Acadia, Mount Desert Island, Maine

Recipe for regrouping: grab some friends, your dog, and head back to nature. Headed up to Acadia National Park this past weekend with some friends. We camped at Blackwoods Campground with two tents, and managed to not get wet ("Stay away from the sides of the tent!"), eat some delicious food (despite some harrowing hibachi cooking, and Diane's efforts in the dark), and find all of Lucca's poo (a very necessary thing in a campground).

Met up with some other friends for some barbecue, and one of my best Fourth of July's. There were some amazing moments driving out of our misty campground, and being enveloped in sunshine — and vice versa. The weather this summer has definitely made an impact on everyone's moods. You can tell when it's finally sunny. Believe me.

We managed to hike the Acadia Mountain Trail (rated strenuous), most of the Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail (also rated strenuous, and booty-defying, considering how slippery the face was due to all. the. rain.), and swim in Echo Lake. Of course, there were jaunts into Bar Harbor for ice cream and parades, and an amazing ferry ride, or mail-boat ride depending on who you asked, to Cranberry Island — beautiful until the mosquitoes came out of hiding.

final frontier

well, it was a completely productive fourth of july weekend in boston (which i don't say very often. so let's celebrate). not only did we paint our bathroom on sunday (even behind the toilet. seriously), nat came up on friday and in no uncertain terms claimed it was screenprinting time... okay, so she didn't 'claim' anything, but she did arrive with several newly bought plain t-shirts and asked, "so, are we screenprinting guys?"

I have to say, even though the above example is a more funk-a-fied print than what I had planned, there were no bad ones in the bunch. we each made a design and had the chance to see our creative sides turn into wearable art. wearable unique cool art, that is. (I'm feeling italicized today...).

anyway, m. turned out to be the screenprinting maximizer. anyone surprised? no. didn't think so. it wasn't just one print per shirt. ever. it was at least two prints, front and back, in different colors.

needless to say, we haven't put any of it away, because, according to her, we will be doing more screenprinting this week. until i head to the woods of Vermont with my parents and uncle bobby. hence william shatner below. I'll have to tell that one later....

long weekend

a shot from montreal, unrelated to this post of course

here in beantown, we celebrate a little known holiday called patriots day, which equals a day off for some and not for others (as the woman in the dunkin' donuts said, while trying to find out if any banks were open to provide her with ones and fives: "this is one of those half-ass holidays").

unintentionally in celebration of a random holiday, m and i met a friend i hadn't seen in a year in a half on friday. then, we spur-of-the-moment style, boarded a bus the next day to nyc to see a friend's thesis show. the conversation was philosophical, discussing political protests and constantly fighting for the truth through protest/art... my question was, how do you know what the truth is/where to find it? how do you make that decision? gut reaction?

then we took the 3 a.m. train home.

in other news: we won our soccer game sunday, yeah! and spent a day at the beach with the pup monday, yeah! and I got a sunburn, boo...

livers of life

screen shot from ::being dead::

i think i should say something about how cruel foie gras is or something with that subject... moving on...

the redstone film festival is opening tomorrow. my favorite entry? jeff boedeker's being dead. i mean the still photos of fruit always do it for me... and subtitles. speaking of which, marie and i finally saw mostly martha, that german vixen meets culinary hard-ass type flick, and (although it didn't have subtitles, there are those irish accents...) once, which just made me wish i was in a band...

we're heading to party town this weekend, otherwise known as providence, r.i. to hang with nat and jessica.

i'm feeling a bit flippant right now (and i think it's showing in this entry), so i apologize... in other news, i saw this dad showing his three-year-old daughter how to push the walk signal yesterday. he held her hand and waited for the lights to change... very cute.

strrrretch

contrary to the pre-new york jitters, all went well. however, we're having a serious need for sleepytime back here in boston. i was pleasantly surprised to get the chance to see the broadway play, august:osage county, on sunday. talk about getting sucked into the dramatic family dysfunction! even with the need for two intermissions, i was enthralled from the first monologue to the last whimpers. the set. the set was amazing — built like a giant dollhouse, minus the mute refrain from any nora-like character.

stay warm! and stay healthy. it's been frightful lately.

dog walking dog

woke up early and had time to walk lucca in the rain. every five steps he'd shake from head to the tip of his tail. what a prancer.

heading back to new york tomorrow morning (early! early!) to meet up with marie and company. crossing my fingers this trip will end up being better/less weird/less pretentious than last time. but, as i told my friend andy, sometimes you have to put up with hipster vomit (figurative. not literal. i hope.).

bronx=up, battery=down

once when I was a baby (don't worry, I don't actually remember this... it's been retold to me so many times it's become family folklore), I was having a pissed off moment. You know the type of moment -- the kind where my parents tried everything. Fed me. Changed me. Walked me. Nothing worked. So my dad started singing a song from On the Town (the Broadway version as you'll obviously notice)... "New York New York It's a helluva town/ The Bronx is up and the Battery's down/The people ride in a hole in the ground/ New York New York! It's a helluva town!" and then Gene Kelley proceeds to do several amazing dance moves...

ANYway, he sang it approximately 56 times in a row. I can't be certain as to whether I kept crying because he was singing, or stopped because he'd hit that magical number of 56...

But anyway, I've been humming that song all day, because we're heading to la grande pomme tonight and I can't wait! So here's to you, dad. and gene kelly, of course.

bambino

and here he is, sent all the way from baltimore, evey's baby boy.
what a doll! can't wait to meet him.