Volunteering Is Not For Scaredycats
In my quest to Be A Better Person and Change The World and Find Some Way To Use My Skills For The Betterment Of Mankind and Get Out Of The Apartment and Not Rely On My Boyfriend For Fulfillment I decided to volunteer at 826 Boston. 826 is a great organization that was started in San Francisco by Dave Eggers because he wanted children to learn and he didn’t know what else to do with all his money. Did everybody know I have a huge boner for Dave Eggers? Have you met me? My name is Emily. Dave Eggers is my hero. So. Yesterday was the June information session and tutor training. 826 Boston is located in, quite possibly, the worst neighborhood in all of greater Boston. Egleston Square in Roxbury. I’d driven through Egleston Square a million times when we lived in Roslindale because it’s a direct way to get into Boston from the south. And even in a car it’s a little scary. But I biked there yesterday. And I learned something. Places that are a little scary in a car are Very Scary on a bike. Especially if your bike is a butter-yellow cruiser with flowers on it and a basket and you have a bright pink bike helmet with matching pink sunglasses and backpack. I was asking for it. But I thought, no, I’ll be fine. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, Emily. As I walked my bike down Washington Street looking for the storefront (Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute) I noticed a few men gathering in the street. One of the men was wielding what I can only describe as a very heavy tennis ball attached to a fabric belt-type thing. And he was swinging this tennis ball-y thing on the fabric belt-y thing in the middle of Washington Street and yelling “Hombre!” over and over again. And then I thought I’d stop walking my bike and start riding it instead. And then I came upon 826 Boston, locked up my bike, and called Billy as sirens started blaring and cop cars started materializing and I think I saw a Paddy Wagon, too. Here’s a summary of the conversation we had:
Me: Oh hi. I just wanted to call to say hi and tell you that there is probably a street fight happening in the middle of Egleston Square right now.
Billy: Oh yeah?
Me: Yeah. Hear those sirens?
Billy: Yup.
Me: I just think it’s funny that my life is always such a cliche.
Billy: Huh?
Me: Earnest white girl in the inner city trying to teach underprivileged kids how to write.
Billy: Is Gangster’s Paradise playing?
Me: Yeah. Coolio is here.
Billy: Maybe you drive to Roxbury next time.
Me: Good idea.
Anyway. Then we had the info sesh and it was great and I am really excited to get started helping out over there. I already have an idea for a playwriting workshop I can run with older kids and a possible improv/silly plays workshop for younger kids. It’s actually great that they are located in Roxbury because that’s where it’s most helpful for kids to have free tutoring and fun learning opportunities. So it’s all good things.
A Bunch Of Things
I’m excited about my wedding. But there are some danger zones. Wedding magazines are terrible, TERRIBLE things. They make you think that you need to do all this stupid stuff. You don’t need to do stupid stuff, everybody. You don’t. I’m not throwing a bouquet. It’s embarrassing and it feels like I’m making fun of my single friends and I hated standing there while the bride threw the bouquet when I was single so I won’t be subjecting my friends and family to that. I’m not saving the top layer of my wedding cake to freeze and then eat later. That’s gross. No offense to anyone who did that or plans to do that in the future. More power to you. But my God, wedding magazines, they make it seem like that’s what everyone does. I don’t want to. Wedding magazines can suck it.
I’ve been telling lots of things to suck it lately. Kathy Griffin must be influencing me. She is awesome. Me and Katie Fay saw her do stand up a couple weeks ago and she was so fun. We would probably be besties, me and Kathy Griffin. I think she would like me.
Had dinner and drinks and TV watching last night with Karl and Meghan and my oh my how nice it is to see friends. We had a lovely time. Except when this girl in my neighborhood watched me parallel park my car in front of hers and then, when I got out of the car to walk into my apartment she said “That car you parked in front of? That’s my car. Did you hit it? Did you damage it? Just tell me if you damaged it.” And I said “No. I am very good at parallel parking. I didn’t touch your car.” It was really weird and awkward and I really didn’t touch her car at all. In fact it was a masterful parallel parking job I did and I didn’t appreciate her insinuating that I hit her car. Who does that? Who asks strangers these things? I live in a tough-ish neighborhood and I guess she was probably just posturing or maybe she was tipsy and belligerent, but it really bothered me. I didn’t grow up in a tough neighborhood. I’m from Fairfield County. The scariest thing in Fairfield County is… nothing. Nothing is scary in Fairfield County. Actually, the scariest thing in Fairfield County is cops. They pull you over and give you speeding tickets. They get you in trouble. Also, my mom is a scary thing in Fairfield County. But as far as strangers talking to you on the street, no way. Not an issue. Everybody keeps to themselves and nobody looks at or talks to each other because everybody is always in their car. There’s no human interaction unless it’s planned in advance. So maybe it’s better in my tough-ish neighborhood. Because at least we’re all there together, acknowledging each other.
I’m reading a really interesting book right now, recommended to me by Kristian, called The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I saw Away We Go a couple nights ago. Both these things make me want to write more. And better. I think after this rambling blog post is done I will get to work on starting a play I’ve been meaning to start for a month or so. It was suggested that we have a draft of a full-length play ready to hear and revise by the beginning of the fall semester and the beginning of our MFA carreers. So I should get started on that. And I will. Soon. Today. Away We Go was so good. I just really liked it. I’ll see it again with somebody if they want to see it. It made me happy and inspired.
Also, yes, I have a giant intellectual/friend crush on Dave Eggers. Everybody knows this about me. I adapted his stories into a play and now it’s going to be performed in New York at the Fringe and I love every book he’s written and everything he is involved with and I love his philosophy of giving things away and helping the world. I read this article about him in a stolen issue of this magazine called Ode (I’ve never heard of it either, but I was sorting the mail the other day and I saw his name on the cover so I swiped it. I’m not proud of myself. Also, I gave it back after I read the article.) about why he gives money away. And it inspired me to volunteer at 826 Boston.
BU has a farmers market on Thursdays now. I think that’s cool. Local food is something I can really get behind. It just makes so much sense. The problem is avocados. I fucking love them and they grow in the desert. And, as evidenced by the weather in Boston this month, this is not the desert. So if I go hardcore with local food then I can’t eat avocados and is life really worth living if you can’t eat avocados? No. No, it is not.
And finally, this.
You’re welcome.
Links and Stuff
This has been one of those weeks. One of those long, desperate weeks during which I try to decide if it’s worth it every day to get out of bed, wet my entire body, dry my entire body, and leave the house. Who decided we should wet and dry our entire bodies daily? That seems like such a waste sometimes. Especially during weeks like this one. I probably did about four hours of actual work this week, total. I have been here for 38 hours so far this week. 5 hours were spent eating lunch. 4 hours were spent “working”. The remaining 29 hours were spent perusing the internet. I know exactly who should go fug themselves. I know what the cats with poor spelling and grammar skills are talking about this week. I know about Chaz Bono. I know about Heather Graham’s nipples. I know it all, folks. Too much, probably.
But one good thing about having so much time to devote to the internet is that I discovered two fun new blogs! Well, new to me. If you’re as bored this week as I am (I’m looking at you, Cipu), you’re welcome.
Also, I’ve decided I need to quit being on double birth control. I did manage to only cry one time yesterday and it was because I had netflixed The Constant Gardener and everything in Africa is sad and I want to adopt a thousand babies from there. And that is a normal reason to cry. But aside from that, I have been kind of cuckoo bananas lately and I just don’t think it’s a good idea for there to be so much estrogen in one person. So everybody, rest assured, I am cutting it back down to one birth control at a given time. You can all stop worrying. If shit goes downhill again I was advised to demand a transvaginal ultrasound. Okay. I will. If things get bad again. Okay? Okay. Everybody chill.
Sniffles In June: Not Cool
Yesterday I rode my bike to work. It’s a short, easy ride. It wasn’t raining in the morning. After work, it was drizzling. I went for a three mile run around the river. I rode my bike home in the drizzle. Then this morning I rode my bike to work again, still drizzling. Then at my 11:00 meeting this morning I started sneezing and couldn’t stop. And now I can’t breathe through my nose and my face is all puffy and my sinuses are clogged and my nose is leaking and I don’t have tissues so I have to blow my nose with paper towels. I’ve always said that you can’t catch a cold from being outside in the rain. You catch a cold from germs. But apparently I was wrong and you can catch a cold from being outside in the rain. Well. You learn something new every day.
And on top of it all this d-bag* doesn’t have a place for me to comment on his tumblr. So I will comment here. That’s a little something I like to call “being a nice person.” I thought everybody was supposed to be nice in the mid west. I guess we have different understandings of niceness.
*That’s actually my friend Matthew, he’s not a d-bag, he’s nice.**
**I’m really into asterisks lately.
Time Traveller
Professor On Phone: Is Robert* available?
Me: Unfortunately, no, he’s not available at the moment. Would you like to leave a voicemail?
Professor On Phone: I’m going to be in rehearsal all day tomorrow. Do you know when the best time to reach him would be?
Me: Well, it’s almost five, so maybe you can try to squeeze it in tomorrow. Or you can send him an email.
Professor On Phone: I don’t type. I’ll try to call him in the morning.
(Pause.)
Me: Do you have a time machine? Did you go back to before computers existed? Or, forget computers, even typewriters! Are you visiting us from the pages of history? You don’t type? How are you using a telephone? Have you heard of ball point pens or do you use a quill? Do you ride one of those bikes with the giant front wheel and the tiny back wheel? TELL ME YOUR WAYS OH MYSTICAL MAN FROM THE PAST! What is Cleopatra like in real life?
(I know that Cleopatra joke kind of came out of left field but I just got off the phone with this jackass and I can’t contain my annoyance, it’s leaking into my joke-telling skills.)
*Name has been changed to protect the innocent.
Wedding Planning Should Be Fun?
I had a dream the other night just before my alarm went off. It was just like those dreams where you show up for a final exam for a class you forgot to attend and you don’t know any of the answers. Except instead of it being a final exam, it was my wedding. I showed up, wearing my dress, and nothing was what I thought it was going to be. It was like I’d missed all the planning and my mom had done it all for me. (No offense, Mommy, but in the dream you did a really bad job planning my wedding.) The bridesmaids dresses were purple, per my request, but they were gauzy, long sleeved, high necked disasters. And they were hanging from a bush. And it was at my mother’s house. In the driveway. Billy was nowhere to be found. It was terrifying. I woke up in a cold sweat.
This is probably symbolic. Probably something to do with how intimidated I am with the prospect of having to make so many major decisions between now and next April (May? June? October? I don’t even really know for sure…). But I had a quick talk with a friend of mine who is getting married this fall and she passed on quite a lovely piece of advice. She said that the most important thing to remember while planning your wedding is to enjoy the process. Because if you hate every aspect of planning it then having the day go smoothly won’t make it worth the year of misery. So I decided that that’s what we need to do. Billy and I need to have more fun with this. We need to embrace the process. We get to have a wedding just the way we want it. How lucky are we?
So this Saturday we are visiting two potential ceremony/reception venues. The first one is in Rhode Island and the second one is close to Boston. We’ll be driving around a lot. We will probably get worried about timing and money. But we will make sure we have some fun, too. Maybe we’ll get Slurpies.
Adventures In My Privates
So about three months ago I went through a completely voluntary and very painful procedure. Remember that adventure on the high seas? Well it ain’t over yet! Except this time by “high seas” I mean “period blood” and by “adventure” I mean “a lot of it”.
I will spare you the gory details. But let me just say: nothing is easy, is it? Nope! Nothing is easy at all. After the insertion fiasco, I got my regular period but it just lasted oh an entire month. And then I had two weeks of blissful lack of period and here it is again! Back at it. It is now the eighth day of my period and I’m still bleeding and cramping quite a bit but trying not to let it worry me too much. These things take time to regulate. Or so I’m told. I just had a check up with my OB/GYN two days ago and everything seems to be in the right place but I’m not going to lie, a part of me truly believes that my IUD is making a run for it through the wall of my uterus.
Gross? Yes. Possible? Yes! That is actually a possible thing! Why, again, did I have this foreign object placed inside my body? WHY?
Another fun detail is that since I told my doctor that I was bleeding for way too long she prescribed me birth control pills to stop the bleeding. Does that sound weird? A little? Yeah, it does sound a little weird. Because I am already on birth control. That’s what this whole mess is about. That’s why there is a foreign object in my nethers in the first place. To control birth. Because I didn’t want to have to take a pill. And yet, the IUD requires that I take the pill to regulate my “high seas”.
The best part of all of this? The IUD has hormones in it. The pill has hormones in it. What does that mean? That means Billy is going to have a girlfriend on his hands this month with a double dose of estrogen running rampant through her veins.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, Billy.
P.S. Remember when I said I’d spare you the gory details and then I just gave you all the gory details anyway? I’m such a bitch like that.
Everything’s Coming Up Website!
This website is rocking my world. I am trying to buy the Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse embroidery. Sarah has basically infiltrated my brain and created tons of graphics and embroideries and collages that I want to own.
I Am So Zen
Does it ever seem to you like all my stories sound exactly the same? Here is a formula for an Emily story: take one part hectic adventure, one part boring domesticity, and two parts hysterical weeping. Mix it all together and you get my Tuesday night.
Billy and I are moving on Saturday and yesterday we decided, spur of the moment, that we needed to go to Ikea and buy some things for the new place. We are not finished packing up the old place so what we should have been doing is packing, but instead we said “no, here’s a really good idea, let’s go to Ikea, let’s not pack, let’s acquire more garbage furniture and 99 cent candles.” And that we did, folks. That we did. Usually in situations like this Billy is the first one to lose it and make a beeline for the exit, but yesterday I was the big baby and I freaked out while Billy tried to decide what kind of shelf to put in the bathroom behind the toilet. I didn’t care what kind of shelf we put behind the toilet. We couldn’t decide on a duvet cover. We didn’t get curtains or a writing desk for my office. Or a futon. Or little rugs for the kitchen. But I had had enough. My hands smelled like tire rubber from holding a bathmat for two seconds. Babies were screaming everywhere. Why were the babies screaming?! Somebody was reorganizing shopping carts next to the duvet section and it was so loud I couldn’t take it. My heart started beating really fast and my stomach got really achey. This was probably due to the fact that it was close to 9pm and I hadn’t eaten since 11:30 that morning. And a writing desk is really important to me! This is WHAT. I. DO. How can you not respect that?! And if we can’t even agree on a duvet cover HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY GET MARRIED????
Then the crying started.
And it continued when we got home and I saw that the apartment was in half-packed disarray. And Oscar kept walking on my funny-feeling stomach. And I cried and cried and said “Nobody should go to Ikea on a Tuesday. Ikea is only for Saturday. And why do my fingers still smell like tire rubber?”
And then Billy did a dance and I stopped crying and ate some hummus and suddenly all was right with the world. And I realized that my problem is that I don’t go with the flow. Ever. I try to control the flow. And you know what? You can’t control the flow, Emily. That’s the nature of the flow. It won’t be controlled. You just have to go with it.
Go
With
It.
So that’s what I’m doing from now on. Because I tell too many of these stories. I get overwhelmed because I can’t control everything. I let things get to me. Even when I know the most important things in my life are going along just great! So from now on that is my new attitude. I am going with the flow. Moving, wedding planning, going to work, writing plays, letting it all flow through me. I can’t control the things I can’t control. Sometimes babies cry in Ikea. That’s the way it goes.
The Wayne Brady
Billy invented a new drink out of necessity. We have had this bottle of Kahlua in our liquor cabinet for six months or so, leftover from my December birthday party. And now that we’re moving in two weeks we need to drink as much of our old liquor as we can so we don’t have to pack it up and move it to the new place. So Billy invented this drink and called it the Wayne Brady because it’s super funny and most likely gay. (Also, Billy has an affinity for jokes that were once topical but are no longer of-the-moment. It’s a little thing we like to call Irony.)
Ingredients:
Kahlua
vodka
chocolate soy milk
ice
Directions:
Mix ‘em up and improvise a show tune.
Delicious.
