the globs

take a listen to the globs, here at their good old MySpace page. My favorite is "I Hate the 21st Century," but Marie is partial to "Happy 2 B Alive." They have this poppy keyboarding flair, but seeing them at the Middle East last night definitely solidified their rock-a-bility (not to be confused with rockabilly. *sigh).

this was the second trip to the M.E. within three days, since we met up with Marie's friend Mandy there on Friday night, ate some middle eastern food, and drank sam adams summer ale (I liked it, but Marie is a dark-beer kinda girl). there were swarms of lesbians there (ehem, kristin) otherwise known as 'faaamleee' thanks to my former coworker ms. tammy.

last night's trip was a bit unexpected, since we haven't been out to see a friend's band in a while... our friend, linda, is the bassist and she was fabulous — but of course, she didn't think so, which is an annoying musician thing they do (I'm allowed to say that since I've done it many a time... a minor temper tantrum in the choir room after a particularly heinous cello performance at church in sixth grade will bring a slight cringe to my dad's face every time... all he said was, "you did a great job," poor man).

anyway, two thumbs up from the peanut gallery.

p.s.

it's my sister's birthday, the day i feel like she's catching up to me, again!

happy birthday, pootsk!

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...

ouch!

here's something my sister sent me. it reminded me of my student newspaper days. *sigh* i still don't quite know how we did it, but maybe it was headlines like this that pulled us through (hehe. pun intended)

After the LSU tiger's hired Trent Johnson as the head coach of the mens
basketball team, the student's daily newspaper headline read:

"LSU officially grabs Stanford's Johnson"

I haven't seen if this is actually true, yet. but i love the fact that it might have been...

comics that make you go hmm...

well, for instance, this one makes sense, kinda... but there are others, many others that make me wonder what in the flip is going on... like this one:

but then again, i don't always make sense either. which makes me smile. thanks, natalie dee.

shirley you jest

so while I continue to think about happy sad songs, I'll post a lovely pic of miss shirley henderson, who I recently saw (in a bit of a catty role) in miss pettigrew lives for a day... a cute little film, especially if you're tired of the dark and dreary and need a bit of (as me mum says) "escapism."

however, if you're not feeling fluffy, marie and I just rented cinema paradiso, which was scrumptious.

Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa

it's a beautiful, but frrrreezing day. and independent of that inspiration, i have otis redding's "sad song" stuck in my head. Who can't love sad sad sad lyrics, combined with a pop-y beat and a tune in a major chord? According to the 20 something chick who sometimes hits the Gov't Center subway station with her guitar, the happiest sad song is, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

Any others? Let me think...
cat stevens, "here comes my baby." ruth brown, "mama, he treats your daughter mean." michael jackson, "billy jean." the rosebuds, "leaves do fall."

down in the valley where the green grass grows

If the headlines splashed across major newspapers (here and abroad) are any indication of the state of things, it's getting purty depressin' around the u.s. of a. And it's not all jump rope games and playing tag anymore.

I saw an article by Margarita Mooney and Deborah Rivas-Drake, "Colleges Need to Recognize, and Serve, the 3 Kinds of Latino Students," which may sound confusing (besides the fact that one has to wonder how they even received grant money to interview their sample. does the government have grant money anymore?), but they just split them up into whether they get along with white people a lot, a little or not at all (still a deciding factor in success, apparently. unfortunately.).

Of course, discriminating factors were thrown into the article, but Mooney and Rivas-Drake chose to end the article on a upswing... that word, hope, a dangerous thing.

jump

flexibility. the tool of youthfulness... sitting on trains for hours this week made me realize that without flexibility stiff joints, and pain made me feel older than I am. And perhaps being flexible wasn't just about physical age. I think it's something that I struggle with mentally/emotionally is adjusting fluidly to change. Not falling into a stagnant (un)growing time. But, being flexible doesn't mean being unfeeling, or glossing over emotions haphazardly. It's a form of adaptation -- opening your arms, stretching your toes, feeling the tendons, muscles, nerves react. It's not painless, but it seemed to me it was more painful coming out of stasis than continually stretching.

montreal

so last week, we threw our cares behind us and headed to the land of ice and snow, maple syrup and art galleries, otherwise known as old montreal. or, heaven in the bleak of north america.

of course, a bus to new york, then a 10 hour train ride to montreal would seem ludicrous to some (considering it's roughly a six hour car trip from boston to montreal), but why take the easy way, when amtrak's involved? in the words of my lovely travel companion, "this was a one-time only thing. if we were in europe, we would have been through three countries by now." but, I do have to say, the progressively more snow covered landscape was lovely on the train portion... and every train ride seems to have depth and meaning, more so than a car, which is why we wanted to go by train in the first place. it's also like taking the subway here in boston — the close proximity of so many people, not really interacting, but reacting to the space you're given. I found myself organizing my little seat area — blanket, crumbs, waterbottle, books, journal—almost unconsciously.

and it was nice to be deposited right near old montreal, and our cute little hotel.

you can see from this photo the light, white hot in the cold air, montrealeans strolling without hats or gloves in the presence of such brightness. we wandered down st. paul's street, ate little dinners of pasta, a little lunch of polish pierogies. one night we took the metro to see the more modern downtown area and caught a movie — in french of course. mostly I guessed at the plot, but it was interesting to focus on the cinematography and watch the expression in the actors faces/gestures...