No floor-walking parties just yet

There's a bubble in the floor. A big bubble right in the middle where the bastards didn't stick it down well enough. It wasn't there on Friday, but on Saturday night when I got home Joe was like, "Go into the kitchen. Walk into the middle of the room." You could see the bubble before you even stepped on it. Bastards! Now we have to make angry phone calls and maybe take even more time off and they'd seriously better do it right the second time.

Yesterday I couldn't be pissed about the floor or anything else because it was sunny and 70 degrees. The freak snow from Saturday melted, so we can pretend that never happened. We were looking for a low-key way to get out and enjoy the day, so we decided to just drive. For those of us who live close to Boston, 495 pretty much marks the end of civilization. We wanted to see what was out there. We took Rte. 9 past Natick and then got on some local roads through random towns—Westborough, Shrewsbury, Boylston—that eventually took us to Worcester.

I've only been to Worcester once and that was fifteen years ago, to go see New Kids on the Block at the Centrum. It's almost like a real city but not quite. We drove through downtown and there was one corner near the DCU Center that looked like it could have been in Boston's financial district. But then one block over it was all check cashing places and coin-op laundromats and dollar stores. Lesson: Worcester is ghetto.

The drive back was equally random. We stopped at the 99 in Auburn for dinner; it was almost dark when we left, so we decided to take Rte. 16 all the way back to where we live. We picked up 16 in Webster and followed it through even more random towns: Douglas, Uxbridge, Mendon, Hopedale, Milford. Finally in Holliston it started to feel normal again. Wellesley, Newton, home.

It was pretty fun actually. There are a ton of places I've never been to that are only an hour or so away--why not check them out? They're not exciting, but they are different, and there's probably something cool (or at least a 99) along the way.

Who knew a floor could bring so much joy?

Today I had an unexpected day off. I had to stay home and oversee Day 2 of the Great Kitchen Floor Installation, which should have been finished yesterday.

The guys showed up at 8:00. My access was limited to the living room, guest room, office, and dining room (which, conveniently, had the refrigerator in it) while they were working, so I played Tetris and worked on a project for my former boss (she left and took a job in Salt Lake City during the summer but I still do projects for her on a contract basis, for contract pay, which is double my average hourly salary). Around 10:00 I watched with amusement as they maneuvered the 21' roll of vinyl into the house through our front window. I don't know who the dumbass was that rolled it up the long way, but they had a 4-man chain going from the ground to the van to a ladder on top of the van to inside the house. At 11:00 I had to go to Home Depot (during The Price is Right! I missed the whole thing!) to buy wall molding because they told me they couldn't reuse what we already had. They finished up just before 2:00.

After they left, I stared at the floor for a while, moved the fridge and stove back into place (no small feat), put the table and chairs back, washed the counters, made the bed, dusted, vaccuumed, and Febreezed. Now the house is clean and cozy, I'm in my living room watching more I Love the 80s 3D, candles are flickering on the coffee table, and I'm happy because I didn't have to work, tomorrow is Friday, and my new floor kicks ass.

Duuyyyyyi-i-I heard that!

Vh1 is doing yet another iteration of I Love the 80s. Last night they showed You Can't Do That on Television, a show I LOVED when I was young. I had no idea it was Canadian, or Mr. Wizard's World. I should have figured it out I guess, since Alanis Morissette was on YCDTOTV. Why were we watching Canadian programming? I'm glad we were, but I'm surprised Nickelodeon didn't just rip off the Canucks' good ideas and make our own better, flashier, grosser version. I guess because it was a young network then and it was cheaper to import than to produce its own shows.

It was such a great show though. Christine "Moose" McGlade, Alasdair Gillis, Lisa "Motormouth" Ruddy, and Kevin Illyanovich Rasputin Kubusheskie were my favorite cast members. I loved all the skits... Barth's burger joint, Blip's arcade, in school, in detention, in front of the firing squad, in the dungeon. Ross's Egg-O-Rama (Rt. 12, King's Side Road), green slime, locker jokes, "Don't encourage your father!" Awesome.

Mr. Wizard was always on: before school, after school, Saturdays. I remember having a dorky crush on this kid Christian. I don't know why, he was such a wuss, always wide-eyed and intimidated by whatever fantastical thing Mr. Wizard was going to show him. He did some cool stuff. I liked the experiment where he made a kid hold a paint can suspended by a string under his chin, let it go, and stand still to prove that it wouldn't smack him in the face when it swung back. My favorite experiment was when he demonstrated a chain reaction by dropping a ping-pong ball into a big plexiglas box filled with mouse traps that were all baited with ping-pong balls.

Sadly, I couldn't share my glee last night with Joe—he didn't have cable until 1993.

Our new kitchen floor is supposed to go in today. Joe stayed home; the installers were supposed to arrive between 8-12. It's 1:04 and they haven't shown up or called to explain why they're late. Joe calls and gets voicemail, or a useless human who says, "Well the computer says between 8-12. They must be on their way." Don't they have call phones or walkie-talkies? They'd better not try to reschedule. We had to move the table and chairs, the fridge and the stove to prepare. The table, fridge and stove are in the dining room. The chairs are in the office. The microwave is on the dining room table. We don't want to put it all back and move it again. Fuckers!

We're all adults here

Today we went to the reception of the shotgun wedding we attended back in August. Yeah, I don't know, that's how they wanted to do it. It was a decent time, we had fun... good food, bad DJ (though I feel bad saying that because he did try--the crowd was limp save for the middle-aged women leaping out of their seats when he played the Electric Slide), old faces, all lubricated by red wine.

An old acquaintence from college whom I haven't seen in 6 years was there. This guy and I met in a class freshman year. Our history started on a random day when I stopped by his dorm room... his roommates happened to both not be there, he made a rico suave move, and we hooked up. After that we'd make out after class with Dave Matthews or Blues Traveler on the stereo, which was exciting for a while but fizzled out after a few weeks. He was a bad kisser, a slobberer who would suck up your whole mouth and abrade your cheeks and chin with his goatee. In spite of that, we continued to hook up every so often; we'd find each other online--remember how you could funger people to see if they were on?--and he'd ask me if I was dating anyone, and if I wasn't and I felt like it, I'd invite him over. If my roommate was around we'd go into the study lounge and push the couch up against the door.

Fast forward to sophomore year. I was coming off a breakup and invited him over one night. We had sex for the first and only time, awful, miserable rebound sex. On my roommate's bed no less, because I had a loft. In the morning he said, "You didn't seem very into it." That was it for us.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, my friend (the bride) told me he was getting married to one of her distant friends, who also went to school with us but was a year or two behind. We had a conversation that went like this:

Her: You and [Guy] had sex, right?
Me: Yeah, once.
Her: That's what I thought. I remember seeing you at the Live concert and you holding up your fingers and me saying, '[Guy]?'
Me: Yup.
Her: He told [his wife] she was the only one he'd ever been with.
Me: Oh shit, really?
Her: She and I were talking and I said something about you and she was like, 'That's not true, he's never been with anyone else.'
Me: So she thinks I'm a liar.
Her: Well, it's either you or her fiance... who's she gonna believe?
Me: Right.
Her: Even though you don't have any reason to lie.
Me: None.
Her: Whatever, he's sketchy anyway.
Me: It's kind of funny. Like he's such a prize that I'd lie about getting him.
Her: Well, I guess he is, to her.
Me: I wonder how many other girls he pretended not to have sex with?
Her: She probably doesn't allow herself to think about that.

Fast forward to today. It was inevitable that we would end up at the same party someday. Carly and Joe and Professor K and I were at the bar and they came up behind us. Without hesitation I turned, put my surprise face on, and said "[Guy] and [wife]? Oh my god, how are you?" We shook hands and exchanged small talk. I hoped my friendliness made him uncomfortable. I wanted the message behind my smile to be, "You don't think I know, but I do." His wife was nice but he was stiff and barely spoke except to say "Oh yeah?" and laugh nervously a few times.

After that, the wine tasted uncommonly satisfying.

A conversation you can only have with someone who lived it with you

FlyingJ: chinese food smelling no AC B train
Joe: haha eww
FlyingJ: grand street
Joe: running onto the train for a seat
FlyingJ: express to bay parkway
Joe: no manhattan bound service
FlyingJ: no stairs at 18th ave
Joe: oh yeah
FlyingJ: the pee/tony block
Joe: the bird poop area
FlyingJ: softener?
Joe: haha
FlyingJ: hehe rehab
Joe: dunkin donuts
FlyingJ: you are the best!
Joe: waldbaum's
FlyingJ: dragging the ghetto cart up the stairs
Joe: the car port
FlyingJ: man vito
Joe: mama and papa vito
FlyingJ: "you have-a the checcccck?"
Joe: bottles bottlesssssss
FlyingJ: how's the water, how's the water?
Joe: mouse traps smell like bananas, and they smell like bananas
FlyingJ: noo noo noo noo
Joe: the hole in the ceiling
FlyingJ: the aftershock
Joe: ralph in his underwear sleeping

Word

Henry owned at the Berklee Performance Center last night. I was in an advanced state of anticipation for the show, and he came through town at just the right time for this white, married, college educated, gainfully employed, home owning, Catholic, liberal female.

Like most of us who are thinkers and feelers, I cycle between feeling content and feeling pot-bound. Lately it’s been the latter, partly because summer is over and it’s been raining nonstop and we haven’t traveled in a while and soon we will tunnel into the long, dark days of winter, but also because the world is in a shitty state and how can you not think about that? Hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, war, celebrity worship, religious fanaticism, not that you should let those things get you down but they’re happening and it sucks. I strongly resist the notion that life in the U.S. has descended into obsequious, lardaceous, unctuous, kowtowing, pharisaical absurdity. It can’t have, we are so much better than that.

So then Henry—observer, consumer, masticator, and regurgitator of absurdity—comes along and talks for two and a half hours to a room full of young, “switched on” Bostonians about watching little kids in Oklahoma pretend to shoot each other with toy guns in a Bass Pro hunting store, being hit on by a cab driver named Ijaz and acquiescing to his offer to fly Henry to Pakistan and live with him forever, going on USO tours to places with elevated threat conditions, visiting wounded soldiers in military hospitals, and his solitary trek on the Trans-Siberian Express with only dried apricots and the Lady of the People’s Hallway as company. Brilliant. I could listen to him for hours. It was just what we needed. Joe and I walked out of there with dry eyes and major energy.

A few paraphrased Henryisms:

On Barbara Bush’s comment about Katrina evacuees:
“Is it racist? I’d say no; I don’t think the Bushes are racist. Does it park its Humvee next to Racists R Us? Right up close next to it? With the very edge of its wheels touching the line? Yes.”

On fun:
“I don’t like fun. Fuck fun.”

On humankind:
“We’re all just watery sacks of recessive traits trying to make it through another day.”

On travel:
“On long flights other guys are reading Stuff or Maxim or some other useless piece of shit; I have the in-flight magazine on my lap opened to the centerfold, the map of the world, and the countries I haven’t been to MOCK me.”

On reproduction:
“If you don’t have the means, DON’T HAVE A KID. Maybe you know a guy, and he’s a really good guy inside but he’s a total fuckup, going from AA meeting to NA meeting, and he has four houses, none of which he owns, and he sells drugs at the local high school… and he has four kids.”

On his home:
“I go back to my utilitarian hovel in Los Angeles. I get home; I go to my garage and lift weights; I eat out of a pot standing over the stove because I’m too cheap to use a bowl because I don’t like washing dishes. I go into my bedroom, which has a small bed in the middle of the room. I sleep in the fetal position on the left side, and surrounding me is a forest of books.”

On attraction:
“No matter who you are, or what you think you look like, someone has checked you out. Someone was going along, thinking something, doing something, saw you walk by, and they stopped. They looked back, checked out your ass, and thought, ‘I want to HIT that!’.”

On confrontation:
“My middle name is Lawrence; I wish it was Confrontation.”

On death:
“I’m just jaded and burnt out and don’t really give a shit when I die… as long as it isn’t a result of complacency or mediocrity.”

I think I'm dum, or maybe just happy

Out of the candy bowl on someone's desk I grabbed a Mystery Flavor Dum Dum lollipop. It's in my mouth and it's still a mystery flavor. What is this? Banana? Pineapple?

Non-day

I did some stupid things yesterday and today. Yesterday I was googling around and somehow ended up reading all about the Bell Witch, this freaky haunting that happened back in the early 1800s in Tennessee. Last night I came across a website by a photographer who specializes in urban decay and planted dozens of scary images deep into my brain right before bed. I slept poorly because I freaked myself out. This morning I slept late and had no time to shower. I put my hair up, wore my glasses, and put on a scrubby outfit. Then I decided to stop by the actual, physical post office on my way to work to return an online purchase. My box was all taped up and had a No Postage Necessary return label and all I needed to do was give it to the person at the desk because it was big. I got stuck behind 54959 ignoramuses asking about express versus priority, return receipt, and postal money orders. I couldn't believe I was there. I got to work 15 minutes late. Now I'm here and my boss is on vacation. There's a certain satisfaction at knowing that today is a wash. I don't have to make any effort. Tomorrow will be a real day. Commute, work, coffee, chAt-chIt, commute, Henry Rollins spoken word show at Berklee.

Going to Maine in the rain to see Dane

Oh yes, the weekend roadtrip and the Dane show kicked asssssss. I drove 500 miles and it was raining for pretty much all of them. We got stuck in some get-me-the-hell-away-from-work traffic on Friday afternoon but once we passed the 95/93 interchange we owned the road all the way up to Waterville, home of Colby College and not much else. We listened to Retaliation on the way, as Steve had never heard Dane's stuff before. By the time we finished the second disc we were way the fuck up north on a Lost Highway with no lights and we needed some driving music. More Than a Feeling, Living on a Prayer and Sunday Bloody Sunday did the job nicely.

Our lodging was provided by the luxurious Comfort Inn, which had a Big Buck Hunter arcade game in the back lobby. We checked in and asked what time the indoor pool closed. They said 9:00 p.m. (sweet, let's break in) and that the lights in the pool area turned off automatically (so?) and that chemicals would be released into the water (ahhh maybe not then).

We drove to Colby's miniature campus and asked a student where the gym was. He pointed and said, "Good luck finding parking." For a nanosecond we were like "Fffffuck," and then we passed the gym and saw a line of kids a quarter-mile long and then we were like "FFUUCCKK!" But the universe was benevolent. We found a space in a free lot easily. There were no parking attendants waving flashlights and directing us toward a distant horizon and charging $20 for the privilege. We walked down to the gym doors grumbling, "Fuck the line, are you kidding?" another, secret line started forming and we blended in and walked right in. It was already crowded but we went up to where we could see both the stage and the giant screen. It was hot as balls in the gym and we had bruised asses from the hard bleachers, but Dane was so funny that it didn't matter.

We were sooo close to meeting him. No, we weren't, but we could have been. Of course, we wondered aloud all night where he might be, whether he'd hang out somewhere after, whether he'd stay in a hotel or in a bus or what, and since Waterville was so small it seemed like he would just be around, but we didn't actively try to hang around and meet him. We went to Friendly's instead. The Friendly's was next to the Holiday Inn, and when we came out we noticed people hanging around outside. We thought it might be people stalking Dane, so we walked over. But it wasn't. The Holiday Inn had a lame little club in it and the people outside were all there to smoke. We cruised the nonexistent strip to see if there was any activity anywhere, but of course there wasn't, so we went back to the Comfort Inn and watched an HBO show about shocking foreign TV shows (piss power! naked old women grocery shopping for money! penis mold-making!).

Saturday we showered, dressed, and checked out, and it was raining even harder. We barrelled down 95, stopping at Denny's for some eats, until I couldn't take the lack of visibility anymore. Then we jumped onto smaller roads and meandered into New Hampshire, and I took us on a tour of UNH. Back into Mass. we stopped for ice cream and visited my parents. Exciting, yes? We got home exhausted but thrilled to still have Sunday to relax. Except I didn't relax, I drove out to Sturbridge with Mardi and spent the day shopping while Joe stayed home and did laundry all day. Then I watched Animal Planet. You have to see Jane Goodall's special on how animals talk. Have you seen it? That fucking bird! See it!

Oh yes. I am pleased to report that Joe has finally seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I know, I couldn't believe it either. And I couldn't help but feel partly responsible given that I have been in his constant company for the last seven years. But things have been righted now, so no more blame.

Welcome to Dane - The Way Life Should Be

It's been raining for a week and small towns up north are being wiped off the map from flooding.
People are pissing their neighbors off by borrowing weed-whackers and not returning them.
Global warming is going to cause us to boil in our own juices.
Women still don't make as much money as men.
The sun is going to become a red giant and swallow the Earth.
Teens are becoming addicted to drugs as we speak.
Old people are being swindled out of their life savings by con artists.
Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are separating.
A random species of South American insect has just gone extinct.
Deadbeat dads are starting new families with unsuspecting future exes.
People stuck in marathon meetings have to pee.
Unrequited love is resulting in a lot of bad poetry.
A lemon is coming off the assembly line.
Artificial sweeteners and cell phones are going to give us cancer.
Manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas.
Some people think Godfather III was the best in the trilogy.
There is nothing good on the radio.
The war in Iraq is never going to end.
People are conducting extramarital affairs in seedy motel rooms.
A favorite shirt has been shrunk in the dryer.
But I'm not worrying about any of that today, because I have a 3-day weekend.

Ay yo Red where'd you meet her? At the playground

It kills me that it’s been 20 years since I was in elementary school. I still remember going in with my mom to meet my kindergarten teacher and feeling an upwelling of wonder and surprise when the class hamster in his exercise ball bumped me in the ankle. That was in 1982. And today, I don’t know what it was, but something triggered a memory, a feeling, that shot me back to the playground for a minute, and that got me thinking about just how much recess fucking rocked.

We had two recesses, little and big. Little recess immediately followed lunch and its purpose was to hold us speed-munchers until the teachers got finished eating. After we were done (mom always made our lunches, which were usually PB&J, an orange sliced into quarters, Wheat Thins, and a Hi-C) we would leave the cafeteria and go out to a blacktop area that was bound by the kindergarten, the gym, and woods. There was nothing out there aside from some yellow lines delineating hopscotch, dodgeball and four-square. My friends and I usually hung out on the boulders that lined the woods. When we were young we’d climb them and play Jem or Inspector Gadget, and when we were older we sat around on them and wove complicated friendship bracelets with the ends safety-pinned to the knees of our jeans. If we got our hands on a red playground ball we would play Slam War. If we had a jump rope, we’d play Queen Bee. If we didn’t have anything, we’d play freeze tag or Alligator or do clapping rhymes like Miss Lucy and Miss Mary Mack.

The end of little recess was proclaimed by Mrs. Lord, Cafeteria Aide Extraordinaire. Her name suited her: she sternly yet kindly commandeered our respect, more so than the teachers, and she was LOUD. When it was over, she would bellow “LIIIIIIIIIIINE UUUUUUP!” and we would freeze for a second before taking off—racing, flailing, galloping and zig-zagging like drunken carnies—into single-file lines by grade.

Then it was time for big recess. We were marched around the school, which sat on a giant hill that led down to the fields. I’ve been back there in recent years and the hill isn’t THAT big, but it seemed like it then, and when you were at the bottom looking up the school seemed like the ivory tower in the Neverending Story, even though it was just a 1960's style one-story brick building.

Down the hill there were wooden playground structures that are probably illegal today. One of them had two large balance beams about four feet high and 20 feet apart with a tall hangman thing in the middle with ropes hanging down. You were supposed to climb up on one of the beams, have someone hand you a rope, and swing across to the other beam. What if you fell off the rope, or missed the beam, or slammed into the beam, or any body-mangling combination thereof? Back in the 80s, that was not a concern. You got hurt, you bled, you went to the nurse. Just like my parents were evidently unconcerned when they let me climb on my neighbor’s rusting, disintegrating jungle gym.

The best thing, though, was the tire tepee. The tire tepee was a pyramid shaped structure with two sides of tires you could climb up. The third side was open, with a ramp that led up to a platform and a big space underneath. It was so cool you couldn’t get near it until you were in sixth grade. You had to stay a safe distance away and practice your round-offs and front walkovers. But once you got there, it was great. It was the one place where boys and girls played together, because it was so cool everybody wanted to play on it. You always ended up playing adventure games because the boys always wanted to make gun and bomb sounds and capture you and throw you in jail. Jail was the space underneath. You’d get tossed in there and you’d have to try to escape through the tire holes, and there’d be guards you had to foil. Whoever managed to escape and climb to the top of the tepee won.

I wish I had a tire tepee now. I’d fill it with Moroccan pillows and beanbag chairs and a mini-fridge and hang lanterns and read in there. Underneath would be a big fluffy cushion with afghans and more pillows for naps and frolicking. And sometimes I’d climb to the top and declare myself the winner.

Dirtying up his soul

All the Way Mae: I got dragged to see Bob Saget last weekend. Bob Saget. Man.
Me: Bob Saget?? Who made you go to that?
Mae: I went with Steph, Jen, and Heather. It was Jen's idea. He's raunchy! He had this whole bit about fucking Kimmy Gibbler.
Me: Hahahaha. He's the anti-Danny Tanner.
Mae: He is completely against Danny Tanner. In fact, he sings a song called "Why Danny Tanner is gay." It was pretty funny and they had to put a disclaimer on his performance saying it contained adult material. He said the F word like 454646 times. I loved it.
Me: I've heard that about him, that he resents being pigeonholed as family-friendly. But nobody made you go straight from Full House to America's Funniest Home Videos, BOB.
Mae: Exactly!
Me: Imagine if, after Full House, instead of doing America's Funniest Home Videos he went out and did a bunch of skanky Cinemax movies.
Mae: That would be awesome.
Me: I think I’d have to have the box set.

Turning a Tuesday evening into a Saturday night and Sunday morning

U2 is one of those bands that I can't imagine anyone hating. They've been around forever, they have a history, and even people who claim to hate them have to admit they like at least one song.

I'm a passive U2 fan. I don't have any of their CDs except How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which was a gift from my boss. That kind of surprises me - no Rattle and Hum, no Achtung Baby, no Zooropa. I think I had The Joshua Tree on a cassette some guy made for me. It never seemed necessary to shell out the bucks - they released a ton of singles, which were all over the radio and MTV, and for whatever reason I always got the sense that they were one of those bands where the songs they released really were the only ones worth listening to.

But they've always been there, U2 has, coming out with something new to react to, something wrenching like One or something weird-ass like that video where they put tape all over the Edge's face. U2 is a comfort, a cushion of reliable good music to offset all the Good Charlottes and Sisqos of the world.

This is all leading up to saying that I finally saw them live last night. And it was awesome. They put on a BIG show, bigger than I'm used to. I don't normally go to big-ticket stadium shows with lasers and fire and shit; I prefer laid back outdoor summer shows. U2's stage had a giant oval walkway, video screens, and these lightbulb curtain things that came down and showed pictures. They played a powerful set, slowing it down and bringing it back up at just the right times, and Bono was animated and talkative and sincere. The music sounded great. They got a fantastic review in the Globe this morning. It was very, very cool. I am very, very tired.

Today is our 3-year anniversary! I'm going to pick up Joe's new wedding ring, which we got up in Maine a couple weekends ago. It's shiny, modern, white gold. His original was a plain yellow "comfort band" that we bought in Toronto. We threw it in as a complement to the yellow setting of my diamond, which I ended up re-setting in platinum before the wedding. I have a yellow wedding band too, which I've never worn and which is buried in my jewelry box somewhere. I'm holding onto it in case I ever want to switch or if I'm ever hard up for cash and need to visit a pawn shop.

I've been at work for 5 hours and 41 minutes

So here we go again, huh? The Sox made the playoffs. Yes, they should have taken the AL East. Yes, it was their own fault they had to scramble. Yes, their pitching is crappy. It should still be a good ride.

But the Pats... Sunday was painful. At Chez Long Story Short, we watched the game over fondue and Michelob Ultra. During the first two quarters we were screaming encouragement but after the half all we could do was shake our heads in resignation and reach for the remote. 2 wins, one of which by all accounts should have been a loss except that Vinatieri saved the day, 2 losses. Mediocre! I hate knowing they're no longer be the team to beat. I hate that Peyton Manning is having wet dreams thinking about February 5. I hate that Bruschi is on the sidelines looking frustrated. They still kick ass, though.

Tonight is U2 at the newly-christened Garden. I like calling it that, even if it isn't the real Garden, because at least it isn't ridiculous like some other venues. The Summer's Eve Center. The Playtex Arena. The Quizno's Coliseum.

And here's a business-speak term I keep hearing at work that needs to never be uttered again: "sweat equity." Marinate in that.