Happy anniversary to us

Sue and I celebrated a year together...day by day...right?

How can you not like dogs and music?

My neighbor asked me if I was going to be around this weekend because he's having a party. I told him, no, but have a few beers and crank a few tunes for me. He said it probably won't be that kind of party.

Huh?

"They're not all that into music," he said.

I was flabbergasted. "How can they not be into music?" I asked. "I can't imagine anyone not liking music."

"Well,they're not," he said.

This reminds me of when I got Bob and found out not everyone likes dogs. How can you not like dogs? How can you not like music? Those are two of the greatest things on earth.

Four glorious days off

The Memorial Day weekend is coming up, and we have four flex days we can use over the summer, one of which I'm taking tomorrow. That means I'm looking at a four-day weekend. Four glorious days off, two of which I'll get paid for. This is something I haven't been able to do for five years. When I was self-employed, I was too busy working to take time off, and if I did, I didn't get paid for it.

I'm heading down to Sue's tonight to wake up on the Cape tomorrow morning, and the weather's supposed to be sunny, in the '90s all weekend. I'm taking my beater down, and we're just going to hang out and have fun. Maybe take a day trip to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket (somewhere I've never been.) We're throwing in a Bob Day, a day just for Bob to have fun and run around on the beach and swim.

Sometimes the mainstream isn't that bad. I said, sometimes.

Dumb bosses I have known

We were talking about reviews today, and bad reviews we've gotten at work.

I once got a bad review from a boss who was so dumb, that sometimes if I was pissed off at him I would take the .doc suffix off a Word document because he wouldn't know how to open it.

Oh, the reason he gave me a bad review was because he said I wasn't technically savvy.

MBTA: Cell phone-free commute

Glorious commute today...not a cell phone in sight. Yesterday some guy got on, cell phone already clamped to his ear, sat down next to me, and I had to listen to him repeat the same voice mail three times because the mailbox he was talking to couldn't handle his verbosity. So...three times he had to say he got her voice mail, what can he do to help, and he'd "touch base" with someone else who they were trying to recruit.

I'm wondering if we're not getting to the day where we have to segregate cell phone yakkers just like we segregate smokers. Put them in their own room or banish them outside so they can't pollute our space with their useless noise.

Fire drill: We're doomed

Yesterday I sat through an hour-and-a-half meeting on how to evacuate the building in case of a fire or other disaster, and today we had the fire drill. All the plans about what to do and where to go went right out the window. No one, except for a few of us, followed the procedure that we were told to follow yesterday.

One woman said, "Oh yeah, the seventeenth floor is on fire and I'm on twelve so I'm safe. Right. I'm outta there." At least according to our Jack Webb-type of instructor yesterday, her and a few thousand other every-man-woman-and-child-for-his-and-herself (I think I covered the PC requirements there) will clog the stairways for the firefighters and emergency personnel coming up. Hey, but her miserable, little life will be saved, and that's what's important.

In a Darwinian way, she's probably right. You want her survival genes to be passed along to preserve the race, while my more benevolent gene pool will be left to boil away in the conflagration that's the 12th floor.

Not a good start to the day

On the way to the train station this a.m., sitting in a line of traffic, I suddenly saw this body flying through the air. An man driving an SUV was making a left-hand turn and hit a young man riding a moped. Not a life-changing event, but I'm sure neither one of them is having a good day.

Wedding Bells

Sue and I went to a wedding this past Saturday. One of her co-workers. Pretty couple. He's a cop. Looked like a Marine, on a poster. She the pretty bride. You could have put them on top of a wedding cake.

Their friends were all happy. Dancing. All the bridesmaids came out on the dance floor and danced. Then the guys. Sue said the guys looked like they were all in a scrum playing rugby.

The bride has her whole life planned out. She wants to be pregnant by July. They already have a house. When I first met her a couple of months back she was talking earnestly about the kitchen cabinets.

And I could only smile. Such babes in the woods. Will they still be together in twenty years? Will they all still be friends? (I speak from experience when I say, I doubt it to both questions.)

But we're all so hopeful. We say, good luck.

At least the food was good.

Bad Boy

This was Al's away message this a.m. She said it was dedicated to me...

...wow, I've never had an away message dedicated to me before...it's cool...

A bad little kid moved into my neighborhood
He won't do nothing right just sitting down and looks so good
He don't want to go to school and learn to read and write
Just sits around the house and plays the rock and roll music all night.
--The Beatles

Sunny Days

Obviously, to the consistent readers of this blog (all three or four of ya), I've been wanting to stay far, far away from my fellow human beings lately...to the point where I'm walking into South Station on the platform thinking, just walk, would you people. Just get out of my way. (Imagine, I want a whole trainload of people to move to my whim.) Or walking through the station thinking, hey, fatty, get the hell out of my way...people just waddling along...I don't understand this...don't they know where they're going? They do this everyday...just go, would you?

Out on the street standing on the curb I actually moved far away from some guy who walked up to wait for the light to change...and with his green trench coat and EMS backpack on his back and his balding head acting like a beacon he looked like such a cliche...I know he noticed I moved away from him...I didn't care...in my leather jacket and jeans and boots he probably was glad I did.

And walking along the sidewalk I was coming up to one of the many regular street people. This man is always very snappily dressed in a workout suit, Red Sox cap, and a pair of safety goggles. He holds a cane and a cup. I knew I had fifty cents on me...that's all the money I had. Give it up, I thought. I want to give it all away and completely lighten my load. Just throw everything away and go live in a trailer in the dessert.

Even before I had dropped it in his cup he started talking...what in the world?...it was like putting a coin in a slot and the gears start grinding and he's giving me the weather report...he actually was giving me something in return for the little pittance I gave him. The gist of it was the closer we're going to get to the weekend, the warmer and sunnier it's going to be...by the time he got to Sunday it might hit 90 and he was enthusiastic about it...And so was I because this weekend is the first break I've had in years...I'm taking a four-day weekend and Bob and I are driving down to Sue's Thursday night after work...and it's going to be sunny and 90! We're taking our bikes over to Martha's Vineyard and maybe even Nantucket and maybe my girls will come down for a day and maybe an overnight and for four solid days I won't have to think about work or theater or anything, just enjoy the people I love...

Today's MBTA commute

Who has that much to say? Who can talk that much?

Well, obviously the guy I had the pleasure to sit in front of today on the 8:00 out of Framingham. Not sure when he got on, but I was suddenly aware of this droning...this constant, flat, one-note Indian accent going on and on and on. I put on headphones, and tried to listen to Dr. David Greenberg lecture on the music of the Renaissance but the dude was just talking way too loudly.

I took the headphones off to see what he was going on about. I don't know...Natick, MCAS, something...shut up.

Glancing over my shoulder once or twice didn't even phase him...even after we locked eyes. I guess he thought I was just another interested listener.

Healthy enough for ya?

A rice and bean burrito? Hold the sour cream?

Yeah, like it even matters.

Rainy day music

Welcome to Boston. It's May and cold and rainy.

And when I'm feeling particularly shitty, I try to cheer myself up buying music. (They're just CDs, John. They're not love.) I swear there was a point in my life when I was personally responsible for Newbury Comics' stock to rise significantly.

Bought Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and what's becoming my favorite magazine, No Depression. Miranda Lambert, the crazy ex-girlfriend, is on the cover. I almost bought her CD but...I had $11.00 credit and didn't want to overdo it. My checking account is still on the critical list.

Death by bagel

Oh, good grief.

It's Friday and they--the omnipotent "they"--give us free bagels here at work.

I've learned never to turn down free food. So I grabbed one, and then went to make a (free) cup of coffee.

"Bagels are the worst thing for you," sniffed a snotty little writer.

Okay, first of all, did I ask you for your opinion on what I eat? "No," I said, "heroin is." The superior little snot didn't think it was a funny remark, even though it was. She just ignored me and talked with her equally cool companion about clubbing in Boston. Oooh, I was so intimidated by their sophistication that I shrunk in my silence. Sorry to intrude on your space.

Coffee made, I reached for the milk in the fridge, only to find that my healthy little friend had the milk. Not the non-fat milk. The whole milk.

You know, darlin', that's not healthy.

Song of Myself

I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
--Walt Whitman

Thank you, Allison. You have impeccable timing.

The Cowboy Junkies

Going to see The Cowboy Junkies tonight at the Somerville Theater. Third-row seats.

I've turned so many people on to them. I love sharing new music finds with people. Of course to some it's not new...kind of like the New World wasn't so new to the Indians.

Sue and I are going. There's one person who I'm afraid I might see there tonight. I introduced her to them a few years back...she took so much from me, not just music, and I can't think of a single thing she gave me. She's one of those people who just takes in life, and doesn't give back...as selfish as anyone can be. I actually saw her steal a beautiful handmade Christmas ornament at her office Christmas party's Yankee swap one year by pretending not to know that it was in a certain box when she actually did--she recognized the wrapping paper of the woman who made the ornament--then pretended that she didn't when one of the secretaries called her on it. (She's an actress, but not very good one...that's what makes the story sort of funny. Really good actors can get themselves out of scrapes sometimes by acting.) Nothing is safe when she's around...not a Christmas ornament, not a life, not a soul. She's ruined a few people's lives in her time...

The tickets are fairly cheap, the theater is close, and the Junkies don't come around here a lot. I'm hoping...praying...that Sue and I can enjoy this incredible band without any stain on the night. This woman won't see it like that...of course not...this quote from Catcher in the Rye is so apropos: she's as sensitive as a goddamn toilet seat.

Someday, I'd love to tell the world what really happened.

NIMBY

The street people here in Boston continue to fascinate me. They have such obvious problems...and repel the rest of the human race...people are frightened of them, you can see that so clearly...as if what they have, or even more, who and what they are, is catching...contagious...like a virulent form of leprosy.

A woman today was working with a few men sitting in the sun. She looked like a backpacker at first, but strode up to their little group and started working with them, talking to them gently and firmly...

She impressed me...people who get involve always do...because so many of us take the attitude of "not in my backyard." NIMBY. It doesn't hurt me, it doesn't affect me, so why should I care?

I do it everyday, I hate to say.

And so children continue to starve in Ethiopia, and others just twist in the wind...

Lucinda moves up in the world

Was in Borders at Downtown Crossing checking out some Wilco CDs and noticed Lucinda William's CD was on a special rack out in the aisle but she was near the bottom.

I looked both ways then moved her up to eye level.

The peeps need to know about her.

Rabindranath Tagore

“God respects me when I work
But He loves me when I sing”

--Rabindranath Tagore

Hey there, Delilah

Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me girl
Someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life we knew we would
My word is good

Jenn Taranto

Went out for a breather and coming up to Washington Street I heard a guitar and a voice. Jenn Taranto was standing out in the hot sun among the noonday crowd (office workers, street people, tourists and the like) singing her heart out. Pretty songs, pretty voice. I sat and listened for awhile. There's a strength to her voice and her playing that is sort of hidden by a kind of simplicity.

Nice stuff.

Bought her CD for ten bucks. Always happy to help out an artist.

Happy Childless Mother's Day

Sunday is Mother's Day, but Karen has decreed today as Childless Mother's Day--for woman who don't have children, but who are maternal...

See why I like her so much?

Take the power away from big corporations and put it in the hands of the people like Karen and you'll get a much more interesting world...

I need a lover

Well I'm not wiped out by this poolroom life I'm livin'
But I'm gonna quit my job, and go to school, and head back home
Now I'm not asking to be loved or be forgiven
Hey - I just can't face shakin' in this bedroom one more night alone.
--Pat Benatar

The dramatic weight loss progam

Acting is the most unhealthy profession going. The hours are long and late...you're never eating or sleeping right...grabbing food here, sleeping when you can.

Measuring Matthew is only a ten-minute play, we've had only four rehearsals and now tech week, but I'm definitely loosing weight, which I usually do during a show anyway. Thank God it's not a full-length play.

When I was in The Philadelphia Story, I lost so much weight each week that the costume designer got tired of bringing in the waist my pants every whip stitch, so she finally gave me suspenders and I wore my pants like a barrel.

Love and death in the theater

At one time or another, everyone in the theater asks themselves this question: Ok, remind me again: Why do I do this?

I am so tired. For a ten-minute play. We open tonight and I didn't get home from tech until around 11:30 last night. (I slept late today for the day job; the alarm didn't go off until 6:00. Man, those birds are loud.) I was so tired last night that I garbled a line. Just incomprehensible. God, be on my side tonight, please?

We do this because we care so much about it (even though I don't know why I care so much about it) that we'd rather be acting or designing sets or lights or stage-managing than doing our day jobs that actually are supposed to have meaning but don't, even though most of the time theater doesn't pay, or it doesn't pay enough to cover even our parking tickets, even though it takes so much time away from my kids and Sue that I feel so guilty and I say I'll take a break and then when I actually do take a break I miss it so much and then I start feeling selfish.

Down with Hallmark

What's worse than asking a Libra to pick out a birthday card? Asking him to pick out a get-well card, too.

We're notorious for not being able to make up our minds. Well, that's not quite it...we weigh everything, but once the decision's made, it's cast in stone. Sometimes it just takes us a little while to get to the decision as we weigh out the options.

But so many cards are so...what's the word?...stupid? They mostly cater to women and express sentiments that are as vapid as they are...what's the word?...oh, right...stupid. Most women I know think the same. I don't know who's buying this crap, anyway.

In the end I usually make my own cards.

What was I thinking when I bought that music?

We all have clothes in our closets that we ask ourselves, What was I thinking when I bought that?

Since all I wear are jeans, basic button shirts, and boots I don't have that problem. But I have music I feel the same way about. What was going through my head when I bought that No Doubt CD? This morning I put on Sugarland. The first cut is Something More. Just country pop, like so much of it nowadays (Faith Hill, Martina McBride), nice catchy lyrics, music you can dance to, easy to sing along to, inspirational, and so, so boring. Written for chicks who complain about how awful their lives are here in the U.S. where we don't have roadside bombs going off everyday, and that's about it.

Monday, hard to wake up
Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door
Yeah, the freeway standing still today
It's gonna make me late, and that's for sure
I'm running out of gas and out of time
Never gonna make it there by 9

[Chorus:]
There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

So much of popular country is written for women. Or let's put it this way, the hits are manufactured for women. Some bean counter somewhere in Nashville or Austin figured this out. And all they do is pick the sore, but they don't tell you how to heal it. They don't take you anywhere. You just wallow.

Like so much popular culture, with country music we identify. It justifies our existence, but it doesn't take us anywhere else. It doesn't teach us; we don't grow.

Give me some good, old-fashioned hillbilly music any day.

Shhhh....artist at work

Today out in Downtown Crossing I noticed some old Leica's hanging around an older man's neck. The thought went through my head that he was probably a tourist, and got out his old tried and true flim cameras to record his vacation. Nothing digital for this purist. He had a flash connected to one of the cameras with a long sync cord, too.

Then, without focusing, he lunged at a passerby, the flash firing, like a lizard goes for a fly. He was working...making images...

I watched for a little while longer, as he stalked his quarry, not sure if I was watching a crackpot or a genius...

And funny, everyone around him was as complacent as bugs on a bush...not knowing they might end up in some developing tray somewhere.

The Dragonfly Festival: Measuring Matthew

It feels a little strange and also so normal to be going to a theater again after taking a year off. We open tomorrow night, and because it's a ten-minute festival and we didn't go through the intense rehearsal period that normally would have taken place for a full-length play. I don't feel 100 percent ready. For that reason I know I'll be a bit nervous tomorrow. Plus it's a new theater where I've never acted before...just trying to get comfortable in a new environment.

It's been a long road, and a year ago I didn't know if I ever wanted to step foot on a stage again. Community theater got to be too spotty, too incestuous (not that regional theater or Boston theater won't be; I just don't know the peeps yet.) But the standards in community theater just weren't there anymore. The director of the production of Buried Child I was in right before I quit went to see the Nora Theater's production, and he emailed me to say that he thought that I and a couple of the other actors in the production I was in were more interesting. I wrote back to him and said that I didn't think we were that good, and that the experience wasn't pleasant for me at all, and that because of that I was getting down on myself even more than what's normal for me...to the point where I had one mega-destructive night where I hurt myself and a lot of other people. But, I said, I'm glad he liked it.

That experience taught me that I do know what I'm talking about in the theater, and God love the beasts and children who think they're doing good work...that's really up to them, and my only beef with them is that, as long as they don't know what's good, or if they're not 100 percent honest with themselves and accept compromises, they contribute greatly to the downfall of theater.

Oh, you're asking: what's good, my arrogant friend?

The real trouble with community theater in the Boston area is that it's basically a bunch of relatively talented people putting on shows for themselves. The majority of the audience on any given night in your local community theater is composed of friends of the actors. Or worse, "theater people." And of course they're going to like it, or if they don't they're not going to tell you, or they'll cut you a wide margin of slack. And that makes for some really lazy actors. If all you're hearing is how good you are, well...that's pretty good for the ego.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not even saying I'm any good. (God, why did you think I didn't act for a year? I didn't want to be guilty of subjecting audiences to the same drivel I'd been dishing out for so long.) I'm saying that I'm making an honest effort to grow as an actor and complete the bargain an actor makes with the audience every time he or she is on stage, and that's to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

Roger Clemens signs with Yankees for $18m

Actually, it was more like $28 million, but it was pro-rated because the season has already started.

And that figure is just for a season. Not a year, a season. And not an entire season. Maybe four months.

Let's just look at that a minute. $18,000,000. (Man, that's a lot of zeros.) He'll have maybe 12 - 14 starts. He won't last the entire game. Maybe the most he'll pitch (that's throw a ball) is eight innings. That's about $1,300,000 a game. Maybe two hour's work. That's $650,000 an hour. My father never made any more than $10,000 a year. Roger will make 65 times that in one game.

And he won't sign autographs.

How much do you make? In a week? In a month? In a year?

I am so fed up with overpaid professional athletes. The way we've (what do you mean, "we," white man?) turned them into our heroes. He can throw a baseball. He doesn't even try to hit the frickin' ball. He can't save a life. He can't teach a kid how to read. He doesn't take all his millions and try to make the world a better place. (I don't want to hear about "charity" golf games, okay?) They don't use their influence for social change. They just get fat.

If you don't see something wrong with this picture then I feel for you.

The young woman writing on the T

Today on the train a young woman sat down next to me...I was first going over my lines for Measuring Matthew then I was reading Angels in America and so was pretty locked into my own private world. I was putting everything away at Boylston in preparation of getting off at Park Street (and in a minute or two running the gamut of SaveDarfur.org) when I noticed she was writing in a card...tiny, tiny lettering that was just filling the page. She was on the right-hand page, having already filled the left side, and she was three-quarters of the way down.

I was amazed that she could write that small. I was amazed by whomever was the recipient...who was this lucky guy/gal? What was their relationship that she had so much to say?...so emotional? Was she crazy? Crazy in love? Crazy crazy?

When I got off at Park she got up and went to a single seat at the back of the train and resumed her work.

Leave me alone

I got home late last night and got up late this morning...the traffic on Rte. 16 through Welleslley and South Natick is horrendous. Just creeping. Me and all the other lemmings, heading for the cliff...

There's a new paper in town...called Boston Now...and the people who hand it out are really aggressive about it...get the eff away from me...at the Riverside stop I've got my briefcase, a backpack, two newspapers (including the Boston Now) and I'm trying to dig my wallet out of my back pocket to get my rail pass out of my wallet and shove it into the card reader, and this guy is coming up to me trying to shove a newspaper at me...what are you? effing stupid and blind?

Walking down Winter Street to Downtown Crossing, there are three people abreast. Two are handing out postcards, the other one is taking signatures. Are you making a killing with Fidelity? A group is trying to stop Fidelity from investing in companies that are supplying funds for the genocide in Darfur. They aggressively approach you. Leave me the eff alone...and not because I don't care. I got one of your cards yesterday...it's sitting right here next to my elbow...I think it's a noble cause...here...it's on my blog now...I just didn't have time yesterday to write about it...if I have more time I'll make a separate blog...are you happy?

I'm just tired and overworked and really, really stressed out because of work and outside projects and money and I know it could be worse, and I know no one could give a s**t and I'm okay with that...just leave me alone...

The new mantra

Things could be worse.

There. That should get you through a day.

Skyline Chili, Cincinnati, Ohio

Then again, nothing can beat a three-way and a Coke at Skyline Chili at three in the morning.



...steaming spaghetti, covered with Skyline's original, secret-recipe chili and topped with a mound of shredded cheddar cheese.

In-and-Out Burgers

I am told by the best authorities that these are the best hamburgers in America.


They do look good. They might want to work on the name though...

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Spent most of the weekend at the MFA in Boston. Saturday seeing the members only preview of the Edward Hopper exhibit.

Sunday for The Yatra Trilogy. "Each of the films in this cinematic pilgrimage highlight Southeast Asia’s most dazzling and spiritual monuments." Unfortunately, the films aren't dazzling and spiritual, it's the monuments the films are about that dazzle, and there is a difference, especially when you're sitting through hours of this stuff. And while I was really interested in the topic, I thought to myself how many times I've heard my daughters talk about how boring school is. Why can't these pedantic stiff necks show a little life, a little love for their topic, a little excitement and God, can I say it?--entertainment?--when talking about something?

Hopper was cool, at least the paintings and prints. But the audio tour was an absolute joke. So basic it was hilarious, and embarrassing. The best part was something they swiped from an exhibit in New York--I think it was from the Met, but don't hold me to that, and Wim Wenders commenting on Night Hawks.

Boston will always be this little podunk town compared to New York, but what's just so funny, and annoying, is how Boston is just so full of itself. For two days I wandered through the MFA with Sue, and I didn't see a single soul who I thought, hey, that person looks kind of cool to hang around with. The entire viewing public looked like a bunch of stuffy white people (don't recall seeing a single brother.) No laughing allowed; this is all so serious...it's Art, damnit, with a capital A.

The flying trapeze

If I ever joined the circus I'd be a trapeze artist.

Definitely.

Letting go without a net...

But the best part is just swinging back and forth, back and forth, so high, so high above everyone and everything...smiling...you can't touch me.

I need a break

I am way overloaded (who's fault is that?) and while I feel okay the cracks are showing.

Yesterday I forgot to take the T into Boston, instead taking the commuter rail, my old habit. I was even thinking that I had rehearsal that night and it would have been easier to take the T home instead of the commuter rail. Instead, I had to wait for the next train out of South Station that was at 10:00. (You got to love the MBTA; it's there when you need it--Not!) so I had two hours to kill when I really would have loved to be heading home to bed.

So, I ended up playing guitars at Daddy's, including a really nice Taylor 12-string, something I've never played before.

But the worst thing was I was supposed to have dinner with Kathryn and completely forgot until I was sitting on the train in South Station waiting for the sucker to leave the platform. I've never forgotten a night with Kathryn in my life, and that tells me I'm too stressed out...

Song of Solomon

I like to note what people read while on the train, and there are a good amount that read the bible. It's worth cracking, an understatement to holy rollers everywhere, and a scary thought to others.

Really, it's really good.

Years ago I taught Sunday school. Loved it. I taught teens, the age group no one wants, and I loved it. At that age, we're all trying to figure out right from wrong, black from white. And I tried to get the kids to understand that you don't have to give up your religion in order to play soccer.

Anyway, one of the things I had to do with the class is go on a retreat with them every year. I hated this. Some retreat packed with Ned Flanders and some serious crazy people, some hard-core fundamentalists. Anyway, without getting too deep into this, and I only had to do this a couple of years, I'd crack open my bible and start reading, trying to look holy and pious. And every time I'd open to the Song of Solomon, the dirtiest part of the bible. Well, not dirty. It's actually very beautiful, but if they knew that I was getting my rocks off reading the bible, well, the bible wasn't meant for that.

Oh yes it was.

Chapter 4

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.
Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.
Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers

Picked up this CD yesterday by Lucero and who the hell said this is country? It even comes up country in the iTunes interface.

Good stuff, but it's more like Springsteen...or it reminds me a little of Counting Crows with better lyrics.

Not good enough

Got an email from a friend yesterday and in passing she mentioned how sometimes she just doesn't feel good enough, or that she doesn't sort of measure up to people. Specifically, we were talking about what it's like to go into a certain music shop around Berklee College of Music, and how you (well, she and I, at least) feel inferior to just about everyone there.

And the set for Cuckoo's Nest is just about finished, I was looking at it last night, and I think if I had only thought of this or that how much better it would be. Things are never just okay with me; I'm never satisfied. And I get down on myself really hard. And I watch the actors and just grind my teeth, and then that's the point where I start hating myself, thinking how can I be such an asshole, why do I think I know so much, why do I think I'm so much smarter than other people, and that's where things can get really dangerous for me, because then I start to get really self-destructive.

If I can only raise the first and lower the second. If only I can feel that I do belong in a music store around Berklee, and if only I can feel okay about my talent and abilities without feeling guilty that I actually do know what I'm talking about, that I can see and comprehend things in ways that others can't...

Once I was in therapy and my therapist said to me, "You're just going to have to accept the idea that you're smart." I was blessed, or cursed, you decide, with an IQ that's on the high end of above average. I intimidate some people, piss off others, and to a lot of people come across as a freak. Over the course of my life I've spent an inordinate amount of time dumbing down, just trying to fit in. And it gets really tiring. Hence, wanting to just get away from it all and be a bum, live on the beach, read, drink a beer, play guitar, and just tell everyone to just go to hell.

Sheep or swim

I just copied this out of a book for a client's Web site:

Public spaces are seen by passerby, and design choices will affect your neighborhood. If possible, make choices that complement your neighbor’s homes. Private spaces, such as backyards or areas enclosed by fences, offer opportunities to define a more personal style.

What I'd really like to write is: Be yourself. Make your mark on the world, on your little plot of earth. Don't worry about what your neighbor does with his lawn, with his landscape. Don't even consider it. Diversity is what makes this world beautiful. Not sameness. Not complementary. That's boring.

I really hate being a part of this...of condoning people to comply. To be part of the crowd. To be sheep. Because there are people out there who need a little encouragement to shine...and the big corporate world can't have any of that...God help us if people actually started being individuals and didn't toe the line.

Just one of those days...

I told Kathryn this morning that it's just going to be one of those days. The dog got into the garbage while I was in the shower. She got up late. We got caught by a train going to her school. Lines of cars backed up at her school.

We still talked about music, and softball and Einstein. I told her if she thought more like Einstein, she'd be a better hitter. She wouldn't swing late like she is now. She's got to stop thinking about the softball field, though, and more about the universe. God, when I'm dead the stories my kids are going to tell about me.

I was late for my train so had to take the 8:05 local, which of course arrived in South Station late. I'm sitting on the train and by the time the conductor said, "Next station stop: Yawkey," I thought I was going to piss in my pants I had to go so bad. Sitting next to me was a Yankee who had gotten on in Wellesley, of course: pink shirt, khakis, blue blazer, loafers, wire rim glasses set on a pointed nose, straight hair combed straight back. I wondered if he ever felt like he was going to piss in his pants, he looked so cool and collected.