ole!

The snap-pop-bang-pop-pop-pop of fireworks fills the apartment. From the fire escape, where I can usually see the double-parked cars on my street, all I can see are people packed into the street. I can't tell where the fireworks are coming from, because the people seem too dense to be able to have them right there, yet there's smoke rising from the center of the street. It's amazing how the pop-pop-pop continues without pause for ten minutes, and people sing-chant ole! ole, ole, ole! ole, o-le! and chatter in italian. i guess it's clear who won this game of the world cup, so here's to many more days of my neighborhood exploding as the games continue.

dream no. 5,768,542

It's the day of my birthday, and I'm cleaning up the yard of my mom's house. Of course, this is not the house that I grew up in, nor the house she lives in now. But here, it's perfectly clear to me that this is home. The yard is huge, sprawling, with shrubbery acting as a fence. I'm barefoot, zipping about the yard, trimming the shrubs, and brushing the snow off of them and clearing the snow out of the yard so there's space for people to hang out without having to stand in the snow. Wait, yes, I did say I was barefoot. And wearing a tank top. But for some reason I'm warm. Must be all the work. I'm expecting lots of friends over, hoping many people will show up. Despite the fact that this house clearly would be in Colorado, it seems perfectly logical for Boston people to be able to just stop by.

There's someone I've been missing, but who kind of disappeared, and I'm not expecting. [If you know me, this is probably not who you assume it is.] In the back of my mind there's a tiny bit of hope that I'll see him, but I've supressed it; I'm not even thinking about this in the dream. And then he rolls up in a car with a few other people. I drop whatever tools I'm carrying, walking up to him, hesitant at first, but then sort of give in to it and break into a sprint that sort of turns into a leap right into a wrap-myself-around-the-kid hug. There's an overwhelming sense of happiness and fulfillment in the dream, something I haven't necessarily felt in real life lately. I woke up, wanting to hang on to the feeling, sink back into the dream and not have to go to work. Or to just replicate the emotion in real life. Add that to my ever-increasing list of things to do.

nonmarital bliss

I was editing a profile of Sandra Bullock today (sorry, I know, I know), and there was this quote in which she was talking about how there's a real expectation that women get married at 22, start having babies, and that there's a lot of pressure from other people to sort of adhere to this "norm," and what bullshit that all is.

It occurred to me right then how happy I am to be surrounded by a supportive community of friends and family who would never even think to say something as stupid as, "So, when are you gonna get hitched?" Apart from my grandfather, no one's ever even suggested I need to get on with my life and start a family (as though there's no real direction or point to another type of existence).

Even my nonpolitical friends back home, most of them are single, and those who are paired off have done so in more nontraditional ways. None of my good friends there are married or have kids, but it seems like everyone else we went to high school with has had at least one kid, and half of them are single parents (a recent discovery when I found a whole slew of people on the voyeuristic time-suck that is MySpace).

So, I guess a big up to all the people in my community. Sometimes I'm kinda down on a lot of aspects of it, but then there's these reminders that snap me back into the reality of how much more it sucks out there in the larger world (some guy poked his head under my umbrella today and called me "baby." It caught me so off guard, all I could do to was just scream "fuck you" at him as he walked in the opposite direction. Ugh - do people ever actually respond positively to this sort of behavior?).

So here's to the never-gonna-get-married crowd and all the people who aren't interested in having kids and agree that the world is overpopulated as it is. Cheers!

sticker shock

You know you've lived in Boston too long when ...

You see a flyer for a condo open house. You read it. And when you see it's for a two-bedroom with a roof deck in the North End going for $459,000, your first thought is, "Damn, that's awfully cheap for a two-bedroom in the North End. I wonder what's wrong with it?"

trashed ideas

Today, while I was sitting in a coffee shop trying to be productive and do some writing (my apartment being too distracting a place at the moment), I was sad to see the art on the walls was the very photo project I've had in my mind for a long time but haven't gotten off my ass and done. Right there, on the walls of the cafe, someone beat me to it (and hanging in a place I would consider asking to display my work, nonetheless!). Sigh.

T-ed off

Dear MBTA,

Your proven ability to infuriate customers is commendable. From replacing rail service 10 years too late with a big, slow silver bus to providing our children with the lifelong gift of asthma, it's clear that the customers always come first.

So it should have been no surprise the last two times I tried to board at Government Center and Park Street that you no longer saw fit to actually employ fare collectors to work in the booth and provide change for fresh-from-the-ATM $20s (which, by the way, are conveniently not accepted at the token machines in these stations). No, your fare collectors were dutifully positioned at the turnstiles, telling customers, "exact change only." A noble idea, if only it were feasible to expect customers at two major hubs of transportation to have exact change or be willing to sacrifice a $10 bill in exchange for eight tokens (which aren't even legal tender at area bars or half the other T stations).

I guess it would make too much sense to demand exact change only after you install those new CharlieTicket machines, which take $20s and allow you to actually decide the number of rides you get and amount of cash back (or $1 coins, anyway).

But perhaps this is a brilliant plan, this making customers walk to the next station in frustration and disbelief, hoping to find a real fare collector. Because if you start now, there will be less backlash from how much people hate the new fare collection system and resent the fact that their money is being spent not on service improvements but on crappy, unnecessary turnstile replacements.

Here's to those fare increases you announced - I can't wait. Keep up the amazing work!

Sincerely,
Sabine Strohem

you can't pee here!

File under: odd observations.

I've recently discovered that Boston's pay toilets aren't even open for half the day. That seems odd, given their proximity to bars and given every place shuts down at 2 a.m., leaving drunken revelers to flow out onto the streets and wander home. These are the type of people who might pay a quarter for a place to piss at 3:37 a.m.

But the diplay on the pay toilet at Government Center clearly states that it is closed from "1800PM to 700AM" (yes, indeed, complete with those superflous AM and PM labels). Seriously? What's the point of having pay toilets that shut down at the same time as nearby offices? It's not like you're going to pay a quarter for a toilet when there's one at work that doesn't cost a thing.

I hope somewhere there's a homeless person who's learned to time the toilet closing just right to have a semi-warm, dry place to sleep. Because someone should be able to make use of the thing during its 13 hours of downtime.

silence is sweeter

Note to Boston's street musicians who insist on playing "Sweet Caroline" every time I'm at Government Center or Park Street: If the people in the station aren't singing the "woah-oh-oh" part anymore, maybe it's because we've all been hearing "Sweet Caroline" a little too much lately. It's a popular number, but it's growing tiresome. Seriously, it's the only song I've heard the past five times I've taken the train. Share something original for a change.

spare me

I don't usually put effort toward buying things that are available for free. I can't imagine most people would.

So when I passed a man selling papers outside of the Whole Foods in Central Square, I felt more justified in my typical response, "Not today, thanks." Instead of the usual Spare Change News hawker, there was a man trying to sell copies of The Student Underground, which is widely available for free, on purpose.

But if he manages to get some cash from wealthy yuppies, and those yuppies actually read The Underground, I'm not going to complain.

big brother

As I was looking for tickets on the Paradise Rock Club site, I was prompted to accept a cookie. But not just any cookie. No, this seemed more obviously the big brother of cookies than most of the oddly names little treats that plant themselves on hard drive everywhere. But for such an ominous-sounding server, the cookie doesn't last very long. Peculiar indeed.

99 68 bottles of wine on the wall

If you're wondering what it takes to get on Massachusetts' Most Wanted list, the answer is not much.

I always assumed such lists were for murderers, rapists, people whose actions might fall under the category of violent crimes. But apparently all you have to do is steal fine wines - one bottle at a time.

Yes, that's right. According to an article in the Newton Tab, store owners are just catching on to a thief who went unnoticed for slowly depleting the wine racks of various liquor stores in this posh Boston suburb.

I'm just thrilled to hear that the Bay State's finest don't have better things to do. No, really, I mean it.

bitter morsels

Dis.gust.ing. That's pretty much all I have to say about Yahoo usurping del.icio.us.

But how did I not hear about this until just days ago? Have I been hiding under a rock? I mean, it happened not too long after the Flickr purchase, but I heard nary a word. With Flickr, it was obvious because of the login page change. But del.icio.us never stopped looking, well, delicious.

And users who bothered to read the del.icio.us blog (oops) are concerned about just that - Yahoo splattering ads everywhere and generally messing everything up. Can't say I'm not concerned about that myself. (And I guess I'm a dumbass for not ever reading the del.icio.us blog, because the news was right there. But why Yahoo decided not to disclose the terms of the agreement and kept it pretty quiet is a tad mysterious - not a peep on the press releases page.)

*Sigh.* So many good little services on the web are gonna get swallowed up by the big guys. So long, anonymity (and probably many open-source projects).

However, if someone offered me enough cash-money to retire right here and now ... I would be tempted to take the money and run. So I can't say I blame them. But still ...

she blinded me with science

I'm one of those people who never goes to the doctor.

It's not due to any fear or anxieties people normally associate with the doctor's office. It's that I've come to realize doctors can't really do that much a lot of the time.

And I don't have health insurance.

But Massachusetts might soon require me to purchase health insurance. Just as drivers have to buy car insurance in order to cruise around, people would have to buy health insurance in order to live around here. Or, at least live around here without getting screwed on state income taxes and without having their driver's licenses rendered unrenewable.

This idea begs a lot of questions, but there's one that's been on my mind lately: Will scientologists be required to buy insurance policies if their bosses don't provide health care?

Seriously, think about it. Why in the world would people who generally reject the modern medical system shell out money for health insurance? It's not like scientologists are going to accept pretty much any treatments in a hospital or drugs that any physician might prescribe.

Not that I'm a defender of wacky religious nutbags. But, probably, the state would eventually cave to a religious objection and exempt scientologists from the mandatory health insurance.

And where does that leave me? Still screwed.

Religion can be played as a get-out-of-jail-free card (evidenced in everything from refusing vaccinations to receiving vegan meals in state-run institutions). But atheists and agnostics can't seem to get ahold of that card. Or, rather, we just don't have the money to buy our freedom back, whereas certain religious groups can afford a good old-fashioned lawsuit. Hell, I won't even be able to afford the insurance itself, despite whatever the government claims about my being over the so-called poverty level.

At least I still have an out-of-state driver's license.

the continental

Every now and then, I come across a gem of knowledge while editing. I trim down a syndicated TV Q&A column every week. One question, in particular, stood out:

Q: I am trying to remember an old TV program back around the early '70s where some lover-type guy dressed in a smoking jacket and a white silk scarf would come onscreen and just talk sexy to the ladies. All the females loved this guy, but I can’t remember the name of the show.

A: It goes back further than the '70s, bub. The show was "The Continental," and it ran on CBS in 1952 and then on ABC from 1952 to '53. Renzo Cesana played the guy, and he was the whole show. He spent the entire 15 minutes cooing sweet nothings to the camera. The show’s sponsor was a stocking company, which led to a funny incident one night (the show was live) when Cesana was telling the ladies that nice stockings were just as important as good makeup. He got mixed up, though, and ended up saying, "What the powder does for your legs, the stockings do for your face."

Holy fuck! I didn't know that Saturday Night Live sketch was based on a real show from the '50s. This one shouldn't have surprised me so much, given that SNL has always satirized shows and world events. But "The Continental"? The sketch always seemed too bizarre to be based on something real. A photo I found of the original romeo had a network-supplied caption warning men that if they came home from work and found their wives swooning or fainted on the couch, never fear for their health, it was probably just due to those 15 minutes of The Continental that just aired. And in the photo itself: Mr. Cesana was decked out in his best martini-swilling, silk paisley robe (with said martini in hand). Wow.

invisible insanity

A shriek echoes through downtown. Like a soprano's vibrato, only applied to a trilled R - a letter and sound on which you'd never hear a singer hold a note. It stops. And starts again. On and off, repeating at irregular but frequent intervals.

As I walk around the corner, I see a scattered crowd of business people, their gazes all pointing in the same direction. For a moment, I imagine the sound is an emergency whistle. Someone is in trouble, but all the passers-by stop to watch instead of help - cold "professionals" who can't be bothered to ease someone else's suffering. After all, it's not their job.

But as I cross the street, I see the whistle blower - a 30-something man, pressed slacks and dress shoes showing beneath his black peacoat. He repeats the shrill call again and again and again, his eyes fixed on the street, the whistle between his lips, both hands at his sides.

And all those business people? Their gazes are actually fixed in the opposite direction, as if they don't have to acknowledge the man's existence if they refuse to make eye contact with him. Or, as they say, out of sight, out of mind.