anything but a mobil home in this town - because, as I said, they're super charming and sweet, and perfect for one person, especially for the price. But I was too afraid I'd turn into crazy-wig lady: A single woman who spends a lot of time around her house making it all cozy and funky and interesting, while slowly getting older and lonlier and more isolated, losing touch with old friends until her only social activities are with the old ladies in the development. It is true that I do think it's just as likely that I could live there and have a ball and make it work, but the crazy-wig lady archetype is still standing there in the corner of my brain, fretting over the fate of her odd little collections. And I'm just too young to want to be her.

So I have just a few random odds and ends this morning, things that didn't seem important enough to be their own posts (like that's ever stopped me before. But seriously folks...).

The food bank collection box at my office is still there in the kitchen, still accepting donations. It hasn't been emptied/delivered in months. Inside of it right now: A bunch of pasta, a JollyTime popcorn ball maker (two hemi-spherical pieces of plastic), Stop n' Shop brand pumpkin pie filling, and the winner of worst donation of all goes to: An open, half-eaten jar of organic baby food (mashed squash, I think), which I threw away upon discovery.

If you are a person who does not blush, and you happen to meet and spend time with someone who does blush, let me give you this piece of advice: If your new acquaintence starts blushing for whatever reason, the thing to do is NOT to say "Hey look, you're blushing! Wow, your face is getting sooooo red! It's like neon red! Ha ha ha! Hey everyone, look at her blushing!" Saying things like this to me means an automatic sucker-punch to the gut. Then I will rain bitch-slaps upon your face, until I am able to stand back and triumphantly say, "Hey look at how red her face is! You look like a candy apple! Ha! Ha! HA!" A jury of people who blush would acquit me in a second. The correct thing to do: Ignore the blushing entirely.

A few weeks ago as I was walking my dog on my street, a car drove up slowly next to me and the window rolled down to reveal a late-middle-aged woman with fussy hair. She said "I hope you pick up after that dog." I said yes, I always did, I am a responsible pet-owner. "Do you have bags with you?" Yes, yes I did have bags. I'm very responsible, I always pick up the poop. She chuckles and says "But do you USE the bags? Because they're no good unless you use them!" Uh, yes, I always, always use them. (Didn't we go over this?) She pulls into the driveway of the house diagonal from mine. Her house is huge and expensive-looking and her lawn is weed-free. Now, every time I pass by it, I think about leaving a neatly-tied baggie of my dog's poop on her porch. This very morning my dog took a dump on her property, and I contemplated leaving it there out of spite; but I didn't. Because I am a responsible dog owner, not one of the many, many people who carry around plastic bags just for fun and fashion.

So the family torture weekend never became torture. I actually had a good time. It's true. I made it up to the New Hampshire house around 9:30 on Friday night, and dinner hadn't even been served yet. It turns out that my father's-father's side of the family are a bunch of fun drunks. Well, they aren't loud and crazy, but they enjoy the wine. At the house were my grand-uncle's children (four daughters) and several of the daughters' spouses and young-adult children. Their newly-widowed mother was also there. I really like her; she seems to be more optimistic and open than my grandmother, who has always seemed unhappy and disappointed (at least since I was a baby). Anyway, dinner was nice. I was under some questioning that put me on the spot, which I don't like, but I had decided before I arrived to enjoy myself as much as I could, so when I had the floor I was joking around a little, going with the flow. By the end of the night I was feeling like I was fitting in. The nonstop wine pouring might have had something to do with that.

The next day we drove up north to Sabbaday Falls (the name is from the early-settlers' slurring of Sabbath Day) and we met up with my parents and my grandmother. It was a perfect weather day. It's the very start of motorcycle week, and there were Harleys everywhere, lots of people riding on the curvy roads of the White Mts. National Park without helmets (Live Free or Die!). I was concerned that the "Impeach Bush" bumper sticker on my car was going to get me a punch in the face, but it never materialized. One motorcycle's licence plate frame said "MY OTHER TOY HAS TITS." You kind of have to admire these guys for resolutely staying put in the seventies.

At the Falls area, we wheelchaired the two widows up a dirt path to a place upstream from the head of the falls. We turned off and gathered in a clearing in the trees near the river, and a few people gave some readings: a couple of psalms, an e.e. cummings poem, and a letter my grand-uncle wrote to my grandfather in the 40s. Then it was time. My dad took the small cardboard box out of a paper bag and opened it to reveal a sturdy clear-plastic bag, tied with a plastic tie with a metal dogtag on it. Inside the bag were the white ash remains of his father. I followed him to the rocky riverbank, where he untied the bag, and calmy perched on some rocks and poured, slowly, the ash into the water. It's amazing how small a body becomes when all of the water is steamed away. How colorless, too. As he poured the ash into the stream, a large plume of white filled the pool below, and dissipated slowly on its way to the sea.

Then it was my grandfather's brother's turn to be laid to rest. His daughters opened up the bag of his ashes and they each scooped a cup and spread it on the ground. Then they took the remaining ash and cast it into the water, "so they can play together" my mom said. They were all crying, whereas my parents and I were more sober about it all. My grandfather died after suffering from Alzheimers for years, where my grand-uncle had died just two months after being diagnosed with cancer, so the pain was still a shock to them.

We each gathered a rock or two from the river (choosing some nice pieces of New Hampshire granite) and then made our way down to the picnic area at the bottom. We decided it would be best to wheel my grandmother down backwards, since she could lean back that way, and there were some giddy near-mishaps along the way. My grandmother was chuckling over it all, while being bounced around down the path.

After eating lunch I said goodbye to the main group; my grand-aunt (?) said it was nice to get to know me better, which was very sweet. My parents and two of my dad's cousins decided to go to Center Harbor and a huge fancy quilt store there. I made Mom ride with me so we could chat and she could see for herself how non-depressed I am. I think it worked. After the quilt store I drove back home, totally tired and almost driving off the road; I made it home just in time to go see my friends play a show at PACE, but I decided instead to relax at home and then just go to the after-party at 11:30. I stayed up until 4:30, which meant that Sunday was mostly a wash; I didn't really leave my bed until 2 p.m. But all in all I had a good weekend, despite (or maybe because of?) my cranky Friday venting.

I'll get to the weekend recap in a minnit. First here's a nice pic of me and my niece, taken nine days ago. My mom swears she looks exactly like we did when we were babies, which I can tell from looking at old photos of us. It's like my sister cloned herself. Although we were completely bald - including eyebrows - for our first two years of life, the hair grew in with a vengeance. See the photographic proof:

My weekend plans have been shot by the disintegration ray weilded by the matriarchs in my family. I didn't go out last weekend (I was in Brooklyn with the family instead) and I haven't gone out all week, so I was looking forward to throwin' a penny tonight. But alas, instead I will drive three hours to stay in the living room of some relatives I don't know very well, without the buffer of my parents or sister to help me. For my very old grand-uncle (who I've met twice) is dead after a long illness, so we must gather here in a remote part of New Hampshire, The Asshole State (it's on their license plate! really!), even though three out of four of the guy's children live in California, where he also lived, by the way. And instead of it being in the afternoon, like you might expect a reunion on a beautiful late-spring day to be (and which would allow me to drive there in the morning and drive home at night), let's have a dinner. Oh and since we're all going to be together anyway, let's scatter my grandfather's ashes (my freshly-deceased-granduncle's brother), but let's do it an hour and a half NORTH (i.e. further away from me) of the reunion site, because god knows there just isn't anyplace pretty enough in the middle of the state, even though that's where my grandfather lived for most of his adult life. And let's set out for the ashes-scattering place at 9:30 in the morning, because it might take a while, what with the stopping every half an hour so my octogenarian grandmother can pee.

So the schedule seems to have been made specifically to ruin both nights of my weekend. I refuse to let that happen, so I'm skipping the evening event and will attend the ashes-scattering/lunch instead, which I actually am interested in being a part of, and which will allow me to be released with time served. I know the plan that was formed has absolutely nothing to do with me, and there are a ton of other people involved. And I feel guilty bitching about it (I'm venting here, though, so I can be pleasant and charming tonight and tomorrow). It's just kind of a puzzle, the way the plans were laid. I blame the passive-aggressive elderly yankees in the family.

I might be happier spending time with these folks, most of whom are smart and somewhat funny and who lead interesting lives. But I had a series of poisonous interactions with my extended family growing up which made me dread all activities with them. When we had family gatherings, the children (and my sister and I were the only children; I have two cousins, and they're both below the age of 12) were expected to sit quietly with their hands in their laps, along with the grown-ups in the sitting room, as they made polite chitchat for a couple of hours. It was excruciating and impossible for us, and when we failed to behave, we were made to feel flawed and out of control and just oh so very bad and wrong. It wasn't until years later that I realized that it wasn't my fault that I hated those times so much; normal people, and by normal I mean not joyless middle-class WASPs, would let the kids go play in the yard, or at least give them a game or a puzzle or a book and let them do their thing in a corner of the room.

So you must understand how I feel when I tell you how jealous I am of my sister, who has a newborn baby to take care of and so is excused from attending. She got out of a horrible family reunion held in the middle of Louisiana several years ago, too, though I don't quite remember how (she's a slippery one). That reunion gave me PTSD, I think. So she owes me Big Time.

This mp3, a reworking of an old song by Eric Idle, is hilarious and satisfying. (It's for adult ears only, and not work-safe.) In it he sings about being fined by the FCC, though I searched the web and couldn't confirm it, so it might be creative license. Through my search I happened upon Howard Stern's home page, which he has turned into a liberal blog site (but with, you know, more stuff about boobies and drinking). Awesome.

At about 8 p.m. tonight I noticed that it was getting dark very rapidly. I left my one little refrigerated room in my thrid-floor apartment and went over to the window in my bedroom. Lightning was flashing and the trees were whipping around in the wind. I leaned over to rest my elbows on the windowsill and stick my head up close to the screen, to be as close to outside as possible. The screen smelled like galvanized metal, kind of salty and bitter. The rain was coming down just a little bit, huge drops well spaced apart. The wind kept changing direction. Leaning inside the window frame, I could feel the house breathing: cooler air, along with a smattering of drops, would hit me face-on, and then things would shift and slower, heavier, warmer air would exhale around my back. I watched the electric blue flashes get closer and more in focus, and the rain got so hard I had to close the window to keep out the flood.

And that was the highlight of my night.

I wrote a cranky post over at Craftytown about the parade I decided not to attend yesterday. It might have been fun, had I gone with a bunch of friends, or a boyfriend if I had one. I'm still a bit sick, very phlegmy with the coughing and the nose-blowing and the unforgiveable "haaawk!" noises that I sometimes make when I forget that I'm at work in an open-plan office and everyone around me is cringing in revulsion. I really only do that very very rarely, but I'm sure it's happened. But what am I supposed to do, leave the building every two minutes to blow my nose and keep from drowning? Stay home for a week and a half just because I have a slight cold?

So, you may have noticed I'm trying out a new template. The problem is that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. Consequently, I shoved the links in wherever they could go (none of the templates have a built-in place for links. I don't know of a single blog without a list of links on the sidebar. What the fuck?), and the stuff I should be seeing on the right are way way down on the page. And I probably aren't available anymore on RSS feed or whatever it's called. Work in progress, please stand by...

Not much to see here - I'm sick as a dog. Cough, cough, hack, haaarrrrrck! I did find out that the Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer is online. I can't wait to see it. The film found a distributor, by the way - I think it's going to be in theaters by the end of this month. Rock.

Hi. Welcome back. I went for a hike yesterday. An illegal hike, up around the ruins of the old Mountain Park amusement park on Mt. Tom. I was actually looking for a series of letterboxes, but I couldn't find a single one - probably because after the most recent arsonist fire at the park, the city demolished the remaining structures, with the letterboxes in place, I assume. I had been to Mountain Park once when I was a kid, circa 9 years old, and all I remember is that it was night, and I rode a strange little train ride, and my dad talked my sister onto riding the roller coaster, and she came off of the ride crying because she hurt her toe on it somehow.

Anyway, I was very excited to check out yet another urban ruin. But I was not prepared for how intensely creepy the Mountain Park site is. It was about 3 p.m., with the sun shining, the temperature perfect, and yet I was nearly trembling from the icky feelings. But I was more fascinated than afraid, so I poked all around the overgrown cement platforms and old loading areas, all nearly reclaimed by the mountain's plants and trees. I saw many recent signs of human life: the usual smashed beer bottles and graffiti, but also a sodden pair of shorts, numerous paintball shells, and a condom. I saw three other people during the hour I was there; one was a man, one was a girl who was dressed like me (later I thought that I might have seen a spectral mirror image of myself), and one was a teenager holding a Big Gulp. They were all wandering alone, like me, and I avoided them. I was minding my own business, so they did the same.

Of course I took some pictures.


It's Always White here: (According to some of the graffiti I read, they sure wish it was.)




Once you hop the central gate, take a look to your left and you'll see the old parking lot slowly turning back into a meadow. In the intense sunlight, this place has a very post-nuclear-holocaust feel to it. I'm sure it'll show up in a nightmare or two:




This is the view from the middle of the midway:




Here is one of the many new-ish piles of rubble. Note the burned trees in the background, from the latest fire:




I think this is the remains of the Carousel House, which was the sturdiest structure on property. Some fans of the Park had wanted to preserve it somehow, but the building was ultimately abandoned. In 2002, someone set it on fire.




Duck underneath some vines and bushes and you'll get to the old "kiddie land" area. The tiny train ride wound up and around a mini-golf course:




There were tons of interesting things lying around. Here's a machine:




And I'll leave you with this. I hope it was for fried dough, my favorite fair food:





Thanks for stopping by. Come again soon!

It may be possible that I just hate Wednesdays.

Anyway, it's Thursday now. It's time for a little spring cleaning of my links. I don't know what happened to sweat-flavored gummi, but her blog seems to be gone. I hadn't checked it in a few months, but it's still odd. Anyway, sadly, off she goes.

Also, the rabbit blog hasn't been updated since mid-April, and I haven't looked at it in months either. So another link bites the dust.

And I just rediscovered Girls Are Pretty, which is difficult to describe, but I love it so. Go and read it. Now. Your day will be improved.

After feeling fine for almost a week, I am feeling fairly sad today. Maybe it's the weather, which has been grey and cold for several days. Maybe it's the impending weekend with its lack of structure and the possibility of lots of alone-time. Maybe it's the failed override vote in my town and the subsequent triumphant squealing of the money-grubbing jackasses who only look out for themselves. Maybe it's the new terror alert warning that we're all being issued, for all events everywhere all summer long. Maybe it's the extremely icky hyper-realistic dream I had last night.

I think those are some pretty valid reasons.

The day started fine, and I can tell that just by looking at myself, for I decided to wear my attention-getting poncho I knitted out of truffula trees (at least it looks that way). Plus I've been singing Spanish for Hitchhiking songs. (I can finally admit it: I've loved you for my whole life.) So I think I might just need more wine, and more hugs! Hugs for everybody! Kittens, too.

I know it is not at all cool to admit to liking Douglas Adams, but I have a good defense. Our family rallied around each Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book as it came out in print, and I was a mere wisp of a girl when I started reading them (and not yet out of high school when I stopped). Our sci-fi-lovin' parents even got us to watch the BBC TV miniseries based on the book, and we listened to the entire BBC-produced radio series. So when I think about the movie Disney is releasing next year, and that they are producing it with the "tween" market in mind ... well, trepidation is not strong enough a word for how I feel.

So when I came across this official cast list, I was kind of okay with it (Mos Def as Ford Prefect? super-cool), until I realized that the odd photo of the short and cutesy white robot thing I was looking at was supposed to be Marvin, and that Marvin was being played by Willow. And I threw up a little, inside my mouth.

This, of course, is nothing compared to what will happen a few months after the Hitchhiker's Guide movie comes out, when Disney releases the first film in their Narnia series. When I think about how potentially awful it could be, I get dizzy and nauseous. This must have been how Lord of the Rings fans felt when they heard a movie was going to be made of their books. But they had genius Peter Jackson on board, as well as a studio behind him that supported creativity, and the results were wonderful. This is sadly not the case with Narnia; for example, IMDB lists SIX producers (and three of those are executive producers, no less) for the film. Heaven help us all.

Alright, already - People, I am fine. And by people, I mean my family. In the past 24 hours I have gotten two phone calls from them - one from Mom, one from my aunt - and I very rarely hear from them (which is both good and bad). They both left messages, and they both had this "I hope you're okay, and don't have your head in the oven at the moment... please call me and reassure me that you're still among the living" kind of a tone. They don't really have any reason to be worried about my happiness level — unless they are reading this web log, which I made them promise never to do. I know, it's impossible to police this, but once they discovered this blog, I asked them nicely to respect my privacy and to not read it (I gave them Craftytown as a distraction/consolation prize) and they agreed, and I felt satisfied that my faith in them would build a protective wall of guilt that would sheild my blog from view. Or so I thought.

I am fine, in fact. The weekend was amazingly drama-free. My patented Avoidance Technique seems to be protecting my mental health, as planned.

Could I BE any more depressed right now? Well, I guess I could be, since I am actually functioning and at work and not sobbing at my desk. But still. Things are not good. I am starting to think this could be my Worst Spring and Summer Ever, which gets me all kinds of more depressed since I live here because it is so beautiful this time of year, and then I need to remind myself that Spring and Summer come back with fair regularity - say, once a year or so - and that not fully enjoying one years' worth of lovely weather, because I'm staying home lying curled up in a ball and staring out the window, is not going to kill me.

Speaking of life or death situations, today on my way to work I passed by the ambulance that's set up in front of City Hall all this week for the EMTs to talk to kids about safety or something. They have a costumed mascot, I think it's a bear, or an otter, or maybe a dog. Anyway, today I saw a woman putting on the head of the costume - in plain sight, right there on Main Street! Talk about destroying the magic! I was shocked. And then I thought, I could blog something funny about this. And then I thought, I'm too tired and melancholy to be funny. And now here we are.

I went to the big rock show last night at the Iron Horse, and it was really really great. First, Silver and Gold was all loungey-cabaret: a too-tall guy in an ill-fitting suit singing standards about love and loss, with another guy tickling the ivories, and it was all kind of irony-laden and funny, but also maybe serious because the guy (a local I see slouchin' around at shows all the time) had a really good voice. His performance reminded me of Ducky in Pretty in Pink, because I am 15 years old and it's 1988.

Then an acoustic trio, the core of the Ray Mason Band, played some songs, and they were wonderful and countryish and they had a little mandolin, which I like, as well as one lady dancing who turned into three.

And then there was Ribboncandy playing their Last Show Ever. Ken mentioned onstage that the last time they played (at the Horse, I think he meant) was when they opened for The Maggie's first CD release party, and at that I made a little "a single tear is falling" gesture to my friends as a joke, but then I did start to feel actual sadness. I am old, and times have changed. Ribboncandy was excellent. Total rockin' poppy hooks and funny, hip-reference-laden lyrics. It's great to see Ken, who plays like a musical genius while in the background of every band he's in, as the leader in a band.

And then there was a pause while all 12 members of the King Radio orchestra set up, and then the music started. I am a total sucker for strings in rock songs, so I really enjoyed the set. I spent some time pondering how the four string players became involved, since they looked quite professional and were dressed all grown-up and they had music stands and everything. Did they answer an ad on a lark? Are they getting paid for this tour? Do they get 1/12th of the take like the other members of the band? Besides the four strings, there were two people on piano, three guitars, one bass, and two percussionists. It was a little crazy, but it was all arranged very craftily. There were a few sound problems but much, much fewer than I was expecting, given the tiny stage and the number of performers and instruments. All in all, an incredible show, with an amazing once-in-a-blue-moon lineup. Rock.

Rest in Peace, Tony Randall. Shit. I hope to see a retrospective on Letterman tonight.

At the park last week, I got my fortune read from one of the old coin-op machines ("Esmeralda's Prophesies") they have there. Here's the first one:

You have had a lot of trouble, for which others are largely responsible, but you are now reaching a point when you will be able by your own efforts, to control your own affairs. You are not easily understood, as you keep much to yourself. You are fond of fine arts and like to be alone a great deal. You sometimes have a desire to destroy things, especially in your young days, for which you are sorry afterward. Be careful when the figure 7 appears on any money transaction, and keep your eyes open to some of your "would be" friends. Drop another coin in slot and I will tell you more.

I swear I've gotten that fortune before, which is a little eerie. So I put in another coin and got this:

There is very little I can tell you, because you are so good. You have a great gentleness, and pure moral principles, a merciful affectionate and constant heart, slightly melancholy. Inventive genius of mechanical arts, are independent and have little patience with conventional ways of living. Lover of music, very changeable in opinion. After middle age you will inherit a fortune, which you will have to defend in court. I predict that you will have great success in life, in general, very small changes in your daily routine are necessary to bring you to the top of the ladder. Drop another coin in slot and I will tell you more.

I figured I couldn't do much better than that combination, so I stopped there.

I had a nightmare last night so frightening that I actually woke up. That hasn't happened for years, though it used to happen with disturbing regularity. The dream involved Buffy (yes, the vampire slayer) making a very bad decision, and then me and a friend (unidentified in the dream) having to go along with the coverup.

Buffy needed a strip of human skin to help heal a friend of hers, so she pretended to be a doctor and peeled a long rectangle of flesh from an overweight, middle-aged patient who had been admitted for some minor surgery. And now the patient's wife and adult son (could have been a brother, it was unclear) were demanding to know what the hell Doctor Buffy had done, since the man was now lying on a bed in a side room, looking very gory and moaning and thrashing in pain (she had not sewed up the flesh, just left it open and raw). Buffy just kept repeating that he had some fucked-up venereal disease, and that doing this had been the only way to save him, and that it was all complicated doctor stuff they wouldn't understand; her attitude was, don't blame me, your father/husband brought this on himself. But the anguished man and his family would not let it alone, and kept hanging out in Buffy's big rambling mansion. We would think they had finally bought the story, and the lying could stop (it was excruciating, lying to them, when what Buffy had done was so utterly unethical, and she just could not tell them the truth, because what she had done was so awful) then they'd come back inside to yell and complain some more. I was questioned repeatedly but I kept claiming I knew nothing, I wasn't a doctor, and I'd walk up to my guest room and pretend to pack.

But then the man's family brought him inside the house to where we were hanging out, and he looked horrible, blood and gore bulging out of his side, moaning and looking pale and sick, and his family saying, look, clearly whatever you did is not right, look at him. And I fled to my room, but then the man was lying in the bathtub there, dead, with blood all over the shower curtain. Apparently the body needed to be saved so that an autopsy could unearth whatever faux V.D. he had. And so I had to go downstairs to the basement to take a pee, where I found my mom folding clothes, and my dad's cousin had filled the bathroom sink full of dirty dishes from her hummus recipe testing. And my sister somehow happened upon the dead man's corpse, and her very loud scream woke me up.

Let the psychoanalysis begin!

Last night I partook of the free (pass-the-hat) Lo Fine show at the Apollo Grill, and it was lovely. It reminded me of the Listening Room, without the anxiety-producing pressure to remain silent and still the entire time. People generally sat and paid all attention to the band (a few people - employees? residents from upstairs? - kept drunkenly swanning around and taking multiple flash photos). The show was to start at 9, though it was closer to 9:30 (or later). My guest and I were anticipating getting a few appetizers to enjoy during the show - in fact, we'd planned and eaten light dinners so we'd be prepared. But alas, the kitchen closes at 9. Which seems like poor planning to me. The bartender seemed to get that a lot of people had come expecting food (at a restaurant...) and she gave us a plate of warm pita bread and very garlicky hummus, gratis. Awesome. It went nicely with the pinot grigio, until I managed to knock over the rest of my glass onto the floor. A server was there immediately to mop it up with a rag. Apollo Grill gets major points for service.

Lo Fine was excellent, as usual. And as usual, I couldn't understand a word Kevin said or sang onstage. But the music is always lovely.

Although I am not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, I have a problem with raw chunks of garlic such as the ones in the hummus last night. They tend to stay with me for a long, long time. Last night I flossed and swished my mouth with Listerine until my eyes watered and I still had a skunky garlic taste in the back of my mouth. This morning I can still feel it, all funky and hot inside of me, and this is after eating Key Lime yogurt and a cuppa Earl Grey. Frankly, I'm lucky that I seem to have avoided the intense gastric effects raw garlic sometimes causes me. I know you don't want me to elaborate.

Coincidentally, after the Apollo Grill I went over to chez Price to pick up my dog, and T had me try the hummus she'd just made from scratch. It was perfect, indistinguishable from really good store-bought. It reminded me of my hippie-leaning mom's hummus, who made it from scratch years before it was readily available in supermarkets. She'd fill a big old amber-glass mixing bowl with the hummus she'd made with her electric food processor, sculpting it up the sides to create a bowl shape in the middle, into which she'd pour olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and fresh parsley. It was delish.

I was recently talking to people about the Big E, and I remembered the perfect shirt that I let get away, admired here by my brother-in-law:





It would be the perfect thing to wear to Saturday's Drunk Stuntmen show, too. Damn.

It's nice and hot here at work today. The air conditioning is broken, so we have the windows open (just a few skylights, so no cross-breezes). The thermostat says it's 80 in here, and I'm secretly enjoying it. After all, I'm dressed for the hot weather, and I got my iced chai right here. All summer long I have to use lap blankets and cardigans inside the refrigerated office. I'd be fine if the temp was set at, say, 74, instead of 69, which is colder than the heat setting in January.

I just ran into my old boss who owned the fancy clothing store when I worked there. I hadn't seen him for years. He and his wife are my only non-family patrons, having bought a piece of my sculpture (for $350 plus some clothing from the store) when I was fresh out of college. He asked if I had a studio, and I said I had something set up in my apartment. I think he knows I'm now a fraud and not making "serious" art anymore. At least, I'm not welding anymore, and my stuff is largely representational, which feels like a cop-out (Hampshire taught me that). He has a cool life right now, designing and manufacturing displays for high-end stores and trade shows, as well as managing some fancy properties. He and his wife both act and appear to be gay, which is one of the reasons why I dig them. At their store, he was always in charge of the creative side, and she handled all the finances and managing; plus he's really into clothes and fancy glasses, and she has a short haircut and comfortable shoes.

Anyway. I do think I'm coming around again, after not feeling drawn to make anything "abstract" (I hate the labeling, but it's the best way to explain it) I have some ideas for some things. I might try to combine my old art aesthetic with the new cigar-box dioramas, and make an abstract/organic diorama. Fun.

I'm trying to enable comments, because it looks like Blogger is letting even the free accounts people run them. We'll see how long it lasts before it's spammed into oblivion... This post should have them. let's see...

Yesterday I took a very pleasant stroll along the Smith side of the Mill River. It was very pleasant, that is, until my dog found a decomposing beaver carcass. She gleefully rolled around in it until I ran towards her, yelling for her to stop. But the damage had been done. I threw a stick into the river so at least she'd rinse off a little, and then I had to drive home; even with the windows rolled down and the fan blowing, it was hard not to gag. She was very pleased with herself, though, sitting in the middle of the back seat, mouth open in a happy grinning pant.

Once we got home, it was immediately bathtime. It was actually a good thing, as the dog's coat gets all dull and flaky in the spring, and I had just given her a serious brushing the day before; afterwards I was driven to scrub my bathtub, finally, which is cursed with a slow drain. And though the dog hates the bath, once she's all finished and dry, her fur feels like mink.

I'm still thinking very seriously about finding a new home for her, though it would leave me semi-heartbroken. It's just very difficult to deal with her various needs while living alone in an apartment. She has relatively minor separation anxiety issues (i.e. she causes no major damage) but other than that she is the perfect dog, I think. Very energetic, affectionate, wonderful with kids, funny, playful... If you know someone who would love a dog, and who owns a house, let me know. I would be available for lots of dog-sitting.

Mystery solved - as I suspected, those circles are from farming. Apparently the perfect circles are due to an irrigation contraption that pivots on a central axis. A very, very long irrigation contraption, one that doesn't use water very wisely. You can see one and read more about it here. Thanks to Mike and Eddie for the info!

So yeah, I'm back. I was all ready to post on Friday, but I think Blogger was going through a metamorphosis and was too busy to let me sign on. California was as predicted - way too sunny, with lots of too-tan women wearing super-tight clothes and too much perfume. Though maybe I'm just thinking of the television media personalities from Brazil. Anyway, I went on a scary free-fall ride, which was fine except for all of the falling. My coworker talked me into going on it, and she laughed hysterically as I screamed the entire time we were zooming up and down in the dark.

Now I'm home, trying to learn to be patient, and to be kind to myself, which is hard because I wish I was a different person. Not radically different, just less soft. More confident. Yeah.

Here are some shots I took from the airplane, and some bonus pics from my trip.

Cincinnati cloverleaf:




Can anyone tell me what these circles are? Crops, or something, right? They're enormous. I notice them every time I fly cross-country:




There's a little town in the lower left, so you can see how massive these circles are:




As a bonus, here's a mysterious photo of the grand opening ceremony for the thing I rode. (I'm not using any searchable nouns...)



And me baking in the sun the next day, waiting with all of the other shmoes for the bigwigs to show up and tell us something that's supposed to sound really exciting:



And that was my trip to California.

I'm off for four days, to sunny California for a press trip. I might be able to post from the "media center" or something, but it's unlikely. If the plane doesn't crash, you'll hear from me Friday.

This is a beautiful, thoughtful list of 11 Hard Questions For Bush.

It turns out our friendly, local ABC affiliate, channel 40/WGGB, is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is run by a right-wing nutjob.

As such, WGGB will not be airing Friday's Nightline segment where Ted Koppel will read the names of the Iraq war casualties. You'd think that anyone would be in favor of honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to our country, no matter what side of the issue you subscribe to, but apparently not - not when there's politics to be played. If you want to read the nonsensical biased reasoning behind this move, read this note on Sinclair's site. This is what happens when partisan non-journalists are allowed to control the news.

Please, please, please email or phone the station to share your displeasure. Boycott the companies that advertise on channel 40, and contact those companies to let them know why. Keep in mind that the people who work at the WGGB Springfield office are only following a directive from their corporate overlord at Sinclair, so treat them with kindness.

Channel 40 contact info: http://www.wggb.com/

Main telephone: (413) 733-4040

Newsroom telephone: (413) 733-8840

Newsroom fax: (413) 788-7640

Newsroom email: news40@wggb.com

Sinclair Broadcasting: 410-568-1500

Mark Hyman: mhyman@sbgnet.com ( conservative commentator, also VP at Sinclair)

If you want to mention your complaint to one of their competitors
here's the contact info for Channel 22:

http://www.wwlp.com/tv22/contact.html

WWLP-TV22
PO Box 2210
Springfield, MA 01102-2210

Do this (via Treacher):

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band or the album title.

everybody come/get together
it's okay if you can't stand to let her dance
it's okay it's your right
come on and take a chance
a true romance when you dance
don't be in love with the autograph
just be in love when u scream that song
all night long

I love Dream Pets, a reintroduced line of stuffed toys from the 1950s-1970s. I managed to nab a Gypsy Giraffe from the free table at work, and she's destined for my niece Lula's room (if she wants it). These are really cool; check out their pretty website.

I will never again make disparaging remarks about various pot-bellied baseball players' lack of athleticism, for I played some casual baseball yesterday, and dammit, I can barely move today. I am sore and stiff all over; the pain is mainly contained in my hips, ass, back, arms, and legs. And my neck a little, and my ankles. The top of my head feels okay. And my toes. I only had one injury, when I managed to fumble a catch in such a way that the ball hit me square on the big tendon right below the kneecap. It didn't hurt so much as it made me instantly feel like throwing up. I didn't, though, and after a minute I felt fine. Magically, there is no bruise.

A baseball is way more fun to play catch with, but on the whole, I am used to the girly compromises of softball. The ball is bigger (and, uh, softer), and therefore a little easier to hit, and when it is hit, it doesn't go as far. And some of the people I was playing with were really good hitters. And that means running very fast into the outfield, triumphantly scooping up the ball, and then attempting to throw the ball infield using my pathetic noodle-like arm, and the ball falling with a gentle plop ten feet shy of the person I'm trying to throw it to. I think there was one occurance where I did this and managed to throw it alright and we almost got the guy out at home. But didn't. Still, though. I think with practice I could get, at the least, less embarrassing. Sita is the baseball-star girl who organized the whole thing, and kudos to her for rounding up the various aging hipsters of the town and getting them to go outside and play. Everyone was saying they want to do it again.

I took this picture last weekend of my beautiful niece.

Sure, I'll do this too.

Your secret name is jockstrap from the trash at the gym.
The animal which symbolizes you is Sandy Pants.
The color of your soul is dragon.
The celebrity you most resemble is monkey crap.
Your special pain or illness is Saddam Hussan.
Your most important time of day is dyslexia.
The shape of your life is two hours from now.
And the flavor which identifies you most is triangle.

Reading the Rockumentary boys' recap from their recent super-fun gig-trip to P-Town, I heaved a mighty sigh. If only I was in a band, I could go on fun trips like that too. I'm not even a band-girlfriend anymore, so I really have no reason to tag along. It's too bad that it's not more socially acceptable or common to go on weekend trips with a bunch of friends. I mean, it is, but not when you're over 30 (just barely over 30, boys!) it seems.

But listen, I can sing a little; maybe some punk band would have me. At shape-note singing Tuesday, the woman sitting to my left, one of the people who know all of the songs by number, said that I had a great voice and that she was glad to have had the chance to sing next to me. Wow! I really have no idea how I sound there most of the time, unless I screw up - and since the group was really hepped up last time, with lots of fast and loud tunes, my strained voice kept cracking and doing things I did not want it to do. I only hear my wrong notes because they're out of step with the rest of the altos. Thank god I can tell when things are in pitch. I am learning how to better control my voice, mostly by backing off on the volume when it feels like my vocal cords are about to start rebelling. Surprisingly (to me), I think my voice has been improving over the past year in tone and quality. It's very exciting.

This may be due to the fact that it's now spring and I'm single, but I am also suddenly in love with the entire (all male, all ages) bass section of the singing group. They just have great voices, all gruff and low and forceful yet jaunty and kind of funny with the enunciation they do, and they usually have to jump in first during the fugues, so you can hear them really well. Some of them will kind of shout a high note when it's at a climactic part of the song. I know this all sounds incredibly dorky, and if I was reading this and hadn't written it myself, I would be rolling my eyes. But you have to believe me. They are all lovely.

Feeling better today, thanks.

If my life was a book right now, it'd be titled "Smart Women, Foolish Choices." Not that I've made any choices lately. That's just the closest one I could come up with.

Still, it's going to be all right, eventually, isn't it?

This snarky version of Shakespeare's Pericles is very funny. I've never read the play but this recap is totally worth it. (via boingboing)

So I'm back from Brooklyn. The big city, yo! It was nice. I got a lot of baby time. When L isn't crying or sleeping or breastfeeding, she's very interactive and cute, smiling and staring intently into your eyes or at the ceiling fan (her favorite view). There was a lot of singing to her, and a lot of manipulating her still-uncontrollable limbs to "swim" or "run and jump" or "charleston" or "frog kick." Then, last night, a breakthrough. Sc had her on his chest, and he was blowing raspberries. She was smiling and watching very closely. Then, suddenly, she stuck her tongue out of her mouth a little bit, and made a tiny "pbbit" noise. S said "Hey, she did it! What a smart baby!! Good girl!" I came over and watched and after a few moments she did it again. We were both laughing and excitedly shouting encouragement, and then Sa came over and saw her do it, and Sa was so excited that she said "Oh my god, this is so amazing. I feel like calling Mom!" It was so cool that actual communication was happening. She still isn't as smart as my dog ... but not for much longer. And, sorry dog, but she is more adorable. Of course I don't have to deal with hours of screaming and crying each day. Which is the great thing about being an aunt.

Okay, first things first: Last weekend's photo fest at the Northampton State Hospital.

These new Bush ads are really brutal!

The current dooce is required reading for my sister and brother-in-law, parents of a baby girl. Me and my sis called our vaginas "little bottom" or "dinky." There are way better names to use on the list posted over at dooce. Like wa-zoo. Or bottom system. I bet they'll go with the warm, multiculti-ish yoni, though.

edit: Looks like I was right, as I just discovered sis wrote in a comment way down after number 500.

On Easter:

- I finally sold my futon that's been sitting in my dining area for, oh, five months or so, for $10. (I had been considering paying $25 to get it thrown in the dump.) Thanks, Aunt Clara's Closet!

- I made strawberry pancakes that were not as wonderful as I'd hoped they'd be.

- I walked around the old State Hospital and took some photos. There's now a massive, long chain-link fence around the main complex, so you can't go in and wander around the spooky courtyards anymore.

- The dog fetched a stick thrown into the water, over and over again. She's gone from being afraid of getting water on her back to happily and confidently swimming in a strong current.

- After the dog walk I drove to the mall, which was closed. Because it's easter. Duh.

- A man in a hut gave me candy.

- I kept the dog in my apartment alone for about 23 minutes, and she seemed okay when I returned. My little training plan might be working.

- I called my grandmother and my parents to wish them a happy easter. Grandma is doing great, parents seem good. They're going to bail me out by providing dog care this upcoming weekend. You know the situation is desperate when I decide tacking an extra hour and a half to my drive is worth it. But I just gotta go see my little Lula.

So yeah, I'm going to be around this weekend after all. No Brooklyn for me. Just FYI.

MY HERO!

To the Editor (New York Times):
A woman I had dinner with the other night said to me that the atmosphere in this country since the Persian Gulf war is like that at a party in a beautiful home, with everybody being polite and bubbly. And there is this stink coming from somewhere, getting worse all the time, and nobody wants to be the first to mention it.
KURT VONNEGUT

(This is old, from March 27, but I just stumbled across it.)

MY HERO!

To the Editor:
A woman I had dinner with the other night said to me that the atmosphere in this country since the Persian Gulf war is like that at a party in a beautiful home, with everybody being polite and bubbly. And there is this stink coming from somewhere, getting worse all the time, and nobody wants to be the first to mention it.
KURT VONNEGUT

(This is old, from March 27, but I just stumbled across it.)

I had a dream last night. I was walking up the stairs inside a high school and I passed a bunch of nerds. "Nerds!" I said aloud, as they glanced at me uncomfortably. I immediately felt bad, and said "I'm one too." At this, the sage nerd with the sparse mustache from Freaks and Geeks came up next to me and walked aways with me. I said "I don't know why I said that, because I'm a nerd too." He was chatting with me and being reassuring and I thought he was annoying but that I also should be nice to him. As we walked a pretty girl passed by and acted all disgusted by us. A few minutes later the sage nerd went away and I was hanging out with some female friends. The pretty girl came by and was now all nice and friendly to me. She seemed to not recognize me as the nerd from before. I told her who I was and she was actually fairly nice and apologetic about it. And that's all I remember.

The dream was similar to my high-school life, since I was friends with the nerds but not exactly one of them (never was in marching band or on the academic decathalon team or whatever it was called). I was more of an art nerd, which didn't have a tidy label to it ("art fag" was the closest, which doesn't really fit for girls) and was not quite as ostracizing as being a totally brainy nerd. Being an art nerd also earned some respect from some of the popular kids, the ones who thought they were cool enough to be considered "alternative," all the while sticking to their j. crew uniforms. (The girls who teased me were all "burnouts" with big hair and skin-tight acid-washed jeans; they were in a lower caste than the popular people.) However, we were still nerds, underneath the vintage clothes and crazy jewelry and combat boots, and we didn't mix with non-nerds/freaks outside of school. Not that we ever spent time wishing that we were.

The kinds of things the geeks on Freaks and Geeks deal with is more like my junior high school experience. Our junior high was located on top of a hellmouth. I am convinced this is so. Actually, 8th grade was when I grew a spine (figuratively) and started being "bad," and sticking up for myself a tiny bit, so that part wasn't horrible for me personally. But the entire school (the building housed 7th and 8th grades only) was a roiling cauldron of hormones and nastiness and rage that would suddenly erupt without warning. *shudder*

More about that naughty, naughty Tigger: It seems a certain person, let's call her finslippy, also had a creepy encounter with this crazy sexed-up denizen of the 100-Acre Wood. In her own words:

"I WAS MOLESTED BY TIGGER!

Sort of.

When I was 17 and my chorus took a trip to Disney World, Tigger walked right up to me, put his arm around my shoulder, began suggestively rubbing at said shoulder, and said, "Rowr."

Okay, so there was no fondling. But there might have been! If I hadn't walked away!

Still, I finally feel like I've achieved closure. Your blog brings not only entertainment--it brings healing."

So, so true.

I've also had a weird encounter with The One Whose Bottom is Made Out of Springs. When my sister and I went to that place way back in 96 or 97, we met Tigger in the very same room they mention in the article. And our Tigger, disturbingly, made these little "kiss kiss" lip-smacking noises inside of his/her fur head. The costumed characters are not allowed to talk,* but somehow this person thought that meant they could still make the kinds of noises guys make hanging out on the sidewalk as you walk past.

However, it's not the same Tigger guy as the guy arrested yesterday, because this person was a "new hire." Something about putting on the Tigger suit seems to draw out the perversion in people, I guess.

*At a press event a couple of years ago I met Sweetums. He talked. I was amazed. I said, "Hey, you talk! I thought you guys weren't allowed to do that!" and he said, "Of course I can talk! I'm not from Disney, kid." True story. I guess if you're a Muppet from the very start, and not a plush three-dimensional interpretation of a celluloid creature, then you can do what you can really do, if you get my meaning. It also sounded just like the actual Sweetums, leading me to believe it may have been the actual Sweetums, Richard Hunt, inside. Then I found out that Richard Hunt died in 1992. Shit.

This gives a bit more detail into the naughty Tigger incident, if you're interested.

Ew. Click here to read about the most not-wonderful thing about Tiggers. This is not the guy I picture inside of the fur suit when I get my photo taken with those things. I shudder.

A downward spiral sounds pretty fun. Like in Chutes and Ladders, I kind of liked getting the chutes because you got to slide down the slide. Never mind it meant you would lose the game, it was the fun that counted. I currently have a necrotizing spot of leprosy (okay, I think it's just a little impetigo) on my right nostril. It makes me want to tie a dirty rag around my face and yell "unclean!" as I walk through town. If I keep my head down and tilted to the side a little it's not so noticeable. I got some prescription ointment yesterday which is making it do dramatic things; it no longer looks like a regular scab but has become somehow more disgusting. I won't elaborate. Just turn away, if you see me, turn away from my shame. I went out after the Death Cab for Cutie show last night to buy my friend a drink (she got me in for free). I drank mine really fast and left because it was getting late, and it didn't seem to hit me until I got home. Then I was all stumbly and drunky and very tired while walking the dog and then eating cereal with the TV on Leno then Conan. I sank down until I was dozing horizontally on the sofa with the dog shellacked onto me. Eventually she got up and then I was too cold so I went to bed.

This is what happens when you have a horrendous-looking wound on your nose.

On Friday I rented the DVD set of Strangers with Candy, Season Two and watched almost all of the episodes this weekend. Today, I can't get "I'm gonna sit at the welcome table" out of my head AT ALL. It's a genius show. Four of the episodes had commentary by the three leads (Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Steven Colbert), who have worked together for years, so I listened to the commentary and pretended they were my friends. They're so funny, my new friends! They really have it all goin' on.

I also got to watch the first three episodes of Freaks and Geeks, courtesy of H, who has the awesome DVD set. Watching the show is like going through a painful, yet funny, flashback to junior high. (Funny cuz it's true.) Judd Apatow really captures how high school was for most people. I'm not surprised the series was cut, though; I think if you're young enough to be their target demographic, and are currently a freak/geek or used to be one in the recent past, watching the show might be too much reality. And of course NBC treated the show like crap, moving it from night to night like a cheap whore. Stupid TV executives. Anyway, who cares - now, with the power of DVD, we can enjoy fine television IN OUR OWN HOMES!

By the way, the raccoon thing? Not an April Fool's joke.

Holy crap. I just got home from a friend's house (I walked, and it's pouring rain) and I come inside my building and the dog starts freaking out. I can see a fluffy tail tip near the top of the stairs, so I assume it's one of the neighbor's cats, as my neighbors are very laissez-faire about keeping their doors ajar. But no. I walk up the stairs and no, in fact, up here there are no doors open, and no, in fact, we are now facing a short dead-end hallway, the end of which houses my doorway, and is currently inhabited by a GIANT RACCOON. It's all puffy and pissed off, and of course Louise is going apeshit, crying and barking and yelling in dog language exactly how she is going to rip its throat out, and I'm hanging on to her leash like I'm trying to land a swordfish. During this the raccoon realizes the only way out is right past us and down the stairs, so it passes within inches of the lunging dog in order to reach the top step, where it pauses to turn around to give us both a defiant "haaaahh!!"-kind-of-a-hiss, and then it runs down the stairs. Man! Raccoons have serious balls. My dog was really going crazy at this point. I made her go inside the apartment and I shut the door. I still have a raccoon stuck in my apartment house. Downstairs on the first floor, there are two doors open: the door to the basement, and the door to one of the first floor apartments. It's very conceivable that the raccoon is now inside the apartment. They are scavengers, you know. (In New Jersey when you'd catch them in the middle of digging into your garbage cans, they'd just look back at you with cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, like, "Whut? Can't you see I'm busy here?") I knock on the open door, saying, "hello? Is anyone home?", like there's any way if they were home they wouldn't have been aware of the wildlife encounter that just happened, what with the dog yelping and my yelling "Holy crap, that's a fucking raccoon!" and the dog claws scraping on the floor trying to find purchase. Anyway, though the door is open and lights are on, there appears to be nobody home. So I shut the door to the basement. Why? 1. If it's down there, it won't get into the open apartment, and 2. if it's in the apartment, maybe the hippies who live there will learn a valuable lesson about keeping their door wide open.

All is currently quiet.

This is such an annoying thing to me, I think I may have even blogged about it before. I work in a building full of editors. So it's always weird to get an email full of grammatical and spelling mistakes from our receptionist. She suffers from the unneccessary-apostrophe disease that has become incredibly common in the past five years or so. Today she announced that two people were having birthdays over the weekend - except she wrote "birthday's." Why add an apostrophe? Where did this come from? I just want to figure out the chain of faulty reasoning that results in turning plural words into possessives. Is it because "birthday" ends in a "y", and that's kind of a vowel, and sometimes words that end in vowels get a ... No, that doesn't make any sense. Is it because sometimes "birthday" is capitalized, i.e. "Happy Birthday," and therefore it should be treated like the plural of a proper noun, which.... also doesn't get an apostrophe unless it's possessive. Huh. Do you see why this might make an editor crazy??

Listen, I can live with the its/it's problem. (a refresher: you only use "it's" as a contraction for "it is." It's simple. And it rubs the lotion on its skin.) But this crazy, lazy, "instead of thinking, just add an apostrophe" thing is a symptom of the decline of Western civilization.

p.s.
Good: ladies' room
Bad: ladie's room (I really did see this in use)

Work has been hella busy lately. Plus, I'm feeling all weird and floaty and trembly this afternoon, possibly due to my allergies starting up, taking Sudafed, too much green tea, and the funky-ish Thai food I had (not so great, that Siam Square).

Everyone should try to catch the Daily Show tonight, since Richard Clarke is going to be the guest. The teasers for this show have a "I know, we can't believe it either" tone, since Clarke is like the number one newsmaker this week. Anyway, they'll rerun it tomorrow at 7 p.m. if you're too busy boogieing at the Fawns show at the Iron Horse tonight.

Photoblog time. Saturday was frickin' perfect outside, our first great spring day. Naturally I did my favorite hike on Mt. Tom in Holyoke, taking the M-M Trail to the Beau Bridge Trail (I found out that it's not actually named for the c-list actor). And I brought my dog. And my camera.

On the summit, taking a little rest:





Signs of life up here - very green moss!





The M-M Trail meets the Beau Bridge trail here:





Beau Bridge scenes:







A sapling arch:




root writing:




Oak leaf:




Rhinoceros:




The dog dries off, and it's time to go:

Thanks, Gawker, for printing the Best Craigslist Ad Ever:

"I have four free dogs. Two of them are large sized, about up to my waist. One is brown and the other sort of milky grey, with a large black patch of hair on his belly. The 'black hair patch' dog has a limp, as it was stepped on by a truck driver doing a delivery one day. But he's very kind. The other two dogs are about the size of a bowling ball, but not round like that. One is more round and the other pretty skinny. I don't know the breeds, but they have scratchy hair. You may have seen me with them because I walk them all together usually from Lexington to Central Park and I like to go down 80th street. I also have a monkey but he looks sort of sick. I think you'd need a vet for him. I got him in New Jersey about three years ago. All of these are free and I have individual bowls for the dog and a leash for the monkey. I have to get rid of them because I need an operation in a week that's pretty serious and I don't have anywhere for them to stay. They all get along great except for the monkey and the larger small dog. But I'd hate to split them up. Serious inquiries only. I would rather that they didn't go to the Bronx or Staten Island. Nothing personal."

A few years ago at a flea market in Chelsea, I found a pile of 1960s-era inspirational posters for GM factory workers. They were five bucks each, so I bought two. They're colorfully-illustrated mod delights. One says "Who wants reliable products? EVERYBODY!" and shows a crowd of big-headed people in suits raising their hands. The other features bees with sideburns buzzing a feminine-faced daisy, and says "Quality attracts customers - and keeps them coming back." They hang in my living room, urging me to strive for perfection and productivity.

A couple of days ago our corporate overlords sent us a couple of inspirational posters for our office. To my horror, the office manager hung them up. They are a far, far cry from the quality of my GM posters. In one, three people crowd around a computer, their faces beaming with glee and satisfaction. The text says "Our [company] team: One connection ... one community." That's it. What does that even mean? How does this lift my spirits, or make me want to produce high-quality, reliable things?

Anyway, the three people in the photo are nicely diverse - an older white guy, a middle-aged white woman, a middle-aged black woman - but they each have something in common: an extra 50-60 pounds they really should try to lose. This is not something I normally take notice of, but seriously - it jumps out at you. I even mentioned it, gently, to a couple of coworkers, and they said, "Yeah, I noticed that too! Weird!"

So what the hell? Is this the new normal? Now that we're the fattest nation ever on this planet, the model they use for the average Joe has to have a big ass and a puffy face? I admit, I'm one of those feminists who believe that the saturation in the public sphere of images showing impossibly skinny models makes girls anorexic and self-hating. But is the cure showing doughy office drones who can't climb stairs without getting out of breath? There has got to be a happy medium. Aren't we supposed to see ourselves in these advertising models? Because I don't see - I don't want to see - myself as a part of this group. Who would?

Confusingly, a second poster has the exact same text and the same scene, except the three have been joined by two slender ladies, who also hover with bright smiles. Depending on my mood, I like to imagine the third poster, which would either have just the three original people, slightly fatter and blotting bits of thin-girl from the corners of their mouths, or the two skinny people sitting at the computer, the larger trio grumpily standing in the background and out of the spotlight, looking sadly resigned and a bit betrayed at being picked last yet again.

Of course, in real life, they should all feel sad and betrayed for being roped into such a lame-ass production.

A few days ago the excellent dooce wrote her baby delivery story. It reminded me of my sister's, and I got a little choked up at the end. I'm a sap. Dooce is a great writer, though, and her baby was born two days after my sister's, which is neat.

[warning: major bitchery ahead.]

I guess spring really is coming, despite the freezing-cold nipple-shattering wind chill, because I keep getting harassed by various panhandlers/people wanting my money. There are these guys who lay in wait off to the side of the sidewalk on Main Street; depending on where the sun is, they're either in front of Faces or Thornes. They have three-ring binders, and always start a conversation with you as you approach, by complimenting you or blurting out something about the weather, and once you answer it means they've made contact and they swoop in, wanting to take just a few minutes of your time to explain why they need your money. I do not begrudge them their right to do so, and I think that (unlike the actual panhandlers) it's probably good to give them money. But I work and live here, man. I can't stop every frickin' day to talk to them, and I can't give money every day, in fact I really shouldn't give much of anything at all, and 99% of the time I can't spend the time it would take to give them the money, since I'm either on my way to work (today was the first time I've been waylaid on a weekday morning - it was about 9:15 a.m.) or on my way to grab lunch and get back to the office, or I'm on my way home. Yesterday during lunch there were two 3-ring binder guys and thirty feet away were two MassPIRG girls. Both pairs asked me to stop and listen and I had to be an asshole and say no thanks, doing the cold New York City no-eye-contact glare-at-the-sidewalk as I hurried past, my body language saying 'can't you see I'm walkin' here?' I'm not a tourist, I'm not wealthy, I don't own property here, I'm not in town to shop, I'm just living here, pretending Northampton is a town where people actually live and work and not just a quaint historic shopping center.

I hate saying no to the binder guys, though. It makes me feel like an asshole. It's way easier for me to turn down actual panhandlers, since I have a very strong feeling that they are, in the vast majority of the time, going to spend the money on Bad Things. I actually once saw this in action, when I accidentally came upon Annoying, Loud, Bad-Guitar-Playing Guy getting high with a couple of buddies on the old canal tow-path (the one from the Roundhouse lot to the Felt building). (This is the same path where a dog walker found a dead homeless guy a few months ago...)

I guess I'm just kind of a bitch. I'm a Quaker, so I should be all generous and giving, but instead I act like a cornered wolverine, snarling and snapping and hoarding my tiny stash of acorns. People, don't be like me. Live Simply, So Others May Simply Live.

My coworkers and I are professionals, but we tend to lack decorum. It's not all that noticeable, except when we have conference calls with other departments in the company located in NY and Cali. Today someone in CA was pitching a story on a man whose first name is Dick. After a couple of minutes spent discussing what Dick was like, a few of us were snickering behind our hands. But the corker was when someone said "No, Dick is never stiff!" We giggled silently so the conference call mic wouldn't pick it up. Then a clueless coworker on our end said, "Let me work on him, I'll loosen him up!" Har har har. After the call had ended, we all recapped the funniest lines in the conversation, clueing in clueless coworker, who also laughed.

The thing is, it wasn't even funny, really. It was just a geniune pleasure to act like 11-year-old ne'er-do-wells sitting in the back of the classroom, all the while conducting business with actual professionals who have to wear nice clothes to work every day. Inappropriate laughter is the sweetest kind of all.

Our huge multinational media behemoth is in the final stages of switching over to a massive new, online, "self service" system. All employees are required to take tutorials to use the new system. Unfortunately the tutorials - and the system itself - seems to have been written by a bunch of hermetical uber-geeks who are incapable of speaking like normal human beings or writing without numerous grammatical and spelling errors. The tutorial seamlessly combines intelligence-insulting, time-wasting exercises ("You started your business trip in Cleveland. Write "Cleveland" in the "destination" space, then press the Tab key to continue.") with incomprehensible corporate gobbledegook, often in the same paragraph. The graphics and fonts would look innovative ? if it was 1989. They make it impossible to actually select and save any of the tutorial text, but I just had to copy this one thing down longhand:

Cost center: Code (cost object) representing a department within the company in which to enter an expense against.

And don't get me started with the other undefined acronyms and jargon they lazily toss in there, like we give a crap enough to learn their preferred terminology. Instead of simply saying "you" or "the employee" they say "the CM/EE", because that's much clearer!

I need a drink.

Updates:

My soft-foods friend says no thanks to the party, mainly because he's doing fine with the huge selection of soups and such he got from Our Lord and Savior, Trader Joe's.

My neck thing went away a few days ago. Blood pressure was fine (I checked it for free at Stop n' Shop); I think I just pulled a weird muscle somehow.

I haven't yet heard either way, but now that it has begun snowing, it is possible the Shape Note thing tonight may be cancelled.

I'm on the Northampton snow emergency email alert list, and I just got one for tonight. And the full list of recipients was attached to the email, which isn't very considerate. I only saw one name I recognized, Dan G.

Last night I went to the open mike at the old Bishop's Lounge space. (What is that place called? It feels like one of those finished basements-turned-rec room-and-bar that your friend's dad had when you were a kid.) Kevin O'R was the m.c., and sang some lovely songs, as always. I was there with new guy to see some of his friends. One of them played (Kt, who I met pre-new guy) and was very good. Onstage she needs to be more confident in her song-writing/playing ability, since she is very talented. I liked her songs.

When we first entered the place, there was a ruddy middle-aged guy sitting in the shadows with his guitar strapped on and a harmonica, on one of those neck holster things, stuck in his mouth. He wasn't playing it, just sitting patiently, waiting for his turn, very, very prepared. Then when he got up to play he didn't even use the harmonica until the third song. K was way too generous and let Harmonica Guy play five songs.

Fuck you, snow. Fuck. You.

Hi. Hi hi hi. I'm here. I went to the Sacred Harp convention here in Northampton. There were 300 singers there, singing from 9:30 to 3:30 Saturday and Sunday (with an hour for potluck lunch). It was pretty frickin' great. I have had shape-note songs running through my head all day. Right now it's the good one that was in Cold Mountain (And am I born to die? To lay this body down?). I managed to make some small talk with people during the many breaks, though there were times I just kind of didn't talk to anyone. Which was fine. I'm adverse to small talk, what can I say. Anyway, if any of you readers out there are interested in this shape-note singing thing, there's going to be a singing lesson this Tuesday at the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, from 7 - 10 p.m. No experience neccessary. The first half will be the lesson, second half will be straight-up singin'. Talking like an impoverished Appalachian is optional.

In other news, a good friend of mine had to have mouth surgery recently, and as such can only eat soft, lukewarm or cold foods for two weeks. Anyone have a favorite Jello salad recipe? I want to throw a soft-foods party for my friend, but he may not want the attention. In fact, this post may be too much...

Sigh. My car is in the shop. It will be there until late Monday. So now I have before me a weekend of being nearly house-bound. (I can walk to town, but I can't leave my dog alone in the apartment. I know, it's a huge problem.) It sucks balls. I could rent a car, but I'm already feeling pinched for paying $650 for repairs on a car I want to get rid of in a few weeks anyway. I will probably get barely anything in trade for it. Pretty damn depressing.

Time to hit up some people for dog-sitting so I can still go to the Western Mass Shape Note Singing Convention this weekend.

Okay, I gots some pictures! These are from Sunday. First of all, here are some pretty flowers at the Smith Botanical Gardens bulb show. The hyacinths smell very nice:



This kid would not talk to me. Stony little dandied bastard:



This is just a very pretty tulip:




And last but not least, here's my poncho I knitted, modeled by a 7-year-old girl!

I'm kind of freaking out right now. There's a vein or something that keeps pulsing and fluttering in my neck, which feels constricted. Meanwhile my ear feels kind of tight and tense, as does the shoulder below the weird vein area. (Don't worry, I'm not going rushing off to the doctor because my ear "feels funny" - tm, Roz Chast.) This doesn't mean anything, right? Or do I have terminal cancer? P had a landlord who died of too many tumors, some of which restricted the blood flow to his head, making it look like he was constantly tensing his neck muscles, making the tendons stand out. This was right before he died. If I die from this, say it's a stroke or something, everyone will read this and be wowed at the power of the immediacy of the internet or something. Maybe I'll even get a mention in the next Times article about blogging.

The very bad part about living alone is that if I collapse or something, and I can't get to my phone, yet I need emergency medical treatment, it's all over. I'm dead and gone, baby. I think I need one of those old lady alarm things that automatically call 911 for you.

I watched about 8 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm this weekend, as my boss lent me the DVD set of season one. Larry seems much more a victim of circumstance and of speaking before thinking than he does in the current shows, where he just comes off as a complete bastard. Also, the endings of the episode one shows are abrupt: Cheryl takes off her seatbelt in order to give Larry the in-the-car blowjob he won from her in a bet; Larry walks slowly up the stairs to where Cheryl is waiting for her anti-itch prescription cream. I like it when it ends with a bang, like when Jeff's parents come upon Larry watching porn in Jeff's bedroom.

Anyway, besides all of the TV watching, I also had some fun times outside of the house. I went to Harry's for the first time since they remade the pool room into a smoky fishbowl. I went to a party at an apartment of people I'd never met. I went to the Smith botanical garden's bulb show, which was gorgeous. Their jungle room is all high-tech now, with water misters on timers and piped-in rainforest sounds. It's actually very nice. I also went to the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round, which I'd never seen. It's kind of a slightly-shabbier version of the Prospect Park carousel in Brooklyn. It's very nice, still, though, and at a buck a ride, the price isn't bad.

I also did my favorite trail loop on Mt. Tom; a section of the M-M trail that forms a circuit with the Beau Bridge trail. The roadway was open for the first time in a while. They did, however, close the Rte. 141 entrance at 4:00, which I had assumed was a bluff. We just drove through the park to the Rt. 5 exit instead, which was closer to where we wanted to be anyway. I just love that park. I visited there with my aunt when I was a kid, so there's a nostalgic connection, but I also just like the slightly aged, user-friendly feel to it. Plus, the loop I like goes through pine forest, up to the peak with a great view and benches to sit on, through stands of mountain laurel, winding down to an area criss-crossed by streams and waterfalls girdled by wooden footbridges. And it ends up back in the same place you parked your car. Just don't go in the beginning of mosquito season, as I was once nearly smothered by them there. Ugh.

Spring is here, is what I'm trying to say, and just ignore the stupid snow currently falling from the sky, because it's melting as soon as it hits anything important. The snowdrops are up, the crocuses aren't far behind (they're up and blooming outside near the botanical gardens), and stupid people are buying forsythia for $5 a bunch at Stop and Shop when they could just cut some from their neighbor's bush and put them in water for a few days and get the same flowers for free. Things really are going to be okay.

Listen, I know posting has been light the past couple of weeks. Work is being ass lately, and it may continue like this for a while. It's not that I don't care about you; I do. But I also need to get my work done, you know?

It looks like Tallulah enjoys the sweet songs of Queen, at least when sung by her parents. But they have failed to sing the most obvious, best Queen song for a baby girl.

Are you gonna take me home tonight
Ah down beside that red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rockin’ world go round
Hey I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me
Hey hey!
I’ve been singing with my band
Across the wire across the land
I seen ev’ry blue eyed floozy on the way
But their beauty and their style
Went kind of smooth after a while
Take me to them dirty ladies every time
Oh won’t you take me home tonight?
Oh down beside your red firelight
Oh and you give it all you got
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Hey listen here
Now your mortgages and homes
I got stiffness in the bones
Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you)
Oh but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Heap big woman you gonna make a big man out of me
Now get this
Oh you gonna take me home tonight (please)
Oh down beside your red firelight
Oh you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Get on your bikes and ride
Oooh yeah them fat bottomed girls
Fat bottomed girls
Yeah yeah yeah
Fat bottomed girls
Yes yes


Some may find this inappropriate, but to them I say nay.