Via make_you_laugh, who posts about bizarre happenings in the Boston area.

At MIT they have this thing called the "Baker House Piano Drop". Somehow every year they manage to find an old piano, and drop it from the dorm roof. I am not kidding. 6pm today, Thu Apr 26. Preceded by a BBQ. Baker House dorm at MIT, Cambridge. Use the MIT map to find the dorm at http://web.mit.edu.

And I WOULD have to have heard about it just today. Booked. Hmmm... maybe I can rearrange my schedule. Anyone want to do something embarassingly geeky with me? andtruth? Bueller? Anyone?

http://www.bostoncomiccon.com/

JOURNEY TO 2030
The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is releasing the draft of JOURNEY TO 2030, the MPO’s 25-year transportation plan for its 101-municipality area in eastern Massachusetts, for public review. Members of the public area invited to comment period that begins Monday, February 26, 2007, and ends Tuesday March 27, 2007.

The MPO will host the following open house and workshops to provide an opportunity for the public to learn more about, and comment on, the draft JOURNEY TO 2030.

BOSTON

Two sessions on Tuesday, March 6
12:00pm to 2:00pm and 5:00pm to 7:00pm
State Transportation Building
Suite 2150, 10 Park Plaza Boston

Reached by the Silver Line-New EnglandMedical Center (NEMC) Station;Orange Line-NEMC or Chinatown Station;Green Line-Boylston or Arlington Station;Or MBTA bus Routes #43 and #55

DEDHAM

Monday, March 12
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Dedham Public Library
43 Church Street, Dedham

Reached by Orange Line-Forest Hills Station;Transfer to MBTA bus Route #34e.

For more information, or to request special accommodation, such as an interpreter, please contact the Boston Region MPO at:
Voice: (617) 973-7100
TTY: (617) 973-7089
Fax: (617) 973-8855
Email: Maureen Kelly at mkelly@bostonmpo.org

Robbins Library News
ALICE HOFFMAN Thu Mar 1 2007 at 7:30 PM
Alice Hoffman will be the featured speaker at the Robbins Library Author program on Thursday, March 1st at 7:30 PM in the Community Room. Hoffman's latest book, "Skylight Confessions", creates a multigenerational melodrama of romance and tragedy in a gothic fairy tale of doomed passion and guilt. A prolific author of twenty-five books, Hoffman is most remembered for the novels "Here on Earth" which was an Oprah book Club selection in 1998 and "Practical Magic" which was made into a feature film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Her book will be available for purchase and autographing. The program is free of charge and open to the public.
http://www.robbinslibrary.org/

If you can go, let me know how it was!

So, after living in Boston for seven years, I finally made it to Somerville's ArtBeat, this big street festival arts thing they do every summer. It was fun and funky. It was hot as hell. I rode my bike from Arlington to Cambridge around midday, creating a nice breeze as I went, did some errands around Harvard Square, and then headed over to technogoddesss's house. The walk from her house to Davis Square is not unsubstantial, but it's too close to drive, especially when you factor in (a) the environmental impact (b) the waste of gas and money and (c) the pain in the ass it would have been to find parking.

So I found myself in this bizarre conundrum: happy to have a sweetheart to walk to ArtBeat with, but regretting having to drag my body through the hot, humid air instead of coasting along nicely on my bicycle. It put me in mind of something a friend of mine mentioned in a recent post about accepting limitations and boundaries as a means to achieving prosperity. Or, as they might say in one of the 12-step fellowships, accepting life on life's terms. I've become aware of one of the ways I haven't been accepting life on life's terms in terms of my relationship with technogoddesss. It's a fairly easy mistake to make, a trap that lots of couples fall into. Instead of appreciating her for who she is and reveling in all the reasons I fell in love with her to begin with, I began to notice small tics and and annoying habits. Psychologists call this process "habituation." Another well-known writer calls it the "magical magnifying mind." And what I've realized is that picking at her for her faults is not going to help matters any. It's only fair; she doesn't pick at me for mine. What'll keep the relationship healthy is appreciating the good things about her and accepting that she's not perfect. If she manages to love me in spite of my many imperfections, I think I can do the same.

*edit: expanded information about ArtBeat below*

There were a ton of performances going on for ArtBeat. They set up about four or five different performance spaces throughout Davis Square. The main stage was at Seven Hills Park, the little patch of grass behind the Davis Square T Stop that I've ridden by on the bike path many times -- so named because of the sculptures representing each of the seven hills in Somerville. Then there was a sort of roped-off area next to the Someday Cafe, which recently lost its lease. technogoddesss isn't sorry to see the Someday go, since she has apparently witnessed lots of heroine being bought and sold in that establishment. I'd always just thought of it as a kind of funky coffeeshop, but I do have to say that I have difficulty rallying up enough righteous anger to sign a petition to get the landlord to let them stay there. I just hope they don't put in a Walgreen's— or worse yet, a Gap. I didn't really see performances at either of those spaces, although I did notice that the Subversive Choppers Urban League (SCUL) were displaying a rather bizarre collection of bicycles at the area over by the Someday.

Two performances that I absolutely didn't want to miss: The Boston Typewriter Orchestra, which performed at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway, a tiny little basement theater that was actually the location of my last gig as a theater techie (some friends of mine run Another Country Productions). By the time we got there, the place was absolutely packed—partly due to the act itself, I'm sure, but partly due to the fact that Jimmy Tingle's is AIR CONDITIONED!

In spite of the total packed-ness of the theater, I somehow managed to score a front-row seat and stayed for about one and a half "numbers." Here's the deal with the Boston Typewriter Orchestra: young guys with a sense of rhythm dress up in white shirts and ties and sit down with manual typewriters, and make a kind of music with the typewriters. Sometimes they answer phones and say funny things. It was mildy amusing, especially the bit where they kept transferring the complaint back and forth between two phones. But for someone who's seen STOMP! performed, it wasn't the most exciting thing on the planet. Sure, it was neat to see some complex rhythms being tapped out by six or seven guys with typewriters. But the execution was far from perfect. The air conditioning was nice, though.

I appreciated DJ Joey Daytona's remix of a Gertrude Stein poem a lot more. The setting was a bit bizarre—midafternoon on a wicked hot Saturday in July—and therefore not very conducive to dancing, but the content itself was definitely appropritate for ArtBeat's theme this year (reCycle/reNew). Plus, Gertrude Stein is really only bearable when set to phat beats and whipped up and down on the one's and two's a few times. That girl had one sweet, sweet gig, writing stuff no one could understand and therefore no one could critique. Plus, she had Alice B. Toklas to keep house for her.

technogoddesss and I met up with Red, a friend of hers whom I really enjoy, and we walked around seeing the sights with him for a bit. Eventually, we ended up at the booth for the Somerville Garden Club, talking with this very nice English woman named Janet. I told her about the garden I made back in Brookline, how I'd dug up the ground in that strip of sidewalk in front of the house and made a sort of spiral pattern with the earth before planting the seeds. "Are you an artist?" she asked.

And I paused, took a breath, thinking how to answer that question.

"Oh, you are," she answered.

"She's artsy," said technogoddesss, but I knew that wasn't the right answer. That demeans what I do. Yes, I suppose is the answer. Even though it's not what I do for a living. A trip through The Artist's Way taught me that much. And 22 years' worth of journals, and a career that took a right turn from programming into design taught me that much as well, I suppose.

It's good to get that kind of validation from time to time. When I take my own creativity more seriously, I think it allows me more compassion for others' creative processes. Like poor cheqyr, whose studio was trashed during the flooding in D.C. recently. So sorry, cheqyr!

So, last weekend I "led" a little hike up around Mount Misery in Lincoln, Massachusetts for the UU30Somethings group at First Parish Cambridge. I put the word "led" in quotes because the it was probably the easiest event I've ever organized. It consisted of:

1) Choosing a time and place to meet.
2) Posting the time and place on the listserve
3) Showing up (almost) on time.
5) Profit!

Unbeknownst to me when I chose the date, that evening was the big gala goodbye celebration dinner for our parish minister, who's been at the church for like seventy bazillion years. Even though he's an old white man from Iowa, he's really very nice. He always shakes my hand after service and says that he's so happy that I'm here, and when I compliment him on his sermons (which have been known to be dry and academic at times), he says things like "that really means a lot to me." But despite his apparent sincerity, I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn't actually know who I am. So while I considered attending his gala dinner, in the long run I didn't.

At least five other 30Somethings decided they could do both the nature hike, which ended at 3PM, and the dinner, which started at 6 or 7. So we had a pretty decent turnout.

I should take a moment to briefly comment about the UU30Somethings at First Parish. Overall, these are a great group of people. They're very welcoming, intelligent, well-educated, and fun folks, with great senses of humor, and they throw great parties. When technogoddesss first introduced me to them back in 2004, I was badly in need of such a fun-loving crowd. Over the last year and a half, though, I have at times felt alienated from them; technogoddesss occasionally makes comments that remind me that these are her friends, and the fact that she and I are the only lesbian couple in the group (there is one other gay man part of the circle) becomes apparent from time to time. So it was nice to organize an event for the group and have it attended.

I was also very touched to be included on the invite list for the recent nuptual celebrations of a couple of members of the group -- even if it was because of my status as technogoddesss's girlfriend.

Lincoln, Massachusetts is an odd place. Its population tends to be very liberal-minded, but in the way that only the very old-moneyed can be. The town has tons of nature conservation land, but almost no public information about how to reach the trail heads. You can get a map of the trails, but instead of distributing them at a visitor center, you have to get them at the police station. It's all very informal and word-of-mouth, rather like the town itself. Well, I guess if you want to keep out the Wal-Marts and the hoi polloi, you have to sacrifice something. But even the hoi polloi can enjoy Lincoln's nature conservancy land if they inquire hard enough; entrance to the trail is adjacent to Lincoln's commuter rail stop, accessible via Boston's public transit system.

I found directions on a little internet backwater site, one with lots of twists and turns. At one point, we zigged when we should have zagged and ended up at the Codman House. One of our intrepid members discovered afterward that the Italianate gardens are not, in fact, someone's back yard, but a semi-public space that can be rented out for weddings.

( See the photo behind the cut. )

Hey, if you're in the Boston area and want to celebrate Beltane with a real live Maypole dance in a natural setting, the Women's Lodge puts on a May Day celebration with a procession, storytelling, and other fun stuff at the Hale Reservation in Westwood. Comment below with your email address if you want me to send you details. Comments are screened so only you and I will see!

I still have so much shit to pack it's not even funny. Spent the night with my lovely technogoddesss last night, which was a great relief. My house has become this kind of black hole, a big energy-sucking vaccuum. Well, tonight it's all about stuffing crap into boxes and bags and hoping I remember to label stuff.

Furniture doesn't look like it's going to arrive for at least a week until after I move. *sigh*

Still glad to be moving out.

Adding to the surreal nature of the whole experience is my end-of-cold sensation of skating over the top of things, like one of those waterskaters whose little legs dimple the water but don't actually break through. Sinuses are now allowing air to pass through, but still impeding the important business of detecting scent molecules. Plus, my head feels like a solid block.

Tomorrow, it's onward and upward into my (mine mine totally MINE!) empty apartment.

Just for the record, I am, in fact, still living in rentsville. The snarky little map I made for my bud who's moving to Malden was motivated partly by jealousy, since he is now officially a homeowner. With all the rights and priveleges therein. Congratulations, Ed!

A friend of mine has joined the ranks of landed gentry. In other words, he bought a condo. In Malden. Malden. Man, you know the housing market is impossible when a geeky hipster like him is settling for Malden. Of course, he did get his degree from UMass Lowell, so maybe he has a higher tolerance for the purgatorial rings surrounding Boston than I do. Since I grew up in the purgatorial rings surrounding New York, I really have little interest in moving into one that surrounds another city. God, the fact that I'm moving someplace more than a ten-minute walk away from a real trolley stop is bad enough.

Driving through Malden sometime last year, I really was amazed at how closely it resembles the crappy little town I grew up in along the Connecticut coastline. Except that it's not on the water. (I don't think the Malden River counts). Just to rub it in (and to bury my jealousy at the fact that he bought real estate), I made this handy little map for him:


I think I might be slightly cranky today.

This is not your "winter wonderland, happy-sleigh-riding" snowstorm. No, this is your "Skadi woke up with a hangover and someone made an ill-timed comment about her having a bad hair day" kind of snowstorm. In addition to the solid wall of white outside my window and the mess of snow, rain, sleet, hail, frogs, lemmings, locusts, and other forms of precipitation outside, I have witnessed thunderclaps, lightning, and demonic manifestations. Not only that, but the commuter rail started running around noon. Highly irregular.

The irony is that I didn't make it into the office yesterday, when the sun was shining so benignly. But today, I show up in the middle of this mess. And here I am, plugging away at crap in this nice, cozy office with my space heater.

technogoddesss got to leave her training early, thank God/dess. She called me from Route 2, which is a road for suicidal maniacs during good weather. As soon as I found out she was calling me while still driving, I flipped out a little. I told her to throw a dime out the window for Ellegba-Elisha. He and the rest of his buddies had better be watching out for her, because Goddess know I don't plan on losing the love of my life due to some silly snowstorm. No matter how hung over Skadi is.

So I wrote to The Hoss last night like a good little girl and informed her of the new turn of events in my relationship with Technogoddess. I figured I would learn from my mistakes and not let her find out by reading my LJ. She wrote back to me today, saying (tongue in cheek) that she's always had great timing.

I met The Hoss while walking with Technogoddess across Harvard Square (of course). Hoss was on her way back from some JFK School mixer (a totally gay one), and Technogoddess and I were on our way somewhere else, I don't remember where. She looked at the two of us and said "separated at birth!" Which is totally true. Hoss is the only woman I've ever met with hands bigger than mine. And the two dates we went on were totally wonderful because she was totally my Daddy. In a very nice way, of course. Because girls are pretty, not stupid like boys.

Except for Sweet Boy, of course. And maybe my brother. But ew, my brother doesn't belong anywhere near the same thought as all these other people!

So what's my point?

That being nonmonogamous does not mean that I sleep with anyone and everyone, I guess. That relationships are hard.

That waking up next to my sweetie this morning was nice. Kitty purring on the pillow up above us, her lovely soft smooth skin next to mine. All in that early-morning sleepiness.

Later, she swung by and showed me her climbing belt and the back of her phone truck. I am so smitten. The woman cooked me salmon and rice and salad the night before. And in the morning she stripped the casing off a 25-pair drop cable and started naming the color pairs.

*pant*

I played hooky from the office this morning because there's nothing really urgent that needs to get done right now. I was walking in after a leisurely lunch at my favorite Asian-inspired tea house, singing along to Olga's Birthday by Rose Polenzani, and I actually saw a guy avert his eyes from me because I was having evident nippleage through my turtleneck.

Yes, boys and girls, we are back in turtleneck weather. I actually had to go into the cedar chest and remove my pea coat because it's that cold outside right now. And every once in a while, we get a little sprinkle of rain just to let us know that those clouds up there mean business. Kinda.

In addition to finally picking up my special order book from Pandemonium, I got to witness one of the many modern-day village idiots of Harvard Square scare the tourists and suburbanites. I know this lady. She usually wears a purple coat, and she has a perm -- straightened hair for African Americans, you know, the opposite of all those Jewish girls in my 8th-grade classes. I've given her money a couple of times. Today, she was crossing the street with a bunch of us, and I actually heard her say "Gooba Gooba!"

You've got to admire the freedom of a woman who can say "Gooba Gooba" out loud whenever she fucking feels like it.

TV Land announces June 15 unveiling for 'Bewitched' statue

"Not all the witches at the dedication will be fictional. Salem witch Shawn Poirier said he and other local Wiccans have been asked to participate. A TV Land spokeswoman said the details of the ceremony are still being worked out.

"I think they want us to do a blessing on the statue," Poirier said. "They want us to wear our full witch clothes so it will be like a witch ritual."

That's right, boys and girls. A full-witch regalia ritual to bless a bronze statue of a fictional witch. Who did housework. By. Twinkling. Her. Nose.

Let's not confuse the children, now.

You can actually get a pretty sweet condo in Salem, and it's a pretty little town. It's also the home of Artemisia Botanicals, the only brick-and-mortar shop within 100 miles where you can get every kind of medicinal and magical herb you'd ever think to lay your hands on.

But I will never move to a town where I actually overheard a shopkeeper say, "If you spend more than $10, you'll get a free vial of fairy dust."

Okay, so I admit that I was a little over the top. Maybe I shouldn't have threatened to damage his car. But he shouldn't have tried to sneak into that sweet spot right in front of the restaurant I've circled many times before, as I sat there patiently with my fucking blinker on, waiting for the current occupants of the spot to leave.

He had New Hampshire plates. In New Hampshire, at the Home Depot, it's not a huge deal if Mrs. Neidermeier pulls into that spot before you do. You might have to walk a few extra minutes to get your lumber, or your drain-o, or whatever. But this is not New Hampshire, buddy. This is Cambridge -- on a Friday night. If you don't find a parking spot, you may find yourself circling, circling, circling in traffic limbo forever. There's a lot of things you can get away with in Boston. You can sleep with whomever you want. You can flip people off, you can cut them off, you can wear T-shirts with obscenities on them, you can use Jesus or Mohammed as justification for all sorts of hatred and bigotry. You can intellectualize yourself into all kinds of trouble. But you do NOT fuck with people's parking spots. Not if you like your paint job, you windows, or your tires. You just don't do it.

So I backed into the spot -- halfway, because there was a suburban minivan pulled into the other half of the spot. Traffic swirled around us on Cambridge Street. I stepped out of my car. I told him to move.

"What are you gonna go do if I don't?" he said.

And that's when things got ugly.

Looking back, I have to say that I really don't regret a single bit of the confrontation. That bald-headed, arrogant, macho little motherfucker is going to think twice before he decides to tangle with another "stupid cunt" from the city. He shouldn't have called me a cunt. If he hadn't uttered that phrase with all the derision and nastiness it implied, I might not have tried to close the door to his minivan while his leg was in the way.

In the end, I called the police and had them mediate for us. It's a good thing, too, because we came awfully close to real fisticuffs. There was real fear in his eyes. Big Irish dyke from Boston -- who knows how many martial arts classes she's been to? And I would have felt awfully stupid coming up before a judge on assault charges over a parking spot.

The good news?

I got the spot. Looks like my taxes are paying for something after all.

(originally written 1/17/05 on the C line)

Everything on her face points up and out--a kind of Lucy Liu look--but she isn't Asian. Just the illusion of Asian. The plucked eyebrows, the eyeliner, the eyeshadow, the blusher, all pointing to a dragon-lady profile that may or may not be real. It's not overdone, either, like Tammy Fae. It's very subtle, very correctly Bostonian. Like her nails, dark-red but at a modest length, no more than one-eighth of an inch longer than the tips of fingers.

She is most definitely a Bostonian, dragon lady or no. She has been here long enough to adopt the dress, the mannerisms. The black coat, the sleek black hair pulled back simply, sleek. The particular tartan -- subdued maroons, simple, thin stripes against a tan background, currently in vogue with a certain set of young professionals. The same set of young professionals who favor expensive handbags, trendy neighborhoods, martini-bars, and granite countertops in their loft spaces. The blank stare. The checking of the watch. The brown leather pocketbook. And a penchant for trashy curiosity. She is reading Us magazine, all the latest details about Brad and Jennifer's breakup. She is ready for work. Flawless, impenetrable.

Until she stands. And I see the untailored hems of her pants, the worn moccasins on her feet. She is very young, I realize.

I consider the natural reserve of Bostonians, the endless procession of cold winters and cold faces that await me here. I contemplate the ill-flattering puffball of a down jacket I have been wearing for the past 4 yhears, bought at Old Navy for $50.00 one freezing day in November when my biggest concern was being warm, not looking good or fashionable. San Francisco seems like the magic answer, the same way Boston once seemed the magic answer to my endless commuting hours between crappy Connecticut towns.

On the C

Dirty. Grimy is what you think,
and how the Red Line is better, clean
more like--MTV
and then you realize the gift
of the man who doesn't care
what the marketeers at MTV
think the demographic wants:
all wrong and piecemeal with his
flannel shirt, american flag
wrapped around his head,
Red Sox bumpersticker clinging
to the velvet lining of his flute case,
the maroon nubbing open,
waiting for change
patient as an old good dog.

None of this registers at first, of course
only the ugly, the worn sneakers,
blue collar in a white-collar town,
until the first few bars of Bach
thread their way between the screeches of the trolleycars
and transform the thing from grime to good, clean soil,
all unsanitized, all gritty, all
miraculous,
the beating heart of the city.

Frances Donovan
January 2005
August 2007

Day two of telecommuting.

FlyLady (http://www.flylady.net) sends me emails all day long insisting that I put on some lace-up shoes. She wants to know where my laundry is, and if I have spent 15 minutes in my zone.

I laugh in her general direction.

I am, at least, clothed.

The house is large, drafty, empty. The kitties curl up next to each other on the couch. When I come within ten feet of them they start, prepare themselves to run away. There is no one who will cuddle with me on the couch.

I all alone in this sad, sad, world.

*sniff*

It's time to get out of this damn house. Frickin' rain.

April is the cruellest month, forcing bulbs from the cold earth. Teasing us with a whisper of warmth and then slapping us upside the head with that bone-chilling Boston Harbord cold.

Cannot.... leave... house...