Street photography

There are many things I love in life, and two of those are photography & my cell phone. So I am in bliss when I am able to use the latter to help the former. I'm talking cell phone pictures. I should probably call them pix; it's more fitting for someone so deeply attached to their celly. Or should celly be spelled with an -ie... I need to consult with a 14 year old and get back to you. Having a camera built into my cell phone is incredible. How did people survive without either of those two inventions? Life simply did not exist before the year 2000. How did people do anything?

In the past few months my beloved cellphone has been trudging along towards the great big recycling center in the sky. While it couldn't reliably receive phone calls or text messages, it could take some decent pictures. (And at the end, I was very grateful it could do anything, really.)

So before the end came, I cleared out a lot of the photos I took with the cell over the course of the last year. A lot of the time the photos look and feel like art. (Maybe one day, it will be). Take, for example, a photo shot while at a dance party my senior year. The shadows and the ground color from the colored lights of the dance, coupled with the dancer's feet, just looks really, really cool. And what is art if not cool and entertaining? (At least the art that I enjoy.)

Sometimes the photos I take offer up information about our culture, like the pictures I like to take of intriguing graffiti. There's Stop sign grafitti, like this first one in New Orleans, and the second two in separate sides of Massachusetts state. 

and

   

and

They say, "STOP War!,"STOP Global warming," and "STOP Bush." I like the idea that separate people felt the need to deface local stop signs with a message. Even if those are clearly only the liberals. I want to find more. (Stop sign defacement. But liberals too, I suppose.) The Stop Bush sign says "4-way" written underneath it, which I think we can all agree is something that should be stopped.

Then there are the photos I take of patterns I find interesting, like the little mirrors under the tealights on my bedroom wall.

and the collage over the pedestrian walkway at the MGH t-stop...







As most cell phones nowadays, there are also incriminating photos, like this of a certain street sign that allegedly was removed. Allegedly.

Then there's stuff that you take a picture of because it's just so ridiculous. Like this sign the MBTA made when the blue train shut down unexpectedly for the night. In blue sharpie.

Sure, that looks legit. Let's all ride the blue line.






And now I have a new and fully functional and photography-enabled phone. Life is good.

Why I can't sleep at night

I am a visual person with a vivid imagination. This can be a good thing. Being good at art, writing stories, lying... you know- life skills. But this power can be a terrible, terrible burden for certain terrible, terrible things I've had to endure while growing up. Like the rite of passage of watching horror movies. Shudder.

Horror movies. I hate them. I cannot bear witness to any book, television show, or movie that has any element of horror. Not even a little bit. Not even if it's in a commercial. It might actually be worse if it is a commercial, because you're not expecting it. There's this one ADT Security System commercial that depicts a man breaking into seemingly safe house one seemingly carefree afternoon as the homeowner is playing in the backyard with her daughter. Not only do I not have any sort of security system installed in my apartment, but now I have to be prepared for people who break in during the daylight hours too? Great. Awesome.

Over the years I've tried to cure myself of this affliction through over-exposure, persuading myself that the more horror movies I watch the less real they will become. Voilá- cured. But really the effect is less freeing on my psyche and more debilitating on my social life. I've seen the CSI's. I know that my odds of going out on a "normal" Friday night will probably end in fear, destruction, and death. I am a single white female, and I am a target. I never realized that there were so many different ways to be hurt, stalked, and dismembered. Thank you, prime time cable programming.

That's the thing with horror movies- regardless of which ones I watch the takehome message has always been that I will, most likely, be next. Single female. Target. Take, for example, the movie Halloween H20.

Let me set the scene: it was Casey Ferriter's 6th grade birthday party. Ten little girls were having a sleepover in her basement. There was cake, popcorn, and horror, as supplied by the scary movies her mom had rented for us because we were now adults. Or something.

Halloween H20 is the Jamie Lee Curtis movie where her brother, Michael Meyers, is unhinged. Therefore he kills people. And he doesn't just kill them, he slays them in such fantastically creative and gory ways as hockey skate to face. Ouch, that's real. Because of an excessive amount of childhood pride (which I must have lost somewhere along the ride) I watched the entire movie. It has haunted me ever since.

I don't even remember the plot anymore. I am fairly confident my mind must have blocked out most of the scenes in self-protection. But I do remember this one school scene where Michael Meyers lowered himself down by one arm from a pipe in a school hallway right behind a (single white) girl, who was either totally oblivious or deaf. (Spoiler alert: she dies).

First of all, the kind of muscle it takes to lower your entire body down like that is ridiculous. The core strength alone! But then you get to thinking about the take home points. How many hallways do I walk down on a daily basis? How many have pipes? Far too many.

After this movie, I avoided staying at my school past dark. Way too risky, even though I'm pretty sure the character Michael Meyers died in two of the movies preceding Halloween H20. Michael Meyer's terrifying strength is only overshadowed by his apparent inability to die.

And so I vowed to steer clear of horror movies (and move back into my twin sister's bedroom because of a newfound fear of closets). Years passed, and I was happy, save for the occasional lone walk down a hallway. Then I hit college. I was a little older, a little wiser, and my friend Thatcher convinced me that I should watch the first Saw film. He claimed it was an "interesting piece, psychologically" (as opposed to the merciless gore I thought it to be). We watched it in the student center early in the evening. Admittedly, it was interesting. But inevitably there came a point when I had to return home. Alone. That's where the trouble began.

I was scared that someone would jump out at me, even though I was on a bike. Would I be able to pedal away fast enough? I was kind of out of shape. Like in the movie, what if someone had been watching my every move to wait to abduct me? Never mind that I'm no longer a little girl, I still feel Stranger Danger at every situation. What was that person doing, walking behind me? Walking to the snackbar? A likely story. They are probably waiting until I turn my back to capture me. Happens all the time. I've seen the movies.

So I had to call my boyfriend Dan to walk all the way across campus to get me, so that he could walk me back. Even then, in the relative security of Dan's company, I questioned his true intentions. Could he really be trusted? What if this past year has been a façade, and he's just been biding his time? What if he snapped suddenly, a product of an undetected brain aneurysm? Wouldn't be the first time it has happened; there was an episode on CSI about this. And all this about a boy I loved, because I do not handle the separation of fact and fiction when it comes to horror movies. Curse you, imagination. Go do something useful.

During my senior year of college I moved into an old fraternity house. I chose a room with a fire escape, or as I liked to think of it, a personal metallic balcony. It had a view of the forest and keypad access so I could never get locked out. I probably might have enjoyed it more if other people, too, could be locked out. But criminals are smart, and I wouldn't have put it past anyone to break into a 9-digit keypad. I'd been known to crack a few in my day. I also might have liked the room more if my mom didn't constantly remind me to keep my windows locked at all times because someone could sneak in and wait for me til I got home. But this is assuming that the only criminals that go after me are ones that can afford to wait a few hours for me. That's already saying something. Though I didn't always lock my windows (you can't box me in!) when I came home I always punched in my keycode with my body halfway out the door, ready to flee at the first glimpse of an unfamiliar arm or leg.

My mom doesn't really help the situation. There will be times when I will be happy-go-luckying down the street, not a care in the world, when mom calls me to tell me to "be careful." It will inevitably be at night, and I will be walking alone.

Mom: "Where are you?"
Me: "I'm out heading over to Jen's house."
Mom: "Why are you going to Jen's?"
Me: "...to hang out. For funzies."
Mom: "Ok, don't stay out late. Where are you now?"
Me: "Just got onto Hanover."
Mom: "Are you almost there? Stay on the line."
Me: "No, Mom. I'm cool, I gotta go..."
Mom: "Ok, but send a text when you get there. Are there other people around?"
Me: (No.) "Yes, of course."
Mom:"Ok good. Stay on the main road. Text me when you get in. I love you."

The "I love you" might as well be "We'll never forget you. God bless." Stay on the main road clearly means "there is a psycho pacing 100 yards behind you waiting 'til you turn down a deserted road." She might even tell me about a recent assault spree involving a man targeting women in my city. He could be anywhere. He could be on the street. He is probably right behind me. I'm not normally a fearful person, but there are times when I do not want inuendos or ideas put into my head. For I am impressionable.

By the time I actually get to where I was going, I have most likely freaked myself out so much with all the various things that could have happened on the walk that my keys are already in position between my knuckles in case I need to defend myself (thanks, self-defense class!). I pound on the door manically, and pray for the person to come quicker.  Has someone been watching me, mapping out my daily life patterns of times when I get home from work? Should I change up my normal paths? Should I leave my light on to make it seem like someone is always home? Can Jen defend me if need be? What if Jen is actually evil? Horror movies are terrible.

My mom hates that I can't just get to and stay in my apartment after it gets dark. But I'm a Massachusetts girl, and pleasing her in that way would require being locked into my apartment by as early as 4pm in the wintertime. And summer's not for another 6 months. Is that a life, really? But I suppose that doing so would mean I would get to watch a lot more television (so long as it's not scary). The good news is that I can be assured that there aren't strange men in my apartment, because sometimes I can barely get the door unlocked with the right key. And my apartment has no hallways.

So there are a few pluses. But I'm definitely going to wait at least a few more months before I start watching CSI again. At least until it's sunny after 6pm.

Any day that ends in a ballpit is a good day

Last week I connected with a new friend from the Berkshires living in Boston. We did all the same things that Berkshire County kids love to do- go to Starbucks to grab coffee, go aisle shopping in Target, and driving around town. The good life.

 He's a few years into grad school and gets to enjoy all the perks of dorm life. Being around kids your age (ish), late-night dorm snacks, bearing witness to walks of shame, etcetera. Another perk of his dorm living? Oh, just that one of the rooms in his dorm is devoted entirely to being a ball pit. It's for "stress relief." It's an entire room filled two and a half feet thick with brightly colored plastic balls! An entire room!

I can't even imagine the possibilities this would have held for me at school. I would have done all my studying there. My daily exercise. My late-night romantic trysts. (Kidding. Half.)

Needless to say, I made him stay there and swam through them and bounced them off the walls for as long as felt socially appropriate (an hour). It was our first friend date, after all- don't want to give a totally childish impression. But the fact that MIT devotes money to this endeavor, AND that a committee probably had to sign off on it, makes me seriously consider applying there.

Edge of Existence

Friends, I have reached the edge of existence: the point in one's life where the decision between carrying on with life, and not, comes perilously close. When every breath is a labor, and the actions of looking back or moving forward both cut equally deep, so one is forced to a crossroads of indecision. Lacking motivation, zest, music in my heart of hearts.

For today my ipod passed. And with it, the majority of my music collection. Thousands and thousands of songs, vanishéd into the air around me where they weigh heavily, quietly on my heart. On my very soul. An (admittedly) young lifetime of enthusiastically collecting and trading, making mixes, spending obsessive hours scouring radio stations playlists and other's personal music stashes, as well as generous sessions analyzing lyrics... all for naught. Naught, I say. In Julia's words, "I want my tears, so I can feel my sadness." So wise for a six year old.

Please send all (good) music to 09emf@williams.edu. Do the right thing. It's Christmastime.

Peek-A-Belly

Whilst Christmas shopping for the ever-fertile Flynn sisters, I came across this site called Peek-a-belly.com. It sells onesies for babies that open in the middle for, as they put it, "for the gift of delicious belly access." Now, babies bellies are adorable and all. But I don't know- something about it rubs me the wrong way.

As my sister Kate put it, "It defeats the purpose of a onesie. And it invites creepy people to kiss your kiddo's belly!"

Peek-A-Belly. Cute or evil?

Aquarium Days

I've been at the Aquarium for over 2 months now. Within that short amount of time my boss has learned to trust me enough to leave me alone in the lab for a few hours and not have the lab be flooded upon his return. I feed the starfish, dogfish, urchins, seahorses, and flounder all by myself, and they're all surviving quite nicely (a fact of which I am very proud).

In the beginning, I tried to name all the animals I came across. Most were given physical descriptors, like the starfish I named 'Lefty' because he was missing an arm. (Because starfish have five arms...ha...ha). There was also Lumps, Spotty, Red, and Flopsy. You get the idea.

The Edge of the Sea exhibit is where I spend most of my time. There is constant background music provided by the nearby Amazon River exhibit. More specifically, the music comes from the deforestation video that plays on loop throughout the day. The music gives a soulful, driving ambiance to my exhibit. Because of that video, I am endlessly subjected to an a capella version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," where the "in the jungle, the mighty jungle" parts are accompanied by the piercing sounds of chainsaws and trees falling. Deforestation. About 4 million times a day, everyday (approximately.) The visitors themselves don't seem to be affected the same way that I am, but then again- they can always walk away. When you're cleaning out a tank for about half an hour and hear the refrain "A hym a way-a hym a way-a hym a wayy..." it's enough to make you wonder: if I cut down all the trees, will it make the music stop?

On Wednesday I wandered into the cold-water area, where another intern was working. We chatted a bit about our respective jobs, and then he said that if I was sticking around I could help feed Truman and Athena. Truman and Athena are the aquarium's North Pacific Giant octopi. Athena is, admittedly, not so giant (as she is just under a year) but Truman is a dude. So now, on my life list, I can cross off "feed an octopus." I can also add to that list (only to cross it off immediately, for I have done it!): touch an octopus (not shockingly- they are smooth and slimy), as well as be suctioned by an octopus tentacle (all the way up to my elbow).

Sure, the internship is unpaid. But you can't pay for experiences and character-building like that. Right, mom?

...Right? 

 How many seahorses do you see in the picture? 

Correct answer: at least 8. Camouflauge, baby.

AutoTune!

Autotune is so 2009. It's when you take a clip of someone speaking or "singing," and alter their pitch higher or lower. The result is that a rapper that can't sing (e.g.-Kanye West) can "sing" on their hits. The additional benefit of Autotuning something is that one can also make pundits and television personalities sing the news, which increases my desire to watch ABC news more than ten-fold. Gubernatorial? More like gu-boring-natorial. (Zing.)


The year in review, courtesy of VH1 (and my flatmate, for the clip).




Autotuning the news. Who doesn't love Katie Couric? (Fact: she spoke at my school. She should have been auto-tuned.)

So I Saw New Moon

New Moon is For Lovers

Tonight while googling New Moon, I found this photo of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the stars of the Twilight sequel's New Moon. It is my new favorite. 

So. New Moon. New Moon is the second in the Twilight trilogy of star-crossed lovers, vampires, and werewolves that came out on November 20th and broke all the box-office records. My mother, twin, and I are obsessed with the story, having read them before the movie came out. (Yes, I am pulling that card.) It's not so much the 17-but-actually-108-year old Edward Cullen that really draws us in (though he is played by rogue-ishly handsome and wildly haired actor Robert Pattinson), but the story itself. The two main characters are in love. They're kept apart by uncontrollable forces (here, the fact that he is undead and that she is human.) They fight to be together and overcome adversity. Hey, a good love story is a good love story.

There are a lot of crap movies made lately that are targeted at women and the stereotypical things that women like. Cooking, romance, repentant ex-boyfriends. Etc, gag. Must I remind you about 2009's female-oriented films like Julie & Julia, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Sandra Bullock's The Proposal, AND My Sister's Keeper? Not only are these movies major downers, they make you either end up crying with emotion, crying with joy, or just crying because the dialogue is terrible. And while most of the time I'd like to opt out of the female genre entirely, I do proudly admit that I love Twilight. The dialogue is admittedly terrible, but at least it didn't make me cry.

Twilight doesn't really have any of those traditional and pesky elements like "feelings" or "emotions." Well, they actually do, but it's all on the inside. In fact, more than half of the time the characters are seemingly so caught up in thinking about how they feel that they don't really express them aloud or to each other. While this does create the major obstacles in the plot for the characters (attempted suicide, jaded lovers) it is something I can really get behind: people talk about their feelings too much. Twilight doesn't. I choose Twilight's angsty quiet brooding over analyzing the minutiae of a relationship anyday. ANYDAY. While I actively avoided all the other romantic comedy and chick-targeted gagfests, I was all aboard the New Moon train. Toot toot.

This strategy is also very true to real-life teenage romances. No teen really knows what they're doing at that time anyway- confused angst is inevitable.

Twilight does specialize in super sexy elements of "danger". Edward loves Bella, but he wants to bite her. Odds are bad for them, but they work hard against all odds to stay alive and be together. In real life if a guy had to stave off the urge to kill you everytime you touched, a restraining order would (or should) be involved. But Edward's constant battle between love and thirst just serves to rev up the sexual tension from 0 to 60, promptly send all unsuspecting 13 year old hearts aflutter. But the best part of the movie for me is the fact that the plot is entirely driven through dark looks, heavy sighs, terrible dialogue, and a general lack of tear-jerky parts. Win.

The audience in my theater was filled with (as expected) a bevy of 10-13 year old tweens, as well as a lot of older women attending the showing under the guise of "taking their daughters to the movies." There were maybe six 20somethings in the theater, of which my group accounted for half of them. I think I saw one guy, maybe. I thought that was very brave of him.

If you're not going to see it, here's what you missed of Twilight: New Moon
*More than half of the movie was entirely emoted through brooding and wordless, pensive stares. A lot of the movie we, the viewer, were (I guess?) supposed arrive at our own interpretations of the character's true feelings through the variations of their sighs and eye movements. Nearly every scene with Edward, the vampire, opened with Edward's hands in his pockets, looking stoic and distractedly off to the side. I'm gonna go with 25 of the total 30 scenes started this way. So I arrived at the conclusion that Edward has a lot of feelings. That's like half the plot there, so if you're only reading this far in the post, feel free to take your leave now. You're welcome.

*All the characters are riddled with some serious inner conflict. There was a lot of this:

and this:

 

As my friend Kate used to say, "No words, just feelings." I think it sums up the character's interaction quite nicely. Why talk about our feelings when we can just try to send them telepathically to each other? It's hard to talk about a love that endures past death without sounding contrived anyway.

*There was a gratuitous amount of Taylor Lautner's abs. And not just abs- Taylor Lautner's abs in jean shorts, or "jorts", proudly named by my friend Ben who loved his own pair once. The jorts were a dominant part of Jacob's (and Ben's) ensemble. Moving on.

Taylor plays the character Jacob, the reticent native american teen/werewolf. Mind you, he's a 17-year old in real life, but the way the older women in my theater behaved he may as well have been George Clooney. In the real world these women could be put into jail for lusting after a barely-legal like Taylor. But with the striking popularity given to "Cougars" lately, this probably shouldn't be shocking to me. Personally, I felt a little weird thinking he was hot as he was because he was young. I can only imagine how I'd feel if I had a son his age. Hopefully, more than a little wrong. 

*My favorite scene of the movie? Bella, the angsty and dreadfully insecure protagonist, played by Kristen Stewart, falls off her motorcycle and hits her head against a perfectly placed lone rock. As you do. Her friend, Jacob, aka Taylor "Jorts" Lautner, comes to her rescue. He decides to wipe up some of the blood from her head after her accident, which is a good start. But he stands up in what can only be described as slow-motion soft-core movement, and then peels off his gray tee shirt. The camera pans up from his shoes and suddenly all you see are abs-abs-abs. And then he hands her the shirt. Wasn't I supposed to be concerned about Bella?? Yes. But with the placement of this scene, you get the feeling that the director just gave up ad gave in to what all the prepubescent girls wanted. You know what I'd be pissed about if I was Bella? If I just got a concussion I would be pretty upset if someone tried to upstage me with their nakedness. Even if he looked like Taylor Lautner.

Not surprisingly, this action illicited shrieks of glee from the pre-teens and their mothers. It was, honestly, so unbelievably over-the-top that I couldn't help but laugh. My twin fervently believes that the director, Chris Weitz, was trying to embrace the hokey campy nature of the script in a tongue-in-cheek way. Verdict's still out.

It's kind of like the time that I saw Harry Potter after seeing the SNL parody where Rachel Dratch had such a spot-on Harry Potter impression that when I finally went to see the actual movie, I couldn't stop laughing because I just imagined it to be Rachel Dratch as Harry. If the director DID knowingly make New Moon as parody-ing as he could then the guy needs an award. Because New Moon was hilarious, even when I didn't think they meant to be. It was a parody of itself.

*Interestingly enough, the New Moon's official symbol depicts the shadow of the moon moving right to left across the screen. This is actually a waxing moon, not a waning moon that preceeds a "new moon." Thus, the logo is scientifically incorrect. You'd think that as the title of the movie was New Moon someone on the production team might take the time to fact-check that their image of the moon was accurate. But you would be wrong. But what can we expect from the angst-ridden sexually tense sequel to Twilight?

While I wasn't obsessed with the movie (or even involved in the story enough to not laugh during the movie) would I see it again? Hell yes, at least twice more. Though exactly why I was was entertained was most probably not the director's true intent, I was thoroughly entertained throughout the whole thing and recommend it highly. The New Moon poster Dan got me in my bedroom wasn't just put up to be a conversation piece.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Fanieul Hall put up their white lights after Thanksgiving.

Caffeine Fix

Café, j'taime.

I discovered coffee late in life, and far too late in college. It's funny the things you don't fully appreciate at the time, like the free coffee in the dining halls. We weren't allowed to take food out of the dining halls (...though we had already paid for it), but we had unlimited access to cups of coffee-as many as you could carry out you could have. I did four cups one time in preparation for a long night in the library during the finals period. How clutch would that be now.

I first started seriously downing the C when I took my first law class, Maritime Policy. It was a 3-hour Friday morning class, so it was either that or turn to drugs. I chose the less illegal route. But even with a double espresso there were moments that tried my very academic soul. My friend Ale, a self-identified caffeine fiend, first introduced me during this time to the saving grace that was caffeine.

Before this class, it had never occurred to me before to drink it. I thought it tasted foul. It stunted my growth, I was told, and I harbored beliefs that I would hit a second growth spurt and one day hit 5'8". (I still hope for this, but have accepted coffee as a delicious substitute.) So for the trying classes I tried to bully on through the awkward head nod that happens when you're narcoleptically falling asleep in class and fighting with every muscle in your body to keep your eyes somewhat open. Ale would make me an espresso before class, and then together we'd feel more able to tackle 16th century ocean law. From that point on, I realized my love for the coffee bean.

If not for caffeine, I never would have gotten through the following courses: Psychology Experimentation and Statistics. (Makes me tired just thinking about it) Climate Change (I thought it was going to be a tree-hugging-let's-save-the-earth course! but it ended up involving things like chemistry and physics. At 8:30 in the morning.) Introduction to Fiction Writing Workshop which, even at 1pm in the afternoon, had an intoxicating soporific effect. My teacher even commented to me, in class evaluations, that there was a noticeable change when she saw me bring in my coffee mug. But as a writer herself, I'm sure she understood my need. Aspiring writers tend to talk a lot about ideas. And in the sometimes 4-hour workshop, one needed a little fix to wrap their heads around characters like talking snakes and the additional images of bleeding trees.

Looking back, it puzzles me exactly how I got through high school and college on as much sleep as I did. 6 hours a night, was I insane?! It was like a self-enforced sleep deprivation experiment. I can't even go out on weekends now if I feel a bit tired, how did I go out three days a week last year? Willpower, man. It is everything. Willpower and caffeine.

Last night I slept a record (even for me) 11 hours. And then I woke up this morning exhausted. Mind you, I slept this long after a vacation spent sleeping and lounging around the house on furniture in all sorts of reclined positions. But I still had to drink a large cup of coffee before I felt like a semi-functioning human being and for my two nephews to deem me fun enough to play with. To be fair, unless I'm swinging them around and constantly acting as official piggy-back giver, they feel I could be more energetic than I am. So this afternoon I am going to have two cups, and thus turn into: Super nanny. All thanks to my one true liquid love, coffee.

Mom Wisdom

(On cashing out my savings bonds)
Mom: So we had to put a dollar in your account to take the money out. But some of them are Payable on death, and I didn't want to kill you. POD. So we're going to the bank at 10 so you can sign for them.

Happy Thanksgiving, from PETA

PETA is a terrible organization. They are loud, they are obnoxious, and they overdramatize their cause in a way that often repels people instead of converting them. Here's their newest propaganda just in time for Thanksgiving, where a cute little girl asks to say grace before her family sits down to eat dinner at the Thanksgiving meal.



Ugh. The "...and thank you for rainbows" comment is such an afterthought to try to make her sound young and innocent and perhaps take away the "sting" of the harsh realities that turkeys endure in our country. Yes, the meat industry in America is admittedly very bad, even in however many decades after The Jungle was written. (side note: ew.) PETA added the whole part about "the mean people who stomp on the little turkey heads" line in to really tug at the carnivorous heart strings. But the real effect? After watching this commercial, I sort of want to eat meat just to spite them. And I've been a vegetarian for over two years. So, objective not accomplished, PETA.

But seriously y'all- tofurkey is delicious. You should try some. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Cat Call Needing A Response

Since I've moved to the city, I've dealt with the usual amount of attention from male strangers, at least as much as any other 20something female. But this situation was different because my internship starts at 8am- This guy was out cat-calling people under the bright light of the sun. I was also wearing what I previously had considered a cat-call-proof outfit: khaki pants which flatter no woman, and a comfy dirty sweatshirt over a man-size green aquarium polo with sneakers. Not exactly the definition of sexy. In the course of my internship I get sprayed with salt water, protein from filters, and dead animal parts. I'm not going to wear anything nice.

So while on my way to my internship at the Aquarium last week I was talking on my cell phone, as most everyone else in this city does on their commute to and from work. I had just passed the restaurant I used to work for which meant I was a 4 minutes walk away from the Aquarium. That's when I noticed a guy standing on the corner yelling at people. Loudly. This scenario is a normal part of any person's commute. My usual plan of attack is to avoid, avoid, avoid, and so I crossed the street.

Because this guy either noticed that I was clearly distancing myself (or he just is in a habit of yelling at every female that walks by) he followed me and crossed the street too, at which point he yelled after me, "Why you calling me baby? I'm right here!"

Yep, there you are.

I am not one to normally respond to cat calls, but I would love to be able to come up with something for this one. As it was, I turned around, smiled, and kept on my merry way. Not exactly the Hail Mary of Cat Call Responses, but you've got to acknowledge a cat call that seems to defy any clever response.

Keg-Tapping Capabilities

My thirteenth year was a good year for me. I firmly suspect that this was when I peaked, and that the time since then has been a slow and steady decline into... God Knows What. Everyone has their peculiar theories about life; this is mine.

A large part of the reason that seventh grade was just so wonderful was that, up to this point, I had somehow managed to escape middle school awkwardness. Sure, I may have worn blue eye shadow to my school photo and looked slightly circus clown-ish, but the only one this really angered was my mother who had to pay for the photo and clearly didn't understand anything about being fashion-forward.

There is other evidence that I cite when bringing up this theory.  I was dating a popular cute boy (don't judge me, it was middle school). I had great hair and the right clothes (which involved a long purple butterfly skirt for my first day of school outfit. But I swear- other people thought it was cool, too.)  I was invited to the good parties, where kids danced in basements while their parents pretended to be busy upstairs. I was able to walk around school without a hall pass. And this was my last year where I didn't really have to try at school, and therefore had a bunch of free time afforded by the complete lack of effort in all things related to homework and studying. My twin sister and I, along with a group of our friends, had charmed an English teacher into let us watch the television Dawson's Creek (rated PG-13!) during lunchtime on the old television in his room. Needless to say, I felt pret-tee darn cool.

Only adding to this was the fact that my sister was in college. College was hands-down the coolest thing I had ever heard of. Kate got to stay up late, go out with her friends, and live away from home. She got free tee-shirts from the student union, a big coup for me. She took me out for ice-cream when we visited her college. (Side note: my admiration can almost always be bought with desserts. Kate already had my love, but the ice cream really helped to seal the deal.)  On the days not spent watching Dawson's Creek, I held court at the lunch table, amusing my peers with tidbits of the "college" life. (It involved a lot of freedom and ice cream.) But there was one event that occurred during my 13th year that forever cemented the fate of my coolness, and that was the night I learned how to tap a keg.

Yes, perhaps a 7th grader should not possess any sort of knowledge pertaining to the consumption of alcohol. My mother, for one, was none-too-thrilled when she learned of my newly acquired skill. My english teacher, the same one who let us watch tv at lunch, was- for lack of a better word- bemused, when he learned of it. He found out because I wrote an free-write essay on the topic. And ok, *maybe* I shouldn't have been so upfront about blatantly disregarding societal norms and their laws, especially those revolving around alcohol. Especially someone (anyone) could have easily notified some types of authorities. Perhaps the cspca? But I was a proud child to say the least, and I thought I was awesome. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops for the world to know. I, Emily, could tap a keg.

Let's be honest for a moment, though. I couldn't really tap a keg, as evidenced by the numerous occassions at a time in my life when I could legally and responsibly drink alcohol yet repeatedly failed to tap a keg of PBR or Milwaukee's Best. It's not as though I actually drank from the keg itself, or any other vessel of alky. The incident itself is much less exciting than the end result suggests.

My older, quieter, more sophisticated, college-aged sister Kate had invited my twin sister and I up to spend the night at her college (because we were more or less obsessed with the idea of college itself, and she was a good sister). She and a friend took us out bowling, brought us out to dinner at a dining hall, and then we ended up back to her dorm room for a sleep over. It was the description of innocence. But, as these things tend to happen, one thing led to another, and we all ended up going to meet her longterm boyfriend at another college dorm. The boyfriend was also a director of an a capella group, and they happened to be having a celebration that night.

I remember everyone being terribly cool and attractive. For some inexplicable reason, I also remember everyone being pretty nice to me as well. I wasn't so astonished at their niceties at the time, but looking back? I'm not sure how I would have treated a random and clearly out-of-place 7th grader at a college party. There would have been much staring, and then much reaming out of the person responsible. Let's not kid ourselves here- college students are infidels. And a Friday night in a college dorm, surrounded by debauchery and drinkery, is probably is not the best sort of influence on an impressionable middleschooler. Or worse, two middleschoolers, as my fellow twin and adventurer Chel was also present. Debaucherous.

Kate's boyfriend introduced the twin and I to most everyone. And everyone seemed pretty cool with it. That's probably how we ended up in the back room, where another college boy was tapping a keg for the party. (It was probably not the first keg). The boy tapping the keg was pretty enthusiastic that the twin and I learn; he thought it was a riot. But I was also thirteen, so any attention bestowed upon me by a college boy was probably viewed as enthusiastic. It was attention, plain and simple. So the keg-tapping boy instructed us in the proper techniques, I pumped the handle thing maybe once, and that was it. Newfound knowledge does not always come announced with horns and whistles, and this knowledge was tucked away for future parties, ones where I could regale others with stories of the first keg I encountered as I failed to use that knowledge to open the one in front of me. It was a distraction method, and it has worked numerous times. But I always try, because I secretly feel that the knowledge, born in me so young at the ripe old age of 13, should somehow nestle itself into my muscle memory and enable me to finally, by myself, tap a keg. One day.

After some more sisterly bonding, the delightful college party, and a final lesson in keg-tapping, it was soon time to go home to solidify my popularity and write that essay about my youth impropriety and the weekend at college. When my mom took did find out about it (after I wrote the essay), she took it in stride. My sister really was a pillar of responsibility and the bastion of adult respect. It was just one of those things that happens. You get invited to the right parties, you learn to tap a keg, you peak. And then everything else kind of seems a bit lackluster.

Popstars: Songs About Technology are Always Lame.

Even if you are unimaginably famous, a crappy pop song is a crappy pop song. With that in mind, here's Beyoncés super crap new pop hit that will probably and nauseatingly hit number one on Billboard, "Video Phone." And this is my totally subjective and entirely accurate brief analysis.



The concept of the video is like it was directed by 3 separate people. The beginning appears to be derived from something out of Resevoir Dogs, but then we have her dancing as some sort of futuristic bored gum-chewing stripper that throws her ponytail braid around. And then we have men with cameras on their heads (but keeping with the theme, shouldn't they be videophones?) Beyoncé can do so much better than this.

Remember Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)? That was pop brilliance itself! But "Video Phone?" As our spanish friends say- chupa la gran. Does anyone actually call their cell phone a "videophone?" I'm pretty sure most cellular devices have video capabilities nowadays, so really only grandparents and the technologically illiterate refer to their cell as a videophone. Making Beyoncé... dare I say it, behind the times? Out of touch?

She does use with the line "What, you want me naked? If you like it you can tape it on your video phone." Perhaps she's actually making some insightful social commentary on all the sex tape scandals recently, a lá ex-Ms. California Carrie Prejean. As we all know (or should know by now) taping something on your "videophone" is a fast ticket to TMZ notoriety. But such a passive statement that can be summed up as "you want me naked? Okay, whatever" actually does fit her whole bored stripper dancing that occurs in the video. Above all else, she gets points for consistentency. And I am too disappointed in Lady Gaga to even comment on her appearance in the video.

This is when you know a pop song is crappy:
When the song repeats catch words and phrases. For example, Beyoncés "Video Phone" repeats the word "video phone" sixteen times in the lyrics and chorus (not including background vocals). In addition, she uses the word "video" by itself an additional seven times, and the words cell phone once, video screen once, tape once, and film once. If you didn't know what the word videophone meant- look! She gave you context clues! Someone had a thesaurus, huh B? Wink.

These lyrics really help to flush out the song:

"On your video phone, make a cameo
Tape me on your video phone, I can handle you
Watch me on your video phone, on your video, video
If you want me you can watch me on your video phone

I love how you approach me
Fresh white with your pants hangin' grown man low
Everything you sayin' soundin' good to me
No need to convince me anymore."

Pants hanging grown man low? Either she's being clever and talking about wearing pants normally, as most grown men should do or... well. Or the whole song is really just mindless dribble that details her narcissism in wanting to be taped by a guy with a flashy phone and pants falling off his butt.

No need to convince ME anymore, Beyoncé. This was an album filler, wasn't it?

Beaver Pond

Beaver Pond was a little muddy body of water tucked away into the southern part of the state forest in my hometown. It might not actually be called Beaver Pond, that was just what everyone called it. I guess I never really asked, just took it as one of those things that you never really questioned. It was high school, after all. But after hangouts there were established, I hoped to hear word nearly every weekend that there would be a gathering.

Thankfully, the boy I was dating was able to garner me an invite by being involved the right crowds. He was the captain of the lacrosse team. He lived in an unfathomably large house, and owned every video game console known to man. Besides me, there were other girls who had crushes on him (and maybe even a boy or two). He was effortlessly accepted, and being his girlfriend- I was accepted too. So that was nice.

Trust me, I don't know how we got to be dating either. It wasn't that I was a total dork in high school, but it is hard to be invited to all the cool parties when you're busy with singing in the school chorus, writing for the lit magazine, heading up far too community service events. I was the type of girl that actually kind of enjoyed studying, though I probably never would have admitted it out loud. I was in the musical every year, for goodness sake! Running for the track team and being on varsity soccer could never fully counteract singing show-tunes, at least in the popularity contests. But long story short, I was sometimes invited to weekend night gatherings at the super-hyped Beaver Pond. And I was thrilled.

The boys who organized the gathering were the type of boys that you would expect. They played sports, and were the first to experiment with drinking. They smoked pot, and taught themselves to play acoustic guitar. They considered themselves edgy. Every school has these type of boys, and mine was no exception. They were just cool, and others treated them that way. It was high school.

On Friday a word of mouth call would go around indicating that Beaver Pond was on that night. My twin wasn't so into the parties, as she sometimes felt the boys to be pretentious and contrived. Looking back, it's not hard to see why. But I was enamored by them and their friend group. I had been teaching myself guitar, mostly because my dad is a rock star and genius with the instrument, but I longed for the day when someone around the fire would ask if anyone wanted to play and I could bust out my version of Oasis' Wonderwall. It never happened, but I still sometimes practice it in case it ever comes up in the future. I will be prepared.

The twin was a good sport to come with me and play designated driver, though the maybe beer and a half I would drink would hardly qualify as drunk driving. But, like other sheltered teens, I was absolutely terrified of getting into trouble with the law, let alone my mother. The twin was also my backup in case I got shy (which I often did). She was carefree spirit with the gift of gab that knew she was above all the high school bullshit. And because of this, the twin was very much loved within that group. She was sassy, she was sarcastic, and she sang along with the boys as they played on their guitars.

To get to Beaver Pond, we parked along a quiet road and had to walk into the forest. At the time, I felt super stealth, but twenty-some odd random cars on a small residential street is a tad conspicuous. I'm sure we fooled very few people. The Pond's neighbors seemed cool enough with it. Or maybe they just didn't care what a bunch of teens were doing. Either way, we never got caught.

The walk in the woods took about fifteen minutes along the train tracks. We walked guided only by the light of our open cell phones, checking the ground. Cell phones, from experience, do not provide a great deal of light, so we mostly stumbled blindly forward until we hit the forked tree on the right. From there, you would stumble forward until you could see the light of the bonfire. And then you had have arrived: welcome to Beaver Pond. I never saw anyone with an actual flashlight, but everyone seemed to get there alright.

The parties brought together kids from all three different high schools in my town, and even some private schoolers. There were a lot of kids I recognized, and some I didn't. Like most small towns we had a lot of gossip, so some of the people were so notorious that I had heard of them well before I met them. The six boys from the catholic high school who called themselves the Untouchables. The Sexy Seven, seven self-entitled upperclass girls from my own school. (Even then, I thought it was a lame name. There are thesauruses, people.) Everything was just kind of chill. Sometimes people mingled, sometimes they didn't. One of the boys used to bring out his guitar and play requests throughout the night. To this day, I love when people play guitar by bonfires. The collective effect of music and staring at a fire is so comfortable that I could have sat there mesmerized for hours. It also could have been the effects of the smoke inhalation and the first intoxicating sips of teenage rebellion and beer. But I chose to think it was the former.

At the end of the night the biggest concerns did not always focus on getting caught. Getting hit by the train, though, did rank high up the list. The train usually trucked its way through at least once during the night, which was cool in the way that I had never been so close to a moving train before. I respected its power, and kept my distance. But I do remember one night when a (stupid) girl got it into her head that she "had" to touch the train because it was "so beautiful." I'm pretty sure her only drinks that night were O'Douls, a non-alcoholic beer selection bought by the boys to give to girls to see what they would do when they were "drunk." Mean, but also kind of funny. While I was secretly hoping that darwinian selection might prevail, someone eventually stopped her. Which, looking back, I guess was the right idea.

The beer at Beaver Pond was usually terrible. I can't remember since then when I've actually had Goldschlauger or Pabst Blue Ribbon and been excited about it. Even if it was free. But at the time, I reveled in the fact that I was being illicit. I was drinking in a forest, with other subversive peers, rejecting societal laws. No matter that I had perhaps one drink a night- I was clearly a rebel. I also never had to pay, which was a nice precedent to set for my future college years. I was a cheap rebel. Viva la resistance.

But if no one tried to touch the train and everyone got home safely, it was a good night. I remember lying in bed, smelling a bit like bonfire smoke and just absolutely adoring life.

We were never caught, which was definitely a good thing. But it's not like we were doing anything too revolutionary or life-altering: we were just a group of kids with nothing to do in a small town who got together and had a bonfire, more or less. Everyone was pretty responsible with drivers and carpooling, so nothing terrible ever happened. I think every kid should have a little bit of a defiant background. And I look back on these memories as a pretty good picture of modern youth, feeling very cool and chill and nonconformist by hanging out with some friends in the middle of a forest.

A Three Hour Tour

Sometimes putting things back into perspective is a much needed thing. One should appreciate being able to breathe in and out without difficulty, to be able to call on a friend or loved one, to be able to realize that hey- maybe life is pretty good after all. Today, unexpectedly, I gained a lot of perspective. I realized that it is okay that I am young and do not have a fulltime job. That for today, it's ok to not have one true calling in life. That I have a loving network of family and friends. And also, most importantly, that I did not drown trapped underneath a flimsy capsized boat in 9-foot swells and fifty-degree wate.

The latter part is mainly what gave me that perspective. Any day henceforth that also manages to avoid such a situation is going to be viewed as successful in my book.

When I woke up this morning and recognized that today was Wednesday, I was excited. I got to work at the aquarium! And play with sea creatures! And also, because my boss is super cool, I knew that I would be going on a collecting trip to some local islands off Boston Harbour, where we would grab some new animals for exhibits. Some starfish, sea urchins, seaweed, and hermit crabs were on the list, along with decorated rocks and various other wonders from the sea. I was both excited and nervous, as I hadn't been snorkeling since my Bahamas winter study last year, where the aquamarine water and lack of current came together for a leisurely snorkle-fest. While I knew that today, being November in the Northeast, would not hold quite the same balmy conditions for me, I was still very much looking forward to the trip. I was well equipped with a borrowed 7mm wetsuit, fins, snorkle, mask, and a healthy appetite for adventure. Me and a team of four, all skilled scuba divers (which I am most definitely not), would be driving the Aquarium's 20some-odd foot boat maybe a couple of miles out of the harbor to do some collecting. Have you ever heard the Gilligan's Island theme song, Three Hour Tour? It was kind of like that.

However, it appears that no weather reports were checked before our departure. As I am still just a lowly intern, I sincerely hope the blame does not fall on me. Pete, our fearless captain, had a burrito in one hand and a heavy lead foot. He also apparently has a complete aversion to conservative boating, as was made apparent when we charged the waves head on (though there was most definitely a small-craft advisory due to the ludicrously high wind speeds and ginormous waves. Adjectives mine).

According to proper boating technique, hitting waves head on with the bow of the boat is the most effective way to avoid capsizing. It is also an extremely effective way to give fellow crewmembers (especially new lowly interns) giant massive coronaries every time that you hit a swell. My position on the boat was rather ineffective, as I just kind of hung from the ceiling hand-holds and tried (unsuccessfully) to not get slammed into the side of the boat with every wave we hit. I also was shrieking inside my head every time our boat dropped down a swell, but as that was on the inside the other crew members probably had no idea. I'm hoping.

I discovered that my adrenal glands are wonderfully efficient. Each time we crashed down my system was flooded with fight or flight responses. Unfortunately for me, I was torn between both, and therefore unable to do anymore than hang from the ceiling. Maybe I'm not the person you should seek out in an emergency, but at least I know the system works. Also, as the four-by-four cabin was relatively safe, though it lacked a wall between the back of the boat and the foot and a half boat wall which separated us from the water, this was the only place I could really go. So I may be bruised and battered, and I may have done very little to help with the actual boating, but I am terribly alive. And that's ok by me.

In retrospect, we all acknowledged that we should not have gone out that day. I acknowledged this as we hit the first wave, but Captain Pete conceded this point well after we had docked safely and I had already thrown myself onto the ground. Better late than never, I suppose.

The entire trip was a battle, you could say, between our twenty-foot boat versus nature's nine-foot swells. And we lost that battle. If you think nine-feet is not that big, you have clearly never been sailing before. I cannot tell you how many different prayers I rattled through as we hit the crest of one wave and my stomach jumped into my throat as we sailed through the air to the bottom of the next. When we hit a wave "right" (and I use the term "right here," loosely) we rode that baby all the way up and then had the exhilarating and absolutely mind-boggling of dropping, boat and all, all the way down. For over an hour to get out there, and over an hour to get back. To think that there are adrenaline junkies who enjoy such a thing? No thank you, sir- I am tapping out.

There hit a point in the trip when I desperately searched for any religious mantra to distract me from falling off and maybe to give God a little heads-up that I might need some help, and soon. Actually, there hit many points when this came up, but sadly, the only song that I found was a song I learned in church school when I was ten. It was called "All God's Creatures Have a Place in the Choir." The running dialogue in my head went more or less, "All God's creatures have a place in the choir F?@&#*** **@!#*, some sing low, and some sing S*** higher, some sing out on a telephone wire and ******* **&&@#* **?@^#^ ,some just clap their hands... or paws... or anything at all, AHHH&#**@($@# noow." The asterisks are vividly interspersed swear words, and the new ones I made up on the spot. If I had been in a better frame of mind, I might have remembered them, but as it was I am just happy to walk on good ol' solid earth and not remember them (for the time being). It's all in the perspective. (But I do remember noting that some of the amalgamated swear words were pretty catchy. Before we dropped the next wave, anyway.)

At the end of the trip, we had a cooler full of mussels, hermit crabs, and the like, one broken plexiglass window from wave impact, and one dismantled ungodly expensive GPS/Depthfinder computer system that had loosened itself from four bolts in the ceiling in one of the most terrifying of waves we hit. I'm pretty sure I shed at least one tear. (Just one though- even if I was going to die, I was not going to be the intern that fussed about it. No, I was going to go down proudly, even stoicly. Like the captain of the Titanic, minus the title. And the beard.)

So after that trip, everything seems kinda cool now. I've re-discovered my love of walking on the stationary ground. My arms are sore from the death-grip I had on the ceiling hand-holds, and my left knee maybe hurts a little from repeatedly slamming into the wall of the boat, but I'll take gladly these any day. Because after it was over, it made a good story. And now a few more people at the Aquarium know my name. And because I dreamed of waves last night, and am very much looking forward to the promised future boat ride from my boss. A boat ride on a day without any waves. And in the very distant future. It's perspective.

The Ominous Truth of Nursery Rhymes

As a prominent part of nannying for my nephews I get to sing lullabies to them before such sleep activities like naptime and bedtime. They love nursery rhymes and often enjoy singing along. Their personal favorites include Toora Loora and the ABCD's song. But there are others, particularly the older nursery rhymes, that I am starting to get into again. And I am rediscovering the lyrics as I sing them. And I am horrified.

Take, for example, "You Are My Sunshine." It is hard to not have heard this song while growing up. I'm pretty sure it is in the mom's handbook of how to raise children, that clearly every mother has. (Or so I hope.)

But anyway, "You are My Sunshine" starts off innocuous enough.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey

You'll never know dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away."

Pretty, poignant, a perfect lullaby for kids of all ages. But the second, lesser-known chorus takes on a different tone.

"The other night dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke dear, I was mistaken

So I hung my head and I cried."

Because nothing says I love you at bedtime than dependency issues and isolation. And then, after this part, the song jumps back to the happier "you are my sunshine" verse. Is it just me, or do these sound like two entirely different songs?

I seriously try to push Toora Loorah when the nephews ask for "You Are My Sunshine". Because you don't achieve long and peaceful naps after you tell the kids you're trying to put to sleep that their nanny is going to wake up crying from unrealized dreams and loneliness. And just 'cause you're using a happy voice and a soothing melody doesn't take away the message of the song. The eerie, despondent message of the song.

The second song that really irks me is "Rock-A-Bye Baby." It, too, is overly violent, and involves themes of baby abandonment.

"Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top

And when the wind blows the cradle will rock

And when the bough breaks the cradle will fall

And down will come baby, cradle and all."

This nursery rhyme revolves around two major themes: abandoning a baby on a precarious perch in a tree, and then the predictable baby violence that follows from the aforementioned precarious perch in the tree. Who's bright idea was it to put the cradle up in the tree? The same person that decided it was good idea that the baby should go in it, evidently. The line about the bough breaking and the baby falling is also a bit of a brush off. In my experience, falling out of trees has been unpleasant and rather bloody. But there's nothing like setting up toddlers for a lifetime of abandonment and a feeling of impending doom. Because if you start off with putting a baby in a tree, you know that things are not going to end well.

Even if the whole situation is hypothetical and the person never intended to follow through, why did they feel it was a good idea to write a song about it in the first place? Isn't that a bit more horrifying? And then they decided that it was a good idea to sing that song to a baby. And other people agreed! For how else would the song have stood the test of time and been passed down from generation to generation. If the song was written in the current day, you can bet the house that there would be more than a few serious investigations conducted. More than a few.

Sadly, there are more sinister nursery rhymes like this. There's "Hush Little Baby," which pushes the idea that material objects are valueless and can be easily replaced and then forgotten with new gifts.

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word.
Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird
And if that mockingbird won't sing,
Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Papa's gonna buy you a looking glass
And if that looking glass gets broke,
Papa's gonna buy you a billy goat
And if that billy goat won't pull,
Papa's gonna buy you a cart and bull
And if that cart and bull turn over,
Papa's gonna buy you a dog named Rover
And if that dog named Rover won't bark
Papa's gonna buy you a horse and cart
And if that horse and cart fall down,
You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town."

Guess who's not going to be the sweetest little baby in town? Oh right, the kid you keep buying stuff impulsively for. If the kid is going to grow up with any semblance of a value system, then the song should be about helping the mocking bird learn how to sing and teaching Rover to bark.


The whole I-will-replace anything-for-you- mentality seems selfless, but then there's the line about the kid being the "sweetest little baby in town." This juxtaposition rings rather false for me. If you keep buying a kid more and more gifts because the gifts either don't work or are cheap (how many diamond rings do you own that have turned to brass? I thought so) you need to question where you are purchasing these items from. Maybe it's not the gifts themselves; maybe it's you.

Aside from these three, I'm sure there are much, much more. Maybe these nursery rhymes were born out of the harsher times when it was fully possible that the baby would need to sleep in a tree or that your horse and carriage would fall over and break. Maybe the songs aim to raise the baby with the awareness that, sometimes, life sucks and you're going to get a billy goat instead of the flimsy looking glass that broke. (Lame gift. What does a baby do with a billy goat? What does anyone do with a Billy goat?) But I still choose the "Bob the Builder" song over these nursery rhymes anyday. And, luckily, the nephews do too.

The Age of the Swine

Swine flu has become so endemic in our modern society that it is now being used by drunken girls as a pox on their boyfriends. Which means that it is one skip and a hop away from being used in a top 40 pop song (I can only hope!)
Actual statement overheard on Saturday night with KG.
Girl (upset and loud about a guy): "I hope he gets them swine flu."

Also, my college brings up the swine (or H1N1 as we are supposed to call it as to not hurt the pig industry) on their brilliant homecoming teeshirts, which exclaim about their rivals, "Sicker than Amherst since 1821."

Oh, swine flu. So popular right now.

Entrepreneurship

I think money is kind of awesome. It is something that I like receiving, that I enjoy spending, and that I don't particularly have a lot of. God bless America.

Growing up, too, I always had a little predilection for more Benjamins. Not to say that I was a little capitalist, but I did get excited at the idea of earning money. Sort of. For me, it was the opportunity to craft a new business. I loved writing out business statements, designing logos and ad campaigns, working out the logistics of who my target audience was (ie- my family.) I liked charging people for services, and developing a long list of things that I would buy. But aside from a new puppy, which I have asked for every year since I was two, there wasn't much that I actually needed or even wanted. I was in it for the whole experience, the entrepreneurship, in the very essence of the word.

You name it, I tried to sell it. I guess not much has really changed. My older sister and I talk about selling our homemade cards online, and I still tell my twin sister that when she becomes famous I will assume the role of her manager. With a 20% cut. (Because good work costs good money.)

Over the course of my childhood, I started several businesses. I had a dog walking business and a dog washing business (for after the dog was walked). I had a business where, if you were lonely, you could rent my stuffed animals. I dubbed that business "Rent a Pet," as I preferred the simple, straightforward approach. Like every little girl who grew up on the Babysitter's Club Series, I had a whole slew of babysitting services, though I don't recollect actually babysitting any children. I'd like to believe that this was not due to my babysitting skills.  I have notebooks and notebooks full of business models and their affiliated logos, which my mom has been prompting me to throw away for years. But how can one throw away such tangible evidence of ambition? One cannot. (or so I tell myself.) So the notebooks stay.

I had some less run-of-the-mill businesses as well. I was a commissioned bracelet maker for my sisters' various boyfriends and older friends. (Bless their hearts.) I had a maze-designing enterprise for small rodents, the gerbil and hamster set, that I designed and sold to other students before science fairs and such. (As this was through school, I couldn't legally receive any payments- but oh, there was many an extra cafeteria cookie in my day.) I sold erasers and pencils at my elementary school's yearly fair, something I looked forward to with relish every September. Even now, when I come across a container of eraser caps for pencils at Staples, I still get a little excited about the profit possibilities. Think of it- each eraser cap costs 15 cents, but to make it only costs a penny or less! That's a huge profit margin! But then I have to remind myself that after one has hit their twenties, maybe they should become a little less focused on school supplies. At least in public.

My favorite business, though, was having a lemonade stand. From June to August my sisters and I could be found camped out in front of our house behind a proud sign that read "Hancock Road Lemonade Stand." Perhaps you've heard of us. We decorated the poster ourselves, and with some cups, a table with chairs, a super legit metal box for making transactions, and even a few bracelets and beaded safety pins (which everyone did in the mid 1990s!) we had a solid business.

The Lemonade Stand was ridiculously lucrative. Aside from nearly all of our neighbors who probably were guilted into buying a drink, there was a woman  that would drive by and leave huge amounts of money in exchange for her one cup of lemonade. We're talking ten and twenty dollar bills, huge cash for an elementary-schooler. No lemonade in the world is worth that much money, but especially not ours; I remember my dad coming out and trying some of the lemonade during one of our outings. He said it was so bitter he had to spit it out. I guess we had mixed up our ratios or something; we were only in elementary school. But that woman came every summer and always drank the whole cup.

I'm not even sure how she initially found out about us, or how anyone not a neighbor or related found us. We lived on an extension a road, a roadlet really. My road was an afterthought to the real Hancock Road. But somehow we made a huge amount of money in the summertime. It was kind of awesome. Whenever I see a lemonade stand today I try to leave a goodly amount of money for the kids to get excited over. But I don't really see beaded safety pins for sale anymore, or else I would totally buy those. I guess I just had that market cornered.

Years later my family moved across town to a bigger house on a busier street. Though I thought I may be a bit too old for the Lemonade Game, I clearly remember weighing the possibilities of hosting a lemonade stand at our new house versus not having one. I heavily weighed in on the pros side. Maybe I wasn't as cute as a six year old, but I had a better business sense after all my previous business ventures. The road had way more traffic, and an infinite more amount of thirsty foot traffic. That first summer was also packed with record highs and humidity. And, most importantly, I was very confident in my ability to make less bitter lemonade, as the passing of years brought math skills and a better sense of proportions. But my twin wouldn't do it with me, and I was too nervous to do it alone. This is probably for the best: I was thirteen. But I still might have done it. And I would have been laughing all the way to the bank.

I wish I could still just make a business like this nowadays. How many people would laugh at me if I were to sell lemonade at the end of my busy road in Boston? How many people would buy it? While swine flu precautions would make a lot of people hesitate, I think the odds are good that I would be able to find that one woman who would drink the whole cup and leave an absurd amount of money. Maybe people would take pity on me for being young and unemployed. I'm still kind of cute. And I make a pretty decent cup of lemonade.

Do You Need A Reason To Wear A Costume?

This Halloween, I wore two costumes. Well, three, if you count my daily costume of being awesome. (Which I do.)

On Thursday morning I attended a Preschool Halloween Parade with my sister/boss (and mother of my two nannying charges, the nephews). Quinn, the nephew that attends the preschool with the aforementioned parade, was dressed as Bob the Builder (or, as we kept singing it- Quuuinn the builder, can? he? fix? it?) The parade consisted of a lot of little kids walking down a street with their hands tied on a long rope. They were dressed in head-to-toe costumes like puppies and firefighters and in varying degrees of distress. The distress depended on how far away their parents were from them as well as how badly their costumes had been messed up. (One girl had her puppy face falling off and was, quite naturally, visibly upset.)

The parade walked ... v  e  r  y...   slowly from one end of the street to the other, where the local fire station #2 was, and back. We walked alongside them the whole time. It was kind of like we were on parade too, which was fun. But frankly I may just prefer the sit and observe kind . Couldn't the little kids have paraded around me? I was in costume. All in all, the walk was maybe two tenths of a mile, and took forty minutes. But it was cute, so well worth the mileage.

My sister and I, being the super fun people that we are, decided that we too would dress up for the Halloween Parade. And as luck would have it, Kate happened to have some bee costumes on hand. They had been bought years before and were designed for two-to-four year olds. They had black antenna, orange stripes and orange polka-dotted bow ties (as bees do.) So in the true spirit of Halloween, we went off to go watch (and walk with) the parade.

Kate and I were the only parent/authority figures that were decked out for the event. When we first stepped out of the car, quite a few heads turned. Maybe fifteen. It was hard to say, as I had a squirming tiger in my hand (the other nephew, Cole, too young for preschool and in his festive tiger costume.) One would not call their looks or laughter "judgement-free."

Kids on a rope!

Here's my attitude towards costumes: if you are going to wear a costume, and it is a legitimate occasion to wear one (rule of thumb: if you have to question whether it is legitimate: it isn't), then by all means- go forth in your festooned glory. So why the judging, folks? After all, it wasn't like Kate and I wore our tiny bee costumes to a cotillion. We weren't dressed as outrageous as Lady Gaga. We were wearing pants, for goodness sake! So Kate and I told ourselves that the other parent/authority figures were just jealous and rocked the little bee costumes like they were meant to be rocked. (Hard.)

Beee jealous

For my second costume I did dress as outrageously as Lady Gaga. Because I was Lady Gaga.

For it, I wore my twin sister's two-foot blonde wig which she somehow happened to have in the back of her closet, with a bunch of clothes that I (shamefully) didn't have to purchase because I already owned. (But since I do not wear them all together, I rarely achieve the Lady Gaga look in my day-to-day.) The piece de la resistance was wearing my father's baby blue satin butterfly top from the seventies.

My father's. Baby blue satin. Butterfly top.

We found the shirt in our attic one summer, and had brought it down to show my mom/ rib her about wearing it. She simply replied, "Oh, you found dad's shirt. I made that for him!" She said this proudly. Without even a hint of irony.

The discovery of dad's blue satin shirt didn't bring on as many levels of confusions as one might expect. You see, my dad was in a band in the seventies (but who wasn't, it seems?) They toured parts of the Northeast, especially the college scene. That was how he met my mother. (But that's a different story altogether.) My mother had made the shirt for my father to wear on stage. (Again, it was the seventies.) And so, decades later, I got to wear it on Halloween. I'm sure made him feel very masculine and manly. Baby blue satin butterflies do that to a man. The shirt itself was a hit at my party, as I shared the shirt's origin with just about everyone who asked where I could have got such a thing. Because that is what good children do.

 

P-p-p-poker face

 At the end of the night, when the blue satin shirt was carefully put away (saved for future outfits) and the blonde wig had come off, I knew it had been a good Halloween. All thanks to my father, and the numerous opportunities to wear costumes.