Oh, did I say that out loud?

2006-01-19T12:50:00.001-05:00

So Long, Farewell

2006-01-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

The title of this post obviously means two things: 1) I am indeed ending my blog and 2) I have been watching too much Sound of Music since I got the 40th Anniversary Edition DVD for Christmas. It was my best Christmas gift. (I would say people know me really well but the truth is I just asked for it.) You must admit: that Auf Wiedersehn song is some powerful stuff. My favorite part is when the kids troop upstairs singing it and the camera turns to the crowd below while the waving adults sing the final "goodnight." That is super nice. I am totally devoid of cynicism or irony when it comes to The Sound of Music.

I suppose this ending comes as no surprise, since most of the month has passed without me putting up a post. I just had to make absolutely sure I could say goodbye to all the fun I have had with this blog before putting it to bed forever, and that I could properly say goodbye to you, my loyal blog readers. With characteristic reluctance to display emotion and weakness at this sad moment, I am going to repress my feelings with the use of lists to say farewell.

First, here is a list of reasons I decided I do indeed have to stop:

1. I need to finish my dissertation. No, I really do. It's a tedious enough task as it is without the tempting possibility of writing about the Red Sox, my favorite t.v. shows, and how many people removed I am from Christina Aguilera every time I sit down at my computer instead of what I should be writing about: diaspora, ekphrasis, and hybridity (no I am not making these words up, sadly).

2. Well, that's really the main reason.

Next, to comfort you in my blog's absence, I have put together a list of things you can do to help you through this time of loss:

1. Go back and read all the posts you missed, leaving inappropriate comments on them that you think I will never find. (I assure you, I will.)

2. Research reverse osmosis water filters on the internet. This will take you 3 to 4 hours, minimum. Seriously, stop drinking fluoride.

3. Get your own blog. It couldn't be easier. Look right up there on the top right-hand corner of this page, there it is: "Get Your Own Blog." Do it: I'll read it religiously.

4. Email me, the way normal people communicate. I will attempt to write interesting and witty replies that include updates on my organic lifestyle (this week: cleaning the house with nothing but vinegar and baking soda) and any further research I complete on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

5. Consider possible titles for my next blog, when I am bold and employed enough to begin again (say, 2009?). Possible titles I have already thought of include: a) Capitol Beat: My Life as a Hugely Successful Political Operative b) Organic Baby [alternate title "How my Experiment with Natural Family Planning went bad but I am making the best of it"] or c) Ten Years and Counting: Getting a PhD in Irish Literature Blows

And, finally, since this is the last time I will have your collectively undivided attention, I want to give you a list of things I have enjoyed most about keeping this blog over the course of 2005:

1. Reading or hearing something crazy or interesting and thinking: oooh! I have to blog about that. At any one point over the year, I have had a little post-it on my desk scrawled with future topics such as: Big truck/baby truck, Fox News, juice fasts, racist maps, Ann Coulter/crazy, Nutter Butters, Boycott Monsanto, Fung-Wah deathtrap, homemade bomb-making, sci-fi as highest form of art, childhood obesity, Britney & Kevin, etc. (As you can see, not all of these topics went to press--I'll save the material for my next blog.) I am going to miss keeping that little post-it.

2. Being completely surprised by which of you turned out to be my most loyal blog readers. Really: not the people I would expect. JQ gets a special mention here. (The funny thing is I almost didn't send him the URL because I thought this blog's liberal leanings would fill him with Orange County-style feelings of loathing and enmity. Glad it didn't work out that way.) My unrequited high school love interest Jonny H warrants mention at the top of the list of "People Least Likely to Ever Find this Blog who Nonetheless Did." His last-ditch effort to halt cancellation of the blog was especially touching, even though I thought it was a conspiracy master-minded by JQ. And of course, Mark Huntsman deserves credit as the original inspiration to start this blog in the first place. I would acknowledge more people but this is already getting out of hand.

3. You guys have been great readers. I am really going to miss your funny comments, either on the blog or via email, your needling me about being lazy when I didn't write for a while, and knowing I had an audience that would indulge my rants on any subject I found fit to blather about. Seriously, that has been so great. Look at that I'm getting all mushy. Damn lists not doing their job.

So, one year to the day that I started this grand experiment, perhaps you will allow me one final Sound of Music reference. In this metaphor, I get to be Liesel, Brigita and all those other cute Austrian kids leaving the party, and you all are those fancy-dressed adults who end the song. Don't be bitter or sad, just wave me a nice goodbye.

2005-12-31T16:00:00.000-05:00

Notice RE: Death of the Blog

2005-12-31T15:50:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I have been very impressed by the heartfelt, sincere, and sometimes whiny responses to the impending death of my blog. They have made me want to reconsider my decision. However, I am currently visiting my family in Whittier, where the following conditions apply:

1. I have caught a severe head cold and can't hear out of my right ear.

2. The region will be subjected to downpours for the next three days, i.e. the remainder of my trip to "Sunny California."

3. I am crushed and weakened by the steady diet of white flour, fast food, and Laffy Taffy that is the only sustenance available in the suburbs.

As a result of the aforesaid conditions, I find myself stripped of any decision-making capability. For this reason, I am afraid you will have to check back at this location in a few days' time to see if your galvanizing efforts have paid off. In the meantime, Happy 2006! (I will be spending mine under a blanket watching a "Star Trek" marathon. The burbs aren't all bad.)

2005-12-23T12:47:00.000-05:00

Consider this a Card

2005-12-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

I really respect people who send out Christmas cards. Actually owning the addresses of all your friends, licking and stamping scores of holiday envelopes, and trudging to the post office with the final bundle are things that impress me, yes they do. I am not one of those people, though. It is yet another one of those projects that are muscled out of my life each year by things like poorly timed literary journal deadlines and a roomful of unwrapped and irregularly shaped Christmas gifts.

But I think a Christmas card can tell you a lot about the people who send it out. Do they send you a photo from the past year of them doing something meaningful? (Another option: doing something sporty and windblown) Do they settle upon the traditional snow-covered valley scene or perhaps something in the manger family? Or, do they go with this year's special, a card from the Baby Explosion movement. (This is a very cute option, even when, as in the case of two of our friends, this means a picture of their dog.)

Since the arrival of so many cards in my little mailbox over the last few weeks engenders feelings of, you guessed it, Christmas guilt, I feel the need to take the unabashedly half-assed way out and send a Christmas e-card to y'all right now. After all, the mini outpouring of support and resistance at the news of my blog's ending was touching and fills me with something not unlike the Christmas spirit. (It also had the side benefit of revealing my most loyal blog readers as well as those who have mysteriously fallen off the face of the earth yes that means you Mark Huntsman.) So, this is what I would have said, had I gotten my act together and sent out the 60-odd Christmas cards necessary to get the job done:

Greeting and Merry Christmas! We hope everyone is doing great. James and I had a great 2005, a year that saw us take on new jobs, visit Prague, and have lots of good times with...

Yeah, okay, I see why this isn't working. Any Christmas card about my year that would be suitable reading material for all sixty people on the list, including grandparent-types and former bosses is, let's face it, just not fun to read. Upon further reflection, I stand by my original decision. If you read this blog, you already know what I did this year and are probably sick of hearing about how I'm "working on my dissertation" and "eating organic food." I've just realized that my blog is my (year-long) Christmas card, and, viewed that way, is actually much more extensive than most people's. So, less guilt for me. I suppose if I didn't cancel my blog I wouldn't have to do Christmas cards next year, either.

At any rate, I did enjoy receiving Christmas cards from all of you who sent them, I really did, and please don't strike me from your list next year in anger. I must sign off now, as I am headed to Fenway Park to pick up a few last minute Christmas gifts (I just love saying "I am headed to Fenway Park." When I eventually leave Boston, that will be one of the things I miss saying the most.) Since this will be my last post before Sunday, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday and a most cheerful Christmas morning, itchy reindeer sweaters and all.

2005-12-16T00:35:00.000-05:00

In With the New

2005-12-16T00:32:00.000-05:00

I always knew I would only do this blog for a year. It was one of those things I had always wanted to do (and by "always," I mean since about 2002, when I first heard about blogs), so last January I decided to start it up. Incredibly, that year is almost up; the days left in 2005 and in this blog are ticking by quickly, so if you have a burning desire to hear me wax profound (or inane) on a particular topic, now is definitely the time to put in your request. It's a "Last Dance" kind of moment. (Speaking of "Last Dance," I have to say that is the weirdest, most alienating song to play at the end of a wedding/prom/party type event that I can think of. It starts out slow and touchy-feely and then breaks into this jolting disco inferno style wackiness. Just a bad, bad song.)

2005 was a good year to try out a few other new things as well. If you don't know what they were, that just means you weren't paying enough attention to this blog and you missed the post about my lesbian kiss on the beach. Wait. No, that was the O.C. Well, I did get hooked on a LOT of new t.v. shows.

And I did take an acting class, and I joined the adolescent yet somehow fully absorbing world of fantasy basketball, and I taught at Harvard, and I played a convincing adult at several Irish lit conferences, and I worked on a (losing) local political campaign, and I learned how to cook with fennel, and I was on t.v., albeit on the worst channel ever, and I turned 30, and I learned that fluoride is slowly killing us all. (Damn, I won't have a chance to post about that. Just trust me on this and get a reverse-osmosis filter for your tap asap.) I enjoyed 2005, for the most part, and I really liked trying out a few new things.

I would like to hear if you tackled anything new this year, large or small. Please do write in if so--just make sure it wasn't anything too impressive so I don't feel dwarfed by your achievements. Only a few more days left to post your inner feelings...

2005-12-08T00:32:00.000-05:00

Scrooge

2005-12-08T00:05:00.000-05:00

It's almost Christmas, which explains my persistently crabby demeanor and frequently alarming mood swings. I just realized it's almost Christmas a few days ago, at the same time that I realized I have purchased zero Christmas presents. Zero. And the thing is, I can't even go out and rush around fake-festive department stores clogged with billions of other people to buy overpriced gifts that no one really wants because I can't think of anything creative or useful to get them right now because I have other things to do, like read an entire book of Joyce criticism and write a review on it for an obscure Irish literary publication so that 15 people can read it come February.

No matter how well everything is clicking or how precisely I have lined up my little ducks, right around this time of year I always suddenly feel overwhelmed and over-rushed. I find myself cursing more and smiling less as the end of each year creeps up. Until New Year's Eve, of course, which I love and who doesn't--because what's better than a holiday where the only requirement is to dress slutty and drink a lot before midnight? Thanksgiving, with all that eating, is fabulous, and New Year's Eve, with all that drinking, is a great time, but Christmas BLOWS. Is anyone else with me on this? In case you're still not convinced, here are a few more reasons:

1. If you've moved to the other side of the country in an ill-advised bid for a fun autumn lark eight years ago and never moved back, you have to fly home for Christmas. Which is the most expensive time of the year to fly, as well as the most congested, and by congested I mean both the airports and the nasty, snuffling man next to you on the plane who snorts phlegm into tissues which he then stuffs in the crack between your seats.

2. The aforementioned gift-buying. A task which doubles in size and unpleasantness when you get married and have to now think about appropriate gifts for all of your in-laws, who are secretly but undoubtedly mad at you anyway for taking their first-born son away from them to accursed California every year for the holidays.

3. Guilt. The guilt of the Christmas spirit, namely determining whether you have it or not. When lights go up all around downtown and fancy office buildings put polar bears in the vestibule, you feel the obligation to get "in the holiday spirit," even though I've noticed it generally takes either a windfall of cash or actual spirits to make this really happen. It's especially hard to get in the "holiday spirit" when you are rushing to the grocery store or the dry cleaners in a car that persistently threatens to seize up and die in the cold altogether, or trekking down to Government Center where you must apply in person for a Boston parking permit when it is 7 degrees outside with the wind chill. It almost makes me miss those foil-wrapped palm trees that come out every year for Christmas in L.A.

4. Santa and "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" and Kwanzaa stamps and bell-ringers and fake Christmas trees. Just the fact that Christmas isn't real anymore. If I was going to do Christmas, I would take my family (just people that I like) out into a really cozy cabin in the woods with a fireplace, and we could bake homemade sugar cookies with icing that are so easy to make that those Pillsbury break-apart things in a bag are a travesty, and we could watch '80s movies, and have wonderful, sleepy pajama breakfasts and no one would have to buy each other a thing to make this happen. Wouldn't that be nice? Of course that's not how it's going to be. The reality is awkward small talk with distant relatives and dressing up in itchy sweaters for uncomfortably boring get-togethers and the familiar haze of the Christmas story in the background that is in desperate need of a fresh re-telling to make you care.

If you disagree, by all means make your case. Maybe you are one of those people who hauls out the Christmas stuff after Thanksgiving dinner, or whose favorite childhood memories involve steaming mugs of yuletide cider and non-terrifying visits to the mall Santa to tell him your gift list. Maybe you like all the non-stop holiday parties, those embarrassing displays of inebriation, oversharing, and erratic behavior from co-workers that are an inevitable part of every office Christmas party (Actually, I like those too). Perhaps you don't tire of hearing about Joseph, Mary, and Bethlehem, and this story somehow still strikes you as unusual and poignant. Far be it from me to marginalize the true believers among you. If you love Christmas, let me know like Cindy-Lou Who so you can warm my Grinchy heart.

Even now, I have to admit all might not be totally lost. As it does for all good Scrooges, redemption for my curmudgeony little self beckons this coming weekend, in the form of tickets to "The Nutcracker Suite," one of my own childhood favorites and a lovely tradition just re-introduced by my sister, who believes in Christmas. It might be just the event that brings me back to the holidays. Whatever the case, it will be accompanied, as all good holidays should, by lots of eating beforehand and plenty of drinking afterwards.

2005-11-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

Desperate Last-Ditch Efforts

2005-11-30T14:02:00.000-05:00

Back on May 3rd, I wrote an impassioned plea to save "Arrested Development," the show that was fearing cancellation despite its superior comic writing, great casting, and all around greatness. Well, it's that time again, as FOX is yet again threatening to cancel the show (in fact, they all but have already). There is a small, thin thread of hope however. The programming director at FOX has said they plan to put the show on the air in December and "see what happens." It's on Monday nights. Watch it, especially if you have a Nielsen box. In the meantime, go sign another geeky petition just to mollify me:

http://www.petitiononline.com/AD4EVR/petition.html

Thanks,
A loyal fan

2005-11-23T00:49:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving Madness

2005-11-23T00:47:00.000-05:00

I am having 17 people over for Thanksgiving dinner and/or dessert on Thursday. I offer to you a list of what I am making as a way to explain my absence on the blog lately:

Cranberry Mimosas
Bacon-Wrapped Scallops with Port Reduction Sauce
Shrimp and cocktail sauce
Sweet Onion, White Bean, and Artichoke Heart Dip with pita chips
Salami, cheese, crackers, olives, grapes
Butternut Squash Soup
Apple and Pomegranate Salad with Cider Vinaigrette, Spiced Walnuts, and Goat Cheese
Cider-Brined Turkey and gravy
Spiral Ham
Clementine Cranberry Sauce
Mashed Potatoes
Sourdough and Country Sausage Stuffing
Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Maple Syrup
Honey Ginger Carrots
Flaky Dinner Rolls
Asparagus with Parmesan Butter
Mulled Apple Cider
Nutcracker Pie
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Raspberry Sauce
Spiced Pumpkin Dip with Gingersnaps and Apple Slices

As I look at this list written out, I realize again how ridiculous I am and how very much Martha Stewart is in the house. I also realize how very adept I am at undertaking large Herculean tasks in lieu of dissertation-writing. How much I love huge, organization-heavy tasks that have nothing to do with Irish poetry or transnationalism.

You wouldn't believe how many countless hours one can spend in seeking out recipes, planning a menu, grocery shopping in various specialty shops for things like candied ginger, reorganizing the living room, baking pies from scratch, making vats of ice, ironing napkins and tablecloths, and other sundry and unnecessary tasks involved in making The Perfect Thanksgiving. I imagine every year it will get worse and worse, until by 2028 I will start cooking around Halloween. Oh well, it is my favorite holiday. And this year, my very favorite procrastination tool.

What is everyone doing for Thanksgiving?

2005-11-09T13:48:00.000-05:00

Book Club

2005-11-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

With much fanfare, Oprah has re-opened her Book Club (after closing it down two years ago over hurt feelings that Jonathan Franzen would not let her select his novel "The Corrections" for her monthly pick. That bastard).

If Oprah can do it, so can I. I'm thick in the middle of the doldrums of the fall semester: buried under papers and student conferences, but I have had a little time to read on the bus I take to Cambridge, so I thought I'd pass some (non-fiction) recommendations your way.

Speaking of Oprah, I finally checked out Michael Moore's Dude Where's My Country, which is pretty funny (although not as funny as Al Franken's Lying Liars and the Lies they Tell) and contains the compelling argument that Oprah should be our next president. He's not kidding about this either. He thinks Oprah is the only person that could win, hands-down, when running against anybody, based on her widespread appeal, name recognition, and the general respect she commands in this country. When I see her passing out free Christmas gifts to a screaming audience of hysterical housewives, I'm not so sure. But most of the time, I have to agree. Who doesn't like Oprah?

Moving away from politics (reluctantly), I found Freakonomics (by two science-y guys) really interesting. It's that book that has the green apple on the cover, sliced into so that you can see it's an orange inside. So right away I was intrigued. Basically the book breaks complex issues down to their nitty-gritty by using math and statistics. It's actually MUCH more entertaining than I just made that sound. For example, authors Levitt and Dubner debunk all sorts of commonly-held beliefs--like, crack dealers make lots of money and reading to your kids will make them smarter--and they show you how your swimming pool is much more likely to kill your children than the guns you might have in the house. It also has a really fascinating chapter on the long-term effect of the name you choose for your baby.

I also recently taught an excerpt from Nicked and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich to my Harvard Extension students. It's an interesting case study. This journalist, a middle-class, middle-aged woman, slips into the low-wage workforce (as a waitress at a charming family style restaurant called "The Hearthside") for a few months to see if you really can survive on minimum wage (without welfare). The results are pretty illuminating, making fools of those Republicans who led all that welfare reform in the late '90s. Oh look at that, we're back to politics again.

And finally, one book that everyone should read that owns a trash can: Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte. It shows where your garbage goes after you throw it away. It is never preachy or depressing, more of an interesting look at something you never think about...sort of like when Mr. Rogers would visit those factories that make toothpaste or drinking straws to show you how it's done. I always loved those factories.

Okay, so no more saying "I don't have time to read" then spending four hours watching that Desperate Housewives/OC/Lost cocktail you recorded to DVR. Now you have some good options. And, if you've read anything interesting yourself lately, do post it up here for our collective benefit.

2005-10-31T13:38:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween

2005-10-31T13:27:00.000-05:00

It's always fun to be something that you're not. This is why I like Halloween. Carte blanche to im- or ex- plicitly make fun of famous people is another staple of the holiday, and another reason why I like it.

So I don't understand the trend these days towards skipping Halloween. Can we ever really get too mature and responsible to don something ridiculous and drink bad spiked punch while wearing something unwieldly? I say no.

I know there are others out there who share my vision. So, if you dressed up this year, most likely on Saturday, when all the Halloweeny festivities seemed to happen, please send me a picture of you in your outfit. If you didn't dress up yet, there's still time tonight to make a sheet with two holes in it and run out into the streets during trick-or-treating time (which, in these days of rampant unease is about 3:00 in the afternoon). If you have no intention of getting in the Halloween spirit this year, you'd better have a good excuse, so I want to hear that too.

I recognize that some of us were busy this weekend doing things like having babies, but I have high hopes for the rest of you. Make me proud, people! Bonus points if you can guess my costume just by its top half, without its incriminating props.

Update: okay, Casson (cheatingly) guessed it. Here we are, props included:

2005-10-31T13:26:00.000-05:00

Congratulations!

2005-10-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

To Benji and Skyla, the newest set of parents in our increasingly-parental group. Welcome to little Riley Berneace, who arrived on Friday at 12:28 am (she's clearly a night person--a girl after my own heart).

2005-10-17T15:34:00.000-04:00

Coffee Conundrum

2005-10-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

Where do you get your coffee? Apparently, your answer says a lot about your socio-economic status, your political leanings, and your ideals. And you just thought you were getting a little caffeine.

I have almost always hated Starbucks. At the beginning of their chain explosion in the early '90s I was uninterested in any coffee drink other than the Cappuccino Blast at Baskin Robbins which, let's face it, is just ice cream. During college (mid '90s now), Starbucks was just a place to do a little half-hearted studying in between celebrity sightings, seeing as my local shop in Montecito was the mecca for Steve Martin (bike helmet), Rob Lowe (every morning, with his kids), and Julia Roberts (just the one time, and didn't order anything because she already had ice cream in her hand--my kind of girl.) Somehow over the decade, Starbucks got super huge and corporate and became known for shoving out local coffee shops and for snobby customers who liked that you had to order in Italian.

As the heady, frenzied days of late '90s prosperity passed me and my entry-level job right by, coffee insinuated itself into my surroundings. At the Carlyle Group, the coffee and the Republican group-think were both free, and their consumption encouraged. Each kitchen was stacked with tiny Evian bottles and small, tight green packages with the Starbucks logo, ripped open to be brewed and served to the steady stream of billionaires dropping by. I myself mostly tanked up on coke (a-cola).

It wasn't until graduate school and the last gasp of the '90s that I finally accepted the fact that real coffee, sans ice cream, would be fundamental to my survival strategy if I was to finish four 20-page papers at the end of every semester. It was then that I finally tasted Starbucks coffee, straight-up. And realized it tasted like hot water mixed with a little char. Those of you with a Starbucks habit will immediately start squawking, but that's only because you're used to it after years of mega-dosing. You are in fact addicted to the alarming levels of caffeine particular to the Starbucks brew, levels that keep you buzzed and twitching all day. But people: it doesn't taste good. What's more insidious is that Starbucks coffee is so unabashedly stronger, so recklessly noxious, that once you've developed a taste for it, all other coffee actually tastes bad. Those corporate guys up in Seattle are no dummies.

I needed my coffee though, and I realized Starbucks coffee tastes like shit, and I found myself in Massachusetts. What's a poor, transplanted graduate student to do? It was clear. I joined the church of Dunkin' Donuts, a New England institution on par with Fenway Park, and it was there that I became a true Bostonian. In California, there is one small, sad and grimy Dunkin' Donuts for every three or four suburban cities. People go there to buy (small, sad and slightly stale) donuts. Imagine my bewilderment then, when I encountered gleaming, bustling Dunkin' Donuts on every corner of my new city, five branches at the airport, and lines out the door of every one! (One store for every 7,000 Massachusetts residents, compared to just one Starbucks per 15,000 people in Washington State.) People in New England don't go to Dunkin' Donuts primarily for the pastries, they go for the coffee: soft, comforting varieties such as French Vanilla and Hazelnut that don't make your eyes water as you read the Boston Herald. And they go a lot. Dunkin' Donuts is a way of life, familiar and respected like the blue-collar workers that are as plentiful around here as the chain. Although DD has moved slightly upscale lately, adding cappuccinos and other nonsense to their menu, at heart the franchise says simplicity, speed (the efficiency of the workers is amazing), Red Sox endorsements, and yummy stuff. As a result of this chain's ubiquity and its good-tasting coffee, I developed a legitimate habit. I had my standing order--"medium French Vanilla, skim milk, four sugars"--and I slowly incorporated Dunkin' Donuts' products into my life as a major food group. It was a wonderful relationship.

Unfortunately, the relationship turned bad. Not because things stopped tasting good, but because of the sheer number of ham, egg, and American cheese on-a-bagel sandwiches that I consumed per week along with my extremely sweet coffee. At some point, I added "Coolattas" to the rotation--foamy concoctions made with real cream and lots of sugar. Then they introduced steak bagels. Then I realized how good the Coffee Cake muffin was. Then I feared for my triglycerides. It became time to put an end to the madness. I ended my affair with Dunkin' Donuts at the same time I broke up with my native New Englander boyfriend. Cut all ties.

Now, in a cruel twist of fate, I have come full circle. There is a Starbucks beneath my gym, and that curious green/burning odor peculiar to the chain wafts up into the club at all hours. From my treadmill I have a view of the parking lot and an endless stream of commuter-ants scurrying into the store below, emerging with cups surgically planted into their palms. After my workout, I join them. Sadly, there is no other air-conditioned spot in my entire neighborhood where I can plug in a laptop and eat while working on my dissertation. I also have collected what seems to be hundreds of dollars' worth of Starbucks gift cards from my stepmother over the preceding five Christmases. All of which have put me square in my plushy chair at the local Starbucks, ordering $3 tea and trying to buy the "serenity" the chain is now apparently selling while I pound out a few pages. It rarely works, if only because invariably a gaggle of Boston College sorority girls traipse in to talk loudly about L.L. Bean and boys.

I am sad to have ended up here, among the slacker-chic baristas and the XM music. It feels like a defeat, like a violation of my honorary New Englander status. I am told that I belong more at Starbucks than at Dunkin' Donuts--Starbucksters vote Democrat, have advanced degrees, and read the Boston Globe. Dunkin Donutsters work construction, vote with the red states, and know the box score from last night's game. (Well, I'm with them on that one.) So, I belong here, even though I hate the pseudo-European fakery (I will never order a "venti" anything unless I'm in Rome) and the slick packaging of a product under the guise of "relaxed sophistication." I actually don't drink coffee anymore at all--I gave it up completely two years ago and no longer have crushing headaches in the morning as a result--so maybe this is why I am no longer blinded by the effect of all that green and caffeine. After all, anything you do each day, every day, becomes more than a habit and something nearing an identity: that's bad for both crowds, of the New England or Seattle variety. So I suppose it's best not to pledge allegiance to either side.

But I'm curious to know about everyone else--are you hopelessly addicted to the green bean? Do you have a weakness for the Dunkaccino that I used to love so much? Or have you broken free of the cycle altogether, maybe frequenting one of the nearly extinct local coffee shops in your neighborhood, or forgoing coffee stores altogether for trips to the library, the museum, and your own living room couch (who are we kidding about the library & the museum). Anyway, let me know. Perhaps your answers will inspire me to break free of the Starbucks cycle once and for all, slamming the door on its air-conditioned splendor and grossly expensive coffee forever!... with one more toffee-almond bar for the road.

2005-10-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

It's Over

2005-10-10T14:18:00.000-04:00

Getting swept by the White Sox wasn't too much fun, no. Witnessing the inglorious end of the Red Sox season up close and personal at a rapidly quieting Fenway Park on Friday was a mite depressing, yes. But no one can say we didn't deserve to lose. If you can't score with the bases loaded and no outs, it just feels like it's time to hang up the gear and head for winter vacation. Which is exactly what the Red Sox did. And I'm okay with it (considering). I really am.

I will return to the metaphor I made before the season even started. You remember--the Sox were the scrappy, maybe even freckly guy who had made it all the way with the hottest girl in camp the previous summer and thought, "you know what, I might be able to do that again." Well, he didn't. He crashed and burned before he could get close to sealing the deal. What's worse: the biggest asshole in camp is still in the chase. But (after a weekend of reflection and vodka tonics) it's okay--his first time is behind him, it was fabulous, and there will be other summers, other girls. He's okay. We're okay.

Onward, Sox.

2005-10-06T12:59:00.000-04:00

Here We Are Again

2005-10-06T12:57:00.000-04:00

So things are gloomy in Red Sox Nation this morning. It was a bad loss last night, that errored-away a 4-0 lead and put us one game closer to the end of the Sox season. What with the fumbling and our quiet offense, Chicago took the first two games in the series rather handily. That means, of course, that the Sox have to win two in a row to stay alive. Not that it hasn't been done before--we won FOUR in a row to beat the Yankees last year after all--but that was the first time it had ever been done in baseball. I have tickets to tomorrow's game, which may or may not be the last one of the season. If they lose, it's all over. Swept by the White Sox. Ugggh.

I have to admit I love do-or-die games though. There is something so invigorating about hanging off a cliff with your fingernails, rather than being the guy looking down from above and cackling. In action movies, the hero is always the guy hanging off the edge, and the villain is lording it over him, savoring his evil dominance, and usually banging on the hero's clutching fingers with a blunt object. This is a staple. One of the most famous fingers-at-the-edge-of-the-cliff scenes in recent movie history appeared to end very badly, but actually bumped the hero up a level in the end, from a gray wizard to a white wizard. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to take a scifi/fantasy crash course right now. Yes, now.) What fun would it be if you were on solid ground the whole time, only to find yourself abruptly hurtling down the cliffside at the very end, as is the route of all cackling villains? (Ask the Yankees.) No, a little desperation is a good thing. Give me my underdogs every time.

There's nothing wrong, on paper, with having all the advantages in life from the beginning. It seems like it would be quite a picnic to be born enormously wealthy or already-famous (Scout, Rumer, Apple), to have connections in all the right places and every type of leg-up as you grow up. On the other hand, it would really suck. Who wants to be known as "the boss's kid" at the company, or have it whispered that you weren't all that bright after all, just well-connected. Being born into a lot of money makes it imperative that you somehow make even more. And if you are not fabulous and successful in every way, you have failed to reach your potential. (If the Yankees don't win the World Series every year, everyone in the organization is disgusted.) That is the dilemma of the Jude Law character from Gattaca that I finally watched last night (good movie--scifi meets film noir). Genetically programmed to be an ideal specimen, he feels compelled to end his life because he "only" received a silver medal in swimming. High expectations much?

These crippling expectations are something the defending World Series champs have been trying to shake off all season. They lost the freewheeling scrappiness of the underdogs the minute they won the championship, and they miss it. Last season they were loose, relaxed, playful, and eager. Nothing to lose! Everything to gain. This year they came into it as "the best," and you can see the strain. This isn't to say being World Series champs is a downer. It's been fantastic. But the topdog job comes with a lot of pressure, and it is a dynamic that the Red Sox have shaken free of only now, with quite possibly one game left in their season. Let's hope the reversal came in time.

Wild Card

2005-10-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

Well, the Sox have made it into the post-season by the skin of their teeth. We didn't quite beat the Yankees for the division title, but we did beat the Yankees yesterday and that counts for something. (In the complicated world that is baseball division races, the Sox came out with the exact same record as the Yankees, but those evil New Yorkers win the division by virtue of their record against us. In 19 games between the Sox and the Yanks this season, the Yankees won ten of them. So close.) It is difficult to accept the fact that one more win against crappy Tampa Bay would have given us the divison title.

But the important thing is that we are in. There will be October baseball, hopefully lots of it, to go along with the cooling weather and the apple dumplings I am going to make this weekend. Despite the injuries and the grumbling and Kevin Millar, the Sox got it done, and so, we celebrate. Red Sox vs. Chicago White Sox in Game 1 of the ALDS, tomorrow, 4:00 p.m.

2005-10-03T13:34:00.000-04:00

2005-09-29T17:34:00.000-04:00

Firefly

2005-09-29T17:32:00.000-04:00

Now seems like a good time to reveal my true identity as a sci-fi nerd. I love science fiction, in all its forms, and I am immediately on board with any entertainment premise involving the following: time travel, space travel, parallel universes, the future, non-humanoid beings (a lesser nerd would just say "aliens" there), robots who have turned on their masters, and the scantily clad but kick-ass warrior women intrinsic to the genre.

In keeping with that love, Back to the Future is my favorite film of all time. (Time travel: check. Accurate-sounding but totally bogus science: check. Improbable love story and threat of incest: well, actually going into different kind of checklist there..) The movies I enjoyed most over the past few years were Minority Report, The Matrix, and War of the Worlds (despite Tom Cruise). I even wanted to watch The Island (but I didn't. You have to listen to the critics sometimes.) Gattaca was Netflixed to my house yesterday. I said no to drugs in the '80s and instead read all of Isaac Asimov (I told you: very nerdy). I taught Octavia Butler's Dawn: Xenogenesis to my BU undergrads, and I can justify that choice over similar works by Ursula LeGuin. I have watched every single episode of the original Star Trek series with my dad and have them all recorded on wobbily VHS tapes at my childhood home. Most recently, I burned through all six DVDs of Battlestar Galactica in two days. Plus commentary. I am actually only one Star Trek convention away from being in a little too deep. All this to say that my sci-fi credentials are up-to-date. So it should mean something when I say that I am ready to talk about my favorite science fiction series of all time.

Like all good love stories, it involves heartbreak: the knowledge of eventual but certain loss. I started watching Firefly after it had already been killed (by evildoers at FOX, naturally). I picked up the DVD set of the cancelled series almost by accident and proceeded to get immediately and entirely sucked in. The characters are good, the writing is fantastic, the world of the series is gritty, realistic, and compelling, and the show is funny, scary, and smart all at the same time. Fabulous television. Which explains, of course, why FOX showed the episodes out of order on the loser-slot of Friday night and then pulled the series after only eleven shows. Nobody ever accused FOX of being intelligent.

More than inventive set design or futuristic technology, what makes science fiction great is its (boring-sounding but actually important) moral component: its particular gift at commenting on those values and ideals most important to human life. While often showcasing humanity's grossest tendencies toward greed, violence, and careless destruction (see how many times "nuclear winter" is the beginning premise of any show), sci-fi embraces the best elements of human nature as well: courage, belief, adventure. Science fiction also depends on a strong and abiding element of hope, even when things look bad. Which traits do you embrace when all but 50,000 members of your race have been extinguished? How adaptable is human nature to harsh environments and people who are different? To what lengths will humanity go to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go... etc.? Good questions, all asked by science fiction. The genre is well-suited to these questions, since it can extrapolate the human condition 50 or 500 years into the future in order to reveal the most complex parts of human nature today--something sci-fi has been doing ever since the original Star Trek modelled the members of a distant planet after the warhawks and peaceniks of the '60s. So, yeah, I like it.

Firefly recognizes the importance of this moral element and plays with it. That is why the roles of "good guy" and "bad guy" are deliciously muddled, even while the frontier ideals of toughness, pluck, and basic human kindness are lifted up again and again. The series generally passes up easy definitions, going for complexity and ambiguity instead. All the while that crucial undercurrent of hope is palpable, even while the far-from-privileged renegades run into the ugliest of villains and the seemingly bleakest of scenarios.

Like a lot of good love stories, this one ends with a second chance. Some non-idiot executive at a different studio realized Firefly's greatness and greenlighted a movie, Serenity, based on the series. A movie, my friends, that is being released tomorrow. It is, of course, very possible that the movie will fall far short of my impossibly high expectations, that trying to make a feature-length film of this story will screw it up completely, and that I will leave the theater with the double blow of not loving the movie and realizing that the Firefly saga really has come to a final end. But, in the best tradition of science fiction, I will hope for the best. I suggest you come along for the ride if you can.

2005-09-29T17:30:00.000-04:00

Buy it.

2005-09-29T17:29:00.000-04:00

See it.

2005-09-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it's the real thing.

Hope Springs Autumnal

2005-09-27T14:25:00.000-04:00

It's not over yet. Friday night I saw my first Red Sox World Series Championship ring in person, and just being around that unnecessarily large and glittering chunk of diamond and chutzpah gave me a boost of optimism.

But things are not well in the clubhouse, my friends. The boys are banged up, teammates are turning on one other, and the Sox are half a game back of both the Yankees and the Indians. (Of course, they are also at this moment playing game one of a doubleheader against Toronto, and are 2-0 in the third. So the numbers are fluid.)

Who is trying to bring down Curt Schilling?? The man who charged through the playoffs with a bloody sock, Bush-lover or no, does not deserve to have one of his own teammates turn Brutus on him. My money for the traitor is on Keith Foulke, who is done for the season and has been carping about how tough it is to play baseball in Boston for a while now. Oh, and also how he doesn't care about crowd reaction at Fenway--what "Johnny from Burger King" thinks of his pitching. Way to endear yourself to the fans, chuck. 2-0, top of the fourth.

Things are getting cranky around the edges. I blame the higher expectations after last year's amazing win and most of all, the utterly unfamiliar feeling of being defending champs. It's not that the Sox haven't appreciated the thrillride, but it's always been so easy to be the underdogs. At a point like this any other season, we are ecstatic about being in the thick of the chase. A half game! away from making the playoffs one way or another. Maybe we can catch the Yankees! And through it all, everyone would have expected the team to push us to the limit and then let us down. EVERYONE expected that. This collective unbelief always nourished a secret and persistent spark of hope, at least in me. You had to believe in your team despite prevailing wisdom, despite the yammering idiots on WEEI, and despite decades and decades of terrible Sox luck. That was exciting, in that secret, childlike-faith way. Now? If we don't make the playoffs, we're a pathetic bunch of underachieving losers. Sox quickly retired in the fourth, top of the fifth same score.

But this post is about optimism. I still feel like the chemistry is off, and physically this team is pretty beaten up. But it's still a good team, with a lot of amazing elements (Big Papi, the ManChild when he decides to play, a couple of young and promising pitchers) and they could get the job done. (On the other hand, Toronto just scored on a Mirabelli passed ball. They could also not get it done.) But seeing the hunk of gem and metal these guys get as their reward made me think: why not? Why couldn't they do it again? They just have to get to the playoffs first. And despite the naysaying, and sportsradio, and traitors in the clubhouse and Renteria at short, I, not so secretly, have decided to believe that they will.

2005-09-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

In case you need a closer look.

Welcome

2005-09-23T13:06:00.000-04:00

...to little Owen Williams, NINE pounds, 3 oz! Congrats Melissa and Lee!

2005-09-22T04:14:00.001-04:00

'Nite

2005-09-22T04:12:00.000-04:00

So, it's 4:12 a.m. on a quiet Wednesday night (well, Thursday morning actually, but my day doesn't start until I've gone to bed and then woken up a solid 8 or 9 hours later), and I am awake and alert in that state that sometimes occurs as a result of running around so feverishly all day long right up to this very minute that if you went to bed you would just lie there and busily think about your hefty to-do list until your nonstop mind moves on to inventing alarming scenarios involving your loved ones. No thanks. I've decided just to wind down here instead.

While winding down, I will share a few things that were flying around in my head tonight as I made four gallons of barley & bean soup. (Yeah, Wednesdays are Suzy Homemaker Days. . . Don't take that seriously.) As I cried my way through two cups of chopped onions, sauteed some garlic, and tore up baby spinach, I recognized anew that the BBC whips the pants off American radio all day long. Luckily NPR has wised up and just plays the BBC all night, apparently for the benefit of married grad students up late cooking. (and...who? who else listens to NPR at night? Truckers?) BBC is just better. It's succinct, it's rational, it's thorough, they have those neat accents, and, for a plus, it's actually international news. I know more than I could even tell you about German politics (did you know they had an "inconclusive" election for prime minister last week?! fabulous!), the state of democracy and women's rights in Bahrain, the fates of Mexican drug ministers, and an impeding natural disaster named Hurricane Rita (pronounce it "HURRikin") threatening the coast of our charming colony. If more people got their news from the BBC, we might be in better shape.

Which leads me not at all to another thought I was having during my midnight cooking session...is having jobs and all that really the way we are supposed to live? I mean, really? I'm not against the process of working on something meaningful, or even taking home a paycheck to do it. That all seems rather necessary. But is it NORMAL to spend most of your waking hours away from the people you actually like? Or the things you actually like to do? I don't have a 9-to-5 job right now, so my work hell happens at home. But James does work in an office, and he works not 9-to-5, but something more like 8-to-8. As we went to the gym together at 9:30 pm, then went to the grocery store at 10:45, and got home with our armfuls of provisions at 12:30 so he could fall into bed dazed and bleary-eyed at 1 am, I couldn't help but think: there is something wrong with this picture. I spent more actual time with fringe friends in college than I do with my husband. (You know, fringe friends: those people you have something in common with, maybe you play lacrosse together or you're from the same hometown, and you like them, but they're not your real friends. You won't ever see their face again after graduation.) I spent more time yakking in those people's dorm rooms about nothing than I do speaking to my husband in a meaningful way about anything. ! Is this okay? Right now, at 4 a.m., it strikes me as an odd way to live. Is this what everyone else is doing too? Tell me, readers.

And finally, I know it's too early to do it, but here goes anyway. I'm not exactly throwing in the towel, but I'm taking it off that little hook in preparation. The Sox are a half a game behind the Yankees as a result of their meeting earlier this evening with the indomitable Devil Rays (that was gross sarcasm, for anyone who doesn't know baseball or doesn't know what "indomitable" means), and they are no longer in first place in their division for the first time in nine weeks. Kind of bad timing, considering this season is going to be all wrapped up in less than a dozen games from now. But it's not about the half game, or even about how sad it is that Tampa Bay took two out of three from the World Series Champs. The Sox just don't have it this year. I've felt it for a long time now, and it's not about stats, or about injuries, or how Theo broke up the band from last year, or anything like that. It's just a gut feeling. Last year, my gut felt different. (hmmmm, let's rephrase). Last year, I knew we had a shot. There was a little bit of magic and that secret tingly feeling that you can't share with other people because you don't want to jinx it. This year, no tingly. We might make it to the playoffs, we might not, but whatever the case, if we do get there, there will be no magic for this group like there was last autumn. I've decided to voice this fear in the belief that it might be better just to accept it now and let the dream go. We've been defending champs for a year, and that's going to have to be good enough. So. Okay, there, I've said it, that's my prediction.

Now, here's hoping me saying that will turn things around.

2005-09-19T23:15:00.000-04:00

Regroup

2005-09-18T23:12:00.000-04:00

Yes, I have been AWOL. Yes, I've spent the month vainly trying to put necessary parts of my life in order after a very full season spent everywhere but at home. No excuses though. Summer is over, and soon the decaying leaf and frosty air tang of fall will give everyone a hit of inspiration and the deep breaths of a back-to-work ethic.

I tend to lose touch with my friends in other places a little bit over the summer. Everyone is too busy with end-of-season playoff chases, trips, in-town gatherings (check out the yummy Sicilian meatballs I made for guests on Friday), and weekends of day-drinking to keep up with emailing or writing, except of the postcard variety. I applaud all of these things. But now it feels like it's time to get down to business, in both baseball and blogging. (After all, the Sox' lead in the AL East is a paltry one-and-a-half games.)

After the summer has passed, one's group needs to regroup. In the old days, this meant figuring out what happened to your friend who was arrested in Newport during Tall Ships week or who got kicked out of their summer share for sleeping with someone else's boyfriend. These days, it means getting the latest news on more monumental changes in the lives of the people in my life around the country: weddings, births, and, sadly, even illnesses and deaths, as we get older and our family members do too. Yesterday, I attended my final wedding of the year, my oldest friend gave birth to her first child, and I learned that my grandmother is going into hospice care, covering the big three all too well.

So I'm back--I won't be gone that long again--but I won't pretend to be full of wisdom and insight now that I'm thirty and surrounded by friends and family, so many of whom are experiencing major life changes.

In fact, in some ways I feel younger than ever, if "younger" means having a) more workout clothes than work clothes b) an unhealthy obsession with a movie release date [September 30: Serenity] c) friends who like to punch out hotel nightclerks and other friends who drive drunk across state lines in borrowed jeeps (a.k.a my Saturday night) and d) the type of luck to get kicked out of Nashua, New Hampshire's most amateurish strip club (a.k.a last Thursday). The hiatus is over, but I can make no promises that you'll be getting quality programming or valuable info from here on out. Just a little more me, a little more regularly. Thanks for reading.

2005-08-25T01:33:00.000-04:00

Time to Go (Back)

2005-08-25T01:31:00.000-04:00

The very first thing I am going to do after I turn thirty is leave for a cross-country roadtrip, armed with veggies, hummus, fresh fruit, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Flipz, and tropical Skittles. (You see how good intentions give way quickly to other, urgent roadtrip necessities, namely sugar and more sugar.)

Saturday morning I am off to the Midwest for our annual visit to see my grandpa in my true hometown (Frankfort, MI, pop. 2,000), and I couldn't be happier about it. This vacation, taken just about every year since I was zero, means certain things are in store for me: lots of stretching out on our sunny Lake Michigan beach, leisurely walks to the lighthouse at the end of the pier, drive-in viewings of month old movies on a giant scratchy screen with a box of fried chicken and a week's worth of mosquito bites, and the nightly show that we never miss--watching the sun go down while polishing off Dole Whips from the local ice cream stand.

(Dole Whips believe it or not are non-dairy ice cream cones, and I have loved them since youth. Apparently this "no dairy" thing of mine has ancient roots. Why aren't Dole Whips available anywhere but the Midwest? I don't understand this. They are the perfect treat. They are also sort of like the Roswell of ice cream products. Try to find anything official about them on the internet. Just try it.)

Where did you go this summer, gentle blog reader? I know people have been away and busy with all the events summer tries to pack in--endless weddings, some fun and some tortuous, weekend trips, in-town barbecues, family vacations. Does anyone else do the traditional summer vacation anymore, or is it just me? Let me know where I stand on this one. I know I am definitely not willing to give mine up.

I can already feel the relaxation creeping in as I think about the week ahead. Nothing is more peaceful than visiting your childhood world, especially if that world hasn't really changed since childhood. A place like Prague is interesting, frenetic, and intellectually stimulating, while Frankfort is familiar, slow, and carries the rhythms of my real life--it's my actual vacation of the summer.

Pretty soon I'll be ordering the kids' happy meal at A&W with an upgrade to the root beer float, I'll be hearing Grandpa tell the Norwegian joke about how to make Limberger cheese, and I'll be making my slow way down the Platte river in an innertube while eating salty potato chips and remembering all the other times I have done this very thing with the most precious people in my life. It's a pretty good way to start the next chapter.

Fung-Wah Fireball

2005-08-20T14:39:00.000-04:00

Near Death Experience

2005-08-19T14:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, I wasn't actually near death this week. That's a gross exaggeration. But I will say that my particular choice of transportation proved less sturdy in the end than I would have thought.

On paper, what's a safer way, really, to get from Boston to New York City other than a big, lumbering Chinese-mafia sponsored bus? You're on firm ground the whole time, no one on the road is going to mess with the Chinese mafia, and anything the bus hits will obliterate that, not the bus. Little chance of danger here, one would think. Oh, except for being ENGULFED BY FLAMES. (See photo.)

My shiny Fung-Wah bus left South Station, Boston for New York at precisely 9:00 am on Tuesday, August 16 (those mob types are meticulous about punctuality), whereas the bus destined for fireballs left a few hours later. (See Boston Globe description of "frightened passengers scrambling" to escape what quickly became a "charred mess.") Let's just say I'm glad I didn't sleep in that morning like I wanted to--timing apparently was important that day. To be frank, there were enough hazards lingering in the putrid bus "bathroom" that I regrettably used en route New York to make me truly thankful when I arrived in the city in one piece and unsinged, not to mention with no visible signs of venereal disease. Add it to the ranks of the airplane, the train, and the automobile--even the bus isn't a sure thing anymore. The morale of the story: don't travel.

Of course I'm not serious. Traveling is a must. But for people who fear plane travel, or who consider rock-climbing, water-skiing, and driving in third world countries to be unnecessary dangers, just remember: really, nothing is safe. In the meantime you might as well live it up while you can.

My mother and grandmother, long before I was born, once took a trip to Europe to soak up some culture and see the sights. At the Vatican, a crazy gunman shot up Michelangelo's "Pieta" they had been to see the day before. The week after they took a picturesque train ride through the Swiss countryside, the long tunnel their train traveled through collapsed. At every step of the trip, catastrophe and danger followed them--but just a wee bit too late. Which brings me back to timing, which in the end is what we really have to fall back on. You can't stay home (that's plenty dangerous too, actually) and you can't live in fear, so the only thing to do is to take the dirty bus, get on the rickety puddle-jumper, and when you arrive safe and sound, as you most likely will, let out a small sigh of thankfulness and enjoy your destination.

2005-08-10T15:48:00.000-04:00

Surprise

2005-08-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

I am very lucky. I imagine for a lot of people, turning thirty brings a little anxious soul-searching, some trepidation, maybe a few tears for lost youth. It is a time people seem compelled to give their life the strict once-over. You know--am I in the right career? with the right person? What is my life, to this point, worth?

That doesn't sound so fun. I'd rather do it a different way, and this weekend my friends gave me that chance. For me, turning thirty apparently brings only an outpouring of love and fun from all the fabulous people in my life. Not a bad trade-off.

I had an inkling someone was coming to visit me this weekend when James started furiously cleaning the house Tuesday and Wednesday night. (Strange--he was going off to a bachelor party in Ft. Lauderdale for the weekend--why does he give a damn if the house is clean?) But I had NO idea that a full house party was on its way. All Friday night, as the doorbell kept ringing, I ran downstairs like it was Christmas morning to see which of my favorite people in the world was waiting below, suitcase in hand.

The crazy thing about old friends is that you can pick up right where you left off, and formality is non-existent. Old friends make themselves wonderfully at home, searching out glasses from the cupboard and opening bottles of wine, sleeping on the floor slumber-party style, using your toothpaste and your shampoo. I love this natural way of relating, the fact that we don't have to be "polite" and adult with each other all the time. It's an ease that I miss in daily life. Is it this way because we know each other so well? Because we lived in cramped dorms and crappy post-college apartments together? Or traveled through Europe sharing the same rooms, men, and seats at the back of the bus? I think so. I also think you can't exactly duplicate experiences like that these days.

What's crazier is that eight people were willing to drop their lives for the weekend and come enormous distances to help me properly celebrate turning 30, to remind me of the good things that have happened to me over the last ten years and to make me believe I can do anything I want to over the next ten. The problem with my friends is that they're too interesting, too bold, and too independent--they have ended up all around the country (and the world) in pursuit of their best lives. This means I don't see them as much as I would like, not even close, and usually someone (well, me) has to be in a wedding dress to get all these people in the same room. This was a fabulous exception to the rule.

One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was "the book," a thick book of pictures and birthday wishes from my family and a vast array of friends, put together by the incomparable Jennifer Schooler. It's the kind of book everyone should have. As I prepare to slip out of my twenties forever, it's the kind of book that reminds me how wonderful the last ten+ years have been, how many fun and stupid things I did, how many amazing times I had, and all the people I had the privilege of having them with. My birthday isn't until August 26th, but after reading page after page of loving words, shared memories of the last decade, and best wishes from beautiful people that I know will be around for my 40th birthday too, I feel ready to turn 30 now--no regrets, no reluctance. That's worth a lot.

2005-08-03T09:16:00.001-04:00

The Good, the Bad, and the Cesky

2005-08-03T09:14:00.000-04:00

I'm back, and before you have time to ask me how my trip was, I'm going to sum it all up nice and simple.

The Good:
Prague is legitimately cool. Sort of like what "Main Street, Europe" Disneyland would aspire to if there was any more room to expand in Anaheim. Just an amazing collection of old buildings and unreal sights that makes the place more foreign and exotic than anywhere I've traveled in Europe.

The Bad:
This amazing collection of buildings is clogged with 2.3 million tourists. I know, not all while we were there, but it felt like it. Walking around the Old Town on a summer night is like hitting Landsdowne Street 20 minutes after the game lets out. Which is fine for a couple nights. Then you want to start killing people.

The Good:
Prague food. Here I was told boiled cabbage and gray meat would be the norm. Not so! Great thin pizza, hearty pastas, and the ubiquitous Caprese salad kept us very happy everywhere we went. There was also this truly fantastic Cuban restaurant serving authentic mojitos, huge green salads with nuts and fruit, and slabs of steaks spiced expertly and slathered with avocado pieces. Didn't taste like Communism. (Except: I guess that is how Communism tastes in Cuba. Huh.)

The Bad:
Prague food. Somewhere along the way once of these delicious meals held my future pain and suffering, in the form of a vicious stomach bug that consumed the last two days of my trip and from which I am only now recovering. I will never know which one--best not to judge. The sketchy medicine, called Cloroxinum, prescribed to me by a quaint looking Czech pharmacy, also not the best thing about the experience. (Upon arriving home and talking to my doctor, was told "you probably don't want to put anything with 'Clorox' in the name in your body.")

The Good:
Getting away. Being able to have long, extended conversations with James on a wide variety of interesting subjects that never once drifted to the following topics: laundry, bills, car problems, scheduling, grocery shopping. It's really nice to remember all those things besides being married that you have in common.

The Bad:
Trying to get home. Woozy, in serious pain, and under the influence of Eastern European medicine, I was completely unable to contribute to the "get out of town" effort when our last day came. James had to pack my suitcase (only one or two important things got left behind in our hotel room), carry all of our bags, and shepherd my groaning self through sixteen and a half hours of air travel to get back to our blessed apartment.

And the Cesky:
Cesky Krumlov is a picturesque, medieval and apparently sublime town in the Czech countryside that about 37 people told us we "had" to visit once they found out we were going to the Czech Republic. For months, everywhere we turned it was Cesky Krumlov, Cesky Krumlov, Cesky Krumlov! We started calling it "f--king Cesky" (pronounced, in our expert opinion, "Chessky") For one thing, we didn't want to go. We didn't have a lot of extra time and we really wanted to explore Prague to the fullest. On the other hand, we didn't want to miss out on the life-changing experience that was presumably Cesky Krumlov. So we debated for weeks, looked into hotels, three hour bus trips, and rental cars. Cesky became a noose around our necks that we finally shrugged off only three days into our trip, deciding not to go and able to breathe easier as a result.

For the remainder of our trip, "f--king Cesky" worked well as a catch phrase for anything we felt we lacked adequate English words to describe, kind of the way "smurf" functioned for me in the early 80's: the ridiculous gift shop prices in Old Town, Cloroxinum, the interminable security check process at the Prague airport (about 8 minutes per person), the alarming number of bachelor parties run amok on the streets, a 25% automatically included gratuity at a restaurant that will go unnamed, all of our tv channels being dubbed in German, and the utter inability for any Prague citizen to know the whereabouts of Charles University (the oldest university in Europe and my conference venue that I searched for on foot for 1 1/2 hours). Oh, and Cesky means "Czech," so best not to throw about that little epithet too audibly next time you're in Prague.

I guess wherever you go you can make a list of both the good and the bad. That's traveling--the only way to avoid it is to stay at home in your own snug bed and eat your own organic, non-parasite-y food. But that would be missing out. So, as an alternative, you can just, as I chose to do, hitch up your sad rumpled traveling pants when things don't go your way and curse the locals. Good times.

Prague, Czech Republic

2005-07-22T21:45:00.001-04:00

See Ya

2005-07-22T21:30:00.000-04:00

My Dear Blogging Faithful,

I must leave you now for the land where beer was born and Communism was recent. That's right, more hoards of people just dying to hear me talk about Irish literature. Be back soon.

S

2005-07-20T15:20:00.000-04:00

The Dirty Dozen

2005-07-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

I don't want to be a Whole Foods snob any more than you do. So I have resisted, stubbornly and deliberately, over the last few years to dispense with such notions as "free range eggs taste better" and "you should avoid hormone-injected beef." I've really tried. But the thing is, food is important to me. I love a nice, juicy piece of London broil off the grill in our backyard or a crispy fried egg sandwich on a toasted English muffin with a little Swiss cheese and maybe a slice of ripe tomato. And so I have succumbed. Perhaps it was inevitable. Organic food (no surprise, I guess) tastes better.

Oh, and I read Fast Food Nation. That was a big mistake for anyone wishing to continue gobbling down good old USDA-approved meat. Not when you encounter tasty little tidbits like "current FDA regulations allow dead pigs and dead horses to be rendered into cattle feed, along with dead poultry" and "the hourly spillage rate at the gut table has run as high as 20 percent, with stomach contents splattering one out of five carcasses" (FFN, 202-203). Mmmmm.

So, yes, I buy my meat at Whole Foods, dammit. And it costs like three times as much. And I hardly ever go out to eat in order to justify spending so much money on groceries every month. But you know, no crazy cow steroids or dead horses in my dinner. So that's a plus. And my steaks taste great.

But I didn't bring you here to talk about meat. Everyone knows that eating a lot of meat is bad for you anyway. In fact, when you're feeling a little guilty about how many E.coli-laced hamburgers you've been scarfing down, you might reach for something to make you feel better. How about.... a vegetable or fruit? Those are always good for you, right? Sort of.

What? Fruits and vegetables aren't always good for me? Makes you just want to throw down that rutabaga in disgust and pick up some Fritos. Not so fast--most fruits and vegetables, organic or not, are great for you. You just need to avoid (dramatic music) The Dirty Dozen. More on that in a second.

The worst thing about the whole organic debate has to be the vast difference in price between conventionally and organic-grown produce. Sometimes I feel that the organic strawberries in my carton should come wrapped in 24k gold foil to justify their cost (although the disparity does lessen quite a bit when strawberries are actually in season, as they are now). In their defense, organic farming methods, which have been around since the dawn of time, are significantly more time-consuming and intricate than conventional ones, as well as much better for the earth. Organic farmers have to do Little-House-on-the-Prairie things like rotate crops, plant clover for ground cover, and use compost, not chemicals, as fertilizer. So, when is it worth it to give your fruits and vegetables this extra love?

Earlier this year, the EWG, a nonprofit advocacy group, released the results of a study about the levels of pesticides in United States produce. The study found that you can lower your pesticide exposure by 90% by avoiding twelve simple fruits and vegetables--items that accrete tremendous amounts of pesticide throughout their entire growing process. Eating these foods conventionally-grown exposes you to an average of 20 different pesticides a day. They are:

1. apples
2. bell peppers
3. celery
4. cherries
5. grapes (imported)
6. nectarines
7. peaches
8. pears
9. potatoes
10. red raspberries
11. spinach
12. strawberries

I know--crap! A lot of good things on there. But I've switched over to organic for most of the things on this list (except celery--who eats that away from a Bloody Mary, anyway?), and I have to admit I've enjoyed the switch. No more mealy apples or that faintly bitter aftertaste on peaches and pears. Strawberries are divinely sweet and can be eaten straight up, no sugar necessary. I've also found that organic spinach is just about the same price as regular spinach at my supermarket.

The list of twelve helps a bit with the cost issue. It's prohibitively expensive for most American families to buy organic all of the time. In a perfect world, all huge agri-business conglomerations, er, I mean, farmers, would grow organic produce and it wouldn't cost you an arm and a leg to buy it. (After all, why should only the rich people be allowed to live pesticide-free? Yeah, I don't see low-income families shopping at Whole Foods either.) In this perfect world, the government and its buddies, the chemical companies, also wouldn't pretend that pesticides are "safe." (For more on specific pesticides and their effects on humans, go make an "interactive salad" at foodnews.org. Hokey, yes. Interesting, also yes.)

Until this perfect world comes to pass (don't hold your breath-- former chemical company CEOs currently staff many of this administration's "environmental" agency positions), at least you can cut your losses by staying away from the list. In the simple words of Marion Nestle, Ph.D, and professor of public health at New York University: "Organic foods have fewer pesticides, and the people who eat them have fewer pesticides in their bodies." Sounds good to me.

2005-07-12T19:10:00.000-04:00

Six Degrees

2005-07-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

I don't think anyone has actually seen the movie "Six Degrees of Separation," but everyone understands the premise: that you are somehow connected to everyone in the country (the world?) through the people that you know, and the people they know, and the people those people know, and so on, within only six levels of people. Proof of this engaging concept is above. If you are reading this post because you know me (and other than "Keith C." I think that describes all of you), it turns out you are only four people away from Christina Aguilera (pictured, with my friend Jessica). This may seem of no use to you at present, but what if you someday give birth to a child who has a burning desire to receive Christina's autograph for their sixth birthday lest they burst into the pitiful tears of six-year-old despair? (well, then, they're spoiled, and you should do something about that. But also, we could probably get you that autograph.)

Through a short but complicated chain involving a friend, a cousin, and a best man, it turns out only three peeps stand between me and the premier Miss Mickey Mouse Club herself, a talent who, let's face it, is going to last way longer than Britney Spears (that pop culture reference is for you, Keith C.) This picture was taken at a wedding last weekend where all three of the aforesaid people in my chain were hanging out and dancing to "Celebrate." A normal wedding, in other words, except for the part where Christina sang "I Will Always Love You" (or similar) to the bride and groom after the band went home.

This got me thinking about other chains of connection. Could it really be true that we are somehow interlinked with all of the 250 million people in this country? What about rednecks in the bayou who have never left the trailer-park compound? Or the mousy school librarian from the tiny Protestant high school in Orange County whose only friends are Shakespeare and the heroines of Christian romance novels (yes, such novels do exist). Or my grandpa's fishing buddies up in Frankfort, Michigan, pop. 891? Maybe it seems unlikely that these cats could have many connections, but consider the fact that those fishing buddies are only five people away from, for example, Christina Aguilera, and therefore only six degrees of separation from every average joe and celebrity she knows.

I am only one person removed from Nomar Garciaparra (which would be more impressive were he actually playing in the major leagues right now. Sorry about the groin, Nomie!) I'm one person away from George Bush Sr., which means I'm two people away from all the other presidents that he knows (well, except Ronnie of course), which means I'm only three people away from every head of state and luminary known by every president since Nixon. That doesn't help me down in redneck city, no. But that's where being only two people away from George W. Bush comes in handy.

Unfortunately I am facing the biggest deadline of my dissertation this coming Friday, so I don't have time to tease this all out a little more. If I did, I would probably figure out how many degrees of separation lie between me and Eden Riegel so I could convince her to come back and make All My Children worth watching again. (Oh, the power.)

And, finally, speaking of celebrities from New York to LA, I leave you with some irresistibly cute shots of the newest stars in the Demmon and Quintanar households, below:

Sammie Demmon

2005-07-12T19:07:00.000-04:00

Charlotte Quintanar

2005-07-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

2005-07-06T13:40:00.000-04:00

Day Off

2005-07-06T13:37:00.000-04:00

I've been cursed with tonsilitis (no you don't have to be seven years old) and, to make things worse, it's raining outside with Apocalypse-Now like force. Coupled with the humidity, Boston feels more like Laos than New England. So I'm stuck inside my dark house gargling with salt water and drinking broth.

To pass the time away until my tonsils de-swell, I'm laying on the couch and watching movies. Right now it's Fahrenheit 9/11, which believe it or not I hadn't seen yet. I'm about halfway through; I needed a little break. The parts with people who lost their husbands and children on September 11th are just too fucking real, and heartbreaking.

I just saw the part where they visit my old workplace in DC (The Carlyle Group) and talk about how the Saudis and the Bushes are all mixed up in this mess together. I've known that since 1998 when my job was to help plan George H.W. Bush's trips to Riyadh and Jeddah, making sure he had time for a daily massage in between visits to Saudi heads-of-state. (Hey, he has a bad back.) Like I've said before, I sort of like the old Bush, probably only because I got cool gifts from the Middle East for planning these trips, like little gold elephants and stuff.

But man, is that George W. Bush an idiot. I know Fahrenheit 9/11 is propaganda at its shiny best, but videotape like that of George shooting clay pigeons and turning around to ask petulantly why no one said "Nice shot" requires no sensationalism. He's just a rotten guy. A spoiled, weak, manipulative, rotten guy who has done yeoman's work to screw up this country.

Anyway, I'm off to finish the second half of the movie. Better late than never.

2005-07-05T11:17:00.000-04:00

Ex-Patriotism

2005-07-05T11:14:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July people! (well, yesterday) It didn't quite seem like a real fourth, possibly because I saw no fireworks and hung out almost exclusively with British people all weekend. It was a whole, in your face for the Revolution kind of thing. No it wasn't.

I know at least four of you were busy learning how to change 10 diapers a day and waiting for that little belly raisin to fall off so you probably missed the fireworks as well. What did everybody else do? Did anyone actually see fireworks? I mean, in person, not on a wobbly t.v. screen with bunny ears like I did?

Also, I'd like to stop incessantly saying "on line," "quite" and "a bit," so perhaps a little injection of Americanism is needed. I mean maybe a little injection is needed...aww, screw it. God Save the Queen.

2005-06-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

Anna, Carrie, Melissa, Mishana, Skyla, & Vikki

2005-06-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

I haven't forgotten about organic food (by the time I actually post my thoughts on that subject all of you will be buzzing with tense anticipation. Well, that's the hope), but I've been thinking about pregnancy lately. Not because I have any plans to get knocked up myself, but because so many of my friends apparently got together nine to twelve months ago and planned to start making babies. Which is funny, because most of them don't know each other. Anyhow it's clear they are all in the same secret league, since there's no way I could have zero pregnant friends in the latest few seasons (ZERO) and then all of a sudden have six at the same time.

We've had a mercilessly crappy summer in Boston so far with bayou-type humidity and unrelenting temperatures, and it makes me wonder how it feels to be pregnant in the summer. Since I already feel bloated, sluggish, crappy, and miserable in this weather as a non-baby-carrying individual, I have to think weather like this is sheer hell on the pregnant set. Of course, they probably have air conditioners, which I do not. (Thanks, Mr. Rufo.)

Which brings me to a larger point. The actual nature of pregnancy itself. On "The L Word," cutting-edge lesbians Bette and Tina are having a bi-racial baby together. ("That's a whole lot of otherness to put on one child," says Tina. "Shut up bitch," says Bette. I'm paraphrasing.) Tina, the lucky recipient of the donor sperm, is going through a whole array of body idiosyncrasies and issues. In fact, in the last episode she was unable to get on a plane to New York for an important event because she felt so crappy. I believe this is true to life. Why? Because on "Sex and the City," my other mainstay of medical information, pregnant Miranda feels like shit, has weird gastrointestinal issues and swollen fingers, and has to buy new shoes because her feet have grown a size. (I'm not even mentioning the most horrific of pregnancy and birth side effects in the interest of not scaring my readers, especially the men.)

These two shows do not jive with the perky, perfectly skinny women (except for cute bump) that compose most representations of pregnancy on screen. These actresses of course are not actually expecting. The question is, if the majority of shows represented pregnancy is all of its true gory glory, would women line up just as quickly to go through with it?

Of course they would. After all, scads of prospective mothers eagerly watch such horrors as real-life "Maternity Ward" on TLC with regularity. I doubt, if you really want to have a baby, that any of these spectres of gloom dampen your enthusiasm. I suppose that's another good sign that I'm in fact not ready to have a baby. Because I feel serious dampening. Fascination and interest, yes (I did read the "The Baby Whisperer" in the course of one night while staying at my pregnant friend's house and, incidentally, highly recommend it), but not excitement to jumpstart my body into a year (or more) of massive and unfamiliar changes.

But, since I have at present such an extensive network of women I know who have decided to do this very thing, I need to ask (if you can squeeze in the time to answer) what your experience has been so far: i.e. more Tina/Miranda, or more Rachel from "Friends"? (whose only notable side-effects from pregnancy were corn-chip cravings and extreme horniness for Ross. I just can't think this is accurate. But my mind is willing to be changed.)

In the meantime, I have to sincerely commend all of you that have decided to go through with this amazing and unsettling process, and that are doing so even at this very moment. May the heat wave pass!

Update, 10 am, June 29: Congratulations on your baby girl, John and Carrie! When will Charlotte be old enough to become a loyal blog reader like her dad?

Update, 12 pm, June 30: Believe it or not, Anna and Casson just had their baby girl, Sammie, this afternoon. Apparently all I have to do to induce labor is write about the subject... Congratulations to you both!

2005-06-21T18:20:00.000-04:00

Ithaca is Gorges

2005-06-21T18:16:00.000-04:00

So, I'm back. My innovative (read: crazy and experimental) panel went very well and is being written up in various publications, none of which any of you will ever encounter, as said publications are created exclusively for the hard-core James Joyce-reading public. Yes, I know some of you already read hard-core material of various sorts; that's not the same thing.

One consequence of my week away in Ithaca, New York, (whose waterfall/mountain type scenery was rather nice, I have to admit) was my complete and utter capitulation to the charms of that category of food called junk. I suppose one could say I gorged in the gorges. Yeah, I've been hanging out with nerdy academics too long. Apologies.

Like most conferences, this one was packed to the gills with receptions centered around any excuse possible. Welcome address, plenary speeches, rare exhibition of James Joyce materials (okay, that one was cool), "neato" view from the 6th floor of the Cornell Art Museum, etc. Every function in turn centers around the food table, packed with pickled this and oiled that, tasty crackers and staggering piles of cheese, scrumptious dips of indeterminate nature, copious amounts of free wine, a full chocolate section, and the "mini" category: mini quiches, mini spanokopita, mini mystery stuffed pillows of goodness. I suppose one could resist the food table. I never do.

These pitfalls formed a united front with other adversaries, only half of which I will even mention here--the visiting friend bearing a huge chunk of Ghiradelli, tasty burgers, fries, huge slabs of pizza, two nights of Thai food enjoyed in downtown Ithaca, and my own wild and unrestrained hunger after writing my paper (yeah, I was late, who's surprised by this) for 24 hours and subsisting only on peanut butter sandwiches made in my Cornell dorm room. After presenting the paper early one morning, I promptly went to the campus convenience store and bought out their supply of Baked Cheddar Ruffles and Nutter Butters (apparently, one can never have too much peanut butter) Ah, college life. I also decided it would be a good idea to stay awake on the 5-hour drive there (peanut M&Ms) and the drive back (Chips Ahoy minis) by eating. Once arrived in Boston, I carried on that Ithaca feeling by consuming most of a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos after a full course Middle Eastern feast and 3 Bay Breezes at my cousin's engagement party. Once I get going, I really do.

I bring this all up to tell you now how utterly wrecked I feel. Apparently, even when I think I'm back in college, my body doesn't go back there with me. It's rather annoying--after spending the last year or so consciously becoming a somewhat healthy eater (no non-organic dairy, no caffeine, no trans fats, lots of fruits and veggies, the barest amounts of red meat, a total cutback in processed crap), it turns out I can't go back. Well, I can, I just feel like I got run over by a truck if I do. Does this happen to anyone else out there, or are you all still living the Hostess high life? (Mmm, Hostess...back in the day, I could kill a box of Ding-dongs in one roadtrip easy)

I actually began this post to discuss organic food, which I will indeed get to next time. Until I discuss what to eat though, it's helpful to examine the other extreme. Consider this a two-parter. Before we move on to the good stuff, let's take a moment to wallow in the bad. What do you really like to eat--really, really, if your health was no option? I have at least four pregnant friends out there right now, but I know the rest of you have some good bad cravings too. Let me know I'm not the only one.

2005-06-13T16:24:00.000-04:00

Off to Joyce it Up

2005-06-13T16:22:00.000-04:00

I'll be gone for the rest of the week at that male-populated Joyce conference at Cornell that I wrote about in my April 5th post. (You know, the one where I thought Professor Sheldon was a girl.) Stay strong in my absence; read slate.com instead. (Or, if in need of a bracing boost of unintentional comedy, G. Gordon Liddy's official website that I managed to stumble across recently. See especially "Stacked and Packed" and "G-Man Approved." I mean, if you can't trust the recommendation of a Watergate burglar, who can you trust?)

In the meantime, I leave you only with the Sara Sullivan internet sighting of the week. Isn't technology coupled with a complete lack of likeness authorization just incredible?

2005-06-09T22:40:00.000-04:00

Whiny Time

2005-06-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

I find that as I write more and more about space and Irish literature (that's space as in "roomy" not as in "Star Trek"), I have less and less writing energy to devote to my little blog, who is becoming a bit like a neglected child who is understandably getting a little fussy. Unfortunately, I can't promise the situation will get better anytime soon. After spending (on an ideal day) four hours pounding at the keyboard already, sometimes I can't muster up any extra strength to rant about the state of the world today or (let's face it, the more frequent topic of the blog--) the state of me. As for the non-ideal days, when I don't write for four hours or anything close to it, I am filled with such profound self-loathing for my lack of discipline and self-control that I am more likely to turn my energies to making peach smoothies and watching The L Word. (By the way, isn't it such a good show?)

That's the problem with doing something that you're really not meant to be doing. It feels icky--sort of all the time. (And by "doing something you're not meant to be doing" I mean writing a dissertation, not blogging, which actually is fun, unlike thesis-writing, which is like soul-sucking purgatory.) This is why it feels icky: because either you're doing that thing you're supposed to be doing (for example, oh, reading the same passages of some super hard book over and over trying to make them fit some obtuse theory you came up with and thought was clever 9 months ago but now are realizing may just be cleverly wrong) and hating every minute of it, or you're not doing that thing and instead the weight of it is hanging over your head like a very creepy black cloud of guilt and going-to-the-dentist feeling 24/7 that ruins every other fun thing you may be doing. I've had going-to-the-dentist feeling for two years now. By the way, if anyone you know is thinking about pursuing a PhD, please please have them come to me so I can run a battery of personality tests on them first.

I think it's safe to say the love is gone. What's left is the commitment. Just the sheer endurance factor. The problem is, I doubt anyone of you are going to understand what the hell I am talking about. Because most people are jealous that I "work from home" and have a flexible schedule and don't have to actually earn any money (Which is another thing that irks me to no end, believe me. Before you quit your jobs, career women, think carefully about the psychological impact of not being able to pay your own rent if you had to. Just, if you had to.) And, after all, what's so hard about writing anyway? Right?

I don't know either. All I know is that it sucks to be in the wrong place. To be doing the wrong thing with your energies and your hours and to know simultaneously that you can't quit now or it will all have been wasted. If you are doing something you don't hate, if you see more than one person on average per day, if you have a boss who gives you both structure and the occasional affirming boost, if you aren't trapped by your own decisions inside your own apartment for the vast majority of your week, don't change a thing! Keep doing that! Even if it makes you no money or involves a long commute or something. Trust me.

2005-06-02T00:38:00.000-04:00

Conspiracy

2005-06-02T00:36:00.000-04:00

I love a good conspiracy theory. Who doesn't? I thought Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts were just smashing in that movie with Captain Picard. But if a conspiracy theory is too disturbing and unsettling to consider seriously, it's just not fun anymore.

Did everyone else but me know that lots of people think the United States government was involved in the attacks of September 11th? Apparently there have been plenty of books with dramatic and creative names written on the subject, many, many websites, and even the odd DVD, claiming that scads of qualified engineers, architects, military personnel, and other expert-type people consider it impossible that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were destroyed by commerical 747s (and find lots of other problems with the official 9/11 story). In other words, they believe bombs were planted in the towers or on the planes and detonated during the attack, perhaps from a command center in World Trade Center Building 7, which was then demolished purposefully at 5:30pm on September 11. (That last part is true, about the purposeful demolishing of Building 7. That the building had a Command Center on the 23rd floor equipped with its own air and water system is up for debate. Actually, that's not up for debate either; that was indeed the case. But the theory that it was used as the base for carrying out the attacks on the World Trade Center--now, there's where the opinions differ.)

I went to Ground Zero last weekend for the first time. I hadn't been to the area since the late 90's, when it was not yet Ground Zero and you could still shoot up a speedy elevator to the top floor of the World Trade Center to eat incredibly expensive nachos and see for miles, even at night. The place, changed utterly since then, is remarkably business-like and practical, the untidy screaming metal bits and pieces very long gone, replaced by the beginnings of an enormous and optimistic construction project and a shiny new subway station at the very bottom of a still-empty pit.

When I got home, I flipped through the internet a little bit, looking at pictures, remembering how that day went, how horrible everything was. More horrible is the thought that the United States government could in any way be complicit in an attack on its own citizens. It's a truly crazy, X-Files idea, but read enough of the theories and look at enough of the pictures, and it's hard not to--in a daze fueled by meatless corn dogs from Trader Joe's and the mesmerizing glare from the computer--think for just one tiny second that maybe, possibly, it's not all complete and total bullshit. And that is an unsettling feeling, I have to say.

For peace of mind, you can also find refutation of the conspiracy stuff on various other websites, giving one a glimpse into a whole cyber racquetball game of claims and angry counter-claims, where various conspiracy theorists face off against government toadies and "media whores" who perpetuate the myths. Good times all around.

Maybe it's easier to contemplate the sinister implications of a New World Order being installed even now by the current government than it is to believe that the country is being run by a bunch of idiots. Maybe it's more comforting to focus on such intricacies as fusilage length, F-16 fighter jet speed, and the exact melting point of steel than it is to consider the human suffering that occurred on that day and that still occurs. Maybe some of the stuff is even true. I do know that it makes a girl miss her good old-fashioned belief that this administration is just criminally negligent and spectacularly inept. So, if you don't mind, I'm just gonna go back to that.

2005-05-26T01:44:00.000-04:00

Work

2005-05-26T01:39:00.000-04:00

Do my blogs seem a mite uninspired lately? Well, that's because they are. Perhaps it's because lately I've been busy trying to decide what I'm going to be when I'm grown up. (Luckily, I've decided I'm not yet. Grown up.)

I have no idea what career to plunge myself into when this whole dissertation-daoodle is over, but I have managed to nail down a few, hard facts as of today. Those facts are a list of the things I like to do. So, theoretically, all I have to do is find a job that incorporates all or most or some of these things. So I could really use your help on this.

Okay, here are the things I like to do:

Boss people around. (politely)
Remember everything.
Work with a team.
Verbally abuse George Bush (W., that is. The old man, I have a soft spot for.)
Never write again. At least, not much.
See the big picture and know how to get us there.
Be under deadlines and pressure.
Have the stakes be high.
Rush around.
Talk to people about anything.
Watch the Red Sox.
Enjoy a good meal.
Make a difference. (forgive the cheesy motto-ness of this and just go with it)

Okay: brilliant insights--Go.

Also, what do you do? Do you like it? Is it your "calling"? Do you enjoy going to work each day (or night)? And if so, how did you know to go after that gig in the first place? Are we supposed to enjoy our jobs, or is that why they call it "labor"?

Waiting for the conversation,
your favorite unemployed PhD in-training

2005-05-23T19:00:00.000-04:00

Indian, anyone?

2005-05-23T18:58:00.000-04:00

Can anyone tell me if this place is for real? I need to know. I really, really need to know. (No, I am not working on my dissertation today.)

2005-05-18T16:39:00.000-04:00

"Life IS Pain, Princess"

2005-05-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

Time to allow me a random health tangent. (I was profiled by Fox News for my boldly amateurish health research, after all. See archive: February 14, 15, & 21.)

If you have a choice, go with ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or aspirin for those pesky hangovers. Although more studies will be done to confirm the findings, it appears as though ibuprofen and aspirin have extra health benefits.

So, everyone knows that taking aspirin is good for your heart--many adults over the age of 50 take a small dose daily. What is less known is the other possible upsides to aspirin and ibuprofen: protection against Parkinson's Disease (ibuprofen) and a lower incidence of breast cancer (in both ibuprofen and aspirin users). Given that information, there's no reason to take acetaminophen or naproxen--that is, Tylenol or Aleve, for mild pain, since an alternative exists that may actually help your body in the long run, as well as the short run of the pounding headache or aching back (...yes, we are getting old).

It's too early to start popping an Advil every day, since the overuse of NSAIDs (or "Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs," as this class of painkillers is charmingly known) can cause oh, you know, stomach bleeding if used too frequently. But, if you're going to reach for a painkiller, you might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Ok, that's enough big science-y words for today.

What did this post have to do with The Princess Bride? Very little. Although I did manage to pull that tenuously relevant quote. I just like it. And it's always a good time to remind everyone of that movie and its greatness.

2005-05-17T13:35:00.000-04:00

Hubris

2005-05-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

THIS is why I shouldn't gloat. (See May 11 post's mention of the 2005 Yankees...something about them sucking.) Because it always comes back to bite me in the ass. Always.

2005-05-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

Links of the Day

2005-05-13T00:22:00.000-04:00

Just a few things I've been reading, in case you have a case of the Fridays and would like encouragement in your efforts to procrastinate at work (or home):

--Speaking of Friday, it's the 13th! Find out once and for all why people say, "I can't friggin' wait for Friday!"

--The companies who make fattening food and oversized baked goods buy ad space to tell you that fattening food and oversized baked goods aren't that bad for you. Eat up!

--This is only relevant for people living in Boston, and only for people who are as dorkily into Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I am (you know you're out there). Scroll down to the entry for May 27 under "midnite." And, yes, I am going.

--Click here for the usual idiocy from that Ronald McDonald look-alike from the Boston Globe. Then check out this comprehensive rebuttal written a couple years ago in advance of Ronald's babbling.

--I've had Quorn fajitas. And they're pretty good. Not too sure about that whole "fungus" thing tho.

--Just a bit of rhetorical humor courtesy of tomdelay.com. Check out paragraph #4 especially. After all, who wants to "run a laundry list of unfounded attacks" when you can't disprove any of them? Yeah, that's no fun.

--For those six pregnant friends of mine to download. And narcissists who want to look up their own name. (Mine's #65 )

--None of us are too busy to take a sex quiz. Note: a minimum score will be necessary in order to continue "doing it." Please report back to me.

2005-05-11T12:31:00.000-04:00

I'm Alive!

2005-05-11T12:28:00.000-04:00

After so many of you have emailed to say, "Are you dead? Why no recent post?" (and by so many of you, I mean my most loyal reader, JQ) I feel compelled to reconnect with you all via a witty, carefully-crafted and well-thought-out posting. Instead, you're going to have to take the following.

I'll admit I'm feeling a little drained of late. Maybe it's spring's forceful cheerfulness (you can always blame your mood on the weather in New England), maybe it's the fact that I'm actually working on my dissertation for the first time in two years, maybe it's just my allergy medication. Whatever the case, recently my momentum has sunk faster than the 2005 Yankees, and I'm not getting paid $208 million.

Maybe it's an identity crisis. Last night, at Bukowski's, a dirty bar in Boston that people frequent because you can earn your own hanging mug after drinking 100 different beers, I found myself hanging out with a bunch of 25-year-old girls I had just met, one of whom was enthusiastically explaining that "marriage makes people boring." She backtracked like Tom DeLay in front of the Ethics Committee to recover with a hearty, "Oh, but you're married, right? And YOU'RE out!" (meaning, I assume, out on the town, not out in a The L-Word sort of way.) Later, another woman politely asked me where my husband was after she noticed my wedding ring. At Bukowski's, surrounded by the pierced, the gritty, and the unemployed, being married makes you a pariah. Or at least unusual.

On the other hand, six of my friends are pregnant. That's a lot. I barely know anyone with kids, now all of a sudden I'm about to know 12 people. At a Mother's Day brunch on Sunday, I was handed a rose along with the other mothers since my father-in-law helpfully informed the maitre d' that I was a "mother-to-be." I'm not. Except in the same way that I'm a senior-citizen-to-be, or a hot PTA-attending, 40-something-to-be. It'll happen some day, but it certainly isn't in the daytimer.

So, which is it? I am strange for already being committed til death do us part to one man, or am I strange for not making babies with that man, stat? I know the answer--I'm not strange, you're not strange, we all make different choices, blahblahblah. But still, I want to know where the other people are who are doing it like me. Trying to be married, but not dull and complacent, looking for a full, happy life but not ready to procreate. Where are those people? Because if you're around, you're coming to Bukowski's with me next time.

2005-05-03T13:14:00.000-04:00

Save Our Show!

2005-05-03T13:10:00.000-04:00

Since turning in my 50 pages last week, I have tried to nurse my tired mind back to full-strength with a gentle regimen of comfort food, non-taxing conversation, and lots and lots of pop culture. Unfortunately, not having cable really throws a wrench in the watch-tons-of-mindless-tv-while-eating-assorted chocolates plan, which has always been a standby for me. To cope, I upgraded my Netflix membership to the 3-at-a-time option and burn through each movie as it arrives, including every scrap and snippet of DVD extra. (Who watches the "Deleted Scenes" of Freaky Friday? I do.)

After those are used up, I have no recourse but to open the dusty video drawer and peer inside. Another viewing of Princess Bride on scratchy VHS? The umpteenth watching of When Harry Met Sally with director's commentary? My wedding video? My other wedding video? I start getting a little desperate. Making it worse is the knowledge that everyone else is at home enjoying their OC, their Alias, their 24, and those sixteen nightly episodes of Friends on the WB, not to mention they don't have to listen to the Sox game on the radio.

But then I remember my trump card. Arrested Development, the entire first season box set. Each episode is a clever, hilarious little package streamlined sans commercial to a slick 21 minutes, perfect lunch time viewing length. It is also the only show that I can watch an indefinite number of times and find myself laughing out loud every single time. This box set has saved me.

And that is why I need to do my small part to save it. Rumblings of the show's possible cancellation (in real TV land, the show just finished its second season) were intensified when the network cut their original order of episodes for Season Two, bumping the last four shows for repeats of American Piehole or something similar. We were on tenterhooks all along since said network is FOX, the crappiest network in the history of television that nonetheless manages to greenlight great shows and then promptly fails to market them. (Anyone ever heard of Firefly? I didn't think so.)

This show wins lots of Emmys for best comedy and best writing and best whatever, but no one's watching it. Yet "C-List Celebrity Loser Diet Challenge" pulls in viewers. Arrested Development also gives you guest stars like Liza Minnelli (finally finding a venue for her wackiness), Heather Graham, "Elaine" from Seinfeld, and the "Fonz."

So it's geeky, but it must be done. Go to the official website, swallow your pride, and sign the, ahem, loyalty oath. It will give you a coupon for the Season One DVD, if that helps at all. For the next level of commitment, go to the incredibly nerdy but endearing SaveOurBluths website and do what they say.

Now, if you've never watched the show, I don't expect you to jump on the campaign bandwagon, but if that's true, now is the time to start watching because you are missing out. It's funny. Trust me. Repeats of Season Two will air this summer on dastardly FOX. Buy the Season One DVD. You won't be sorry. Okay, I'll stop now. My work here is done.

2005-04-28T18:40:00.000-04:00

Haitians

2005-04-28T18:27:00.000-04:00

ex`haust 1. To wear out completely, to use up. 4. An apparatus for drawing out noxious air or waste gases by means of a partial vacuum

Due to the fact that I have been mad at work for what seems like 48 hours (and not the fun, Eddie Murphy kind) on the fifty pages of dissertation-ese that I have to turn in to my advisor tomorrow, I feel quite unable to summon up the strength for even one more. single. (sensical) word. But I see that it is time to post something, anything, for my loyal blog readers. So I am making an unsatisfying compromise and stealing from my own work to reprint here--for purposes of your edification/insomnia--an excerpt of what I have been working on for the last few hours instead of this blog. Pretend you're in grad school for a minute and that you care about this stuff. Or that you're an eager undergrad who still likes to talk about poetry. Or at least grant me a free pass for not putting up a real post.

Before I cut and paste, take a total non-sequitur with me down memory lane as I commemorate the ten-year anniversary of that national classic, "Clueless." It is, after all, about all my fried brain can handle at present. As I microwaved a bowl of frozen peas this afternoon to eat at my laptop (yeah, that was another shameless plea for sympathy), I chuckled as I remembered hearing that Alicia Silverstone actually pronounced it "Hatee-ins" in rehearsal. They, naturally, kept it in; the producers found that her real-life cluelessness provided a perfect line-reading. What a dumb blonde. Anyway. Happy Boland-ing!

* * * * *
Personal history is bound up in “The Making of an Irish Goddess” as well, but this time it is Boland’s own. Like “The Achill Woman” and other poems in Outside History, this poem reveals Boland’s increasing political engagement and awareness of Irish history, tied as always to the intimate details of a woman’s personal, private life. The speaker of the poem resides in a suburban environment, as so many of Boland’s speakers do, and yet the poem’s words transport the reader through myth and Irish history, making a separation between public and private realms impossible.

“Ceres went to hell / with no sense of time” the poem begins, anchoring it in the ancient and public world of Greek myth. The poem describes the “seasonless, unscarred earth” that the goddess Ceres presided over before the loss of her daughter Persephone to the underworld instigated the change in seasons. Like Ceres, the speaker of the poem presides over her own personal world, not as a god per se, but as a mother. This mother must also retrieve her daughter, but unlike Ceres, the speaker already lives in a world of seasons upon which an entire population can be dependent. Boland moves from the world of myth to the world of Irish history by introducing the tragedy of the Irish famine, in which the country was decimated by the potato blight and repeated crop failures in the 1840's. An Irish goddess, unlike a Greek one, must carry an awareness of time and the seasons in which her people suffered:

In my body,…
in my gestures— …
must be

an accurate inscription of that agony:

the failed harvests,
the fields rotting to the horizon,

the children devoured by their mothers
whose souls, they would have said,
went straight to hell,
followed by their own (ll. 14, 18, 21-29).

After the poem telescopes out to encompass Greek myth and one of the darkest periods in Irish history, its focus zeroes in on a highly commonplace moment in suburban life to end the poem. As a result of the poem’s earlier inflections, this moment is infused with the drama of loss that seems inherent to the mother-daughter relationship as Boland sees it:

Myth is the wound we leave
in the time we have—

which in my case is this
March evening
at the foothills of the Dublin mountains,
across which the lights have changed all day,

holding up my hand
sickle-shaped,
to my eyes to pick out
my own daughter from
all the other children in the distance;

her back turned to me (ll. 31-42).

By recasting the myth of Ceres in an Irish context and setting its final action in the suburbs, Boland makes the ancient world of myth and the past experience of Irish famine relevant to ordinary contemporary life, infusing the domestic environment with the whole weight of Irish history and suffering. The poem also shows how an engagement with Irish history, politics, and the wider world is not only possible in the suburb, but, because of the overlap between public events and private experiences, inevitable and necessary. The famine may have been the result of agricultural calamity and British policy conducted in the realm of the public, but Boland makes the Irish famine about the private tragedies that resulted—the unfathomable lengths to which the event drove Irish mothers.

bla-bla, blablabla blah. Etc.

Yours truly,
one exhausted kitten

2005-04-26T23:58:00.001-04:00

Counter for One

2005-04-26T11:56:00.000-04:00

What do you do with yourself when you're sitting alone at an unspecified morning hour at a diner counter surrounded by locals in the middle of nowhere? (Or, specifically, in the middle of Chatham, Massachusetts.) Order hot chocolate, first of all. With whipped cream, naturally. That will kill some time. Engross yourself in the task of slurping up every last bit of its frothy goodness. There is, after all, nothing else to do.

Look longingly at the blue-jeaned, bearded man to your right who may possess no teeth but has a more precious commodity, the Chatham Picayune-Tribune. His hamburger looks pretty good too. Wonder why he hasn't offered you at least a piece. Of the newspaper, that is.

Envy the happy quartet seated behind you by the window; you can't see them, but you know they have each other for verbal stimulation. You have nothing, now that the hot chocolate is polished off and your breakfast has not arrived. Unless you count the desultory movements of the teenaged waitresses behind the counter as entertainment.

Listen more carefully to the happy foursome; perhaps they are having an interesting conversation from which you can steal ideas upon which to ponder while you are waiting and staring blankly at the (now you notice, too late) unappetizingly crusted-over hot chocolate machine. Until you hear the older man seated with them expounding on military exercises and procedure while his three female companions murmur politely and interject infrequently. Hmmm, thanks anyway.

Is blue jeans done with the paper??!? No, false alarm. The cook lumbers out of the kitchen and has somehow managed to get his beefy hands on a newspaper too, which he begins to read as soon as he plops himself down at one of the window tables. (Who's making my pancakes?)

Finally, blessedly, they arrive. Who knows who made them, who cares. They are soaked with butter and delicious. I relax into my diner stool and put all attention to the task at hand. After all, food is entertainment. Three silver dollars and a plate of scrambled eggs are all I need. If this ever happens again though, I am bringing a magazine.

Does anyone else out there eat alone? And if so, what do you do to entertain yourself? I need to know these things. Share your wisdom, readers.

2005-04-19T12:10:00.000-04:00

Just a little Movie Crack

2005-04-19T12:08:00.000-04:00

So I'm addicted to Netflix. I'm so addicted I should get ad revenue for this blog posting. We just started the 'flix (allow me to truncate?) a scant two weeks ago, and I already cannot imagine my life without it. I justified the service--which delivers two movies via mail to your house as fast as you can watch them and send them back for a monthly fee of $15--as a sane alternative to the cable that of course I no longer have. (An absence that means even this very moment we are getting a new pope and I know nothing about it, nothing. Although I do hope the guy from Africa gets it.)

Netflix is intentional television watching writ large. I can't watch mindless tv endlessly like I used to, but now I have a weekly fix, an important element in the quest to keep me from getting all academic and stuffy. (I use the word "quest" in homage to my last Netflix selection: "Monty Python and the Holy Grail.") My tube time is as carefully controlled as a government approved steady-drip IV--no risk of overdosing--and all this at a cost lower than basic cable. Truly we live in a remarkable age.

My favorite thing about Netflix (aside from the obvious: no late fees, no trips to the video store, blah blah blah) is all the random and forgotten movies on the site that you can browse through, stumbling across your childhood favorites. They have 40,000 movies, which means they have "Flight of the Navigator" and the complete 8 hour set of "Anne of Green Gables." This is a gold mine, people. (Tell me you know about "Flight of the Navigator.")

You also get real customer testimonials about the films. Like this one on the aforesaid Anne of Green Gables mini-series:

"I didn't see it till last year while I was watching a PBS fund-raiser. I am a 40 year old man, Sci-Fi fan, computer geek, Love Heavy Metal, fast cars, and my gun collection. But this movie touched my soul more than any movie I have ever seen in my life! I rolled with laughter, I cried puddles of tears, I cheered, jumped up and down, RAN to the bathroom during the breaks, and LIED to get my best friend off the phone quick!"

(I did not make this up.)

Good stuff. Netflix has allowed that man to avoid creeped-out looks at the video store when he tries to rent a kids' movie about a twelve year old girl without having kids of his own. It has also allowed me to rent all the Sex and the City I can handle and check out that new show "The L Word" that everyone is talking about without trying to convince James of their merits at the video store (a futile undertaking). Up next in my queue: "Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason" (yeah, he doesn't know about that one either), "The Italian Job," "The Manchurian Candidate," and "The Sound of Music." Liesel in the house.

2005-04-18T10:37:00.000-04:00

Marathon

2005-04-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

Today is Marathon Monday in Boston, a state-wide holiday and one of my personal favorite events in New England. It's the day where you get to stand around the streets drinking beer out of dixie cups (open container law waved for Marathon and St. Patty's Day, it's Boston after all) and sun yourselves merrily while watching fleets of runners haul themselves tortuously over Heartbreak Hill to retch, pass out, or cramp up in paroxyms of pain in the process. Good fun.

I've never understood marathoners. Unless you're Kenyan, it seems the human body is not designed for this feat. And yet, thousands of people do it all the time and seem satisfied by the experience. Later on today I will wander around Copley Square near the finish line and encounter scores of runners who have completed their 26.2 mile questionable decision and are wearing Superman-esque mylar capes and getting drunk off of one Heineken. This year, instead of stumbling by them in silent concentration to reach the restroom (because by that time, let's face it, I will have had more than one Heineken), I will stop. And I will ask them, why the hell do you do this? If I get a good answer, I'll pass it on.

2005-04-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Champs

2005-04-13T11:35:00.000-04:00

So the Red Sox are the 2004 World Series Champions. I didn't really, really believe it was true until I saw the banner unfurled at Fenway yesterday and the big chunky (ruby-studded?) championship rings given out to the players. Yesterday was full of high spirits, good cheer, and grown men crying at the ballpark. Even the Yankees (who were on hand to witness the ceremony) applauded for the champs. Although did I miss that picture of A-Rod clapping? Yeah, must have missed that.

One of the funnier moments of the day was when Fenway cheered wildly for Mariano Rivera, the Yankees' once-infallible closer. Rivera (I called him Skeletor back then) would take the mound to close the game, and we would know we were over. Just iced. He had something like 33 1/3 hitless innings of relief in the 2000 playoffs. But last season (starting with James's 30th birthday game at Yankee Stadium), Skeletor started melting down and blowing saves against the Sox, eventually blowing not one but two games in the ALCS, allowing us to win the series against all odds. So yesterday Fenway fans took a moment to appreciate his part in bringing us the championship (i.e. uncharacteristically sucking), and he was good sport enough to laugh and tip his cap to the crowd. I didn't know Skeletor's jaw could move before that.

Amidst all the joy of Red Sox nation are, of course, the naysayers. People who are sick of the Sox and want the whole thing just to go away. Party-poopers include the disgruntled Mariners' fan who gives us 86 reasons to hate the Red Sox and another guy complaining about how the Red Sox have infiltrated every aspect of his life. (Sad life, maybe?) I will admit that Johnny Damon has officially become insufferable (my sister is ready to burn her #18 jersey), but as for the other stuff, people need to relax. After all, we've collectively had the Yankees shoved down our throat as "America's team" for years now. (If the Yankees are "America's team," I guess behemoth Hummers are "America's car" and Enron is "America's company.") So let us enjoy the moment already.

Speaking of enjoying the moment, I want to take a moment to thank the good fortune sent down to me personally from that Fenway in the sky. On Monday, I might have said something like:

"Although, who knows when I will actually get to go to a game, being neither celebrity, large corporation, nor scion of a famous New England family."

The answer is tonight, 7:05 pm, Red Sox vs. Yankees. Did I mention it's Curt Schilling's debut? Thank you, baseball gods, for friendly benefactors.

2005-04-11T12:07:00.000-04:00

Fever Pitch

2005-04-11T12:05:00.000-04:00

One of my loyal readers has requested that I review the movie "Fever Pitch." It makes sense that I should do so, because it's a very Boston, very Red Sox movie, and most of the people I know in town are extras in it. I am also always happy to oblige reader requests.

I saw the movie last night at the Loews Theater Boston Common. First of all, I'm not sure any movie is worth $10.25 per person, not to mention another $8.50 for a small popcorn and a Sprite. Okay, now I will stop bitching about prices like an old, crotchety person. (although I do have a little old, crotchety person inside me just foaming to get out)

I went into the Loews Theater Boston Common wanting to hate this movie. After all, Bill Simmons bitched about Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore dancing in celebration at the Sox' World Series win on the field in St. Louis for the entire off-season. (A low point of the movie, I must agree, though more on that later.)

But all in all, it was hard to complain about this movie. It had footage of lots of actual games from 2004 (a season no Red Sox fan will ever mind seeing replayed endlessly, whenever, wherever), plenty of local Boston flavor including cameos by Dennis Eckersley, ol' bug eyes Don Orsillo, and The Cask and Flagon, and a scene of the lead character taking out sheet after sheet of new, shiny, uncut Season Tickets from a box sent to him in the mail. Very moving.

One of the most important factors in deciding my ultimate feelings about this movie was the soundtrack. The Farrelly Brothers, who are from New England (plus), but the part of New England that is Rhode Island (minus), managed to include every song that is meaningful to the Fenway experience, including "Dirty Water," "Sweet Caroline," and "Tessie." It really felt like a baseball season. So much so that I am now dying to go to a game. Like in a primal need kind of way. It would have been actually cruel to release this movie in the dead of winter. Instead, the home opener is 3 hours from now, and my appetite is thoroughly and intensely whetted. (Although, who knows when I will actually get to go to a game, being neither celebrity, large corporation, nor scion of a famous New England family. The games have been sold out for ages. Does that happen at Safeco Field, Dodger Stadium, or Camden Yards within a few nanoseconds of the tickets going on sale? I think not.)

All of those things are plusses. Now for the minuses. I mean, this movie is a romantic comedy. Which I am not against (see "Sheldon" quote from two posts ago). But don't go to it thinking it's a sports movie, per se. The major plus side of that is that the non-baseball loving female (or male! let's not be sexist) type people in your life will probably be willing to go to this movie and will enjoy it. Being a romantic comedy, it has the requisite lovey-dovey ending and some believability-stretching moments for the purposes of bringing those two kids together in the end. But there's nothing super retch-worthy (speaking of retching..well, you'll see when you watch the movie). In other words, if you survived the last two minutes of "Four Weddings and a Funeral"--an otherwise outstanding film that ends with a drenched Andie MacDowell coyly reciting, "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed," while gazing into the googly eyes of Hugh Grant-- then you'll be fine.

The most glaring error of the movie was the moment of infamy referred to incessantly by Simmons, when Drew and Jimmy go cavorting around the field at Busch Stadium after the Red Sox win. They actually did this at the actual Red Sox win, despite the fact that these two people are ACTORS and supposedly Jimmy Fallon might actually have been a YANKEES fan before shooting this movie when he had some kind of religious conversion to RedSoxdom (every true apostolate knows such a conversion is impossible). So that was pretty much bullshit. The only player D & J could get to cavort with them was Curtis Leskanic, which should tell you everything you need to know about that. Also, why on earth would two "normal" Sox fans be allowed to frolic on the field when just a series before at Fenway they were firmly relegated to their (granted, fabulous) seats? There was no need for that, and no need for Major League Baseball to kiss Hollywood's ass to give permission for it in the first place.

That gripe aside, the movie was actually pretty great. It might have been the songs, the hot days and cold beers at Fenway, remembering the baseball joys and sorrows of 2004 (since you know it all ended well, seeing the low moments in there too just makes it all sweeter), the look of Boston in summer, the beautiful green expanse in front of the Green Monster, or that cracking bat sound, but whatever the case, "Fever Pitch" did a fantastic job of getting me excited for the season ahead. Consider me fluffed.

2005-04-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

Kelly, Matt, Andrew, Matt, James, Matt, Sullivan

Smackdown

2005-04-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, in between wiping the sweat off my brow at my computer while madly trying to write enough pages so that my advisor doesn't laugh at me when I turn them in today (here's hoping), I got an email from a friend who had been scrolling through the Boston Globe online's "Nightlife" gallery ("Send us pictures of you and your friends enjoying the nightlife of Boston!") and ran into a photo that I had submitted about 100 years ago of me and James and our two friends from New York at a UFC fight last August. Another head or two appears in the photo, that of our friend, Matt Lambert, who was actually in one of the night's fights. That's why we were there. You don't get me to pay $30 to get into crap-ass Avalon otherwise.

Anyway, as you can see from the photo, we're all luxuriating in our summer tans, many drinks were poured, and a good time was had by all. The strangest development of the night, however, was how much I loved seeing grown men beat the shit out of each other. There was metally-type intro music, a real cage-like ring, a slutty woman in a bikini holding the fight cards--a bunch of stuff I would have thought I hated. Nope, loved it.

I especially loved the punching. And apparently most anything is allowed in UFC; it's not all pansy-fied like boxing where they have gloves and a bunch of rules. In UFC, people get their arms broken by being twisted too long in the wrong direction and things like that. The men around me (I'd say UFC spectator ratio is roughly 30:1) were looking away occasionally--wincing and cringing during some of the grosser moments. Not me. I had inexplicably turned into a crazed, bloodthirsty violence-lover by virtue of walking in the place. My biggest disappointment of the night was that the referee didn't let Matt whale on his opponent longer (he won easily, but wasn't given time to get enough of those loud, fisty, smack-type punches in before the ref called the fight and let the sad, quivering loser out of the ring).

I don't consider myself a violent person, either. And, when I think about it, it's quite possible that I should be disturbed by my glimpse of this brutal alter-ego. Unfortunately, I don't have time for that kind of soul-searching at present, as I have 50 pages to write, not to mention Liddell-Couture coming up on pay-per-view April 16.

2005-04-05T19:05:00.000-04:00

The Crying Joyce Game

2005-04-05T19:02:00.000-04:00

Eleven pages down, 39 to go! I'm exhausted already. How do these writing people do it? I've decided that after I finish this dissertation, I'm never writing anything ever again. Except for fun, lackadaisical things like blogs and magazine columns if the magazine is paying me $400 to write the column. I read a column in what was probably the Boston Globe magazine this morning that was entitled "Etiquette." The woman answered two questions fairly simplistically and they probably paid her money to do so. I need to look into this.

So today I made a nasty little discovery. I have been trying to put together this super smart panel of Joyce scholars to act out my own fantasies and visions at a conference next June at Cornell University. Well, just one vision--a very high school speech-class vision. Remember? In which you were given a topic and 2.5 minutes to throw together a logical, three-point impromptu speech. Since I usually spent about that much time preparing for my non-impromptu speeches, I was very very good at this exercise, and consequently have a soft spot in my heart for off-the-cuff speaking.

I'm going to make the Joyce scholars do it. I'm going to give them excerpts from Ulysses and ten minutes to come up with a presentation for an audience of 60 or so other smart professor types. How on earth did I get four famous Joyce scholars to do this, you ask? I'm totally not sure. I think for one thing because all my recruiting was done via email so they have no idea how old I am or how unqualified to be ordering them around.

Anyway, back to my discovery. I was very determined to have a gender-balanced panel, two men + two women, despite the fact that Joyce scholarship is exceedingly male. All the women I asked were saying no however, screw them. I finally managed to get one woman to agree, along with three men, and I felt relieved that I had done my best and at least I had ONE GODDAMNED WOMAN on the panel. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get a woman to agree to this (which is probably a worthy subject for a different posting of the type that my Republican friends weary of reading). In their defense, there aren't many female Joyce scholars. Maybe 30%.

The academic schedule was released today, with my panel posted as follows:

"Impromptu Joyce"
Sara Sullivan (moderator)
Sheldon Brivic
Richard Brown
Sean Latham
John Paul Riquelme

Oh no no no, I chided the conference organizers indulgently to myself, while beginning to draft a politely-worded email. You see, there are two Joyce scholars who have very similar names (isn't that funny? so ironic?)--Sheldon Brivic (a man) and Shelly Brivic (obviously female). I'd seen both their names many times in various Joyce-related contexts. And those silly conference people put up the wrong scholar! Shelly was going to be so put out when she saw that. I'd better let them know straightaway.

But yeah, you can see where this is going. Shelly's not a woman. In fact, there is no Shelly. My lone "woman" on the panel never existed at all, despite my fictive imaginings of her in a tweedy little outfit, endearingly lost in her reveries on the psycho-sexual implications of Stephen's ashplant in "Proteus." Or whatever. There is no Shelly. "Shelly"--as "she" signed all of "her" emails to me over the last month--is Sheldon Brivic's nickname. I would probably want to put Sheldon as far as possible behind me too, granted.

("A Sheldon can do your income taxes. If you need a root canal, Sheldon's your man. But humping and pumping are not Sheldon's strong suits. It's the name. Do it to me, Sheldon. You're an animal, Sheldon. Ride me, big Sheldon. It doesn't work.")

Sheldon Brivic is actually a big-time scholar who has written four books on Joyce, so I'm glad to get him on my panel--good times. And thank you sweet Jesus I realized my error before pressing "send" on that fateful email to the conference organizers--not good times. But, saying hello to Sheldon means saying goodbye to even a pathetic stab at gender balance on my panel, and this whole situation also means saying goodbye to any smidgen of smug, self-congratulatory, academically-satisfied type feelings I might have been harboring today. Most of all, it's hard to say goodbye to Shelly, and all the good times we had.

I've got to go now, as I need to madly scan through all my emails of the past month to make sure I made no reference whatsoever to Shelly's sex or any sisterly claims to female solidarity in any of our cyber-communications. I feel, nauseatingly, quite sure that I may have.