Negotiable American Currency

I woke up at 8:30am on Sunday morning and my brain immediately started on it's laundry list of concerns. Usually when I wake up my mind is slow and sticky like cold honey and I don't have to worry about rational thoughts occurring for at least half an hour. Sometimes, especially after an especially upsetting incident or after a night of heavy drinking my mind clicks on immediately and won't stop working away at whatever's bothering it.
I lay in the hotel bed, the itchy comforter against my face in an attempt to hide from the sun, my brain in no mood to drift back off into sleep. One hundred dollars on a coat? Are you serious? You should have brought along the Visa statement from last month to sober you. Sure, you look fabulous in it, but what good will that do you when you're calling the consumer credit helpline and sobbing into the phone because Capital One is indeed hassling you? They're going to break your knees. Stupid, foolish girl.
Around 9:30 I'd had enough, so I quietly got up and gathered my things to take a shower. Kristen rolled over and looked at me.
"Good morning, Sunshine!" I said quietly.
"Shut up, bitch," she murmured. Her brain was obviously not as concerned with the purchase of a polar fleece as mine was with the wool coat.
When I got out of the shower Kristen was sitting up in bed, blinking. She heaved a sigh and got ready to take her shower. I turned on the TV and watched approximately five seconds of Meet the Press before I switched over to VH1's Top 20 Countdown.
"I am fucking hungry," Kristen said as she walked out of the bathroom. "Seriously, I was about to fall down in the shower."
My stomach had begun to rumble too. It was quite a cacophony of noises in my body, between my stomach demanding I fill its stretched-out emptiness and my mind saying don't become one of those couples on daytime TV who have creditors calling at all hours.
On Saturday I'd suggested a good breakfast chain that I'd eaten at in Montreal one time, but it was a bit spendy, so we decided on Sunday morning to eat at Becky's Diner, where Rachel Ray had eaten when she went to Portland on $40 a Day. I was kind of hoping that she'd be there, oohing and aahing over the blueberry pancakes since I have a girl-crush on her, but she was nowhere to be found. A line out the door was there instead, and my stomach kicked up a noisy protest about waiting for a table.
There happened to be two stools open at the counter, so Kristen and I grabbed them and demanded coffee. A cheerful waitress gave us the steaming mugs of coffee and took our orders. "I promise I'll be much more communicative once I drink this coffee," Kristen said in monotone.
I didn't mind that she was so quiet since the diner was noisy. Our stools looked into the kitchen, so we could watch the two cooks bickering good-naturedly with each other. The older cook sang along with "Hot for Teacher" that was playing quietly from the kitchen's radio. The younger cook fetched fruit and potatoes as the elder called out orders like a doctor asking for instriments from a nurse. The waitresses chatted as they busily took care of their customers. The place was crowded and busy, but the waitresses handled it with good cheer. "Can you get my toast?" one would ask another. "Sure. Jess, can you see if anybody needs hazelnut coffee?" "Where's my home fries?" I have an appreciation for fine dining, but there's something about a diner and the greasy food that comes with it that will always hold a special place in my gastronome heart.
I got in the driver's seat and proceeded to leave Portland. We decided the fastest way to North Conway was via Route 302, which was far more interesting than sticking to an interstate. We passed the dilapidated farmhouses and fields of cows that seem unique to New England.
"I was watching The Phantom Gourmet" I commented to Kristen as we drove along, Dave Matthews singing quietly from the stereo, "and they had one of the local weathermen on talking about his favorite places to eat. The host of the show asked the weatherman if there was any other place he'd live if he had to live outside of New England, and the weatherman said no because New England has a little bit of everything in it. I think I agree with him."
"Me too," Kristen replied, looking at the high school we were passing, encouraging their basketball team to do well at the championships. "I mean, I complain about the weather and the cold, but you can do just about anything here in such a short time. Now we're in the mountains, but we were in Boston only a couple hundred miles ago. If you're driving through the midwest, it's all flat and corn. Or so you tell me, anyway. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
We drove along Route 302, past small villages with quaint stores with puns for names (something to do with Ewes in a yarn store), through barren stretches where snowmobilers crossed the street like gasoline-powered deer. We passed a small ski slope, and by a lake where snowmobilers were racing across the frozen surface. I nearly pulled over there to hitch a ride across the flat expanse, but Kristen reminded me that tax-free outlet shopping was a short distance ahead.
About two hours after leaving Portland, we ended up in North Conway, New Hampshire. We pulled into Settler's Green, the epicenter of shopping in the area. If you can name a popular chain, odds are there's an outlet here. (We did miss some of the high-end outlets that are in Freeport, such as Coach and Ralph Lauren, but since I was on a budget it was probably for the best.) We swung around the parking lot, fighting for spots with cars from as far away as New Jersey. Eventually we got a spot right next to a dumpster and began shopping.
I'll spare you the ugly details of where I shopped and what I tried on. But there were bargains everywhere. I got my brother two long-sleeved t-shirts for, as Kristen put it, "four American dollars!" I got a cute skirt at the Gap for $18. I got two roasting pans to replace my roommate's large Pyrex dish (the free guilt pan!) for $8.98. There were more purchases made, all of which adding to the non-stop mantra in my mind. You can't afford this. You can't afford this.
"We should just crash at my Mom's house tonight," I commented to Kristen as I struggled to haul my bags around the stores.
"Seriously, dude. That would be fine with me."
"We'd miss Vermont, though." We'd planned to stop at a microbrewry in Brattleboro.
"Eh, Vermont's just kind of there," Kristen said. "And it's ski season, and a holiday weekend on school vacation week in ski country. If we found a hotel there, it would be really spendy. Also, we could leave for IKEA from there, which is way closer than Vermont is, anyway."
I called my Mom's house to notify her that we'd be arriving for the night instead of just stopping in on our way back to Boston on Monday. She was out with a friend, so I told my brother we'd be heading down so he wouldn't lock the deadbolt. We stopped to get gas since we'd be taking the Kangamangus Highway from North Conway to Lincoln, and it was about 35 miles without a gas station, or any houses. I filled the gas tank in the blistering wind while Kristen ran into the convenience store for supplies.
"I got two bottles of water, salt and vinegar potato chips and cheese doodles."
"Awesome. Let's roll."
The Kangamangus highway runs through the mountains and a national park. The road twists and turns and has steep grades, so it's almost like driving on a race track. Since I don't have the pleasure of driving very often, I love to, especially when it's through the backwoods without any traffic. The Kangamangus was especially challenging since we were driving west during sunset. Kristen snapped pictures and rifled through all the CDs in her car as I made tire-peeling squealing noises in my mind.
We ended up in Lincoln, which is right by Loon Mountain. The skiiers were leaving en masse, so we munched on cheese doodles as the traffic slowly moved towards 93. People returned their rented skiis to the off-mountain stores. One sign advertised "Strap on rental-- $30."
"I don't know if that's a situation where I'd rent," Kristen observed, sucking the cheese powder out of her fingernails.
On the ride back to Rhode Island, Kristen and I got loopy. It was the longest stretch that we'd been in the car-- about four hours-- for the entire trip. We'd exhausted our CD collection ("I swear, everyone I know is conspiring to get me to like this damn J. Lo song and I will not do it," Kristen swore) and after a dinner of Papa Gino's pizza we drove to Newport Creamery for dessert since it was only 9pm. The Whatever had the misfortune of calling during our punchiness.
"Hello, Mr. Whatever!" I greeted him.
"Um, hi, Amy, how are you?" He asked, sounding slightly confused by my good mood.
"I am awesome. Kristen and I have done a road trip of New England. We're in Rhode Island now."
"Hiiiiiiii Whatever," Kristen yelled, giggling.
"Kristen says 'hi'," I relayed to him, as if he hadn't heard it.
"Wow, that sounds really cool," he replied, indeed sounding impressed that Kristen and I were driving around, crossing state lines and engaging in general silliness.
"It's awesome." We'd arrived at Newport Creamery, so I was trying to get him off the phone so I could drink my Awful Awful in peace. "What's up?"
"Well, I've sat down with it, and, I think this is correct, I need to check something on Tuesday at work, but I think the total amount of what you owe me from our trip to Florida is $166.78."
I knew he would call once I'd spent the money I'd planned on giving him in full when I got paid. I called him on Tuesday to tell him I had the money and he needed to tell me how much to give him (and to apologize for demanding a gorilla, but that's another story for another time). Since he hadn't called me back, I figured he was weirded out by my nonsensical demand for stuffed novelties and I wouldn't hear from him again.
"Oh, um, I...er," I mumbled into the phone as we walked towards the Creamery, not wanting to admit that I'm a deadbeat friend and the money I owed him was currently sitting in an LL Bean shopping bag in the backseat of Kristen's car. As we walked by the newspaper box for the Providence Journal, I spied a picture of Jason Varitek looking especially warrior-like on the front page.
"Look, Kristen" I said, the Whatever still on the other end of my phone, "it's your boy."
"Where?!" Kristen exclaimed. She got her face right near the metal box to look through the smudgy glass at the image of her beloved.
"Hey," I said between giggles, "I think I've got to run. Kristen's about to get her tongue stuck to the newspaper box."
Kristen and I both erupted into a fit of hysterics at the mental image of Kristen, kitted out in her new Celtics hat and Super Bowl Champions sweatshirt with her tongue stuck to 'Tek's newsprint naughty bits, and having to explain to the teenager behind the counter at the Creamery that I'd need a cup of warm water to free my friend's tongue from the paper box. The Whatever, still on the phone and by this point completely bewildered, laughed.
"Are you driving right now?" he asked, a somewhat paternal tone creeping into his voice, as if once he got off the phone with me he'd be Googling the Rhode Island State Police number and asking them to follow any swerving green Foresters with Massachusetts plates.
"No, we're actually at the ice cream place now, so I'm going to have to run because I don't want to be that girl on the cell phone."
"Uh, okay. Good talking to you."
"Later," I said, still gasping for air after the hysterics.
We got inside and shed out coats, still laughing. I assured Kristen my Mom would have the day's ProJo in the archives (recycling bin) so we didn't need to spend the fifty cents on our own copy. The waitress brought us menus and some water.
"You should have an Awful Awful," I recommended.
"What is that?"
"It's Awful Big and Awful Good," I replied.
Kristen looked at the poster on the window behind her. "It looks like a milkshake."
"It's not a milkshake," I said, a shade more aggressively than necessary. "It's an Awful Awful."
Kristen shrugged and looked at the sundae menu. "Whatever. They all have different names in New England. It's a frappe?"
"No!" I said. "It's an Awful Awful. You can get a Junior one, if you don't want a lot."
"Nah," she said. "I'm getting a sundae."
I shrugged. "You should totally get the Awful Awful."
I got the junior Oreo Awful Awful. The Oreos are blended up into tiny little bits that easily slide up the straw, but are big enough so when you bite down you can feel the texture of the cream between your teeth.
"I'm excited for Ikea tomorrow," I said between slurps of the Awful Awful.
Kristen nodded. "Me too. Are you aware that you can buy a coffee table for twenty-four American dollars at Ikea? Twenty. Four!"
"It is an amazing feat."
"I know I have to assemble the little pieces of particleboard that burly Sweedish men named Sven or Bjorn pushed together with their hulking biceps, but I'm okay with that. It's twenty-four dollars! For a table! American currency!"
"It's the best place on Earth, I swear," I said, an experienced Ikea visitor. "You'll hate humanity by the time you leave, but it's well worth it for the great crap you can buy there for cheap."
We paid our bill and headed to my Mom's house for an evening of free laundry and more television watching in an ususual location. I went to bed, resigning my brain to the fact that I'd be parting more money I'd yet to earn at Ikea the next day.

"What are you doing in Portland?"

When I was a young kid, I hated road trips. During my entire childhood I took three trips by airplane—to Florida twice to visit my grandmother and one trip to Arizona to visit my stepdad’s mother. Usually, our family vacations involved piling into the car with a cooler full of Kool-Aid juice boxes and a bag of Doritos and watching trees fly by the car windows until we got to some location where my Mom could go antiquing and my brother and I could count down the hours until we’d be allowed to go swimming in the hotel pool. By the second day, my brother and I would whine that we were bored.
“Just enjoy the drive,” my mother replied from the comfort and ample leg room of the front seat. I’d always roll my eyes, completely unaware of the cathartic power that the flicker of the white lines holds over adults.
Since I’ve been able to drive, I love road trips. I like looking at a map to make sense of the red and blue lines, to figure out the best path from place to place. There’s a certain exoticism in crossing state lines, in seeing coolers full of beer and wine in the gas stations of less puritanical states. It’s America, it’s homogenous, but since I’m used to it the shades of nuance are exciting.
Kristen and I left her parents house around noon on Saturday. We had a leisurely breakfast and packed our belongings into Kristen’s car, which thanks to the folks at the garage was no longer squealing with every turn it made. The air was colder than it was on Friday, and I was beginning to regret the idea of strolling around Portland on a twenty-degree day. I’d let winter control my social life for too long, however, and I decided I wouldn’t be deterred by some cold breezes. After a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts we were underway for Maine.
Portland is a lovely city. It’s sort of a mini-Boston: there’s the old cobblestone part of town (Old Port) and a more professional area with lots of banks and loan offices. Since it was about twenty degrees and windy, much of downtown Portland was deserted. Kristen and I had no solid plans (the best way to do a road trip) so we strolled around the many stores in the Old Port. There were two used bookstores in a three-block radius, which was very exciting to bibliophiles such as Kristen and I. I got a used copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Slaughter House-Five for a little under ten dollars. Kristen got some used sports writing books. I returned to a pottery warehouse store to buy some more of the milk and juice glasses that I bought there two years ago. I handed my credit card to the man at the pottery store, and he asked if I went to school around Portland.
“No,” I said, “we’re visiting from Boston.”
He smiled and nodded at me. “Everyone who’s been in today has been from out of town. The locals all hibernate for four months.”
I couldn’t say I blamed them. I wasn’t entirely prepared for the cold in Portland. Kristen and I had parked on Commercial Street, which runs right along the docks. The wind blew right through my jeans like I was wearing nothing but a gauzy skirt. My fingers began to tingle even in my gloves. I had my red knit hat on under the hood of my ugly red coat and still my ears were cold. It got better the further away from the water we got, but when a breeze came up my eyes watered.
After a couple of hours of shopping it was time to check into the hotel. We paid for our parking (two dollars for a little over two hours—an unreal bargain when compared with Boston’s parking rate) and headed for South Portland, which isn’t nearly as ghetto as it sounds. We were about ten minutes from downtown Portland, and it was $55 for the night. We hauled our stuff into the room and turned the heat on high to warm up after traipsing around. Kristen tried to plug her laptop into the hotel phone to get any news of baseball or Tedy Bruschi’s health while I made sure that the Gideons had placed a Bible in our hotel room. They had.
“Kristen, the Gideons have come and given us a Bible. It was really weird—when the Whatever and I were in Florida, there was no Bible in the room.”
“It was probably for the best,” she replied, plugging the phone back in. “You were cohabitating in sin, so it was a little late for a Bible.”
“I suppose so. He also yelled at me for jumping on the bed in the hotel.”
Kristen rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s just nonsense. You’re supposed to jump on hotel beds.”
“That was my view on the situation as well. I am glad that you understand.” I then proceeded to jump on my double bed. Kristen then decided to see how many rolls she could complete from the head of her bed to the foot. She got one. I got one and a half.
“Are you ready for dinner?”
I looked at the alarm clock. “It’s only four. Why don’t we hang here for a while and leave around 5:30? Maybe we can get some snackies?”
Kristen grabbed her wallet. “I saw a vending machine in the lobby.”
We retuned to the room and feasted on chips, candy and diet Pepsi and watched Made on MTV. “Kristen,” I said, “while this appears lame, you are aware that we are watching MTV in a hotel room, right? So it’s cool.”
“Yep,” she said, munching on a pretzel.

Our coworker Karen recommended a place in downtown Maine called Kathadin. “It’s pretty cheap, and they have a good blue-plate special.”
Once we were seated and our menus were given to us, we flinched. The least expensive entrée on the menu was $20. Local art hanged from the funky-colored walls, and smooth jazz wafted from the speakers. I was wearing a grease-stained sweater, jeans that were two sizes too big and worn-out Merrill slide-on sneakers. Kristen and I were the youngest people in the restaurant by at least five years. But it had gotten colder since the sun set, so the idea of leaving and looking for a cheaper place didn’t hold much appeal. We ordered a beer, some soup and our entrees.
People in Maine look different than people in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. There’s something solid in the way they look, like they’ve all been out hauling lobsters in from boats. Our waitress at Katadin was the epitome of what I believe a Maine woman should look like. She had broad shoulders and her arms looked strong in her sweater. She wasn’t fat, but was sturdy, like you’d need a lot of force to move her. She had a large face, but her features were spread out nicely. She had a wide smile and laughed and joked with her customers. The best example of how people from Maine look are the illustrations in Robert McClosky’s children’s books.
Kristen and I were so full after our dinner that we decided to walk to the bars in the Old Port that we’d passed earlier in the day. The streets were deserted. There was no traffic passing by, and very few pedestrians walked with us. It was eerie. The man at the pottery shop was right—the locals were all in hibernation. As we walked, we passed the Cumberland County Civic Center (“the CCCC,” Kristen explained). A sign sat out on the quiet sidewalk advertising that tickets were available for that night’s game. We went in to see how much the tickets were. They were six dollars for standing room to see the Providence Bruins play the home team. We were tempted, but standing up for an entire hockey game wasn’t appealing. We left the civic center to find a bar.
“I am so full,” I whined as we walked, gripping my stomach.
“Me too,” Kristen moaned. “Is that a Cold Stone creamery?”
I let out a loud groan. “Let’s get ice cream after the bar. Will it be open then?”
We walked up to the door, and the ice cream store would be open until 11pm. “But we could be out later than that. And we want to go to LL Bean too.”
“We really should get it now, to be sure it’s not closed later. Let me just stop at the ATM next door.”
We jumped into the heated ATM. I put in my card and prepared to answer the host of questions about the fees I’d be charged. I answered them, and when I got to enter the amount of money I’d like to take out, the ATM asked me to withdraw in multiples of five.
“Five dollars!” I shouted into the security camera. “Multiples of five? Holy shit, that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Sometimes, all you want is five dollars. That’s it. Two dollar parking? Five dollar ATMs? This is the promised land.”

After our ice cream, Kristen and I ended up at the Bull Feeny Pub. Kristen and I are not trendy people, so the Irish bar is where we usually end up. People aren’t dressed up and there’s no need to put on a pretentious act. We found a spot at the bar on the second floor and made ourselves comfortable. It was only eight-thirty, so the bar was still pretty empty. The NBA All-Star Skills Competition was on the television, so we kicked back to watch.
Lately I’ve been checking out every living thing with a pulse and all visible evidence of being male, so I was people-watching as much as basketball watching. When we first arrived, a group of young guys was sitting at a table eating salads and drinking beer. They were cute in that twenty-one year-old Abercrombie way. I listened to them directing girls to the bar, and the various groups of friends started showing up in couples. A cute guy walked by Kristen and I with his adorable girlfriend. Endless pairs of people walked into the bar as we sat drinking.
“Christ,” I muttered to Kristen, “do they let people out in this town without a significant other in tow? What do the single people do?”
Evidently, they come out after nine. A group of college-aged kids walked in and ordered their drinks over my shoulder. One good looking guy kept looking my way, so I smiled at him. I watched some of the slam-dunk contest and yelled at the players on the screen along with Kristen.
Eventually the good-looking guy introduced himself to me. His name was Ted, and he lived in Portland. When he asked where I lived, I said Boston.
“Really?” He asked in disbelief, his dark eyebrows raised so high they were under the knit cap that covered his dreadlocks, “what are you doing in Portland?”
“We had the weekend off, so we figured why not have a road trip? Tomorrow we’re going to North Conway, then down to Connecticut and Rhode Island on Monday, then back to Boston.”
“That’s really cool,” he said, flabbergasted that anyone would willingly be in Portland.
Something happened in the NBA game, so I stopped talking to Ted for a minute. He got up and left. I tried to talk to his friend Chris that he’d introduced me to, but Chris had no interest in my witty comments about the dude who jumped over another guy to slam dunk the basketball.
Really hot men came and went from the bar as the crowd picked up. Kristen and I swooned as each of them paraded in front of us like ducks in a shooting gallery, completely unaware of their peril.
“I die of the hot,” Kristen said, holding her second Sam Adams as I nursed my Shipyard winter brew. “Seriously. It’s like Tom Brady called these guys in and said, ‘Okay, I’ll look impeccable during the Super Bowl parade and nearly kill her with the hot, and then you guys show up wearing World Series champion hats and Carhart coats and complete the job.’ I think I’ve lost all feeling from the waist down.”
“I think we now know where all the men are,” I said. “We need to move here immediately.”
Kristen got up to break the seal as I ordered my second beer. It was about eleven by then, and we’d decided that we could leave for Freeport to go to LL Bean late at night any time after eleven. Kristen came back, and reported that she’d been hit on while in line for the loo.
“Which one?”
“The guy in black over your right shoulder.”
I’d seen him hovering over there, and he had the kindness to not be mad when Chris had stolen some of his French fries that had been sitting on the bar smelling good for hours. I thought he was one of those guys who hover around different cliques of women, desperately trying to hit it off with any woman who’d give him some attention. It turned out he was there with a friend, and was hitting on Kristen as reconnaissance work. Their names were Eric and Scott, and they managed to get up the nerve to talk to Kristen when I got up to use the bathroom.
“Hey,” I said, a little leery of them at first, since I thought Scott was That Hover Guy.
Kristen introduced me to the men, but I was still a little nervous. Also, Scott had obstructed my view of the television.
“You look so scared right now,” Scott said, smiling. “You’re looking over your glasses, you’re not really talking, and I don’t blame you because you get up and these two guys are talking to your friend.”
I smiled, and pushed my glasses up to the bridge of my nose. “No, my glasses need to be fixed and they slide down. It’s a little weird to have two guys camped around my stool, but it’s fine. Where are you from?”
“Oh, I live in South Portland, and Eric lives around here too. Where are you from?”
“We’re down from Boston for the weekend.” Kristen was talking sports with Eric.
“Really? Why are you in Portland?”
“You’re the second person to ask me that tonight. We just figured we had three days off, we have a car, so why the hell not get out of the city for a few days.”
“Wow,” Scott said, smiling and paying very close attention to me. “That’s so cool. That’s so cool.”
We talked for a while longer while Kristen had to apologize profusely to Eric for asking him if he was a Yankees fan. Scott and I talked about the cars we had in college (from the conversation I could tell that he was about ten years older than me, but I didn’t let on my relative youthfulness) and the fact that his ex-girlfriend loved Jason Varitek’s thighs like Kristen does (though it’s doubtful that she could have the same burning passion that Kristen does). They were nice guys, and were into us, but when I gave Kristen a piece of gum around midnight they got the hint.
“Uh-oh,” Scott said to Eric, “they’ve got the gum out. It’s time for them to get going.” Ladies, let this be a lesson to you. No young guy would get that hint as well as these gentlemen did. Exhibit 5,642 why older guys are better.
“Well, we have to go test-drive some canoes,” I said. Scott and Eric looked at me with faces of complete befuddlement at the apparent line I’d just given them. After a beat I broke the silence.
“That’s not a euphemism or anything.”

Kristen and I got to Freeport around 1am. The LL Bean flagship store is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “I don’t know why anybody would decide that they needed a kayak at four in the morning and could not wait until a store opened to get one,” Kristen said as we took our picture on a giant boot by the front door.
“It’s the American system at work. I am just glad to know that the option is there should the need arise for thermal underwear at any hour of the day.”
We’d decided to go just for the novelty, but it was actually a pleasant experience. There was one older guy walking around the home goods section and a group of high school kids wandering through the shoe section, but other than them and the employees the store was deserted. Kristen and I both made purchases—I bought a calf-length red wool coat for $100 and Kristen got a new polar fleece. Despite the pangs of guilt I felt for charging the coat, it was a beautiful color of red and my coats are all too loose now anyway.
I drove the Subaru back to the South Portland HoJo and we went to sleep content. We’d had good food, good drinks, had some men hit on us and got to browse through sheets and polar fleece at 1:30am. I’d wake up at 8:30am in cold sweats over what my credit card statement would say after the coat went through, and was especially nervous about the next day’s journey to North Conway, New Hampshire, the outlet capital of New England.

Road Trip: Friday

The Road Trip New England started out not with a road, but a train. A very crowded train filled with people just like Kristen and I. People who were scrambling onto a packed subway car, enduring the one last press of humanity until they could get home and do whatever they pleased with their weekend. Kristen, myself and the huge duffel bag that had the weight and dimensions to be a dead body instead of two weeks worth of laundry smooshed on the train with only the thoughts of not being on the train again for three days keeping us from ripping the ears off whoever it was who was listening to country music, then gospel music, then oompah music at loud volume.
"There's a train right behind us," croaked the disinterested driver. People continued to push onto the train.
"There's also an Easter bunny and a Santa Claus," I said grumpily, moving my duffel bag so an old woman could lean against the doors. I took a quick look around and said, "I didn't ruin that for anybody, did I?"
Eventually, we ended up in Quincy where Kristen's car was parked. Once I got off the train the sweat that had been pouring down the back of my legs froze. I sauntered up the escalator with the bag and crushed into the elevator with a group of heavily made-up women carrying flowers and Coach purses. I couldn't wait to get out of the city.
I threw the laundry/body bag into the back of Kristen's car and heaved a sigh of relief, my breath floating out in front of me. Kristen flopped into the driver's seat and turned the car on. It started easily, but began to squeal as we backed out of the spot.
"Yeah, go ahead," Kristen snarled, "squeal like the little bitch you are. Go ahead! I don't care." A guy walking to his car looked over at the Subaru like it might explode. You'd think that these people had never been around a car with loose belts before.
Since it had been a long week and a long drive was in front of us, Kristen and I decided that a run to Dunkin Donuts was in order. It didn't have a drive-through, so we had to get out of the car into the frigid ocean air to get our fix. I also got a cookie, because half a bag of peanut butter cups wasn't enough crap for one day. As we left the store, a car pulled up next to us and a couple who barely looked old enough to drive got out. The girl was skinny and cute as most sixteen year-olds are, but instead of having the good sense to put on a coat when it's 20 degrees and windy, she strutted around in low-slung sweatpants and two gauzy tank tops.
"Kids these days," I said to Kristen as I slurped my hot coffee. "That girl should really have a coat on."
We then watched as this dizzy broad tried to open the fire exit which, from the outside of the store, didn't have a door handle. A thinking person may have decided to walk over to the side of the store with the door that could easily be opened, but apparently the synapses in this girl's brain had been slowed by frostbite. The girl slipped her fingers into the space between the door and the jamb and tried to pry the door open. Eventually, she gave up and walked over to the door her boyfriend was holding open for her, Kristen and I laughing uproariously.
"I never would have stopped laughing if she'd lay down on the ground and tried to open the door like a cat," Kristen commented between giggles.
The drive out of Boston was easy. We listened to the wide variety of cheesy mix CDs Kristen owns and called Kristen's Mom to tell her we were indeed on our way. The only traffic we got into was at the tolls on 95 in New Hampshire. We sang along loudly to Ashlee Simpson and Tina Turner as two sailors from Texas looked at the curious sight with looks of fear with the occasional raised eyebrow to get our attention on their Honda with a cracked fender.
We arrived at the Merrill household around 8:30. I brought my bag of laundry into the house and gladly accepted the beer that Rick (Kristen's Dad) handed me. The house smelled like frying chicken and was warm. I started a load of laundry as my stomach grumbled for some actual nutrition.
The chicken was delicious (thanks Sue) and it was good to sit in a proper house for a meal that didn't come out of a box or from a handsome waiter for the first time in weeks. Kristen and Rick discussed football and hockey, both of which I know little about.
"Come on, Amy," Rick boomed at me, "what do you think of Adam Vinatieri's contract? What do you have to add to the conversation?"
"Umm," I said, knowing full well that I was far outgunned by Rick, Kristen and Sue in this conversation, "can we talk about baseball?"
"We're getting there," Rick replied as Sue stole the cherry from his Manhattan.
After some discussion of funny moments in baseball (Rick saying "How is it possible that that bird managed to fly in front of Randy Johnson's pitch at the exact moment that it did? What are the physics of this situation?") we decided to go to bed. I fell asleep, lulled by the sound of my clean clothes tumbling in the dryer, thinking of exploding birds and what Portland, Maine would be like in the dead of winter. I'd find out on Saturday.

Road Trip!

Okay, so it's not summer. It's not even spring, and there's certainly no leaf-peeping like there is in the fall. But there's a three day weekend-- approximately eighty hours of freedom from the cubicle. While I could spend this time in reflecting my life and it's current direction, out at a bar scavanging for a businessman to be my sugar daddy, at home watching endless reruns of the "Real World," or out trying to find some kind of supplementary income (be it through sugar daddy or actual labor and toil) I am instead hitting the road with the person who spends more time in my head than I do, Kristen. We're getting in the Subaru Forester and touring New England. Please, save your applause until the end of the post.
It'll probably cost me more than I can afford (spending any money is more than I can afford) and it's going to be cold. But I have a big ugly coat, gloves and the desire to get the hell out of Boston for a few days. "But Amy," you may say, "you were just in Florida a month ago." To which I say, "Yes, and I've also had three illnesses, been dumped and developed an addiction to candy since then. I think it's fairly evident I need a change of scene."
Hopefully, Kristen's parents will loan their digital camera to us for the weekend, so we will have photo essays to post on Tuesday when we're back in the cube. For tonight, we head to New Hampshire to fill up on Sue's fried chicken and get the Forester into the shop so it doesn't squeal like an Ashlee Simpson vocal for the entire weekend. Then, tomorrow morning, we begin our trip in earnest. Wish us luck...

Substance Abuse

My name is Amy, and I have a substance abuse problem. No, Mom, it's not a drinking problem (insert "drinking isn't a problem" joke here) and no, I haven't taken to crack, mainly because sleep is the only thing that keeps me from going insane with boredom after work. My problem is an unregulated substance, one which should be kept away from me at all costs. There should be a five-day waiting period for purchasing a bag of these gems. My name is Amy, and I'm addicted to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
I think the endless supply of Valentine's Day candy in my office got me started. One of my coworkers brought in sandbag-size sacks of hard candies for our department's enjoyment. Necco hearts, Sweet Tarts and hard, fruity-flavored hearts took up residence on a small table that's positioned outside my cubicle. In order to do just about anything (get a glass of water, use the loo, sharpen a pencil) I have to walk by the table and I'm presented with Sweet Tarts, which I actually like. So I grab a handful after I sharpen my pencil. I grab a handful to eat with my glass of water. I think there's some sort of sweet-tooth fertilizer in these things, because I haven't been able to walk past a piece of candy this week without eating it. Usually sweets are the last thing I want to eat-- I'm much more of a chips and french fries aficionado. But this weekend I had a hankering for peanut butter cups, and since it was Valentine's Day, I figured I could treat myself. So I bought a small bag of candy at Target on Sunday, figuring by the time I finished the bag my craving would be more than sated.
Not only did I buy the bag of Reeses, I also bought the smallest container of vanilla ice cream I could find. Why vanilla? So I could open the Reeses, drop them in a bowl and add half-melted vanilla ice cream into the mix. I did this on Tuesday, and consumed the entire concoction in two minutes. I don't think I took a breath as I shoveled the chocolate, peanut butter and melted sugar-cream into my mouth. I thought if I did it once, I would feel sick enough to not want to eat it again.
But where was I after I left the gym last night? In Star Market, buying a half-price bag of Valentine's peanut butter cups, destined for a shared bowl with the remaining ice cream. The cashier looked at me quizzically as I set the lonely bag of candy on the conveyer belt.
"Do you want a bag?" He asked, looking nervous as though I would chew his arm off if he manhandled the chocolate.
"No, thank you," I replied as pleasantly as possible, not taking my eyes off the gleaming cellophane bag as he tossed it down as if I'd told him to put down his weapon and come out with his hands up.
I at least had the self-control to wait until the Apprentice was on to open up about six of the mini-Reeses, crush them up and dump a couple of scoops of mushy ice cream on top. My roommate and I watched TV, she eating lukewarm french fries, me with my troth of sloth and gluttony, looking the part of stereotypical Americans. I'm leaving town this weekend for a Road Trip of New England, so I can only hope that once I finish this bag the problem will have passed. Otherwise, I'll go through withdrawl while shopping for steeply discounted khakis at J. Crew. Somebody hand me a bag of carrots and a Dexatrim before I am too far gone to be helped.

Damn you, internet!

I had a whole thing typed out. It was kind of funny. Then it got deleted because the internet is sick of me wasting space. Fuck off, internet. I will not show you my boobies in order to gain your favor.

Kristen and Amy's Cracked Conversation

In which Amy and Kristen exchange IMs altogether too late at night. Explanation of "Ninjas of Love" will be forthcoming once I complete the actual important work I have to do.

Kristen: Dude, you so hate me. Don't try to claim otherwise.

Amy: I do not. I just speak to Yvette very seldomly and love her oodles and miss her.

Kristen: *growls*

Amy: Why do you growl?

Kristen: Because I couldn't think of another appropriate response.

Amy: Perhaps, “Yes, Yvette is lovely?”

Kristen: Don’t you go putting words in my mouth!

Amy: Dance, poppet!

Kristen: I am not your monkey.

Amy: Dance!

Kristen: I might be your gorilla, however as gorillas are not monkeys.

Amy: I have no gorillas. Only murderous gorillas who resent being in cages. And they are in my soul.

Kristen: Shit, that made me laugh so hard I snorted.

Amy: Hee, hee, hee.

Kristen: I'm a fucking catch.

Amy: I am serving my purpose.

Kristen: Careful, I will start blaming you for my dry spell.

Amy: It matters not. This weekend we do a cold-weather version of Thelma and Louise. You can be the one who gets Brad Pitt.

Kristen: Woo hoo! But unless things go horribly wrong, I would prefer not to drive off a cliff.

Amy: Only if the gorillas in my soul get out and take control of the car, dear.

Kristen: “Gorillas in My Soul” is a fucking kick ass band name.

Amy: Soul Gorillas.

Kristen: Awesome. Fucking awesome.

Amy: It's the “Ninjas of Love” solo project.

Kristen: We rock. I heart us. Also, I think I may have another date Thursday.

Amy: Nice! Are the Celtics playing again?

Kristen: Nope. Drinks and dinner. In Boston. He shall come to me.

Amy: As it should be.

Kristen: Dance, puppet!

Amy: Exactly. I should go to the Beer Works and find my waiter and make him my beer bitch. I started writing fan fic about him to Alicia, but I think it was scaring her.

Kristen: I am going to pretend that he spilled all that beer because he was so overcome by our collective beauty.

Amy: I like that too.

Kristen: Hee. Was there licking of spilled beer involved?

Amy: No. I was dominating him.

Kristen: As one would.

Amy: Giving him orders…hee, hee, hee.

Kristen: “Get me a beer, bitch!”

Amy: “Yes, mistress.”

Kristen: He appeared to be that kind to me. “Bring me blueberries! Feed me beer-soaked blueberries!”

Amy: “I didn't say you could speak, slave!”

Kristen: Dude, the boy has no idea what he missed out on.

Amy: Well, that could be good or bad. He missed out on a budding dominatrix, if he likes that shit.

Kristen: Two, in fact.

Amy: If not, well, fuck him.

Kristen: Except, yeah, fuck him.

Amy: I also had a Whatever dom thing going too…”Get my gorilla, bitch. I WANT MY GORILLA NOW, BOY!”

Kristen: Well, yeah.

Amy: I could have grabbed that waiter by the tie and...ahem. Dragged him across the table and hidden him away behind the beer drums.

Kristen: Mmmm, yes, I believe that's how it went in my head too. Except she was blonde.

Amy: Hee hee hee. He even had a Boston accent. It was nice on him.

Kristen: It is on some guys.

Amy: Dude, I am writing fantasies about a waiter, and it's been about three weeks. This is sad.

Kristen: Um, I am engaging and adding to your fantasies. What does that tell you?

Amy: We must go to bed. Immediately.

Last Update

So in the past hour, not much happened. Bridget came over and talked about baseball with Kristen. I nodded politely. I read some more, kind of. I ate more Sweet Tarts. I went onto Mini's website and made my dream Mini Cooper (convertible, British Racing Green, standard, Union Jack mirror covers, heated seats, iPod adapter) so when Johnny Damon chases me down I can stop suddenly and he'll be hog tied in my backseat before his biceps can even flex and make me swoon. More to come when I can form a coherent thought instead of an Eliot-like ramble to amuse myself until I can kill myself with carbs.
Is it still Valentine's Day? I'd forgotten, but the DJ on the radio won't shut up about it. Shut up, shut up. Put on more G. Love, disc monkey.

Hahahaha!

Burn, baby!  HA HA HA HA!

Also, please note that this card sucks really hard.  The front

reads "I'd love to love you, my love."  This person is right to

burn this card on principle, and should file for divorce

immediately.  Reason:  allowing someone to make money off bad

poetry.

Update

Kerri said that I am entertaining her, so I shall keep on. She has refreshed my supply of Sweet Tarts, so I have fuel.
The only thing entertaining that's happened in the hour is that Kristen nearly choked on a Sweet Tart. I am glad she is not dead.
I dig bluegrass music. I don't know how this has happened, since five years of riding the school bus with blaring country music at 6:30am soured me on most music from the South.
Last night I watched Extreme Home Makeover, and it was a special 2-hour episode where they built a duplex in this community for homeless families so the families can save up some money and not live in a shelter. There was this awesome guy named John who lived at the shelter with the two families who get to live in the new houses who was so kind, and he just got laid off from his job and didn't have the money to pay his rent. He had his Ford hat and the prototypical old man face (with the chin jutting out as far as his forehead so his mouth looks like it's hiding in a cave) and the contractor of the job gave John a job as a security guard. John got to call the families he knew from the shelter to tell them, and he seriously cried for about twenty minutes he was so happy. It's frightening how easy it is to become homeless; all the people on the show had homes but lost them when they got laid off. If it weren't for my Mom's house, if I lost my job I'd be right there with them. Except not in Denver. Of course, I cried. And ate peanut butter cups by the handful.
I think Fleetwood Mac may be the best breakup/bad relationship reminder music ever. Nothing like having to write songs about your ex that your ex is going to have to sing backup on.
"Okay, Stevie, just fucking say it. You hate me. Why do you have to write this cryptic gypsy shit about it?"
"Well, maybe if you didn't try all this experimental rock crap I wouldn't have to, Linsday. Pass the coke."
"Wait, I thought that song was about me, Stevie."
"You fucked Mick too?"
"Shut up and pass the coke, Lindsay."

Photocopying?

Dude, seriously. Something's gotta happen around here. Or somebody's got to hit me with a blunt object so the day ends sooner. I am reading a recap of a show I don't watch. I have eaten all the free oatmeal raisin cookies that the rest of the office forsook for the false god of chocolate chip. The rose is in water. I have admired my new baubles endlessly. Someone, please make something happen. Or else I'm going to take the matches out of my desk and mindlessly start lighting them.

Update

Black Monday Update:

Karen has presented me with a beautiful white rose. She also gave one to Kristen, thus leading me to believe it's a pity for the single girls rose. But it's great and I accepted it with a tear in my eye. Mainly because a wave of self-doubt has wiped me off the boogie board of the self-help affirmations I've learned from Oprah and Bridget Jones and I am treading water. "I am crazy. Boys can smell crazy like they can smell hoebag and cookies. I am dying alone. With baubles and beer, but alone." Emailed Sharon, feeling better.
Then Sinead O'Connor came on my iPod, and she can commiserate, because it's all their fault. I'm going to put my white rose (purity?) in some water. I sure hope work picks up soon...

I Wonder Where They Registered?

Kids 'R' Us?
It's kind of odd that it's now okay for these two to be a happy couple with a strong love and "friends of the couple" since all I can feel is "Ewwwww."

Praying Drunk

In honor of Valentine's Day, I give you a poem (not involving love in any way) to read. It is awesome.

Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair-
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.
--Andrew Hudgins

Sunshine and Breakfast

"The chimpanzees in the zoos do it
Some courageous kangaroos do it
Let's do it, let's
Fall in love..."
-Ella Fitzgerald

Get your swerve on, gorillas. It's got to be better than online dating...

In Good News...

Kitty!  Oh my God!

(Courtesy of Sam's Blog.)

Emotional Communism

Fuck you, Valentine's Day. Fuck you hard. Fuck you with barbed wire condoms.
This amount of vitriol can only mean it's Valentine's Day and I'm single. Again. Some more. I long the halcyon days of elementary school where everybody got a valentine in their tissue-box mailbox. If you gave one kid a valentine, you had to give everyone a valentine. It's the shining example of communism working in reality-- I never had hurt feelings in elementary school. Maybe it's because I was a borderline kid-- not really cool (but not getting slammed into lockers) so it allowed me to think, even for a day, that I was cooler than I thought.
Then came junior high, and the illusion was gone. Different groups ran events for Valentine's Day, but the emotional communism was gone. You could buy someone a carnation for a dollar and it would be delivered to them in their last period class. You could buy a bag of candy for a dollar and it would be delivered to the first period class. Of course, someone has to think enough of you to shell out a dollar of their babysitting/allowance money so I never got one. Actually, I think my science teacher may have felt bad enough for me that she bought one after my endless complaining. Teacher's pet, maybe, but at least I had a carnation and wasn't stigmatized as the Girl Without a Valentine.
Valentine's Day is bullshit. People complain about Christmas being too commercial, but I think Valentine's Day is by far the most blatant money-making scheme going. Christmas at least has the decency to exploit an ideal of good will towards man and kindness. Valentine's Day plays on people's insecurities. If you don't get a card or flowers, you're unloved. If you're single, stay home and watch the Extreme Home Makeover Reunion show like the unattractive freak of nature you are. If your boyfriend doesn't buy you something worth a lot of money and take you to a fancy dinner, he doesn't love you as much as you thought. Maybe he's going to dump you. Did he take another girl he dated before you out to a nicer place? Does that mean he liked her more? Did he forget Valentine's Day entirely and get these roses free with a ten gallon fill-up at the Shell station? While our logical side knows it's bullshit, we've been exposed to endless romantic comedies and commercials that get this little undercurrent of doubt going and, if you're a misanthrope like me, it turns into a flood.
But I will not be intimidated. I almost had a Valentine this year (believe you me, if he'd soldiered through another week of my company, I'd have made it worth his while) so I'm doing better than previous years. I've also got a girl's night out planned, so at least I won't have to slog through another hour of Ty Pennington's screaming. And I did get a card, which is on display in my room, to remind me that the days of emotional communism may be over, but there's still people in the world looking out for me and taking my side.
(Be on the lookout for posts all day... I'm sure some emotional baggage will be circling around the carousel today. Because that's how I kick it on Valentine's Day.)

Cheers, Arthur

Sniff.

As a bibliophile and former high school drama geek, the passing of Arthur Miller saddens me. He wrote two of my favorite plays (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible). He's one of the best modern playwrights, and not because he used lofty language or was avante garde. He wrote stories that people can relate to. Willy Loman is one of the best characters in any play, ever, in my opinion-- the tragedy of the common man. If you can watch or read Death of a Salesman without a pang in your heart then you are dead. The world is changing too fast for Willy to keep up with, and it depresses him. I love that play.
The Crucible is also great, and is the Miller play I read in high school (hi Sharon! American Lit, whoo!). You've got to love the fact that he wrote a play about witch hunts during the McCarthy era and got away with it. Arthur Miller had balls the size of a rock star's, and it landed him Marylin Monroe, for a while.
So, thank Arthur Miller for writing some of the greatest plays of the twentieth century today. Perhaps sit down, rent the movies and enjoy them. If you're working on the Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, review some page proof. Now I miss acting...

Sick

Or, because I can't think of anything better to write, you get vivid descriptions of my various illnesses.

I hate winter. You've heard me rant about the snow and slush problem winter presents, but there's another aspect that bothers me even more. It seems I spend about a month out of the season out of commission, knocked on my ass by some horrible cold or other ailment. From November till April, my nose is running, my head is congested, my stomach muscles hurt from coughing. Despite taking multivitamins, washing my hands often and thoroughly and avoiding sick people, I'm always ill.
It's been particularly rough this month. When the Whatever invited me to Florida, I gladly accepted. I bought my ticket on a Monday, and called him to confirm the details. It was the end of the day, and I slouched in my chair, rubbing my forehead.
"I think I'm coming down with a cold," I moaned, trying to massage the pressure out of my sinuses.
"Oops. That probably came from me," he said, then cackled gleefully.
On Tuesday, I felt bad. Wednesday, I felt worse. Thursday, I stayed home from work. I enjoyed my "home sick" routine of watching horrible daytime television without guilt. Since I was sick, I didn't have the energy to hold a book open and read, so I sat and watched Ellen dance across my television screen in all her healthy glory. I managed to drag myself to the pizza place across the street and get a sandwich for lunch. I went to bed early, and woke up on Friday feeling refreshed.
Friday morning I got into work, and started coughing. A lot. To the point where people started to Google how to perform the Heimlich maneuver should the situation get worse. The coughing stopped after a few minutes, but Kristen commented that my eyes looked glassy. I thought nothing of it, did my work and left early to get the Commuter Rail down to Rhode Island to have dinner with my friend Sharon.
I felt fine until I got home from dinner. I sat on the couch, exhausted at 10:30, and watched some television. I started rubbing my eyes, figuring that an eyelash had gotten in there. I kept rubbing, wondering why the eyelash wasn't coming out. Since it was hard to watch TV with only one eye open, I turned it off and went to wash my face. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw that both my eyes were red, and a small amount of goo had accumulated in the corner of my right eye. I wiped the goo with my finger, and it looked more like something that would come out of a nose than an eye. A big wad of eye-slime.
Of course, I had pink eye. I got up early the next morning and drove myself to the walk-in clinic in Wickford to get the antibiotic. I was still coughing and stuffy from my cold, with the additional pleasure of putting drops in my eyes every few hours. Which was gross, since the drops would leak from my eyes to the back of my throat and leave a sour taste in my mouth each time I took them. I was also mortified that I would go to Florida with gooey eyes. It's pretty hard to impress a boy when you have an ailment usually associated with elementary school kids.
The Monday before I went to Florida, I woke up feeling horrible. I had a bad cough, a stuffy nose and a sore throat. My body ached. I should have stayed home that day, but instead I dragged myself to babysit for a few of the longest hours of my life. I tried to keep the kids busy, but all I wanted to do was lay down and not move until I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4am to get to the airport. When I was done babysitting, I went back to my apartment and crashed out on the futon.
As I sat in front of the TV, thinking of all the things I still had to pack, I felt a flush coming into my face. My eyes were heavy (but no longer gooey, thanks to the drops o'halitosis) and I knew I was not well. But the people I babysit were bringing the Whatever and I to the airport, and he planned on leaving from my place with me. Also, I'd be out $130 for the airfare if I stayed home.
"All I need is some sleep," I said to myself. "I'll just take a shower, pack and go to bed."
The shower felt good, but once I got out I felt the fever coming on stronger. I threw as many cold medicines as I could find into my carry-on bag, set everything out that I'd need in the morning, and went to bed.
It was a fitful night's sleep at best. I had the horrible fever dreams that don't make any sense. I anguished in my half-conscious state whether I should go or not. There are doctors in Florida should I need one. I had two bottles of Advil (one with sleep aid, one without) decongestants, cough suppressants, cough drops, eye drops, an arsenal of symptom relief. Also, it would be warm in Florida, and I heard the cold wind whipping through the bare tree branches outside my window. I decided I would suck it up and go.
I went, and the fever abated by Wednesday. But I still had a cough so persistent that the Whatever had to sleep with earplugs (sorry!) and I didn't dare venture out without a cough drop handy. But I was well enough to enjoy the warm weather, which is what I wanted to do while I was there.
I flew back to Boston, and it all went downhill from there. Saturday before the blizzard started, I went to the grocery store with my roommates, and felt fine. I got back to the apartment feeling slightly crappy. I had a glass of water and went to use the bathroom.
For those of you who haven't had a urinary tract infection, let me tell you what it's like. Imagine that you are trying to pee a watermelon out. Whole. With the rind. It is mind-numbing, scream-inducing agony. And it happens about every five minutes, because you feel like you're about to wet your pants if you don't go that often and try to pee the watermelon out.
Kristen (hey Kristen! Thanks!) came from Weymouth and patiently waited at the hospital while they checked to make sure it was a urinary tract infection that was causing me so much grief. The television was broken in the waiting room, and the only magazine they had was "Pregnancy Today" which didn't hold much interest for us. It was indeed as I'd suspected, and we went to CVS to pick up the antibiotic.
Tuesday found me at my regular doctor's office since the coughing hadn't stopped. My airways were constricted, so I had a purple inhaler of rage (I swear the thing gives me mood swings), nose spray and orders to keep taking the decongestants. I felt good for a couple of weeks, but then I woke up Fat Tuesday morning, the morning of the third Patriots parade, and felt the need to barf.
I hate barfing. Nobody enjoys it, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. I especially hate barfing when it's not the kind that happens once. Like when you're drunk, you puke a vile, acidic fluid and you feel better. When you're legitimately ill, it keeps happening and you just wish that the upstairs neighbor's toilet would fall through the ceiling and crush you, ending your misery. I became reacquainted with my snap peas and Mexican lasagna from Monday night, called out sick from work, and tried to lay back down.
I think my stomach was trying to leave my body. I don't know what I did to displease it so-- maybe it was too many donuts followed by too much fiber. Too much Super Bowl snacking? Rancid milk in my hot chocolate? In any case, it wasn't just waves of nausea. It felt like someone was shooting tiny nails into my stomach. If I lay down, my stomach would gurlgle and squeeze, sending me into another fit of dry-heaving into my garbage can. (The smart people at Bed, Bath and Beyond were good to engineer the college dorm wastebasket as a single sheet of plastic, able to hold liquids. I have yarfed in that purple wonder many a time in the past five years.) Finally, around 7am, the pain relented and I was able to get in a little sleep. Around 9am I woke up, made the great journey into the living room, purple bucket in hand, and crashed in front of the television. In various states of wakefulness, I watched Tom Brady, Deion Branch and the rest of the Patriots ride through Boston, pissed I wasn't there to try and scale the boats and molest the players.
I went to bed at 8pm on Tuesday, and woke up on Wednesday feeling a little better. My stomach was a little iffy, but I got showered and ready for work. All was well until I got on the train. Even when I'm feeling well, the T can sometimes make me a little queasy. When my stomach started gurgling and cramping before I'd even reached the underground part of my commute, I knew I wasn't ready to be back at work. So I got off the train, called my boss and went back home.
I'm doing better today. My stomach isn't as gurgly as it was yesterday, and I managed to ride the green line in to my office. Now all I can do is hope that I didn't pick up some sort of ebola from holding onto the bars of the train...

By Jove, I've Got It!

Last night while watching the halftime show, which was about as
scandalous as a Sunday school Easter play, the Whatever asked a very logical
question. "What does the black star on McCartney's shirt signify?"
I tried to think of something witty to say, but the beer and food coma
had hit me and I had no good explanation. But as I was on my way
into work, I thought of the meaning.
It's an homage to Janet Jackson. She is a black star, and you may
recall she wore a star-shaped pastie over her nipple last year.
See the photographic evidence below. Warning: NC-17
material to follow. Please do not call Micheal Powell on
me. And I apologize for the picture, but it's all in the name of
pop-culture theory.


Exhibit A: "What is this rot? American football is rubbish. But, hey, it pays for a new wing on my castle, so..."




Exhibit B: Janet Jackson's right boob, with pastie.

Sing It if You Know It

You've all heard it. It's a familiar song, sang far and wide in many different languages. In French, it's "laissez-nous être juste des amis." In Spanish, it's "déjenos solamente ser amigos." In German, the language of my heritage, it's "lassen Sie uns, gerade Freunde sein." In English, as I heard it on Friday, it's said "let's just be friends."
I've never had the privilege of using "let's just be friends." The only guy I've ever dumped was operating on borrowed time anyway. His personality was as bland as overcooked broccoli. I didn't want to be his friend. I didn't even want to see him in person to dump him, so I did it over the phone. It's not easy to have the conversation that, as nice or inoffensive as someone may be, that you have no interest in seeing movies or spending time with them. You don't want to explain it, because the language centers in your brain decide to quit working and you always say something stupid. In my case as the dumper and not the dumped, I said "I want someone more, um, entertaining than you." For a writer, you think I could have managed a word that didn't make the guy feel like he had to put on a rubber nose and cram himself into a little car to win my affection. But it had been said and I never heard from him again.
So a year went by. There were men who piqued my interest, but none who fit the bill as more entertaining. There were drunken kisses, sober kisses, drunken groping, but nothing that seemed promising in the morning when I woke up alone, desperate for a burrito. Then I threw a party.
Maybe it's because I was surrounded by my own friends that I was comfortable enough to attract the attention of a man. Maybe it was the fact that my boobs were perilously close to being exposed in the camisole I was wearing. I don't know what it was, but by the end of the evening I was making out. With a guy. He didn't object to sleeping in my lumpy futon since my friends were camped out on my bedroom floor. He even stayed once he'd gone outside and seen that he'd been ticketed for parking overnight in Brookline. I didn't wake up alone. He didn't run away from my cotton-mouth morning breath and bedhead. Things seemed promising. I wish I could have enjoyed it more but my head was pounding from riding the Silver Bullet into Hangoverville.
He asked for my number and after a few days he called. I was ecstatic. He was my midnight kiss on New Year's Eve, he made dates, we went to Florida. I liked him. But things went south quickly once we came north. He was aloof, not affectionate and I knew what was happening even though I stubbornly pretended that I didn't. So after the ultimate evening of romance (dinner at the Old Country Buffet and a trip to Target) I asked him up to my apartment. Instead of turning the car off, he put on the parking break, turned down the radio, and said, "I hate having this conversation."
Sing it! Sing it loudly, because you know it. You've used it or you've heard it. It's the dirge of the dating world, you know the lyrics like you know the National Anthem or Hey Jude. Sing it in pain, sing it in joy, sing it!:
Let's just be friends.
You're a great person, but
Let's just be friends.
And it sucked. It's never fun to hear "I like you, but I don't like you like you." Even as an independent woman who is happy with her neuroses, foul mouth and tummy pudge I can't help but think, "What if I changed, somehow? What if I did some sit-ups, bought some nice clothes, had a little couch time with a mental health professional? Then would you reconsider and come upstairs?"
As Gary Newman sang about cars and how safe he feels in them, I crossed my arms and leaned my legs against the door, listening to the man in the car explain how he liked me but didn't, the language areas of his brain nearly audible in their work trying to find the right words to explain how he felt as delicately as possible. I kept in mind that he didn't want to tell me this as much as I didn't want to hear it. I watched couples walking to the T, preened for their dates, holding hands in the cold January night. I realized that he wanted to be in a couple as much as me, to hold hands and really be into someone, but it wouldn't be me holding his hand anymore, and I'd have to be okay with that.
He talked for a while longer, but my eyes were heavy and I wanted to go to bed. He pulled up to a break in the snowdrifts outside my apartment. I hugged him reluctantly, thinking of how I'd kissed him every time I'd left the car before. As I walked by the small parking lot for the liquor store at the end of my street, a guy in one of the cars rolled down the window and yelled, "Hey hottie!" It was simultaneously encouraging and depressing, just like the phrase "let's just be friends."

Black Berets and Sox Hats

It's funny how your outlook changes over the years.
Nearly five years ago I moved to Boston. I packed my meager possessions and hand-me-down hand-me-down futon, delighted that I would be living in a city with world-renowned art museums, a large amount of history and a great music scene. Since I'd be attending Emerson College, I imagined myself wearing bohemian clothes and attending poetry readings. I envisioned staying up all night with similarly artsy types, discussing the latest issue of the New Yorker or who the greatest American writer ever was, followed up by a greasy breakfast. The furthest thing from my new imagined life was staying up until 3am watching Kenmore Square being torn apart after the Sox beat the Yankees for the pennant, or wearing a Pat the Patriot knit cap around the office on the Friday before the Super Bowl. But here we are in 2005.
There are people in Boston who don't give a rat's ass about sports, but I don't know any of them. The clique of black-beret wearing serious types I imagined myself hanging with when I was nineteen has morphed into Sox and Brady hat wearing (never pink, God forbid) statistics-quoting, "what the hell do I do in February without football OR baseball?" hardcore sports fans. Kristen, who I spend so much time with even our friends mistake us for each other, has turned me into a major Sox fan. While I couldn't have named anyone on the Sox roster other than Nomar or Manny in 2002, by the playoffs of 2003 I was cursing the incompetence of Grady Little and could identify the players by sight. The playoff debacle of 2003 was trial-by-fire and I've gotten hooked on baseball.
It's the culture in Boston, especially at my office, which is surprising if you operate on stereotypes, since most of my coworkers are female bookish types. It's not just during the playoffs that we dragged ourselves in, bleary-eyed and jumpy from watching West coast games. Even in May, we worried and watched. The company Red Sox game in May was the one where Varitek came in to pinch-hit and we came from behind to win, and we cheered in our blue and red hats. Sports in Boston is like politics in DC or government corruption trials in Providence-- it's a passion, not a pastime.
Life doesn't always work out the way you plan. I didn't get my beret-wearing, avant-garde friends, but I now realize that's because I'm not that kind of girl. I'm not the full-fleged, statistics-quoting, remote-control throwing lifetime fan, but I'm getting there. On October 28, I had tickets to see David Sedaris that I'd purchased months before (when the Sox and the playoffs looked as likely as the Pope smoking a joint with Anna Nicole Smith) and after a day of agonizing over whether to scalp the tickets to a beret-wearing Sedaris groupie or suck it up and go, I went. I had several friends text messaging the score to me, and I could barely pay attention to the reading, which I'd usually find knee-slapping funny. At the question and answer period (during which most people got up and left since it was the 4th inning and things seemed to be going well) someone asked Mr. Sedaris if he liked baseball and was excited to be in Boston for game four of the World Series. Sedaris sighed, leaned against the podium as if he were about to confide a secret to hundreds of people, and said, "I've never seen an entire baseball game in my life." To which the majority of the crowd whooped and cheered, and I felt myself recoil in horror. As a book geek, writer and intelligent woman I can appreciate a love of the arts. But there's the Sox-hat wearing side of me that knows that the Red Sox are just as important to Boston as a visit from a respected author.
Sedaris won me back over. In the next breath, he said, "But I do like baseball player's butts in those pants." And I realized that you can have both the black-beret part of your personality, and the appreciation for sport, even if it's purely aesthetic.

Unintentionally Funny Sentence

From an article on a male oral contraceptive on Boston.com:

"When researchers at the foundation, its scientific operations merged with UMass in 1997, wanted to better understand how they might be able to prevent men from reproducing, they decided to look at pond scum."

Amy's Thoughts on Television Shows She Loves to Hate

I hate television. But I cannot stop watching it. I lived without a television at my disposal for six months when I lived at URI. My roommate didn't have a TV and I didn't particularly want one. If I really wanted to watch something (such as the Police edition of "Behind the Music") I'd go into the common room and watch it there. And it was great to live without television in the room. I wrote more, spent more time with friends (sometimes watching TV) and went to the gym with Yvette. Things were good.
But since I've lived in Boston, television has sucked me back in. It's almost always on at my apartment, and once I sit in front of the blasted thing it's hours before I manage to get my ass up and do something productive. There's always something that will hold my interest for a while. The evening news. The 7pm rerun of the previous night's Daily Show. Perhaps the occasional Simpsons rerun. Then prime time.
I'm not even watching quality educational programming. I seldom watch PBS. I usually don't watch the History Channel or learn about bugs on the Discovery Channel. I've been on a kick of watching the crappiest shows that the networks can market to the masses. So, in the manner of confessing sins at church (which I only know about from watching TV), I shall describe my horrible television watching antics. It may get ugly.

Sunday nights are all about ABC. At 8pm, it's Extreme Home Makeover. If you've never seen this show, you're missing out on a sob-fest to rival any chick flick in the theaters today. The once-attractive, now endlessly annoying Ty Pennington (the former carpenter on Trading Spaces) leads a team of impossibly attractive designers, carpenters and a gay man with blinding teeth to a family that has a crappy/condemned/unsuitable home. The family sends a video to ABC, usually with at least one family member openly sobbing into the camcorder. The ones that get to me are the kids with terminal illnesses or horrible disabilities. One "very special episode" had a family with deaf parents, a son without disabilities, and a son with severe autism AND who was blind. The autistic son was escaping the house in the middle of the night, the parents had to keep the him within sight at all times to make sure he was okay, and the "normal" kid had to hold everything down and call the cops when his brother went missing. The designers wept openly about how terrible it was for these people, specialists came on to illustrate what it's like to be a kid with autism and it was all very sad. And, despite my tough-girl exterior, I usually get a little teared up at the end of the show when the family is so happy to be in their new house with all the top of the line appliances from Sears. Sometimes, as was the case at the end of the episode with the autistic kid, I cry openly, since the boy loved to swing and the carpenters built him a huge swing with bells on it and the kid just laughed himself silly. And I felt that all was right with the world, until Desperate Housewives comes on at 9pm.
I have a love/hate relationship with Desperate Housewives. In my older years, I've developed an appreciation for the prime time soap operas (90210 reruns, etc). I like thinking that other people's lives are even more complicated than my own. I like Desperate Housewives' twist on the melodrama (older women in somewhat committed relationships, suburbia instead of urban settings) but the writing isn't that great. They're good at keeping things mysterious with all the plot twists, but some little things just take you completely out of the show. In one episode, one of the couples needs to buy a water heater. In one scene, the wife is out looking for a body in the woods. Then the scene changes to something that's happening while the women are in the woods, but somehow the wife is at the mall when she was JUST in the woods. What? In other episodes, something is happening in the afternoon, and then it shifts immediately to the evening without explanation. Plot lines start and end without explanation. All I can say is that 24 is way better at suspense and keeping things continuous than Desperate Housewives is. But, the actual dialogue is pretty funny in Desperate Housewives, especially for Bree's character. But, I may be biased, because I love me some redheads.

Next time: Ashlee Simpson's show (to be renamed "I swear to God I'm a legitimate singer and not the spoiled white girl version of Milli Vanilli").

Phases of the Moon

Or, How I Ended Up at Centerfolds

Sometimes I wish I had the ability to understand phases of the moon. I know it's a very hippy-ish and somewhat trivial thing to know, but sometimes I think that the forces of nature exert more force on us iPod-toting, cell-phone yammering human beings would like to admit. If I had the knowledge of when the moon would be tugging our brains to one side of our heads and making us batshit crazy, I'd be smart enough to stay home and avoid all contact with other people.
Maybe it was the snow. For most of the week last week, I was running a circuit like sea lions swimming in the tank at the aquarium. Home, work, home. Home, work, home. Wake up, make the excruciating commute into the office, sit in front of my computer all day, get back on the train, go home and sit in front of my laptop wishing that it would somehow electrocute me because at least that would break up the monotony. I think I prayed for fire, locusts and plague all week. But it was too cold and snowy for any of those things, so instead I was left to entertain myself.
By either the fault of the moon, snow or chemical imbalance, Friday found me out of my mind. After the fifth consecutive day of a hellacious commute (it took me an hour and twenty minutes to make a twenty minute commute) and being in my house for the majority of the evening the night before, I was out of my mind. I'd lost all sense of professionalism, as I entered my cubicle, drop-kicked my lunch, removed my shoes to make sure my toes were still attached to my feet, and started cursing. And not quietly. I mean bellowing, booming, hate-filled tirades about the MBTA, how much I hated all of humanity and every single flake of snow that had ever fallen from the sky. Kristen and Kerri patiently listened to my ranting and commiserated, since the three of us had been flipping out all week long. Everyone's nerves were frayed, so I should have decided to pack it up at 5PM and go home to stew in my own misanthropy. Instead, I suggested that we head out for $4 pitchers of PBR after work. Kristen, Katherine and Katherine's boyfriend Sebastian agreed to go out, if only to escape the home-office-home continuum that had swallowed us whole for a week.
I was tired when I left work. I assumed it would be an early night since none of us had been paid in two weeks. We arrived at Jacob Wirth's and eventually flagged down the oblivious waitress. However, once she delivered the first pitcher of PBR, things started looking better. Kristen, Sebastian and Katherine talked football while I paid slight attention. Then we trashed talked work. We ordered some chicken fingers. We drank some more.
Somewhere along the line, Katherine called the Whatever to see what he was up to. He was at a retirement party for a coworker, but agreed to join us in Chinatown for some post-drinking noodles. Since he'd be a while, we ordered our fifth pitcher of cheap beer, and Sebastian made me ask the piano player to play "Fat Bottomed Girls" for everyone to sing along to. After the slurred rendition of the song we paid the remarkably low tab and shuffled reluctantly back into the cold and ducked into the first noodle house we saw.
Perhaps the moon was unusually close to the Earth around 11PM on Friday night. Maybe it was the five hours of drinking cheap beer that completely numbed my better judgment. I may have been exhausted. But someone brought up the idea of going to Centerfolds, Boston's classiest strip joint. And somehow, the Whatever convinced three girls and a tired guy to visit the strip club even though the evening should have ended with noodles and sake, not boobies and watered-down rum and Cokes.
I'd never been to a strip club before, so I rationalized it as a learning experience. While I know women's brains and libidos work differently from those of men, I just don't understand the appeal. At first, it's kind of hot to see a completely naked woman writhing around in public. Then the blonde is replaced by a brunette, and does the exact same dance. Walk around, dance with the dress on, slowly remove the skin-tight sequined dress, dance around with the thong on, slowly remove the thong (ass facing the audience), dance naked, gather up the money and leave. Then a brunette with glasses comes onstage and does the same dance, but with glasses. By the time the fifth dancer showed up, I'd sucked what little rum was in my Coke completely dry and was watching the basketball game on the big screen TVs on either side of the stage. Katherine and Sebastian had left, and Kristen and I were ready to go.
I didn't get home until 3:30, toting my leftover noodles and newly refreshed misanthropy up the stairs to my apartment. I drop-kicked my pocketbook, stubbed my toe on my roommate's suitcase, threw the noodles into the fridge and crankily went to bed. Saturday was a waste, since I'd woken up at 8:30 feeling just as cranky as when I'd went to bed. I managed to make it to a movie with my roommate, but was in bed at 8:30 on a Saturday night like a grounded junior high schooler.
I take comfort in the fact that I am not the only one who's been in a foul mood lately. Kristen's been angry with her roommate, my Mom was on an irrational tear yesterday and Kerri said she's been on edge too. I can only hope that the moon changes phases or that the snow continues to melt before I have no friends or loved ones left to be angry at.

White Shit

I take pride in being a New Englander. New Englanders have been here the longest out of all the immigrants to this country. We had to work REAL hard to make it in America, and we've got the class and culture to show for it. We have old buildings, the oldest institute of higher learning in the country and a great sense of regional pride. You know what else we have?
Snow. A lot of fucking snow.
New Englanders pride themselves on their hardy constitutions. "Oh, it's just some snow," they say, a mountian of gray-black snow behind them. When stuck at Logan, they wave at the television cameras as if they're waiting for a rollercoaster at Disney World, not waiting an hour and a half to be told the flight is full and they won't be leaving this city of culture for at least two days. We suck it up, soldier through and try not to complain.
This makes me a very bad New Englander, because I have done little but piss and moan about the snow and cold. No television cameras have been on me, so I haven't had to play brave. Sunday found me holed up in my apartment, watching eight hours of "I Love the '90s Part Deux" in a catatonic-like state. I got up only to fetch the ice cream or popcorn and occasionally look out the window at the piles of snow. My landlord and his family was outside for at least six hours trying to remove the snow from the sidewalk and driveway.
Everything is more difficult when there's 2 feet of snow outside. All the little shortcuts I take (walk across the middle of St. James Ave to get to the coffee shop across the street instead of walking to the crosswalk, jog across Beacon St to get to the T before the next line of cars comes barreling down the hill) are covered in a five foot drift of snow, so I have to use the shoveled paths which takes longer. The C line runs on a "whenever we goddamn feel like it" schedule instead of the usual "we're on our damn way, hold on a minute" schedule. The hems of my pants look like litmus paper with salt and dirt wicked up the backs of my legs. I can't wear cute clothes because they'll be covered in mud and slush before I make it to the end of the street. I have a perpetual case of hat head and chapped lips. I can't bring myself to sit in front of the television again after the marathon session I spent in front of it on Sunday. I come home from work, remove my snow-caked boots at the front door, step in a puddle that the boots made as I opened and closed the door, curse, go into my room and remove the soaking wet pants, get salt on the floor, curse, put on my pajama bottoms and slippers and heave a big sigh because I'm at home at 5:30 without a damn thing to keep me busy until I go to sleep.
Todd Gross, the channel 7 weatherman, is a dead man if I ever see him. If he's smart, he'll forecast a sunny and warm day the next time a snowstorm is about to dump an additional 6" on top of the 28" already on the ground, book a flight to Mexico and never look back. If I see his bad bleach job hair on my TV screen again, followed by the words "inches of snow" anytime soon, I may just lose it. Chikage can stay, however, because she is cool and the boys love her.

Snow Up to My Tan Lines

I love New England. I was born and raised here. The concierge at the fabulous Caribe Royale in Florida said he could tell I was from New England. Something comes out of our pores that notifies the residents of the more temperate climes of this country that we are tough and hardy people, not to be messed with.
This does not mean that I didn't stomp my feet like a frustrated three year old when it came time for me to hop into the rented car and be taken to the airport. I'd been sitting by the pool all day on Friday when my mother called.
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what?" I asked, wriggling my toes in the Reef flip-flops I'd been wearing all week, my head hazy with sunshine and cold medicine.
"It's going to snow. Like, a lot. A blizzard. On Saturday night."
I did some quick calculations in my mind. It wouldn't be snowing soon enough to strand me in Florida, but it would be snowing when the Whatever's flight was supposed to take off. I started to resent him for being on the good side of this act of God. So when he said that we should leave for the airport, I started to stomp my feet.
"I don't WANNA go back!" I whined, stomping into the bedroom to change into my jeans, and put the three layers of sweaters, my hat and the two pairs of gloves I'd brought with me into my carry-on.
"You can always reschedule your flight for Saturday or Sunday and get stuck here too."
He mentioned this idea about ten minutes before we had to leave, so it was too late. I also had spent far more than I'd wanted to (damn you Disney!) so I knew it was time for me to head back to Boston, where I could eat breakfast for less than $7. (To be fair, I could have had an all-you-can-eat breakfast at the Ponderosa for $3.99 if I'd walked my lazy ass across the street.)
I don't have a love for Florida, mind you. As we drove to the airport, we were stuck behind a guy with a mullet, driving a truck on huge tires that rendered it unable to travel at more than seventy miles per hour with the engine groaning loudly. The houses are all made of concrete painted different shades of pastel colors, screened-in tents surrounding the small backyards to keep the bugs at bay. Everything was homogenous and bland and inoffensive. It's remarkable that Florida has such a tourism-based economy since there's not much to look at, and it's not that pleasant there during the spring and summer months. But I left with a weight on me knowing that I was leaving the prefab environment that was in the seventies for the interesting and diverse Boston that was in the teens with an imminent blizzard.
Now I'm back here, my body ravaged by two infections (pink eye and a UTI that had me weeping) and possibly a third, judging by my cough and endless sinus drainage. I had to traipse through 2 feet of snow to get to work, even though the governor said we should all stay home (but, hey, there's free pizza!). I am also hating the Whatever since he is snowed in in Florida, riding rollercoasters and putting zinc on his nose. But at least I got a little time in the sun to hold me over until the thaw. In June.

Pack Your Bags, Y'all...

Cuz I'm going to Florida!
It's lame. I know. Florida isn't a great international destination. Usually when I go on vacation I try to go someplace with a culture different than New England/the United States. This involves me running from destination from destination at speeds that would make a marathoner jealous and feeling exhausted once I get back.
Florida doesn't really seem like it's part of the South, but it's not New England. Most notably because it's not colder than Jennifer Anniston's loins in Florida. There may actually be plant life that is green outdoors in Florida. As I sit here in my woolly sweater, all the culture of Boston and Europe could not drag me away from the idea of lying on the side of a pool drinking some fruity cocktail reading a book that will kill my brain. I hope to stagger up to Mickey Mouse and give him rabbit ears in a picture with him. I want to go swimming. Swimming!
Apparently, we're staying at a posh resort about a mile away from Disney World. There's a waterslide at the HOTEL pool. Since the last time I went to Florida was in 1987 and I stayed in a trailer with my grandmother, this is blowing my mind. I imagine myself in comically large, Jackie-O sunglasses with my hair tied back in a scarf driving around in a convertible. I cannot wait.
And now that I have encited you all to voilence, I will get my pitchfork and torch repellent ready. Along with my sunscreen. Hee hee hee.

My Name's Amy...

... and I love Ashlee Simpson.
Hiiii Amy.
And you can all just shut the hell up right now, you naysayers and hipsters, you. I have listened to your Postal Service and your Modest Mouse and I like them too. But sometimes, you just need the melodious wail of a teenager who has been marketed more than Happy Meals to get to the heart of your emotions. Inside, we are all tortured little girls who dye our hair black in a desperate attempt to establish an identity other than "that big-breasted virgin pop star's sister." Or something.
It all began innocently enough. Ashlee's infectious first single, "Pieces of Me" came on the radio in the spring of 2004. If it came on while I was driving around Rhode Island, I would turn it up and wail along. Even with the windows down, I'd throw my head back and yell "OOOOOOOH, it seems like I can fIIIIIIIIIInally rest my HEAD on something REAAAAAL...". It was all good clean fun at the time, but now I see that idyllic time for what it was: a gateway into a more dangerous place. Her whole album.
When Stephanie and I were preparing for our trip to Colorado in August, she said that she'd bought some CDs. "I got Thriller, Jessica Simpson's album and Ashlee's too."
I groaned, as any good graduate of Emerson College would, at the horrible fate I was destined for. The Simpson sisters blaring out of the speakers of a 2-door Jetta in the midwest, where the only radio to come in would be country or religious programming, with nowhere to go except out of my mind. I resigned myself to fate, folded myself into the dangerously overloaded Jetta and got ready for the auditory onslaught.
Jessica's album sucked hard. While Jessica has the better voice of the two, her treacly songs about love, God, and her Muppet-esque husband make me want to slap the nearest blonde I see and hope she feels it. She sucks, end of story.
Ashlee has a voice that sounds like the breaks on a bus. In her song "Shadow," she wails about how her parents abandoned her in the hopes of whoring out their cuter eldest daughter to the Christian rock scene, and whenever she sings "dream" she squeaks. "Livin' in the SHADOW of someone else's drEEEEEEAm." It's painful to listen to. Yet I cannot stop.
Her ballads are terrible, but her uptempo songs are awesome and infect the brain like syphallis. The new one, "La La," is especially catchy. What's it about? I have no idea. Something about a French maid, a lineman (I think she means "linebacker") and liking it rough. Something about it makes me dance around my bedroom like a lunatic, and I even find myself singing along to it on my iPod. Yes, I have even committed to downloading her songs to listen to. Whenever I want.
I also like "Autobiography." I am a writer. Maybe someday I will write an autobiography. I like the part about "stains on my t-shirt" because I am forever dropping food on myself. It's as if she knows me.
Do not weep for me. I am already too far gone. When Miss Simpson comes to the Avalon in March, you will find me in my old Doc Martens from high school rocking out with the high school poseur-punk girls and kicking all their asses.

2004

So it's almost a new year. Sadly, Dick Clark won't be able to ring in a new year of human tragedy, war and loneliness with snappy lip-synched pop performances to help us all forget the shit that's happened this year. He'll be in the hospital, and instead I think we get Carson fucking Daly. Ew. I will be avoiding the television.
I always get to thinking about what I've learned in the past year, and how the past year has been in comparison to other years. It's kind of a mind-boggling task, so I am writing it all here, for you great internet viewers to assess. Think of it as a barometer when considering your own year past.

*I got to repay some of my "I changed your diapers when you took huge shits as a baby" karma by taking care of my mother after her hip replacement surgery. It wasn't an easy task, and it took a lot of patience, which I am not very long in. But I'm not sorry, because my Mom got to get better in her home instead of some horrible rehabilitation center. I also learned that despite my talent with taking care of kids, who require about the same amount of attention as a woman who's had her bones taken out, there is no way I am ready to have one because I am too easily frustrated. Pharmesutical companies, you will continue to get my money for the 28 pills that keep the babies away for the foreseeable future.

*I lost some weight. It's shallow, but it's awesome because the kids I babysit don't pat my stomach and ask "Amy, when is the baby going to come out of your stomach?" Also, I am fit, so I can kick your ass if you call my svelte new frame chubby.

*I've had more mojo with the men. I don't think it's a product of losing the weight, although I'm sure it helped. From the bulky and muscular to the tall and gangly, I have enjoyed you all as you pass by on the train, saunter around parties and make my days much better.

*I have my job, still. Which is a miracle since I send dirty emails all damn day long. But, to be fair, I also helped make a big ol' history book, keep the production editor happy/sane (hi Karen! you rule!) and be complimented by my bosses in front of the company president.

*I have awesome friends. I think this is the first year in quite a while that I've ended up with more friends at the end of the year than at the beginning. To Heather, Amy Hurd, Kristen, Alicia, Ehrin, Annette, Butchie, Carolyn, Jen and Kerri, welcome to the fold. To all of you who've been around for longer, thanks for continuing to put up with my antics, histrionics and off-key singing of "All by Myself."

*Two words: Red Sox. Another two: Fucking rule. Another two (for the Yankee fans): Ha ha.

*I am glad to have all the good people in my life be safe. The tsunami in Asia has reminded me that we're all just walking around in these fragile little shells that can be broken at any second by any freak thing, and I am glad that you are all safe. Also, I am tempted to ship myself to Asia to help all these people. Instead, I sent $35, and I highly reccomend you do the same.

https://secure.ga3.org/02/asia_earthquake04

*To the people who have passed away this year that I've known: you'll be missed.

*I saw two Indigo Girls shows this year! Awesome! (Shut up. I love them.)

*The people I babysit for had another baby. Which is awesome, because they are great parents and are raising wonderful children.

*Kendra is preggers!

*It's okay to like cheesy pop music. See also, Ashlee Simpson.

*I got to see the midwest when Stephanie and I went to Colorado. I'm glad I saw it, but even more glad that I don't live there.

To Wed and Settle or to be a Cat Lady?

Every year right around Christmas, we visit my 3rd cousin, Janie. Janie isn't a close relative. We only see her around Christmas, or my Mom will see her at a wake if some distant relative I've never met dies. Janie is damn near seventy years old, if not in her seventies, and gets around better than my mother, who is fifty with a bad case of arthritis. When you think of the prototypical "old lady" the odds are good that you would envision this woman. She lives alone in a little rasied ranch in Coventry with the two cats she adopted from a woman who was about to send them to the pound. Her eyeglasses take up most of her face. Janie doesn't drive her Buick after dark. She feeds birds and even leaves corn cobs out on the porch for the squirrels.
In this woman's life, I see where I could possibly end up in my own life. I joke about being an old lady who lives with cats, but as I get older, pickier and it seems that I am going to spend my entire life without bringing a boyfriend home for the family to meet. I don't pity Janie at all. She's done so much in her life that I'm probably never going to catch up. Janie was a teacher and got to travel the world. Even now, in her damn near seventies, she voulenteers three days a week at the hospital gift shop and just got back from a safari in Africa. Yes, this woman took a photo safari to Africa with her sister and neice. In her seventies.
My grandfather's explanation for the extensive travels Janie's had is that "educated people" want to travel more. I don't think it's bad to want to get out, get away and see something you could never experience where you live. It makes you appreciate other places more and love the place you're in more.
My Mom always thinks of Janie as the cool older cousin that she'd see around the holidays and would give her Nancy Drew mysteries to read at Christmas. I think my Mom puts such a large value on our little family that she can't imagine living a life without the experience of being married and having kids. My Mom's eyes lit up at the mention of a safari, of having no fear of going someplace you've only read about. But I can see myself following in Janie's footsteps. "Nobody was good enough for Janie to marry," my Mom tells me. "Her sister had the professor, and Janie could never get a catch that good for herself." My own family seems to think that I'm going to spend the majority of my life alone. My grandmother says she doesn't see me being married until I'm 40. Maybe I won't get married. What's the point of settling for someone you don't want? As long as you have a life outside of yourself and people to love you, does it matter if you're married or not? Janie always has someone to watch her cats when she travels, someone to visit with during Christmas and is always has stories about what she does all year.
But I wonder if Janie wonders what it would be like to be like my Mom. To have two kids and to have at least known being in love with a man enough to marry him and bear his children. I wonder if she would trade in all the pictures of lions and zebras to have a house full of pictures of a family of her own, with kids who have her blue eyes behind glasses and a man good enough for her to love. Which is the better way? And will I know before it's too late to have it both ways?

Beer (an Ode)

Yet another work of genius from Amy and Kristen. Who are bored to death at work and about to lose our minds (well, at least I am). Enjoy!

You spring from the loins of amber waves of grain
Oh bringer of joy and banisher of inhibitions, usher forth your bounty!
In 30-racks and kegs you come
To aid in merriment and assist in exiling fear
At parties, bar mitzvahs, family gatherings and holidays
You bring joy while obscuring foresight and driving away regrets
When I wake with temples pounding, I do not mind
Because the sweet release floweth from your bottle and chases away the pain
Who does not love you, in drunkness and sobriety
As you never neglect to call and are always there for comfort
Unlike the men you give us confidence to catch
But you know we shall always return to you, arms outstretched, lusting for your seasonal brews
Your pilsners, your stouts, your black and tans,
Whether Ice, cold-brewed or frosty
You render our fine motor skills useless
And bubble delightfully as we stumble and trip
Into beds, futons, soft spots on the floor
With books for pillows and coats for blankets we tumble into the arms of ill-gotten men
Who, upon waking, mumble and stumble out the door
And never return, leaving us, once again, basking in your warm, amber glow.
O beer! You cause and cure so many ills, the line is blurred between your good and evil
And yet your intoxicating scent and your malted barley and hops have a hold on us, never to be relinquished!
You go with baseball, football, basketball and hockey
And make even election-night coverage bearable as we sleep into the sweet release of a drunken sleep and forget our problems.
Oh beer! My one true love!

Temptation at the Holiday Party

The holiday office party is kind of like the Tree of Knowledge in the Bible. There's all these temptations, and you've been warned by many entities (God, corporate counselors, "How to get (and keep) a job for Dummies" books) but the pull of temptation is far too great ("Open bar? Whoop whoop!"). This is my second holiday party at Bedford. Last year, I had only been a "technical" employee for about two months, so I was still afraid I'd be fired for the most minor of infractions ("You slurred your speech! Fired!"). This year, I have been of great service to the company, so I figured if I had a *few* extra drinks, it wouldn't be so bad.
During these company functions I have only one aim: consume as much food/booze/cake as possible to increase the amount of money the company spends on me. They certainly don't pay me enough to make me say, "Oh, food. Pish posh." Instead, I think, "My paycheck doesn't clear until midnight and I don't have any money until then, so I'd best fill up now."
And, oh, did I fill up on both food and drink. Time flew by, since I was drinking 2 drinks an hour for about four hours. I drank a Sam Adams as I watched my coworker's son knock down bowling pins with his stomach. I had a Cape Codder as I caught up with Amy Hurd and Heather who left Bedford about six months ago. I had a glass of white wine as I met Arthur's wife. I had a glass of white wine in my hand when I stumbled on the steps (it was the heels, people!) and spilled wine on Kristen and Arthur. Somewhere in there I had two egg salad sandwiches and a cookie.
Let me say this to those nay-sayers who advocate for teetotalism during office functions: ha ha. I was as drunk as Johnny Damon when he got into Fenway after the World Series, but about four people knew it. I didn't fall flat on my face in front of the company president. I didn't shout obsenities at the recently-promoted associate editor who implied I was underdressed. I took my drunk ass home and puked in the privacy of my own apartment as a young woman should.

How to Dismantle my Heart

This just in: U2 freakin' rocks.
I love U2. I have always appreciated them, but never to the level of fervent that I have achieved since How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb came out. I can't stop singing the songs. From the fungus-like (it just keeps growing on me!) "Vertigo" to the very Depeche-Mode-esque "Love and Peace or Else," I am hooked. I love them all. Especially Bono and the Edge. I may even love them more than Sting. Is U2 on the freakin' Bridget Jones soundtrack? Or on The Emperor's New Groove? Nope. (I did hear a rumor that U2 will be contributing a song to the OC, which I can't say I'm wild about, but whatever.)
That is all. Soon I will write something good again (probably about the holidays).