First, an important note:

The default in my journal is to screen all anonymous comments, so no one sees them. I can remove that screening at my discretion, though, on an individual basis -- and I have only one criterium for unscreening things. If you are commenting anonymously, and you want your comments to be pubically seen, please sign your name in some way when commenting -- either with your real name, or give yourself a nickname. Otherwise I'll leave them screened. Thanks.

...Periodically, I re-link to an older "who am I" post as occasional new "friendings" turn up, but I've decided to just finally put it right up front here and just edit it as necessary. I am shamelessly stealing the idea of a "welcome mat" post from cadhla, because damn it's a good idea.

( But it's long, so behind a cut: )

(sorry for the delay – this has now grown somewhat. This is now part 2 of 3.)

After the tech meeting on Tuesday, I drove straight to my parents’ house in Massachusetts, where I warned them that I was going to be pretty much catatonic for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I had a couple days’ respite before heading back to Windham on Friday – the day before we opened. Which was also the day when I would be seeing a lot of people for the first time in a long time.

However, it was also the day that I was at my most hectic, trying to button down a lot of loose ends for the show. I did see a lot of people that day – but I only had time for a quick hug as I dashed by them, during one of my many sprints from the stage to the light booth and back in my efforts to suss out “sorry, can you explain exactly when the cue to close the curtain is for this scene?...”

The busy-ness I had that day was a bit of a mixed blessing – it kept me from getting too sentimental in some of the reunions I had, but it kept me from really catching up with some people – Krishna and I only had time for a single hug before I dashed off. David and Jen, people from my old street (and my old church), also only got a smile and a wave, and a brief “so…what have you been up to?” before I had to dash off with promises and requests to “catch up after the show, maybe?”

Part of the discomfort came from realizing just how much time had passed. What exactly do you say to someone you haven’t seen in that long? Especially if you hadn’t tried to contact them before? I spent most of the day with Jeremy Piven’s freakout from Grosse Pointe Blank playing in my head (“TEN YEARS, man! Where the hell were you? I mean – ten! TEN! YEARS! TEN years!”) At one point I think I toyed with the idea of telling people that I’d been away that long because I was jailed for killing the president of Paraguay with a fork.

But there was one person I dropped everything for. It took me a minute to place him at first – a man with a snowy beard who suddenly stepped into my path and beamed. “Kimberly! It is so good to see you!” He gushed, hugging me. It took me a minute to place him – then I recognized him as “Mr. B,” the very first drama and choir teacher I’d ever had, when I was eleven.

Him, I’d stand still for. We talked a bit about where I’d been and what I’d done, and he positively beamed, hugged me a couple more times, and introduced me to his granddaughters (granddaughters?) who were also in the show. “This is Kim! She was one of my old students!” he told them, beaming at me.

Most of the day I was spending with people I’d only recently met -- like the co-stage manager, Wendy, who’d graduated a few years ahead of me. She also found her way to Brooklyn and into stage management – and we very quickly fell into a near symbiotic relationship. A couple of Wendy’s friends from her years in school, Kiev and Chris, also were doing a lot to help us out, so much so that I dubbed them the “Unofficial stage management moral support committee” at one point.

Wendy was a little better at crowd control and paperwork than I was – meanwhile, I took over sussing out the light and sound and technical cues. I got more and more monomaniacal about it, at one point apologizing to Wendy that I felt I was leaving her in the lurch; but it seemed to be one element that could have gotten lost in the shuffle, so I kept politely but firmly trying to buckle down exactly where the lights had to fall, and when the sound cues came up, and was I running the sound board or just cuing it, and…?

But those were the questions I was getting from the tech crew. Our light designer and board operator was Mr. Iovine, the current drama coach, who had an increasingly-puzzled look on his face for much of the day, as he tried to get clear answers about the specific light design. He was hoping for answers about whether the lights came up 50%, 75%, or…. But everyone else was so focused on the music and the acting and the entrances and the exits and the blocking and all the other moving parts that all anyone could tell him was “these lights come up at this cue.” He had a deeply furrowed brow throughout much of the final dress – but later scored a hat trick for us at one point when we suddenly realized we needed a spotlight operator and did not have one. He got on the phone, and within only a half hour, a kid named Travis showed up at rehearsal and took over the job, to cheers from the booth.

We also had Mark, a friend of my old classmate Ramon’s – Ramon was in the show band, and had drafted Mark to run the sound mixing board for the music. But he was the closest thing we had at that moment to a sound board operator, so I pounced upon him and asked if he could also run the three or four sound cues we had. “Uh…okay?” he said weakly.

At some point Mark saw me struggling with the ancient walkie-talkies they’d given the stage crew to talk to each other, and idly said something about bringing in his collection of more state-of-the-art headsets to use instead. “If you do that,” I blurted out, “I will make out with you.” He burst out laughing, and that very quickly became our running gag – whenever Mark did something I was happy about, I promised to make out with him after the show at some point. ….It’s probably for the best he didn’t collect, as I said it rather a lot…

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I realized that the only two people I’d been nervous about seeing again hadn’t even showed up. Which let me breathe a bit easier – but the show itself was going to be a challenge. For most of the cast, this day had been their one sole rehearsal, so people were unclear on entrances and exits, the sequence of the show, where their light would be…it was a bumpy night, and even though I had to be back at the theater at 9 the next morning, I accepted an invitation to have a drink after rehearsal; we took over most of two tables at a local restaurant, and I ended up sitting next to Mr. B, who gave me a good chunk of his order of calamari before I had to leave.


…We’d had a small emergency tech meeting after rehearsal, during which the techies all said we would show up at 9 am the day of the show. I got to the school promptly at 9:00:01 – and Wendy, Mark, Mr. Iovine, and Travis all arrived within 15 seconds of each other. I took that as a very good sign. Kiev and Chris arrived soon thereafter, and once Mr. Iovine let us in, we all scattered – Mr. Iovine to hang lights, Mark to string cable and hook up our headsets (again, I promised to make out with him), Wendy and me to check dressing rooms and prop tables and go over cues.

We also discussed what kinds of staff positions needed to be filled – house manager, crowd control – as we were told a number of people would be coming by that day to “help.” As it turned out, only a few showed up – but we had plenty for them to do. About three hours before showtime we realized someone needed to operate a brief video display that kicked off the show – and we grabbed a guy who’d been running odd jobs for us and pushed him into the role: “Okay, you push this button. When the show ends, the ‘off’ button’s here. There’s Steve, he’ll tell you more. Go.” As the afternoon went on, a lot of us realized that we didn’t actually know whether this guy had even gone to our high school. To this day I have a hunch that he may have just wandered inside looking for directions and just been caught up in the storm.

Most of the leadup to the show was a blur of reminding people of cues, last-ditch efforts to clarify light cues, audience members coming in, and me pacing the back hallway with my usual pre-show thousand-yard stare and only barely acknowledging people wishing me luck. We opened the house 45 minutes before showtime and I was very surprised to see it fill up completely. Someone gave me a sandwich, but I didn’t even have time to eat it – I hid it in my bag, tucked into a corner of a table behind Mark’s equipment. My old choir teacher, Gary Rosoff, came by ten minutes before we opened with one last light request – I just waved at Mr. Iovine not to worry while I nodded and told him sure, we could do it.

Then Wendy was telling me the cast was in place, and I took a deep breath. “Okay. Standby house lights to half, standby lights cue one, and – go….”

I promise my entry on the show will continue.

In the meantime -- this is making the rounds, but the video is blowing my mind -- some octopus species carry coconut shells around with them for protection.

(This is going to be worth two posts. Be warned. The next one will come tomorrow.)

Back in August, I learned about a concert/revue that was being put together by some alumni from my high school’s music program – band and chorus and drama club folk from all years, all singing and dancing and acting just one more time, to salute some of our teachers and coaches and to raise money for the current music program. It seemed a fine idea, and I hadn’t had a reunion proper, so I tossed my hat into the ring as a stage manager.

I was a bit worried, though – I was only going to be there for two rehearsals, and made a few calls to Jim, one of the coordinators, asking whether they were sure that was going to be okay? I’d taken over shows on short notice before, and I knew I could do it (even if I did lose a few hours’ sleep in the process), but were they comfortable with that? Really? But Jim assured me that no, it was fine, just so long as I could be there for a couple of the last rehearsals.

As the months went by, the reunion part got me nervous as well. Everyone has some unease about their years in high school – a couple people you aren’t sure you ever would want to see again, a rivalry or two, the hindsight that tells you that the people whose attention you worked so hard for were actually cruel to you. All of the bumps that we go through on the way to finding out who and what we are. And some of those bumps in the early part of the trip….well, they’re rough. And it’s hard to know for sure how strong your resilience really is if you haven’t been near its first tests.

I’d taken kind of a bridge-burny approach to parts of my past; I all but catapulted myself to New York as soon as I graduated, the way I’d always wanted to do when I was a girl. And then, after my parents moved to Cape Cod, I didn’t ever return to visit. I’ve joked sometimes with Colin about someday rounding up a bunch of friends and going on a day trip “so you all can see why I’m like this”, and once in a while I’d point someone to the Boom Box parade, but…I also hadn’t set foot in town for ten years.

So all throughout November I was getting the nagging fear that I was about to step into a musical version of GROSSE POINTE BLANK.

--

I can only imagine what my face looked like when I first saw my old street.

I had a couple free hours before a tech meeting on Tuesday – enough time to explore a bit. Windham has a very concentrated center and a very rural outskirt, and I grew up in the sleepy rural part, surrounded by woods, farms, and fields, with my old street tucked away into a stand of trees just off Route 14. I took the long way round to my house – marveling how few houses had changed, remembering who lived in each one, ticking off all the old names I knew – Aponte, Cardile, Lavoie, Allen, Heller, Stevens, Denis…the minister who’d bought the house next to mine was still there, as well as the couple in the A-frame house a few doors down that no one seemed to know much about.

No one was home at my own house – which was probably just as well; I’m not sure what I would have done seeing my old room changed over to something unrecognizeable. The house itself was different enough – bright yellow instead of deep brown, and my mother’s rhododendron bushes all gone. But I did cross around behind the house to peep at the back yard and saw the herb planters my father built still sitting beside the back porch, and the flowering dogwood that once was barely taller than my father now towered over the house itself.

Right down the street, where the road turned a corner, was a little wood – the first I ever knew of what woods were. I had to explore there as well. First looking for the pond we called “Bingo’s Pond,” after the baby turtle I found in our driveway one morning before kindergarten – I brought it to Show and Tell, and wanted to keep it, but Mom urged me to let it go in the woods, and after I dubbed him “Bingo” after the song I’d learned in class that day, we set him free near a little swampy patch a few yards into the woods. I sometimes went back looking for him, but never saw him – but that winter we learned that the pond froze over with thick solid ice perfect for skating.

But that was over 30 years ago, and the pond is all filled in now. I just barely found where it was, remembering an old fallen tree I’d sit on to lace my skates.

Then there was the cornfield. When I was ten, someone cleared the land another thirty yards or so deeper into the woods and planted feed corn there – and we kids soon took to sneaking out there during the fall and winter, when the harvest was in and it was nothing but empty land. My brother sometimes rounded up his friends to mess with B-B Guns, and sometimes we’d use the steep slopes for sledding, but…mostly it was a place I went by myself to sit and think; you couldn’t hear any sound other than the woods around you, and it was a far away enough spot to deal with some of the scary new thoughts you find yourself having when you’re ten and eleven. Or, to let you still indulge in some of the old fanciful thoughts you used to have when you were seven or eight.

One afternoon in the cornfield, when I was about eleven or twelve, I remember sitting on the rocks perched at the woods’ edge and staring across at the crest of a hill which sloped down out of my sight. For some reason – even though I knew it was impossible – I imagined that if I could just get to the edge of that hill and look over, I’d see some other world waiting at the bottom – some magic portal to Narnia or Faerie or some such. I stared across that field for a good twenty minutes, considering this, and managed to work myself into such a level of Belief that I jumped off the rock and marched across the field towards the crest of the hill. It took me a good five minutes, even moving at a determined quick march, and the faster I went the more convinced I became. I held my breath a bit when I got to the top and looked over – and I don’t even know how to describe what I felt when I saw nothing but more cornfield. I think, sometimes, that that’s the exact moment my childhood ended.

Now, thirty years later, I went across the field again, to peer one more time over that hill. By coincidence, the farmer had recently sown winter wheat along the edges of the field – so instead of more barren land at the bottom of the hill, I saw lush green. Even though I knew it was earthbound, it still was an awful lot like what I’d expected to see waiting there nearly 30 years ago.

I had only time for two quick stops before heading to the tech meeting – and the library had to be first. The first library I ever knew was huddled in a tiny building on the town green; it used to be the old bank, and was run by the kind of librarian that gave up on the option of having plumbing inside so she could cram in more books. I spent a lot of summers frustrating the librarians by reading through just about everything they had in the children’s section within the first two weeks of June, including all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, and she never really knew what to do with me after that. At some point she pointed me towards the mystery section ringing the front of her desk and just let me have at it. I didn’t recognize the current librarian at all, of course, and seeing books on computers lining those shelves felt weird, but the mystery section is still in the same place.

Some of the artifacts are gone, though – the library also housed some of the collection of the town’s historical society. I remember one summer on the job, climbing a ladder to dust a top shelf – and coming face-to-face with an old German pickelhaube helmet. A small typed card next to it explained that it had been presented to the local D.A.R. for raising some particular sum in war bonds during the First World War. I asked the current librarian about it – she hadn’t ever seen it. “You do know about the Bacchus, though, right?” she asked, pointing to the rafters over the door.

“Oh, of course,” I said, smiling. The Bacchus sculpture is something that gets shown to every schoolkid in Windham Center – it was carved by four British P.O.W.’s during the Revolutionary War, and has been sitting proudly above the door to the library ever since I could remember.

The library was just a few houses down from my grade school – we used to have a little costume parade from the school to the library every Halloween. On this day, I drove the short distance and poked around the school yard; I thought about going in, but ultimately didn’t know if I’d alarm any teachers. But I peered in a couple windows, marveling at just how small everything was, seeing roomfuls of tiny faces huddled over books or staring up at a teacher or gathered at desks working on art projects. My favorite tree was long gone – the one with the bit of root sticking up that I thought looked like a crocodile -- but the seesaws where I met a girl named Krishna one day in kindergarten were still there.

….Krishna, who was one of the people who was going to be at the rehearsal on Friday – and that reminded me, I should get going to the school to meet Jim. With one last look in at the kids, I set off.

So you know the New York State senators who voted "no" on same-sex marriage? Feel like sending them a note expressing your displeasure?

Well, Google just announced that it is offering a "send a free holiday postcard" service -- fill out the form and it will send a holiday postcard through the mail to someone. For free.

...I say we take advantage of this opportunity, no? There's nothing that says that your note to these senators can't have a cute picture of a snowman on it.

(Okay, this idea isn't mine -- but flooding these senator's offices with cheery protest postcards strikes me as an interesting approach, don't you?)


ETA: Just sent this:

"Dear Senator: Two friends of mine hoped to marry this Christmas. Your "no" vote on Wednesday stopped them. Please reconsider: even the Grinch had a change of heart."

DAMMIT.

Okay -- there's a handful of senators who voted "no", but waived their chance to explain their vote. My idea -- if any of these people is your Senator, call them tomorrow and ask them WHY they voted "no." This could make a very effective protest.

Joseph P. Addabbo Jr's Contact Information
Albany Office: 815 Legislative Office Building / Albany, NY 12247 / 518-455-2322 / Fax - 518-426-6875
District Office: 159-53 102nd St / Howard Beach, NY 11414 / 718-738-1111 / Fax - 718-322-5760
Email address: addabbo@senate.state.ny.us


Darrel J. Aubertine's Contact Information
District Office (main office): 317 Washington Street / 4th Floor / Watertown, NY 13601 / 315-782-3418 (office) / 315-782-6357 (fax)
Albany Office: 903 Legislative Office Building / Albany, New York 12247 / 518-455-2761 (office) / 518-426-6946 (fax)
Oswego Satellite Office: 136 Rich Hall / Oswego, New York 13126 / 315-312-3106 (office) / 315-312-4206 (fax)
Email address: aubertin@senate.state.ny.us


Shirley L. Huntley's Contact Information
ALBANY: Room 803, Legislative Office Building / Albany, New York 12247 / (518) 455-3531 Office / (518) 426-6859 Fax
DISTRICT: 161-10 Jamaica Avenue / Suite 504 / Jamaica, New York 11432 / (718) 523-3069 Office / (718) 523-3670 Fax
SATELLITE: Rosedale-Laurelton Office / 133-24 233rd Street / Rosedale, New York 11422-1308
Email address: shuntley@senate.state.ny.us


Carl Kruger's Contact Information
District Office: 2201 Avenue U / Brooklyn, NY 11229 / Tel: (718) 743-8610 / Fax: (718) 743-5958
Albany Office: 913 Legislative Office Building / Albany, New York 12247 / Tel: (518) 455-2460 / Fax: (518) 426-6855
Email address: kruger@senate.state.ny.us


Hiram Monserrate's Contact Information
District Office: 32-37 Junction Blvd. / East Elmhurst, New York 11369 / Tel: (718) 205-3881 / Fax: (718) 205-4145
Albany Office: 944 Legislative Office Building / Albany, NY 12247 / Tel: (518) 455-2529 / Fax: (518) 426-6909
Email address: monserra@senate.state.ny.us


George Onorato's Contact Information
District Office: 28-11 Astoria Blvd. / Long Island City, NY 11102 / Tel: (718) 545-9706 / Fax: (718) 726-2036
Albany Office: 310 Legislative Office Building / Albany, NY 12247 / Tel: (518) 455-3486 / Fax: (518) 426-6929
Email address: onorato@senate.state.ny.us


William T. Stachowski's Contact Information
Albany Office: 918 Legislative Office Building / Albany, New York 12247 / Phone (518)-455-2426 / Fax: (518) 426-6851
District Office: 2030 Clinton Street / Buffalo, New York 14206 / Phone (716)-826-3344 / Fax (716)-823-6372
Email address: stachows@senate.state.ny.us



The one person who DID explain his vote was Ruben Diaz of the Bronx, who -- in his remarks -- stated that he thought that "you shouldn't leave your Bible outside your courtroom." Instead, then, of asking him why he voted "no," point out that he has agreed to officiate at the wedding of a man who was convicted of third-degree assault against his fiancee -- ask him why he's so willing to leave the Bible outside the CHURCH.

Ruben Diaz's Contact Information
District Office: 900 Rogers Place / The Bronx, NY 10459 / Tel:(718) 991-3161 / Fax:(718) 991-0309
Albany Office: 307 Legislative Office Building / Albany, NY 12247 / Tel: (518) 455-2511 / Fax: (518) 426-6945
Email address: diaz@senate.state.ny.us

It is 2:45 pm on December 2nd, and right now the New York State senate is voting on whether to approve a bill legalizing same sex marriage in New York State.

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

need. vodka.

Yesterday was the first rehearsal I had at this big Reunion Concert/Show my high school's drama and music alumni are all throwing. I'm one of two alumni who are stage managing -- coincidentally, we both live in New York, although Wendy lives upstate now. She kindly drove us both out for the day for rehearsal (and back the same day, which made for an adventure).

The whole day was a bit overwhelming, as I wasn't just being thrown into a rehearsal of a sudden, it was also the first time I'd seen the building -- and the town itself -- in nearly 15 years. It had also been 15 years since I'd seen some of the people -- but I had to suppress a lot of the natural "holy crap, I haven't seen YOU in forever" instincts because I was too busy trying to tell them all "so, we need you all in the orchestra room to rehearse the finale...." I wasn't the only one who was struggling with that -- my old drama coach, one of the six teachers the class tracked down to be involved with this, came looking for me when he first came in, took me aside, and began, "I heard you were running the show, so we should probably talk about your operators because -- " but then he stopped himself, broke into a grin, and said, "wait, I have to do this first," and gave me a big hug.

But there was one sweet little moment at the beginning of the day. We opened the day with a rehearsal of a kids' choir -- a lot of the alumni have kids who are also similarly star-struck, and so one of the numbers is a parents-vs-kids version of "Anything You Can Do". As they all assembled in the old chorus room to run the number, our director Jim introduced me and Wendy, the other stage manager, to the kids before we ran things. "Everyone, these are our stage managers," he said. "They're going to be running the whole show. So that means, when they say jump, what do you do?....You jump!" Ten pairs of little eyes peered at Wendy and I, in varying degrees of awe and skepticism.

Wendy chuckled. "Okay -- standby to jump!" she joked, causing a couple of the other kids to look at her curiously. But when she gave the cue to "jump", only a couple kids did, while the rest looked at her, confused. The adults were moving on to tracking down the sheet music, while the kids stood in a small confused group.

I addressed the kids. "Okay - 'stand by' is stage manager talk for 'get ready.'" Most of the kids turned to look at me now. "You wanna try that again?" I asked, and no one spoke, but a few started smiling a bit. "Okay -- standby to jump....aaaaaaaaand JUMP!"

And it wasn't quite synchronized, but eight little kids dutifully jumped at my cue. "Awesome!" I cheered them. "I like you guys already." They were mostly still confused, but a couple did giggle a bit as they were called back to running the song.

So I seem to have ended up with the EZ-Care model of cat. Zach has always been incredibly healthy and had very few problems -- and even now, that we're embarking on a new health regime, he's still making it easy.

I found a great site that details what's going on with Zach and how to cope with it; I poked around on that yesterday and learned that Zach is JUST BARELY affected by this right now. There's a tale from the "success" stories of a cat named Pooter who sounded an awful lot like Zach -- low test numbers, diagnosed at age 16, and still very feisty, curious, and lively -- and Pooter went on to stay stable for another seven years and ultimately died of something completely unrelated. So that was a really, really hopeful note.

Then there's the food. On that CRF page it discussed how "many cats have a loss of appetite as a symptom", and I just laughed -- Zach is an enormous glutton. There is also copious advice on there for "how to encourage your cat to eat the new special food you have to give him, because mercy, he's not going to want to...." Meanwhile, Zach was so excited about it that he nearly took my fingers off trying to get the blob I'd held out for him to try. After I fed him I forgot to cover the can over and put it away; Zach smelled it, and I came into the kitchen to find him sitting on the counter, nose buried in the can and happily munching away at the leftovers. So yeah, the new food is a big hit, and the appetite is as huge as it's always been.

And that brings us to the pill -- only one out of the four times that I've had to pill him have I actually had to pill him by holding him down and prying his mouth open. The other three times, all I had to do was take a pinch of the new food and hide the pill in it -- and he ate it right out of my hand.

And this morning was the first time I had to give him the IV at home. This was a bit more nervous -- and we did have a moment of chaos when he tried to jump out of my arms and the needle popped out and there was a small saline geyser in the bathroom for a second. But I just took a deep breath, got another needle, got him settled, and tried again.

Coincidentally, I'd been keeping the IV kit in a tote bag I'd grabbed when I first went to get it -- it was the canvas bag I'd put my Obama campaign button on a year ago. And so right as I was nervously setting up everything, I glanced at the button -- and saw the reassuring reminder, "Yes We Can." So I just used that as a mantra as I settled Zach down -- yes, Zach, we can. We can do this. And I was indeed able to get the needle in, hold him down with one hand and start the drip with the other, and keep him settled down long enough to get at least 100 ml of fluids into him. I'm supposed to go with 150 ml, but I'm going to forgive myself and go with 100 ml the first couple times just until we're both more comfortable with the whole process (I have to switch incjection sites for the second 50ml, and he was getting awfully fidgety). But we got through it for the first time on my own, and we'll get through it again next time.

After a lengthy abscence, I finally brought Zach back to a vet for the first time in a while. He was on the whole in good shape -- the vet at one point remarked he was "feisty", and judging from the hollering he was doing when they did his blood test, I can only imagine what she was thinking.

But -- she did notice something seemed funky about his kidney function, she said. It was probably age-related -- he is about 16, after all -- and thus it probably wasn't anything like diabetes or anything serious, so a special diet could be the best way to address it. But, she added, we'd know more once she got the test results back.

It turns out that yep, his kidneys are in the early stages of slowing down; something we can indeed catch with a diet change and a supplement. However -- she said he was also showing early stages of anemia as well.

And all of that meant -- we would need to put him on subcutaneous fluids for about a month. If things didn't improve enough, it may be longer.

Tonight, therefore, I need to pack Zach back up tonight and bring him back to the vet so she can show me how to give him an IV drip, and then I need to do that every couple days for the next month.

I'm not freaking out about this -- well, not too much; the first few times we do this is probably going to be pretty chaotic, and I'm probably going to have to enlist Andrew to help me hold him down, but...that was like the first few times I tried holding him down to brush him. And we've adjusted. This is also probably going to be a bit of a financial hit; which isn't all that great either.

But honestly, the idea of not doing this, or being too afraid to do this, is simply not occurring to me. He's Zach. He's the one who pulled me out of that obsessive mental state I was in the first few days after 9/11, when I was too freaked out to remember to feed myself; he made sure I remembered to feed HIM. He's a veteran of the Great Lower East Side Holy-Crap-I-Live-Above-a-Restaurant Mouse Wars of the Late 90's. He's the first face I see every morning. He has an uncanny knack for sitting right on my lap when I'm trying to knit -- but he's warm and he purrs when he does this so I can't be mad. He climbs up into my lap when I'm at my computer, but then just sits there, wanting nothing more than just to be perched on my lap staring into space.

He's Zach. And this needs to be done for him. So I'll do it. That's it.



(That said: any tips from anyone who's done this in the past are more than welcome.)

Right now I'm in one of the spam-heavy phases that everyone's email goes through - you know, the ones where some new spammer comes out and your spam filter hasn't quite figured out how to recognize it yet, so some of it gets through?

The actual subjects of the spam are the usual -- "babe & dog fc*k*ng long time", I think -- but what caught my eye about this was the fake "from" email address they used.

It had a foxnews.com domain.

Even though it wasn't real, the thought of a foxnews.com address as a source for porn spam made my day.

For the past couple years, I've been cutting my own hair; I finally had enough money today to have a professional do it. However, I still was a bit dubious; I've always been a little fussy about my hair. It's naturally baby-fine and really straight, which makes it tough to do anything with stylewise; and I always prefer to put as little junk as possible in it. So styling is something of a challenge. But then I also get into the attitude that "the devil you know is better than the one you don't," and I get paranoid about going to the salon because my hair may currently suck but at least I know how to work with it, and so I usually don't get there until I'm just about to shave it off in frustration and I end up staggering to a salon and screaming, 'FIX ME!'

But what also bugs me about going to the hairdresser is what they do with my hair after they cut it. They get it all cut, and right when I'm thinking that "okay, I can work with this," they then break out the hair dryer and the pomade and the fancy curling brush and the styling wax and the mousse and the glazing creme and the hair spackle and a ton of other crap and they tease and blow and curl and brush and slather and generally do all sorts of nonesense to my hair that I would never ordinarily do in a million years. And sometimes I can stop them, but other times they just start before I can, so all there is to do is just thank them and run home and wash my hair and start over.

And today was no exception. I already had an attack of nerves while the stylist was cutting -- it's rather shorter than I wanted it. But I decided that well, it'll grow, and I probably desperately needed to have it be that short after a couple years of my own haphazard job. In about a month it'll be the length I wanted, too, so that's also good.

However -- then she started styling it -- and the more she worked the more I was getting vaguely uncomfortable, but didn't quite know why. I'd told her I generally like to brush my hair back away from my face, but she was instead brushing it so it fell to one side and forward. I resigned myself to my fate, resolving to just wash it out when I got home. I had one errand to run before I could, though, and kept peering into mirrors, swiping at it and frowning. It wasn't the way I liked it, but...my dislike seemed to be a bit stronger this time....as if I'd seen something else wrong about that that went beyond just not being used to it. Was it too short on the sides? Sort of, yeah, but not THAT bad...it was brushed forward, but that wasn't enough to cause this kind of unease.

Finally, as I peered in the mirror at the Reverie office, trying to play with it some more, it hit me what was bothering me about it. What bothered me was that I had already seen this exact same hairstyle....on ANDREW'S head.

I finished up at Reverie as quickly as I could and all but ran home to wash it and start over lest Andrew think he'd stumbled into some weird gender-bending version of Single White Female.

I've decided to postpone that night on the town for about a week -- the current gig requires an earlier-than-usual start to the day. I'm noticing that I'm getting a little tired, so I think this weekend is going to be more about sleep than fine dining.

What I may end up doing is spending a day not getting out of my pajamas and curling up in a sunny chair and knitting all day, which sounds just lovely too. Or going to Prospect Park, lying down in some leaves and watching clouds.

Yeah. The restaurants will still be there, and I only have one more week at this schedule so I'll treat myself when it's over instead.

Okay. Look. I like bacon. I really, really like bacon. Hell, I entered a cookoff and made cookies involving bacon.

However -- I think the idea of an....um...intimate product that tastes like bacon is a sign that our society has somehow slipped off the rails.

The other night, while on the long subway ride home, I caught part of a conversation between three friends who lived further out in Brooklyn -- two women who'd got on together, and a third guy who'd run into them. They made small talk, and after a while he said that he was actually getting off soon -- he was buying lychees in Chinatown.

"You can't get lychees in Brooklyn?" one of the girls asked.

"No, see, they have them canned in syrup," he said.

"Isn't the syrup a little too thick?"

"Oh, I discovered something about that," he said. "When I eat lychees in syrup, I dip them in Diet Sprite first. That washes the sugar off."

It took every ounce of willpower I had not to openly stare at him at that.

In a week, I'll be getting the first of three very decent-sized paychecks. I remarked to Andrew that one of the things I'd do is get a REAL haircut, for the first time in years; I've been cutting my own hair usually. He just chuckled and said something about how everyone deserves to splurge.

...And, he's right.

Which is why I will then also get a brand new dress and make reservations for dessert at a very good restaurant overlooking the river, and take myself out.

We gave you terms. They’re over now.
Michael R. Bloomberg, will you please go now!
Your time is up. It ran out now.
Just go. Go. Go! I don't care how.
You can go by foot. You can go by cow.
Michael R. Bloomberg will you please go now!

You can go on skates. You can go on skis.
You can go on the F train. But please go. Please!

I don't care. You can go by bike.
You can go in a pedicab If you like.

We gave you terms. We gave you two.
It’s time to go now! Please go, DO!

Michael R. Bloomberg
I don't care how.
Michael R. Bloomberg
Will you please GO NOW!

You can go by ferry. You can go by fish.
You can take the Ikea boat If you wish.

If you wish you may go by lion's tale.
Or stamp yourself and go by mail.

Michael R. Bloomberg
Don't you know
The time has come
To go, go, GO!

You can even take your private jet.
I don't care how you go. Just get!

Michael R. Bloomberg!
I don't care how.
Michael R. Bloomberg
Will you please GO NOW!

I want you to go -
But I won’t shout…
The time has come
So . . . I’M VOTING YOU OUT.


(Apologies, of course, to Dr. Seuss's Marvin K. Mooney. For those of you not in New York City -- Mike Bloomberg is running for a third term in office, even though New York City residents already had two separate votes on mayoral term limits and twice voted to limit mayors to two terms.)

I am THISclose to starting my own online business: a web page selling non-skanky Halloween costumes for women.

I've been getting more and more pissed off every year at about this time, heading out to the shops and seeing what they have in terms of Halloween costumes. Oh, there are usually plenty of costumes for women, just as there are for men. Except - when it comes to women's costumes, far and away most of them seem to include the term "sexy" or "naughty" in the concept.

You know. The "naughty" nurse. The "sexy" pirate. The "naughty" policewoman. The "sexy" stewardess. The "naughty" maid. The "sexy" baseball player.

Not that I'm opposed to the idea of "naughty" or "sexy" costumes in general. Hell, I was a "sexy" genie once (back when I was 23 and still had the abs to pull it off). The "naughty nurse" trope is a classic for fun dress-up time in the bedroom.

But that's just it -- the naughty nurse is the only option we got. No just plain "nurse", only "sexy nurse." Why is it that all women's costumes seem to have the "naughty" aspect just because they're costumes for women? The men's pirate costume didn't have any kind of overly "sexy" aspect to it. But oh, no, the lady pirate had to be the "sexy" pirate, with tattered miniskirt and barely-laced corset over an off-the-shoulder top. In the entire store I went to, there were only about five -- FIVE! -- costumes for women that were not over-the-top "sexy" or "naughty" anything -- and one was just barely not-sexy.

Why does the pirate costume for women have to be the sexy pirate? What do the women who just want to be the plain ordinary pirate do? What do the women do who want to have their Halloween costume be about something that is not hypersexualized? Why is it that the "fantasy" idea for women always has to be about "looking sexy"? Why is it that women's sexuality is always so in-your-face with all these costumes?

Besides -- they're cold.


ETA: kixeldorado tipped me off to the following video spoofing this trend. I feel better now.

Lo, I have been Sick.

Just sick with a cold, mind, but Sick. For when I get colds that are nasty, it's not just a matter of stuffy-nose-sneezing-snorking-scratchy-throat-pfeh, it's a matter of sinus-headache-vertigo-laryngitis-coughing-sneezing-chills-fetal-position-shoot-me-now. I actually skipped the past two days of work, and any doubts I had about whether I was being too wimpy vanished when my super showed up to fix the sink (an appointment I'd previously scheduled) and when he arrived, took one look at me and then asked if he could go get me some orange juice and cough syrup first before he started working, because otherwise he'd feel too bad. Andrew seemed a little intimidated ("So, do you....get this sick a lot?") but then I bounced back last night and all was well.

But before then I've been hitting myself with all manner of remedies; and it's made me notice how particular I am about some of them. Some of them are pharmaceutical - like the decongestant (I made the mistake of not getting the good stuff at first, and after about a day and a half I ended up dragging myself out to the drug store finally and staggering up to the pharmacy counter and wheezing, "Pseudoephedrine. I will accept no substitutes."). Or the cough syrup: once I tried Buckley's Mixture I knew it was a miracle cure (but God help me does it taste terrible). Then there's the folk remedies like chicken soup, orange juice, Gatorade, and tea, all of which I've been guzzling.

But then....( there's the bubble bath ritual. )