Always a punk

fis

 

I've been working remotely from the Pavilion for Women lounge this morning.  Can't decide if this is mesmerizing or just distracting.

The contents of an unknown text file on my computer titled 2.6.2011:

a man grabs a woman by the arm above the elbow

Tonight I have a date with King Tut, at the MFA.  I'm very excited.  I was pleasantly surprised today by an email from Shady too, who will someday take me with him to Cairo.

abraham

hennes & mauritz

I knew these pants were a good purchase because they are essentially work-appropriate, fancy, sweatpants.  That's what today calls for.  Comfort, stretch, and draw-string waists.  Incidentally, 'pants' is a UK slang term for 'crap', and a pretty good descriptor of this week.  No one starts a blog to whine about their job so let's just leave it at that.  Except - perhaps to eulogize my office window.  I have a new office-mate; she's very sweet but maintains a firm blinds-down no-sunlight stance, therefore I have lost my thoughtful window-staring spot.  And my view of the T. Boone Pickens Memorial Academic Tower.
Chin up, could be worse, and all that.  Only seven more days and I will be on a well-deserved vacation and happier than a bird with a french fry.

gray coverage

When I was 20, I briefly and haphazardly dated a guy named Steve.  It was the summer before I moved to Amherst, and I wanted to dye my hair red.  Blonde was old news.  I mentioned this in passing to Steve, not realizing that this was a choice that would affect him so.  He didn't like the idea at all; he had some kind of spiritual aversion to hair dye.  He asked me not to go through with it.  He went on a tirade against unnatural hair colors.  I shrugged it off, and did it anyway; a nice, normal shade of auburn.  It looked good.  I liked it.  Other people liked it.  Except for Steve.
A few days after this "mistake", he picked me up and we drove to the Clark Art Institute.  Even in the heat, he was wearing a wool beanie pulled over his ears.  We were sitting at a stoplight when he suddenly turned to me with a strange look, half-smile, half-scowl.  He whipped off his hat.  His hair was the color of lime Jello.  We stared at each other in silence for a moment, him waiting expectantly for me to scream, yell, demand to turn this car around, refuse to be seen with him.
I laughed and laughed.  I hooted.  Because, come on, this is a prematurely balding pasty Irish guy who has dyed his hair green out of vengeance.  It was clear this was not his intended reaction.  He looked confused.  "I had to bleach it first and then do the green!"  Even better!  A real passive-aggressive effort.  As I cackled he mumbled something like "Well, you gave me no choice," and jammed the hat back on, where it stayed for the entirety of our visit to the Clark.  We spoke no more of it.
After the museum, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich place.  By now the heat was too much for Steve to bear, so the beanie was off.  He picked an inconspicuous booth towards the back of the shop for us to sit in.  I wasn't particularly enjoying myself, which is common when you spend the day with a complete dick, but things improved drastically when the five-year-old girl in the booth behind him began pointing at his head.
"Look, Mommy!  Look at his HAIR."
Steve took a bite of sandwich and tried valiantly to ignore this.  I tried and failed not to smirk.
"His hair is like OSCAR the GROUCH."
This was an astute observation, given his mood by now.  The little girl seemed delighted that someone would choose to make their hair the color of a Sesame Street character.  I was pretty delighted myself.  He glared at me, shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, and we left.  I asked him to drop me home and he did.  The next time I saw him he had shaved his head bald.

Today my hair is hot pink.  Back then when I was young and foolish enough to spend time with someone I didn't even particularly care for, I didn't foresee myself doing anything so drastic to my own head.  Now I am older, and foolish enough to just leave it be when the intended auburn comes out magenta.  (Also, grateful to have a grown-up job that is similarly nonchalant.)  I wasn't sure about it at first, but it's a nice change for the moment.  As I was walking to work yesterday, a woman passed me and said, "Oh, I love your hair.  God bless you."

still here

September 23 Resolution: write more.

the forecast

 

[photo from rui-saraiva]

A repressed memory has come back to me:

As my parents and I awaited our lunch at Stephanie's on Newbury last weekend, it was pretty easy to overhear the table of smartly dressed girls next to us, clearly out together for brunch.  I was trying to eavesdrop a little to discern if they were 'New Brahmin' or just recent BU psychology graduates playing Sex & The City when one started talking about her soon-to-be-born child.  After the usual questions about when she was due, etc., yawn, one of the girls asked, completely straight-up and nonchalant, "So are you going to eat the placenta?"

I don't think I want to live in a world where this is a seemingly sane question to ask your pregnant friend.  At brunch.

Part of me wishes I had not heard the beginning to the conversation, just so I could be horrified to assume they had ordered the Balsamic-Glazed Placenta appetizer to share and this chick wanted to politely snag the last bite.

Who gets a cold on vacation?  The same person who infects her mother with that cold on her birthday, that's who.

Haikus On The New Mountain Dew Coolatta

First drink of the day
Me, iced coffee; Dew for you
Now both together

Dunks in my future
Too bad you're in Iowa
I'll taste and report

It best not be gross
Don't waste precious Coolattas
Time at home goes fast

Iced coffee is foul
You said, but these are aces
Yes, that's British slang

I don't feel so bad
Dragging you here; we agree
It is wicked good

Right up your alley
A small consolation for
Enduring my 'rents

Who else would concoct
Yellow Number Five and ice
Starbuck's got nothing

No doubt it will sell
But what about the manhood?
Does it affect that?

Braved Houston's east side
In search of the last Dunkin
'For rent'; how I wept!

This week I have three houses (I'm pet-sitting).   Whichever one I'm at, I feel as though I'm neglecting the others.  Sad puppy-dog eyes from two of them and another that is not yet habitable due to the mountain of boxes containing all my earthly possessions, waiting patiently to be unpacked.

Last night's temperature was a mere 84 degrees, making the drive up to the Heights more pleasant with the windows down.  Especially at the light at Studemont and Washington, as the best smell of baked goods wafted in from the Sunbeam bakery down the street.  Fresh bread at a quarter to midnight.  Probably in the top five all-time best smells.  I sniffed as much as I could until the light changed and I was left huffing car exhaust.

 

Kids today and their Bollywood-themed birthday parties.  My 17-year-old self would be thrilled.

[Smith was 29 when she recorded Horses. Joan Didion was 29 when she wrote her first novel. Tina Fey was 29 when she was named head writer of SNL. bell hooks was 29 when she published her first major work. Oprah had just turned 30 when she got her first local TV talk show.
There is a reason ‘boy genius’ rolls off the tongue more naturally than ‘girl genius.’ By the time most of us accept the fact that we have earned this label for ourselves, we are most decidedly no longer girls.]

- Ann Friedman on Patti Smith at This Recording

So there's still hope...?

Ask Ted Williams

Chronologically, I may have just turned 29.  But let's say, for accuracy's sake, that the sub-zero temperature of my new office has slowed my cellular metabolism to a crawl.  Am I in fact aging less?  This could save me a fortune in cryopreservatives.

[I well remember a moment some years ago when I was given a salutary lesson in the rapid transit of worldly fame. I was lecturing that day at a small college in Uvalde, Texas, once home of the redoubtable John Nance Garner, who as Roosevelt’s vice president remarked pithily that the vice presidency wasn’t worth a bootful of warm spit. The college was poor. They had never been able to afford to bring a writer in before. The students, culturally, were like baby birds, waiting with their mouths open for any worm I might produce- in tribute to their need I fed them the fattest worms I could pull up. I wanted the college to get its money’s worth, and I believe it did.

During a short break in a daylong effort, while back at my motel for a nap, I was informed that Lonesome Dove had won the Pulitzer Prize. My informant was my agent, Irving Lazar, living up to his nickname, which was Swifty.

I spoke for nearly eight hours that day. Though it was nice to hear about the prize, a nap would have been awfully nice too. But Irving persisted, determined to communicate to me the majesty of the event. When I finally got him off the line my next call was from the motel office: a reporter and photographer from the local paper were there to get a brief interview and take my picture.

The night before, when I drove into Uvalde, the marquee of the Holiday Inn where I was staying had written on it: “Welcome Larry McMurtry, Author of Terms of Endearment.” That had never happened to me before, and it meant more than the vice presidency meant to John Nance Garner.

But time waits for no author, not in Uvalde, anyway. As I walked up to meet the press I glanced at the marquee and saw that it had already changed. Now it read: “Lunch Special, Catfish: $3.95.” Even as Irving Lazar was telling me how great he had made me, my moment had passed. It was a lesson to be remembered. The Pulitzer Prize was well and good, but there was lunch to think of, and catfish at $3.95 was a bargain not to be scorned. The locals were already flocking to it, and as soon as the needs of the press had been satisfied, I went in and did the same.]

- Larry McMurtry, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen

Things I Have Done Lately To Occupy My Mind

- thrown away mysterious leftovers from the back of the fridge
- cleaned the lab
- designed and made two necklaces
- cooked lamb stew
- baked a cake and a batch of cookies
- dogsat
- babysat
- went to a concert
- read a book in an afternoon
- bought a bonsai tree from a man on the side of the road
- planted a tiny crop of arugula
- made chocolates from scratch


And yet.. I can't fall asleep at night.

When I said 'home stretch', I was speaking metaphorically along the lines of the Kentucky Derby, not the freaking Iditarod.  Still no end in sight.

the home stretch

alert

This is worse than I thought.  State of mind that was once holding steady at Code Orange (Reckless Shoe-Buying) has now deteriorated to Code Magenta (Impulsive Haircut).  Say a little prayer.

a simpler time

an open letter to myself

Hey there,


Please stop eating Ruffles for lunch.  This is a decision you will always regret.  You will ride the Sickly train from Mild Anxiety all the way to the last stop, Self-Loathing.  Go to the gym.  Endorphins will make you feel better.  And if you keep up with stretching you can stop hunching over your desk like a vulture.  Your back won't hurt so much.  You're slipping into procrastination again.  If you do what you say you'll do you won't feel the guilt mixing with disappointment and the potato chips in the pit of your stomach.  Buy some vegetables.  You like them.  We can talk about the shoes that cost a third of your rent some other time.


See you around,
me

above the clouds

Being good at things is a nice feeling, closely followed by the desire to get even better at those things.

disgruntled

It seems the 'world-class institution' that employs me is the only place open today despite the 'snow'.  Roads are dry, but I still had to scrape off the shell of ice encasing my car with an old key card from the Boston Park Plaza hotel.  Also, city of Houston, guess what happens when you sand the roads two days before the apocalypse?  You get sandy curbs.  It's going to be 65 tomorrow.

Today: a silent film

In the words of Liz Lemon..

Things are HAPPENing!

[Christmas Day, '77

I stopped in Baton Rouge at a Holiday Inn.  A man came up to me and said, "Hey.  You see good?  Read this number for me."  He handed me a piece of paper with a phone number written on it.  I read the number aloud as he dialed, then heard him begin talking.  He said, "Called you to see if you'd let me come by and mess around.  My mother is in a home.  She can't walk.  My brother and I are on two hundred acres with no one to talk to.  His wife left him.  I got no wife.  That's why I'm calling.  I got a new brick house and two hundred acres."  The difference between us is that he'd made a realistic assessment of matters, and had a sense of possibilities and limits.  As for me, I assessed little or nothing, but just wanted to record my thoughts, even the most negligible of them, like a poet.]
Time Out of Mind - The Diaries of Leonard Michaels

quiz

This is:

a. Just before the ritual animal sacrifice

b. A rooftop bar next to the Empire State Building that provides free Snuggies*

*This is the only time I will ever be seen in one.  I don't care what you say, Rivers Cuomo.