Hi y'all. So I said goodbye to my dog today. The new woman seems very nice. She has her for a trial period of a week, while I'm away on vacation. At the meeting place, within a couple of minutes of meeting her, my dog jumped into the new person's car and settled down in the back seat. That made it a little easier. I'm really missing her right now, probably because I'm a little woozy from wine and sadness. A few minutes ago I heard a noise that I thought was my dog doing one of her stretching-groans, but then I remembered that she isn't here. My heart feels all broken.

It was nice to be able to walk into town and have dinner while the sun was still up, without worrying about my dog baking in the car, or barking. I'm trying to focus on the reasons why I did this, but right now I think I need to feel bad for a little bit.

Thanks to everyone who commented. It helps.

So I'll be away this week, no blogging for you. Maybe you can take a walk down memory lane by reading through the Archives? I'm back Sunday, on August's Eve.

The time for a Big Decision has arrived. I put up a free ad for my dog on Petfinder.org, and someone actually responded, and she sounds like a really good match for my dog. Which means it's time to put up or shut up. When I got the email yesterday my heart unexpectedly sunk. How can I give up this close bond I have with my dog? The unconditional love I get? How can I let her down and break her heart, when she's been through so much in her life already? She helps me feel less alone, and it's very hard for me to ever turn away love of any kind. But a couple of things have happened in the past week that have made me pretty sure that my dog would do better elsewhere:

At Hugo's one night, my dog was (as she always has to be whenever I leave the house) locked inside of my car. And apparently she was barking so incessantly that a woman in a nearby building called the police, who loudly summoned me from the bar in front of a bunch of people I know. I had to walk out to my car and face the irate and exhausted woman who had called the cops. I was very apologetic. Luckily the policeman himself was very understanding, so all I had to do was move my car. But it was a definite low point.

This Sunday I didn't leave the house except to walk the dog. True, I amused myself by downloading a ton of my CDs onto my hard drive and then my ipod, making a couple of mixes along the way. But I didn't even have the option of, say, walking into town to grab a bite, or driving to Trader Joe's, or riding my bike to Pete's for ice cream.

...

I just had lunch with a couple of sympathetic co-workers, both dog-owners (one has a shelter dog), and they made me feel better about the whole thing. They agreed that if I was bringing her into a good situation, then it was the right thing to do in order to regain my freedom. There are two other people at work who are making me feel extremely guilty about giving her up... They don't know that I've started seriously looking for a new owner, but when I brought up the idea a few months ago they were both adamant that I keep her. One said that her anxiety will get worse with the new person, so to spare both the dog and the new person, I really just needed to keep on with the training (which I've been doing for years without success). The other said that she wouldn't be able to stand not seeing my dog at work every day. So why don't YOU adopt her, I was thinking, but I've asked her in the past and she can't or won't. Neither of these people, by the way, are ever willing to dog-sit for me.

So am I horrible? How horrible am I? The new person is arranging to meet with me this Saturday. I don't know if they will take her right away if things go well, or if they're going to wait a week (I'm going on vacation next week). And then I will be weepy and sad for a while. But then I will start to remember that I can once again ride my bike and walk everywhere I need to go in town, and I can do anything and go anywhere at any time of day, and I hope I'll realize I made a good choice.

Yesterday a co-worker noticed the black and white picture of a young and brooding Marlon Brando I've taped up in my cubicle. She sighed and I said, "Yes, wasn't he beautiful? And somehow knowing that he later became all tortured and anguished makes him even more beautiful." My co-worker nodded and said "hmm..." which could have meant either "I agree, sister, the bad boys totally do it for me," or "I think I've just figured out why you haven't found anyone 'good enough' during the past year."

Because this is the trick, the trick I and my girlfriends are trying to pull off: To find the guy who acts like a bad boy, but is a good guy in disguise. Who gets kind of introspective and cross sometimes, but never cross at you; and has done some things he regrets, but has learned from his mistakes; and who has had his heart broken a couple of times, so now he really appreciates the way you stroke his hair in a way that makes him like it, or how you laugh at the stupidest things as though you can't control yourself, or that you do things like find a pretty rock on the beach just to give to him. Because he knows by now that not all girls do that. So he treats you like a precious and rare creature, like a baby panda (they're endangered, you know).

And when he dresses up in a muu-muu and kisses Larry King on the mouth on national television, you will just shrug it all off, because he's treated you right and that's what's important.

I had a dream last week that I keep being reminded of due to the location and the celebrity guest-star: I was in the big back room of Essentials, the hip mod furnishings store on Main Street, lying on a bed with my sister as we watched and then listened to Freedy Johnston play a concert just for us. It wasn't meant to be just us, but it was early in the morning (thus the bed and the lying down) and he was charmed that we were there so he was doing the show. He was also simultaneously running a pirate radio station, and would occasionally take a break to broadcast some station i.d. or something. And of course he was helping out with the store. He was also acting a little crushed out on me. and in the dream this was uncomfortable: I had a feeling like I should really be enjoying the attention but instead I felt yucky and sad. (In real life, of course, I'd be all, "so when's the soonest we may marry?") During one of the songs he climbed up on the bed and was playing while lying next to me, staring up at the ceiling. The show seemed to go on forever, way past the point of my attention span. And when it ended, I noticed that a lot of my friends from town were there, having arrived late. So Freedy went over to talk to all of them. And I had to pack up a lot of stuff that I had brought while also rearranging the various things on sale at the store, and I was embarrassed about cleaning my cluttered mess in front of everyone. And that was that.


I do have a real-life Freedy story. Back when I was a band girlfriend, the Ms (I think...) opened for Freedy at the Iron Horse. We corralled him after the show and convinced him to go out to Bar 19 with us. And he said yes! A small crowd of musician friends gathered there and waited for a little bit wondering if he'd show, and eventually he did. We chatted about mundane things, and I think P got to speak to him one-on-one about the business end of making music. When it was time to go, the bunch of us walked from the bar back to the Horse (and our cars) together. It was all snowy and cold and gross mid-winter-ness, and Freedy was walking right in front of me, crossing the hump of snow between sidewalk and road, when he slipped and fell right onto his back. I let Freedy fall!

To this day I can point to the exact spot on King Street where it happened. Sigh.

What are you doing tonight?

You are watching the Amazing Race at 10 p.m. on CBS. If you missed the first one, go to Television Without Pity (in Links over there) and read the recap. TWP will make you love it.

What are you doing Thursday?

At 9 p.m. you are going to see Spouse, the Fawns, and Red Door Exchange at the lovely (and really way too small for this show) Bishop's Lounge. Because they are all beautiful, and I think the show is a mere 2 bucks, so you can afford to get one of their expensive fancy drinks.

What are you doing Wednesday?

That's up to you, sport. Take some initiative in your life for once.

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.