How Many?

I'm not sure why, but when I first started it, the hit counter was a big secret. Well that's stupid. So, I've opened it up to the public and put it in a more visually accessible place. See the sidebar under Contributors if you're curious about who visits the site. Try clicking on the world map function in the left hand sidebar (when you're at sitemeter). That's pretty cool. It's even cooler if you look at Laura's sitemeter because there are more little dots in more little places.

So now you know: I'm stalking you too. At least I'm honest about it.

Balancing Act

Why do people always think it's weird when I tell them I want to meet a guy who turns off the lights when he leaves the room, doesn't use too much shampoo, and puts the recyclables in the recycling bin?

It's not "If Mr.X meets these criteria, then he's a contender." It's "If Mr.X doesn't meet these criteria, he's not a contender--or If he's going to be a contender, then he has to meet these criteria".

In symbolic logic: ~XMC-->~C or C-->XMC.

In other words: Being eco friendly is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. I seriously should go to law school. I have issues.

It's a screen, not a mold. It's also not like I go around polling guys on how much shampoo they use.

Can you imagine? ..."So would you say that you use a dime size or a quarter size? How many ounces?"...

I just think I couldn't stand being with someone who did things that rub me the wrong way that badly. I also couldn't stand a guy who says things like "between you and I" or "where's your house at?"

Perfection is also scary ... so you know ... a balance.

New Google Tools

This post is sent to you from MS Word. What is this really? Google keeps coming up with new tools. It is really hard to try to keep up with all of this insanity. The baseball game continues as we crush Tampa Bay. Maybe I shouldn’t say crush. They appear to be coming back. 1 on 1 out in the 9th: Score 10-5, Sox. I moved furniture today. Big surprise. Right. I am sleepy.  

Burberry

By request, the Burberry story:

One day, when my Cancún platoon was swimming near the swim up bar, we saw a man getting into the pool with his 3-year-old daughter. He was the most enormous body-builder-type dude with 4-foot-wide shoulders and 1-foot wide hips. He looked like Mr. Incredible or some other cartoon body builder super hero. And he had chocolatey dark skin. We were so amazed by his build that we almost missed the teeny-weeny Burberry boxer-brief-style swim shorts.

The next day we saw him with the looser version of the shorts and his wife who had a matching Burberry suit. Quite the look.

The Stones

The Rolling Stones are playing at Fenway Park, which, as the crow flies, is 0.43 miles from my house. I can hear the concert bouncing off the apartment building across the street. It sounds like the music is coming from the wrong direction. Did I mention I'm glad I'm not moving? How many people get to live 0.43 miles from Fenway Park? How many people get to sleep to the soothing voice of Mic Jagger? Which one of you is going to come back to me with a smart answer telling me the population of the Fenway Neighborhood? Oh wait, my little once-wanted-to-be-an-urban-planner friend doesn't read this. Oh, but Mr. SEIU does. Maybe he'll know. Anyway, life is good and now I've officially turned this into a rambling post.

I think I have swimmer's ear again.

Burning Hot Death

Ok, I'm never travelling through Dallas again. I knew I was allergic to it, but I didn't know I was just unlucky in it too. Today I got out of customs and to my connecting flight without a hitch. I even found an ABP (Au Bon Pain). Then I got on my plane with the correct group number etc. Then it started to get hot. Then they told us the battery died on the plane which was why the A/C wasn't working. Then they told us that maintenance had flagged but not repaired the problem while it was in the hangar. Then they told us that they were pumping cool air into the plane but "for some reason" it wasn't making it to the vents. So we sat and roasted in the Dallas sun with the shades drawn to block out the heat. I tried to sleep. The man next to me was about 7 feet tall and completely hairless. As in he shaved his hair. Even from his knuckles and arms. It was growing back. I desperately wanted to ask why he was like that, but was afraid that he would look at me funny and I would suddenly be crushed by the idea of him not liking my question. So I didn't.

El Pequeño

Last night, after witnessing the wet body contest at a place called Dady [sic] Rock, I got on the bus to go back to the resort. It was fairly full, but this time not with drunken college students puking on my feet. It was actually pretty calm. Then El Pequeño worked his magic.

While I was at Dady Rock, on the outside patio, there was a 10-year-old boy with 3-D glasses and a striped blue T-Shirt sitting outside lipsynching what he thought were the words to popular American (English) songs. Pretty hilarous, but fairly disturbing that he was out there alone. I named him El Pequeño.

Back to the bus. El Pequeño was there to greet us. We get on the apparently calm bus and then it begins. BA BA BAMBA! El Pequeño started an entire bus of adults singing La Bamba and Tequila at 2:30 in the morning. Then he walked around and collected his payment. I gave him 8 pesos or so (80 cents). I probably shouldn't have encouraged this behavior since he's probably not in school because of it, but it was just so damn cute.

Battle of the Sexes, Cancún Style

I never expected to even leave the resort on the Cancún trip. It's not that I didn't want to, it's just that I didn't think that I would convince anyone else it was a good idea. I also thought that my group which consisted of 3 people under 15 and 3 over 40 plus me would be the youngest people there. And there would certainly not be many people my age. As it turns out, there weren't as many blue-haired wobblers as I expected and there were even a few folks within 5 years of my age. So by Tuesday I was in with the hip kids--or at least with the people my age who had been coming to Cancún for 20 years with their families. So, as a tradition (I gathered) we went to Fat Tuesday's on Tuesday.

As we arrived a Battle of the Sexes was just beginning. Six contestants --three men and three women--were involved in a game of musical chairs scavenger hunt. They were asked to find a lighter from someone in the audience... then boxers, a bra, a thong, and a tampon. Guys actually took their pants off to make this happen. They were all about 18 I think. Oh well. I danced all night and most of the morning. My favorite part was the MC's pronunciation of "gentlemen" which he repeated constantly through the night (most of this was conducted in English). He used a 'hard' g sound like the word 'guard'. Otherwise he sounded just like your usual, run-of-the-mill club-running, Estadounidense MC dude.

So what did I learn from this? I learned that the spring break crowd where a girl will flash her boobs to get a t-shirt that won't even fit her really does exist. And drunken 18-year-olds really don't know where they're going, where their friends are, or where their puke just went... like on my feet. Ok, close.

My Luxury Vacation in a Third World Country

It's not one swim-up bar: there were three--in the pools. There were also three beach bars which you can walk up to or the bartenders will walk (or sometimes run) out to you. The margaritas are a buck and a half during the 4-hour happy hour.

Yoga at 8am. Aqua Aerobics with the blue-haired wobblers at 11am. Beach Volleyball at 3pm. SpringBreak-esque nights until 3am. And not a single moment thinking about freaking spreadsheets.

I read The Kite Runner. Oh God it was good. I had to relinquish to my mother, however, so you can't borrow it until Thanksgiving.

Our maid's name was Eduardo and he was not a woman. A very friendly fellow, but he accidentally stole Olivia's baby blanket. It was returned.

I made guacamole with mango chunks in it. It rocked. I think I might go back and work as their guacamole maker/massage therapist. It's probably easier to get certified in Mexico, right?

I didn't see a whole lot of the evidence of Mexico being an underdeveloped country because I didn't leave the resort/American strip much. I did visit the Mayan ruins at Tulum, but that was as far off the beaten path as I got and let me tell you, that was pretty well beaten.

Next time, amigos, next time.

Time Lapse

Maybe I will be able to post from foreign land, but I'm going to doubt it. Despite all the other comforts, apparently high speed Internet is not among the amenities at the resort I'm visiting next week. Oh yes, I will be at a resort. A resort with a swim-up bar.

But for now, I am trapped in sports fan land. Soxfans are really funny to watch on the T. It's a bunch of suburban and often drunk, stoned, and generally unaware people riding a train for the first time. This would be fine except that baseball season is in the summer and drunk people are often also sweaty people.

So with the increased outside temperature, the influx of unaware people, the booze, the kids, and the general angst of all the rest of us, the T can become a place no one ever wants to be--a sardine can overstuffed with sweating, confused, foul-breathed masses. In fact, most daily commuters avoid the greenline like the plague if at all possible on game nights. I forgot to do that tonight.

It's really not surprising that it took me so long to catch on to baseball. First of all, I'm not sure I knew which one was 1st and which was 3rd a few years ago, and I always associated baseball games with a bunch of drunk drivers taking up my streets.

Oh but I love it now. It gives me a subject to discuss with people who have wicked thick Boston accents. That's not why I love it, but I do enjoy improving my Bostonian impression. Unfortunately, you can only do that by listening.

In case you haven't heard my shouting from the rooftop...

I'M NOT MOVING!!!!!! The thunderstorm sealed the deal and I made arrangements the very next day. I couldn't be happier, but I'm a little concerned about the fact that the girls I bailed on haven't gotten back to me. Maybe there's just a lot of hate. I can understand that.

Ottoman

Yesterday I took a half day and instead of getting blazed like I did last time with Leslie, I made an ottoman. Yes, an ottoman, like the empire. I stopped by the fabric store on the way home, got home, sat down at my sewing machine, and for three hours did nothing but sew. It was awesome. There's a big thanks in order for Laura here. The whole reason I now have an ottoman is because my Laura gave me/abandoned her feather bed when she left (abandonded me) for Japan. Until this weekend it was an eyesore, a giant blob of canvas and feathers. However, now it is the stuffing of my ottoman and I love it.

"Ottoman" count = 6

Then again, maybe not

Today I am doing everything I can to reverse the decision of yesterday. I am trying to stay at my current residence. I think I experienced my first sign.... Last night aroung 12:45 my building's fire alarm went off during a huge thunderstorm and there we all were in our jammies on the porch. It took the fire department a good hour and a half to arrive, so we got to bond... and then we bonded over cocktails. This was a pretty good sight for the firemen who showed up and must have thought we pulled the alarm. Even after the (healthy looking) firefighters left we stayed out on the porch with our drinks for another hour until 3am. It was then that I realized I really love my apartment and the people are great. Now I'm really determined to stay. It might be difficult to do now that my building's owner's son may be vying for my apartment, but I am going to try.

UPDATE: It appears that I am confirmed into my current place. I haven't yet signed a new lease, so keep your fingers crossed or knock on wood or whatever it is we need to do.

Brainstorming the Move

Reasons to leave current apartment:

1. The fact that I had several regularly-watched television programs last winter.
2. Switching trains on my commute.
3. The f***ing mouse.
4. Being the only one to take out the trash.
5. Paying for all the bills myself.
6. Paying more and more rent: the unpredictable nature of my rental agreement.
7. Distance from Cambridge.
8. Laziness as result of not having to clean up after self due to annoyance of roommates.
9. No built in buddies.
10. Getting stuck in my own ways and being intolerant to other lifestyles.


Reasons to stay in current apartment:

1. Friends down the street.
2. The Whole Foods (plus drug store, flower shop, hardware store, post office, radio shack, camera shop, ABP, Blockbuster, Indian Buffet, and yoga studio) next door or within 5 minutes.
3. Walk to Newbury/Fenway/MFA.
4. Friends in this neighborhood.
5. 25-foot brick wall.
6. Moving blows.
7. 5x5 closet
8. 450 square feet of my own.
9. No line for the shower.
10. Space and flexibility for guests at any time.


Reasons to move to new apartment:

1. Miracle of Science and Cuchi Cuchi next door.
2. Friends around the neighborhood.
3. Harvest Coop and Whole Foods, among other places to shop for food.
4. Ability to participate in Boston Organics or CSA veggies.
5. Sharing utilities.
6. Cheaper rent.
7. One train to the office.
8. One bus to Boston, back to the old stomping ground.
9. Summer festivals and other community events.
10. Not turning into a hyper-idiosyncratic monster.
11. It would be really bitchy to back out now.

Blahston to Lamebridge

Oh moving.... I was all excited and now I just think it is a bust. I have moved every single year since I moved to college. Moving is not fun even if it does include built in exercise. (I love multi-purpose events, especially when one of them is exercise.)

I have a stack of paper boxes in my office ready to pack. I hate packing. I want my mommy.

And who is going to help me move?

I want my mommy.