Fame.

This afternoon, I noted that traffic to this site had spiked ridiculously....more than 100 visitors just since 1 p.m. After some brief research, I discovered the cause: two local websites with links to yesterday's post about the Bates Reading Room:

1) Just Giblets:

Came across this blog post today. Got me thinking about how differently her experience would be if we had online communities on the library web site. As Web Services Manager for the Boston Public Library, its something I think we really need, but I sure hadn’t considered the direct user interaction she’s got in mind! Maybe we need to provide chat rooms too.

The BPL Web Services Manager reads my blog? Might I also note that he applied the tag "whacky people" to his post. As in, "persons who whack off?(!)"

Should I write back and assure him that, at present, I have done no such thing in that space?

2) Universal Hub, a blog site that (by its own description) tries to "capture the best writing from the hundreds of bloggers in the Boston area", then picked up the Just Giblets shout out. Which inspired reader comments about how soliciting dates in the library has a history in the restrooms, in a Larry Craig sort of way.

Oh, the tangled, tangled (world-wide) web.

Reading Room (possibilities)

I've written before in this space about the Bates Reading Room at the Boston Public Library. Probably because I'm totally in love with it. Here's a picture so you can understand why and I don't have to take up space with the visual description it warrants:

More specifically, I (who at the moment sit in the right-hand lower corner of the shot) come here because of its:

1) Proximity to work, gym, church and home.

2) Green-shaded lamps on every table.

3) Singular status as a public gathering place devoid of baristas yelling drink orders.

4) Restrictions on food, removing the temptation to snack that invariably comes when I'm online at home.

5) Free, fast wireless.

6) Hot men studying.

I've come to believe that while the soothing atmosphere is more suitable for schoolwork than most places....the Reading Room also fosters an undercurrent of scoping. I admit that when I choose a place to plug in and sit, I base this choice on who else is at my table and who else might be in my line of vision. When I'm working I spend a fair bit staring off over the computer screen, brainstorming....and a lot of other folks do the same.

So the guy I'm directly across from has a wedding band and is speed-reading a computer manual....and he's leaving right now. But the gentleman directly right has a olive skin, a six-o'clock-shadow, faded jeans and is making notes on a thick stack of papers with "NATO" in the title. Two tables up, even, he's red-haired with a white Mac book and concentrating so hard he's licking his lips.

I fantasize about picking a man up in a library, kind of like when one sits alone at a bar trying to make eye contact with the cabernet drinker two spots down.

I have no idea how this would actually work. The silence discourages conversation. There's no way to banter via computer (a la Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy's characters in Pretty in Pink, which, speaking of, how the hell did that ever work?). Most folks wear sweatpants and scarves with bed-head and are probably stressing a 20-page brief for Monday's Con Law class.

However, there's something sexy to me about intelligence and academia and those in it who might love this space as much as I do.....that I have to believe at some moment I'm going to look up and catch the eye of the man I'm looking at right now....to the left, third table, grey long-sleeved t-shirt with grey short-sleeve shirt over, blond tousled crew-cut, chin down in concentration as he types.

Once that happens, I'll just have to wing it.

And, perhaps, come back tomorrow?

Thanksgiving, II

Love (and not just of plasma televisions on sale for Black Friday) had a banner week in Boston.

Three couples I know became engaged, one each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Two of the guys are two of my closest friends and told me last week about the proposals--although only the imminent deeds, not the details.

The first announcement of acceptance came via e-mail Wednesday: "....we'll probably not make it to Thanksgiving dinner....and by the way, we're getting married!!!"

"I am...betrothed. Is it okay to announce that on facebook?" This was another woman-friend's social network status update Wednesday night.

Yesterday afternoon I got text message from the third: "She said YES! :-)"

Funny, at 35 I actually thought I had passed through the wedding season of my life....the Post-College Rush followed by the Late-20's Rush. Until this week, 2008 was definitely on track to be the Year of Friends' Babies: 5 births, 3 known pregnancies in-progress, lots of social schedules that have dramatically shifted as a result.

(Is it only single, child-free folks who count these stats so assiduously? Or is it only single, child-free folks who have the time to count?)

Nonetheless, good news for all. None of the 3 engagements were ultimately a surprise, and there was rabid giddiness all around. And thusly, 2009 is shaping up to be Wedding Central and we haven't even gotten to Christmas yet, or New Year's. (Next question: will airfares continue to stay low until ceremony dates are chosen?)

I must say, I feel like a gauntlet has been thrown down.

(Yes, we're talking to you, single girl.)

Dateline: Somerville, 11/27/08

The cool kids rock the 12th Annual Gobble Gobble Gobble 4-miler in Davis Square followed by a Starbucks espresso run...almost as fine a tradition as the holiday itself.

(Karin: 33:02. Chris: 27:02. Justin: 33:37. )

Thanks today for friends, period.....and bonus points that they get up and race , instead of sleep in, on major holidays.

Update 12/2/08: Thanks also to the "phantasm" setting on Justin's camera and his fiance Mala for not noticing it until after the fact. The resulting effect was worth the slip.

Hopefulness, thankfulness

Tuesday found me so listless at work that the following tasks were too arduous to complete: 1) entering a client's accountant name into a contact database; 2) printing labels for new account files; 3) remembering to eat lunch; or 4) phoning my parents. 

Today was different. Maybe it was the extra-bold extra-large Sumatra that doubled as breakfast. Or the third straight up-market day. Or that the office cleared out for the weekend starting at 1 p.m. Or, funny, six hours of sleep the night before. (Yes, sleep occasionally helps matters.) 

Whatever the case, not dissing the mood shift to this hopeful productivity.  I first noticed it during a particularly challenging power yoga class at lunch:  to some surprise, I executed 20-some chaturanga dandasanas without complaint or loss of stamina. That's a lot of suspended low push-ups, folks, and a surprising lot.

When I got back to work, I swept through the pile of undone schmaltz on my desk. Then I paid bills, signed up for my 2009 flexible benefits, and uploaded pictures from 2002 onto my Facebook account.  I ran down the street in my high heels to the Thanksgiving Eve church service. 

All the while, I thought about how I had Friday night free, and how I had Saturday night free, and that I should write Tim, John or A or M and see who wanted to go "out" out.....like strap on the knee boots and go dancing-with-naughty-beverages-"out" and see what happens. I thought, maybe I should write that long, friendly note to the CFO that has been on the brain since October 21....using the magnanimity of the holiday to finally explain why I never wrote him back when he asked. 

Hopeful. Hmm.  Slogan and results of the Obama election aside, I can't think of the last time hope was my prevailing emotion. And I can't tell you, or even myself, why. But I'll take it. Whether or not I run with it.....will have to get back to you there....

Platitudes (or, thanks for good genes)

Indeed, give thanks. These fine individuals in colorful 1970's attire are four primary reasons you're reading this blog entry:

Grandpa, writer.....Grandma, writer....Mother, writer.....Father, writer.

For many years they all wrote, together, while owning my hometown newspaper.....for which they hired me as an eighth-grader to do high school football summaries. (For the full scoop, ask me about a certain master's thesis....)

My parents sold the newspaper last Christmas--after being in business since 1979--and moved to a new town in central Minnesota. For Mom, this meant giving up the personal column and editorial that were her domain for a good share of those years. Now her wordsmithing manifests in her e-mails, which invariaby start with the phrase, "just a quick note tonight!" and last for several thousand words.

Mom's definitely missed writing for the masses. (I know, I know. I've tried to talk her into blogging....) Which is why I'm glad to see that she put together a Thanksgiving piece and submitted it to her local newspaper. She sent me a copy, some excerpted below. Mom's an advice-giver....unabashed in believing that it isn't that hard to make yoursef a better person. Straightforward, plainly said, hopeful.

Please enjoy the respite from the sarcasm and self-pity usually explored in this space. (And the picture, circa 1979. Mom loves her hair and sunglasses in this shot, as do I. )

"Being a thankful person is really very good for us in the long run and can contribute to better heath and a sense of well-being as we go about our business day after day...."

"Being thankful is really a matter of attitude, I think. Being thankful is not for the self-centered, the ones who think the world owes them everything..."

"Just by saying aloud or thinking a 'thank you' for this or that as we go through our days wil bring us a measure of peace not known when we find ourselves looking for the worst in people we meet throughout the day, when we find ourselves expecting more from people that they can or are willing to give...."

"Being thankful relaxes us, smooths out the furrow on our brows - even makes our cheek muscles relax , which makes our necks feel better, which can't help making us feel happier about life in general, our own life in particular..."

"In these unsettling, worrisome times, finding ways to give thanks can help see us through until things are better."

Holiday

Fact 1: My office was closed today.

Fact 2: The Dow Jones rose 400 points.

Maybe I should stay home tomorrow, also...?

It was a kooky fluke. At 9:05 this morning I entered the Hancock tower lobby with coffee in hand to find about 500 men and women in dark suits and topcoats, talking on cell phones. (Oh, to have taken a picture of such monochromacity....) Elevator doors stood open and unlit and unmoving. Burly, suited security was everywhere.

It's never fun to see that many people standing outside an office building, as it usually means a fire is in progress. Nonetheless, within a few minutes, our operations manager called me as part of a phone tree: a manhole explosion earlier in the morning, 5 blocks down, cut off electricity to 1,000 nearby buildings. It might come back on at 10:30, it might not. So he told me to go home.

An unexpected day off from work feels ever so much cooler than a Saturday, doesn't it? That unfetteredness of 8 empty hours to be filled or not filled. No one needing anything.

I filled about half of those hours with leftover weekend projects such as changing the cat litter. But first, I drank my coffee, read the Times, and went home and back to bed. Bliss.

A whiner's recession diary....

On a night when I discovered that my bank charges $39 per transaction on an overdrawn checking account that I didn't know was overdrawn and therefore kept debiting over last weekend and, as a result, $39 times 9 is a lot of $$$ I already didn't have which also means it would be wicked foolish to spend more $$$ on a trip to New York in December even though I haven't seen Joshua since May 23 and really really really wanted to see Peter Saarsgaard on Broadway, it just salted the wound that the girl cat peed on the bedroom floor again this afternoon and did not apologize and in addition, I have determined everyone I know is married or getting married or with child with the exception of myself and when I called all members of my immediate family I got 3 answering machines, which means it didn't help that my Mazda's fender appears to indeed be sliding down on the bolts the body shop put in there last week which means they are probably rusting off and I have to call the shop again tomorrow and that, on top of that, the EZPass people had no pity when I was half asleep at 6:30 a.m. on October 18 and really didn't mean to follow Eric's car through the wrong lane on the New Hampshire tolls and now want to charge me an extra $25 bucks on top of that $1 toll I owe them, which reminds me how I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet and that my company has axed year-end bonuses AND the fancy Christmas party this year because the Dow Jones keeps falling below 8,000 and the Asian markets are already down 1.5% for the day.....

I try to tell myself I have absoutely nothing to complain about.

Birthday Shout-Out: JBD

On the coldest day of the fall thus far, I enjoy recalling the steamiest October day of 2007.....85 degrees is just what you want for running a 13-mile race, consisting entirely of hills, and for which you are unprepared.

Saturday celebrated 30 candles for Justin, who was equally unprepared, yet still legged out that sweaty Applefest Half-Marathon alongside me in Hollis, NH. It was the fifth race we did together in as many years. It is with some irony that today he was supposed to run the Philadelphia Marathon to celebrate his milestone birthday. Yet Justin did what he does best: he got too busy and had to postpone.

See, Justin is my friend who does it all. Works full time in corporate sales. Starts a theatre company and acts in many others. Finds a plaid wool coat with professor patches on the elbows, for almost no price, at a secondhand store and makes it look good. Has a tastefully decorated apartment and a stunning, talented girlfriend to share it with. Cooks turkeys. Makes homemade pie crusts. Buys an accordion on eBay and teaches himself to play it. Sings in musical revues with friends like me. Runs road races with friends like me.

And last March, he drove up from where he now lives in New Jersey simply to take me out for a drink and celebrate my milestone birthday with me.

Even though these birthday wishes are tardy, my love for Justin is sincere. Since I always used to think he was the male version of me.....perhaps he'll understand that I was just too busy to be on time today.

Cheers!

Rhapsodic conceit

When I play Johannes Brahms I think of one of my musician friends whom, not long ago, had several of us over to his apartment after we had already shared several bottles of wine. We drank a few more as he queued up the Ravel ballet Daphnis et Chloé, instructing us to listen to this "most beautiful piece." We hadn't listened a few moments before he threw his arms wide and called out to the ceiling, as if to dare those assembled, "I wish to make love!" He leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes and began conducting his arms widely, swooping....making love, perhaps, to the air around him.

Ravel and Brahms are of different eras, but I can't think of a secular Brahms piece, either, that does not make me want to make love. I'm listening right now to the intermezzo #1 of Opus 119 in B minor...which starts delicately, with a push/pull of tension and suspension. Then the calm gives way to a hugely sweeping arpeggio in the left hand that grinds against chromatic suspensions in the right, driving upward. The flowing returns and builds through crescendo to silence. And repeats itself.

Brahms achieves this in his piano pieces: he simulates the human condition...an intermezzo as love-making, a rhapsody more like an argument. Always emotionally saturated. Sometimes it's as if he follows a thought through a brain and out through lips, where sometimes it catches an ear and builds to something grand, sometimes dissipates.

Thursday night I worked this intermezzo on the church piano for several hours. Listen to it. A dangerous piece to do alone on a Steinway, in a cavernous space with only a lamp for light, late on a cold evening. Heading home with all that melancholy shut in my chest...playing the piece didn't dissipate, rather re-initiated, a longing for something beautiful of my own.

Friends who are Boys: The Man. In Love.

Last night was cold. And, as you well know, my car is in working order. So I gave a FwaB a ride home from church choir.

The Man and I are damn fine friends, but since he "doesn't read blogs," I'll just call him The Man. (He'd be pleased at this, I think.) He's from a small town in the Midwest, like me. He's short, like me. He goes to the Cottonwood Cafe for Sam Seasonals with me and the other choir boys on Wednesdays.

For most of last year, he was single and an unlikely cried-on shoulder. We once stopped on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston and dissected online dating histories for an hour. Another time it was Tremont and Boylston, for two hours, and we got into the nasty, dirty, haunted situations of our pasts that few others had ever heard. A third.....we were drunk at Last Drop on Mass Ave....at 2 a.m.....during a blizzard.

Memorably, one Wednesday night after a Lenten service, I was so aggrieved at a thoughtless boy I couldn't make myself get off the pew and go on with my life. The Man, no-nonsense, gave it to me.

"OK. If he's like this to you, you obviously know he is not the one. Obviously. That should make your decision easier."

In any case, The Man met a woman when he least expected it and now has a girlfriend. The Man is love with his girlfriend. In LOVE. He's in love 150 percent, without a molecule of uncertainty. Contrary to how I often feel about gushing romantics and their SOs, I do enjoy watching him talk about her. Last night in my car, he talked a lot about her.

"She's it, man," he proclaimed, shaking his head as if he, too, can't believe it. Exhaled, turned and looked me in the eye, proclaimed again:

"She is IT."

If they are not together forever, I don't know who will be.

Well, I wrote about The Man because of something he said right before he escaped my car. Since we have talked so much together about being single, I think he feels pity for my continued singleness. To his credit, he still lets me talk about it....and then tries to make me feel better :

"You know, when it does happen, you just can't believe that you were ever interested in anyone else. It's like, 'what was I doing?!'

"I know sometimes it feels like you're waiting a long time, but maybe there is a reason that you aren't meeting anyone else. Because you just haven't met that person. And you aren't dating others because you're supposed to be available when you DO meet the person you're supposed to be with."

The Man is in love. I've got to believe he knows what he's talking about.

You know there is a God when....

....bolting the fender back on the car took only one half-day and $40.

Thanks New England Auto Body. The saga of the Mazda 626 vs. the 18-wheeler can now be closed with what a Southie neighbor screamed (yes, screamed) for the neighborhood to hear as he stepped into his own car earlier this morning:

"It is so f#$%ing cold today! Damn!"*

*(IMHO: It's cold. But not f#$%ing cold. This is f#$%ing cold.)

Facebook REALLY wants me to....

....do, well, any number of things.

The display ads on the side of this website rotate with every click, so there are lots of opportunities to (and the links are live, folks):

a) cleanse my colon,
b) try Acai Berry Body Cleanse and lose 45 pounds,
c) attend the University of Phoenix,
c) participate in asthma research studies and
d) become a real estate millionaire.

That's really generous of you, Facebook!

But most ads are for dating websites.

"How many could there possibly be?" you certainly ask. I can certainly answer. Yesterday I barrage-clicked my Facebook profile for a representative selection:

Dating for Thirty Plus.....JDate.com....VIP Singles....Professional VIP Singles... Quality Professional Singles....Christian Men.....Interracial Dating.....Black Singles....Running Singles.....Elite Singles......Elite Mature Singles......Big and Beautiful Singles....

My favorite, though, is Catch Him & Keep Him, which promises that....

.... You’re About To Learn The Secrets Most Women Will Never Know Of Creating Attraction So Intense That Even The Most ‘Commitment-Phobic’ Man Will Suddenly Crave All Your Time And Attention... Here’s How To Use The Power Of Attraction With A Man To Avoid Ever Having To Fall For A Great Guy - Then Have Him Give You Some Excuse Like “I’m Not Ready” Once You’re Already Close & Physical.....

Well what a relief! I thought I was never going to figure that part out.

Dateline: Boston, 11/17/08

It was the best of times....
.......2:01 p.m., Brighton: 2 of my favorite people in the world add a 3rd.

A(nne) & C(hris) & B(eautiful Baby Beatrix)

It was the worst of times.....
......2:01 p.m., corner of East 1st and Dorchester Streets, Southie: fender rage.

The 1991 Mazda 626 with no name....rear end laid to waste by a tractor-trailer, with neither name nor conscience.....who took issue with how closely it was, legally, parked next to the warehouse driveway.

I found out when a random trucker with an Arkansas area code called multiple times after finding my number. (I had written it on a courtesy sign, left on the front dash from parking in the church lot Sunday.) He had been parked waiting to unload and saw it. He had no idea who did the sloppy back-up job, but wanted to make sure I knew it wasn't him.

The damage is all cosmetic. The body shop(s) are half a block away. The story will certainly get longer and more interesting.

As will Baby Beatrix.....praise God.

It's awful to say, but...

....I have a question for the fellow unattached folk of this readership.

When an acquaintance who you never imagined dating anyone starts dating someone, are you consumed with incredulity and self-doubt?

Even if you wish no ill-will on this acquaintance and don't covet the someone?

Do you think: "Is it possible this acquaintance can find someone to be with and I cannot?"

Excuse me whilst I retire to the mirror for my daily "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone-it, people like me!"

Alone

So prescient that the theme of today's This American Life broadcast was "Home Alone."

After a week of sociable evenings, I am proud to report that today the only people I spoke with were:

a) The woman who made my iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on West Broadway at 2 p.m.

b) The woman at the liquor store who rang up my bottle of wine at 10 p.m.

A total of 18 words have left my mouth. (Except for singing along to Sufjan Stevens when "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" came on the iPod rotation.)

This day wasn't meant to be as such....I had an alarm set to attend yoga at the gym, to follow it with a 6-mile run, to follow it with a trip to the Institute of Contemporary Art (for the first time!) and finally hit up a play in Central Square in the evening.

Instead I slept through the alarm.....then turned up the radio for the Saturday WBUR news shows and....turned over and snoozed with the cats until after 1 p.m. Outside it was gusty, muggy, spitting rain. My apartment has had that look of needing a deep cleaning for, oh, several months. The kind where drawers get emptied and sorted, bills from 2003 get purged, and the Christmas cards from 2007 are taken down off the mantle.

So I stayed in and did so, and just finished.

Sometimes this kind of day makes me feel kind of lame. Let's be honest. If I had someone I wanted to be with who wanted to be with me.....I'd want them to be with me in my bed....rather than me alone, under it, scrubbing dried cat litter from the hardwood.

But when I do do the day by myself, I'm reminded of the luxury of freedom to make that choice.

And for at least today, am comfortable with it. Except that I skipped a training run. Which I'm going to complete first thing tomorrow morning.

Hotness update

Last week, one of my guy friends told me that I was scoring well among his Facebook acquaintances on the "Compare Your Friends" application. As you recall, I wrote about it in this space. Then I wrote him to tell him so, and he replied thusly:

"Well in my somewhat successful manner of wanting people to hear my voice I was reading over the phone last night to my friend ...your blog. She calls you out as Carrie Bradshaw, but more brilliant. Here's to hoping you get your Mr. Big."

(Full disclosure: I took a Facebook quiz 6 months ago titled "What Sex and the City Character are You? Questions like: what stereotypical guy would you fall for? ever cheated on anyone? the best sex involves....? You'll never guess who I was....

"Carrie: You're quirky, witty, and every guy's perfect first date." )

Nonetheless, here's today's update from him, my current most-generous cheerleader--my former roommate in Dorchester who once let me cry on his shoulder, literally, when I was heartbroken--Tim:

"Hottest single friends update: This week you were voted "Hottest" 10 out of 11 times. Keep up the good work. Friends are lusting."

In case you were wondering, it is still the same photo of Henry and me doing all the work here.

Meanwhile, in case you also wondered if I plan to capitalize on Tim's psychological largesse, I have not offered him a commission for promoting both my writing and my social life. I have gone so far as to ask why we don't hang out more. Does that count as initiative?

What IS it?!

I swear. On Sunday night I made it my quest (evidently, as you can read here) to get to bed by midnight every night this week. The calendar allowed for such an indulgence of rest.

As of Thursday, here's how I've been spending each evening, generally in this order:

1) Whatever I may be doing otherwise with my evening, I think of an awesome blog topic. 

(Tonight, it was about my 30-something girlfriends who are each at different places in their lives and how cool it is that we can be 30-somethings and be so many different things....homeowners, Peace Corps directors in Nicaragua, new mothers, writing students, opera singers, etc.)

2) Actually compose the entry in my head because the topic is so cool. Don't take notes, because the prose is so kick-ass I'll certainly not forget it in the order I imagine it.

3) Continue on with my evening of singing, or running, or downing champagne cocktails at Eastern Standard under the eye of yet another flirtatious bartender. (Who overtly reined in his act when a FWaB joined me for the oyster course. For fun, let's pretend he was disappointed. Tuesday night was, thankfully, that kind of fun.)

4) Get home between at 11 p.m. and swear to God above I will sit down and write the blog and indeed curl up with the cats by 12 bells.  Think this has to be easy, because the entry is all written! (See #2.)  And the tongue has been lubricated by a pint of oatmeal stout and/or not one, but two champagne cocktails. (See #3.)

5) Go online and start reading the Times. Download today's podcasts from Talk of the Nation. Check my Facebook account. Soon realize it is 12:20 a.m. and I haven't yet visited the blog. Much less written anything. Or gone to sleep. Brood a bit.

6) Mutter to self about how silly it is again to be sitting here again, so late. Go to the cupboard for the GoLean and start pulling handfuls out of the box. Go back to the cupboard and top it off with 5 handfuls of raisins.  Brood a bit more. Flip through the new Harper's magazine. Realize that all that cereal and sweet fruit makes me feel kind of nauseated. Simultaneously remember that I've also completely blown the good-eating schedule I (also) signed off on Sunday night.

7) Finally at 12:55 a.m., complete a entry about how tomorrow, I'll be better about going to get to sleep on time, after (of course) writing a blog entry on a topic that is not a list of the silly things I did tonight instead of going to sleep on time.

So I guess that means I'll be writing about the ladies tomorrow, eh? 

Forever and ever, Amen.

BBC 1: Dancing on Broadway

The first in a series of occasional vignettes on why--despite thousands of empty styrofoam coffee cups blowing around its boulevards at any given time--Boston can be an OK place to hang out.....Bodacious Big City (BBC).

Tonight, I walked home from church choir. As I crossed the Jimmy Kelly Bridge into Southie, my iPod randomly selected the most bodacious walking accompaniment of all time: "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'".

From Michael Jackson's Thriller. Ma ma se ma ma sa ma ma coo sa? Anyone?

It is not fair just how much more I like this song than any other song on earth. It comes on, I dance. Thirty-eight degrees and 9:38 p.m., and I danced the full mile up West Broadway from Dorchester Ave to Dorchester Street. Complete with cheerleading arms, step aerobics arms, white-girl-trying-to-be-funky arms, yoga prayer hands, backwards strides.

Southie already has a reputation as an anything-goes place. (Home to Whitey Bulger and all.) It is now also a place where a 35-year-old woman in tennis shoes and wool coat can dance up the main drag......pass idling taxis, cars, open windows and pedestrians on their cell phones....and no one looks. They just walk by and let her dance.

Happiness.

Milestones and movings on

Got so caught up in all the election hoopla last week that two significant dates skipped my attention:

1) 11/4/08: The half-birthday of this esteemed blog....

....birthed into consciousness on a Sunday afternoon by the match.com attentions of a 73-year old gardener from New Hampshire. (I also got 9 reader comments to that post....a record....)

Here's the link for those of you who want to begin at the beginning of this yet-fruitless quest for what seems the impossible:

Sanity +
Boyfriend +
10 lbs of
Weightloss +
Car with Fully Inflated Tires At All Times +
Understanding of Why the Members of the Male Gender (in General) have a Difficult Time Being as Straightforward as They Should. (Except for Bush Republicans, who seem to err in the opposite direction.)

Onward and....well, onward.

2) 10/31/08: The elapsing of the match.com membership

....and I didn't even realize it until a couple days ago, when their marketing department began harassing me with e-mails about my magic someone, evidently waiting for me behind their magic locked door of profiles....

Cynical much, you might say?

Not really. Just not my vogue at the moment. Trying to figure out what IS my vogue.

Working on it today, actually....in part by wearing my black cocktail dress and knee boots to work, going for a short haircut over lunch, and making a second attempt at Opus Affair: a networking group, found on Facebook, featuring monthly get-togethers of "cocktails for young professionals interested in the Fine Arts in Boston." This would be the opera singers, mostly, but also some theaterites and semi-pro instrumentalists.

It so happens that 10 or so folks I already know also subscribe to the series. But last month, you may remember, none of them made it to the cocktail hour, thus producing my abortive, solo attempt at socializing in a group of strangers, even after gulping down a pretty decent cosmopolitan. Which in turn led to an early exit, long discussion with friend M, and the realization that I was Done with the CFO.

Oy vay...happy memories.

Tonight the group gathers at Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square. Any brassierie that caters to the Fenway Park crowd while featuring oysters and red leather banquettes is alright with me. And a couple of acquaintances have promised to be present this time, as to leave me a tad less stranded.

Here's a picture of the new haircut.

And black leather boots, give me courage!

35 red x-marks

Everything I've learned about organization, I learned from the 1980 movie Nine to Five.

You know, the film where the three ladies from Consolidated take down their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman, natch!)....in part by harnessing him to a garage door opener in his bedroom until the invoices from Ajax warehouse arrive in the mail. (Four to six weeks, this takes back in 1980s office land.)

For dramatic purposes, Violet, DoraLee and Judy (l-to-r, above) keep track of how long they must incarcerate the odious Mr. Hart. So they create a wall-sized flip-chart calendar. During several musical montages, they mark off each day with a red "X", interspersed with various scenes of Consolidated's ever-improving atmosphere.....flowers placed on desks, daycare centers opening, punch-clock eliminated, company alcoholics going sober, orange paint going up in the locker room.

It seemed to work. In the end, Violet takes over the company and Mr. Hart gets sent to the jungles of Brazil, never to be heard from again.

I thought of that last night as I created the same for myself....to mark off each of the 35 days until marathon training begins on December 15. A calendar showing: what days I'm going to go to the gym, so I don't slack off. What exactly I'm going to eat each day, including a multivitamin. What time I'm going to make myself go to sleep (i.e., pre-midnight), no matter what juicy gossip is linked to politico.com or how much I want to play Scramble on Facebook.

After last week's string of 3 a.m. nod-offs and Reese Pieces binges (two), it was time to tame my inner Mr. Hart.

Faithful readers, I know this isn't as sexy as anonymous Craigslist chatting with casual dates. But there is an old trope about how it is easier to go on vacation when your house is in order. My house has been out of order for some time.

The Weekender

A week of mixed blessings ... my candidate won the presidency ... and the market went down.

And I still didn't get any sleep worth mentioning.

So what's a girl to do on a Friday night?

First: Drink with M at a swanky South End trendspot for several hours. Preferably Grey Goose martinis. Preferably while wearing a skirt and strappy brown heels and sitting at the bar with my legs crossed. Discuss men. Try not to be cranky about it. Find out if the combination of all the above produces something worth talking about tomorrow.

Second: Say goodnight to M and take a cab to Southie.

Third: Imitate Henry for 12 or 15 hours ... except for the part about wearing zoo-themed footy pajamas.

(Yes... the neph-ploitation continues. Sorry. He is dear.)

I'll let you know how I make out.

Affirmation

My old-school Dorchester roommate, Tim, sent me this message on Facebook earlier today, regarding my standing on that particular social networking site:

"I am just writing in to let you know that you continually show up as one of my 'Hottest Single Friends' based on statistics in my 'Compare Your Friend' application. You are always in the top 5."

Maybe the lesson here is that I should be scanning Tim's friend list a little more closely.

Update, 2:32 p.m. So I was ruminating over lunch. My current Facebook profile picture, the main criteria in this case, is.....me holding the nephew.

So what does this say about my hotness?

My ability to look hot while simultaneously maternal? (See past entry on my supposed fertility.) Am I only hot because Henry is looking sly and fingering an imaginary cravat? Does it appear I am exploiting my nephew's image for my personal hot quotient, kind of like any man who walks a cute dog through a park?

Perhaps I should see how the match.com o'sphere reacts to the same.....

Endless possibilities.

Remainders: Obama '08 Post-Mortem

What I'll miss most: The blogs of Ben Smith-D and Jonathan Martin-R of politico.com, which caused 64 straight days of sleep deprivation.

What I'll miss least: Sarah Palin's accent.

Second-least?: sleep deprivation.

Best reason to have volunteered for the Obama campaign: Duh.

Second-best reason to have volunteered for the Obama campaign: having a gaggle of tired, crazy neighbors to hug when Ohio was called at 9:28 p.m. Mike, Pat, Chris, Mary Alice, Meghan, Bev, Nadine. Black, white, young, old.

Most stunned and in tears at 11:04 p.m.

Best place for results-party beer: The Seapoint on East 8th Street, Southie

Best results-party drink combination: 3 pints of Smithwicks and a shot of Jack Daniels to celebrate Florida going blue.

Best overheard comment from fellow volunteer while watching results (sometime during the second round of beverage): "Look at those f***ing margins! Look at those f***ing margins!"

Number of straight, single men met while campaigning the last 2 months: 0

Number of straight, single men under the age of 65 at the post-voting party (with all teeth present): 0

So did politics save my dating life? Anyone care to comment?

(Although I now have an extensive bank of of David Brooks quotations....maybe I could attract some centrist Republicans... )

What I'm going to do now: Date? What's a date? Perhaps it's time to remember.

The reason, tonight, it's difficult to go to sleep....

The new president-elect. Acceptance speech. Chicago. 11/05/08.  Midnight.

Dateline: Boston, 11/4/08

South Station, Downtown Boston, 9:14 a.m.

Late nights, early mornings (cont.)

Today, 6:00 a.m.:

Biked to the gym. Ran 3 miles through the Back Bay with a 12 other women from the gym. Kept up with the fastest one and finished a minute ahead of everyone. Proved lack of arm strength during subsequent strong-arm power yoga class for 45 minutes. Picked up a very tall coffee and hit the office.

Then spent the rest of the workday propping open proverbial eyelids. Wow. This is some tired like I haven't known since pulling journalistic all-double-nighters back at the Pipestone County Star. And that was 10 years ago.

(Guess I failed to mention that I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night. Ugh.)

Tomorrow, 6:30 a.m.:

Going to try and put my mouth where my heart is and spend the day campaigning for the candidate who will-not-be-named because you know who he is. My Southie gang is doing what's called "visibility" during rush hour at (i.e., obnoxious sign-waving) at South Station, the major transit center feeding Boston's Financial District. Later, after doing my real job for awhile, I'll go back and be one of those phone-banking types. Then hopefully tomorrow night will find some folks with a television who want to drink beer and watch returns.

Long day ahead.

It's good this thing will be over soon. Not just for the tension and oversaturation and perpetual fatigue, but because it's just ugly.

Leaving the office tonight, I stepped into my manager's office. I had already cleared this half day-off tomorrow for election stuff, which he approved last week without comment. He is one of the most affable and practical people in my life. We've worked together for 5 years and in that time, had maybe 3 unpleasant exchanges.

Tonight was number 4. Started when, as I reminded him I'd be in late tomorrow, he quipped:

"Yeah, working hard to see Obama lose?"

I wasn't about to back off and sniped back. He returned fire, and we both started yelling. Fifteen long minutes later he walked to the elevator, calling over his shoulder:

"I'll see you Wednesday, after you've been crying all Tuesday night. You're going to be so disappointed."

Sorry man, I was disappointed tonight. Why this inability to just have a civil discussion?

That's what I get, I guess, for trying to be a Democrat in finance.

Here's to a hopeful (and more well-rested) Tuesday.

Insomnia, Part XXI

I'm going to do something I vowed on my blog bible never to do: write a post about how I can't manage to write a post.

Seriously. I started an entry 8 hours ago about a conversation with my new co-worker: Chris, a 25-year-old platitudinous sales rep. Who, out of nowhere yesterday, started giving me a hard time for using "big words" when talking about Schwab custody accounts....like "nebulous." How I like the guy and how it was funny the first time. And then when an hour later he called me out for using "quintessential." I was convinced that the Republican presidential ticket's habit of mocking the "educated elite" had permeated the annals of finance.

Truly, I think Chris was just trying to make a connection, share some levity. (Oy vay, big word.) I should probably work on my sense of humor.

But it's a symptom of my insomnia of late. Like 21 days of late. I'm just tired, and therefore the brain is tired.....which means writing good blog entries is more difficult. Being witty during co-worker bonding moments is worse. Sleeping a good night's sleep is the hardest. Which explains why I've got the laptop out at 1:57 a.m. when I have to get up in 5 hours and drive to the Cape with Claudia.

The good news is, I'm driving out with Claudia for good reason; she has a house in Truro on a bluff overlooking Cape Cod Bay. She needs to do some clean-up work on her property. I'm looking to help her, and I'm looking to walk on the beach, in hopes that the sea air gets me back on a sleep schedule. And keeps me from thinking I should, instead, be in Boston or New Hampshire with the Southie gang, getting out the vote.

To assuage any guilt (and use one last big word) for skipping town on election weekend....and to not ignore yesterday's holiday, I present to you.....Dracula, exercising his civic duty: Trick or Vote.

And finishing now allows me to hit the hay. Or try to.