Dentist

Just went to the dentist.  I am unable to answer the phone at work.  When I try to say “College of Fine Arts” it comes out “Colliszh of Fine Arzzsss.”  The left side of my mouth feels like a marshmallow to the touch.  I sound like Homestar Runner.  Everybody remember Homestar Runner?  He was the best.  It’s dot com.

Homestar

All The Stuff I Missed

There are lots of things about our epic weekend in Pennsylvania that I didn’t include in that post from last week because I got too tired of writing.   There was the fact that Katie is the worst navigator ever and we got lost A LOT.  And Mike has a new thing where he mispronounces vowel sounds (Katie becomes Kootie, Shoo Fly Pie becomes Shoo Floo Poo, etc).  And Billy and Mike got so creeped out in the awesome (though admittedly creepy) bed and breakfast that I had to go through all the rooms and check for ghosts under the beds and in the decorative hat boxes (see below).

I was right.  Nary a ghost.

And we talked a lot.  About poop, mostly.  And pubic hair.  But also we talked about which celebrities we would cheat on our significant others with.  And sadly, my list reads like a who’s who of hipster crushes.  I am ashamed that I’m so predictable.  Here’s my list:

1. Dave Eggers (duh)
2. Paul Rudd (duh again)
3. John Krasinski (I even bore myself.)

Billy made a list as well and it was like 20 people long.  Amy Adams, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Winslet.  All the usual suspects.  Also he loves the nerdy ones like Felicia Day and actors from nerdtastic shows like Firefly.  My favorite of Billy’s celebrity crushes, though, is definitely Sigourney Weaver.  He says she’s a “handsome woman.”  Hey Billy.  Know how I know you’re gay?

Craftacular

You know what solves almost any bad mood?

Crafts.

Billy and I went to New York for the first rehearsal of my play a few weeks ago and met up with Anna for breakfast and then went to see the craft store where she works.  And I was inspired, my friends.  Anna convinced me to buy this kit for making embroidered note cards and I am obsessed.  I want to embroider note cards all hours of the day and night.  I want to do it while talking, eating, watching TV, sleeping.  I love it.  It makes me want to embroider other things.  Like my lampshade in my office at home!  I think I am going to get fringe to hang from the bottom of the lampshade and then I will embroider it with fun designs! Ideally it would look like this but in real life it will probably look like this.  I am not very good at crafting yet.  But I’m on my way.

Next project: silhouettes on fun paper in brightly colored frames to decorate my office and the bedroom!

CRAFTS!

Lots of Things

A few things:

I am cutting myself off from Google Reader today.  It sucks up all my creative energy.  And it’s great stuff!  I mean.  I love it.  Which is the problem.  I spend all day at work reading articles on feminism and celebrity fashion and organic food and home decor and weddings and babies and the lives of other people and it makes it impossible for me to create anything.  So I’m cutting myself off.

I freaked out a little last night because I’m professionally unfulfilled and feel like I have no friends of my own in Boston, had a good cry, and ultimately felt better if a little guilty for keeping Billy up and making him talk to me.  I’m pretty sure this is the human condition of people in their twenties, though.  You graduate college and your social network is gone.  You have to build it from the ground up.  So you either get a job where you work with other people in a similar place in their lives who you can go out drinking and carousing with but you are really poor and can barely afford rent, i.e. you work at a bike shop or a bar or something.  OR you get a “real” job and you work with people with families and you have enough money to pay your student loan bills but you don’t have a social life because it’s not built into your work environment.  I guess I chose the latter.  Didn’t really choose so much as I have massive student loan bills to pay and I have to find a way to pay them.  But the grass is always greener, isn’t it?  If I worked at a bike shop and went out carousing with friends every night (this is assuming I’d have friends in this scenario) I’d probably just wish I could settle down and cook dinner for my fiance.

I just googled irritable bowel syndrome.  From wikipedia: “IBS may begin after an infection (post-infectious, IBS-PI) or a stressful life event or may begin at onset of maturity without any other medical indicators.”  That’s vague, wikipedia.  But actually, that might be what’s going on here.  Obviously I’m googling irritable bowel syndrome because I can’t stop pooping.

WHAT?  YOU KNOW I WRITE GROSS THINGS IN HERE, IF IT FREAKS YOU OUT THEN STOP READING, ASSHOLE.

That got aggressive really quickly.  Apologies.

Here’s why wikipedia may be on to something:  last weekend probably qualifies as a “stressful life event.”  I went on a canoeing/camping/Amish country vacation for three days with some of the least outdoorsy people in existence.  Every summer since senior year of high school most of my high school friends have gotten together to go camping or to the beach or somewhere.  Last year we rented a house in Rhode Island for a week.  The year before that we camped at a lazy campground, also in Rhode Island.  This year we kind of dropped the ball with the planning.  Half of our friends were too busy to come on vacation at all and we just put off the planning until the last minute.  So we ended up sort of throwing together a road trip down to Pennsylvania to a 15 mile canoe trip/campground-free camping.  Let me repeat that.  Campground-free camping.  That’s camping.  In the wilderness.  WITHOUT BATHROOMS.  My system is very regular.  I am not used to having to “hold it.”  I’ll leave it at that.

On Friday Billy and I drove from Boston to Fairfield, CT to pick up Mike.  We then drove down to Philadelphia to stay the night at Katie’s house.  Billy, Mike, and Katie had cheesesteaks.  I had cheesefries.  Cheese Whiz.  Blegch.  Slash delicious.  Then Ashley met up with us and we went to bed.  Woke up bright and early on Saturday to drive the hour and a half to the canoe place.  We packed too much crap.  I wore a white bikini because I’m an idiot.  It was really hot.  We canoed about 7 miles the first day.  I spent a good portion of that time laying on the canoe with my feet in the water while Billy paddled.  My justification for this was “the person in the front doesn’t even do anything.”  Katie was in a canoe by herself because she’s outdoorsy and experienced and level-headed and not an idiot.  Mike and Ashley shared the third canoe and had a really hard time going straight.  They essentially went 14 miles when the rest of us went 7 because they made giant S shapes down the river.  After canoeing/swimming/eating pb&j we decided we needed to stop canoeing and find a place to camp.  We decided to camp on the one beachy-type place we found along the river and pitched our tents.  At this point the rain had started.  It had been windy, which should have given us a clue of what was to come.  We set up tents in drizzle and then ran into the tents when the downpour started.  It was on and off so during the times when the sun came out we cooked turkey hot dogs over the fire we started from wood we found in the forest because we are badass!  We don’t need no stinkin’ seasoned firewood!  We burn driftwood and fallen branches, bitches!  And we roasted marshmallows and rubbed melted Hershey’s bars on graham crackers.  In retrospect we should have kept the chocolate in the cooler with the PBR but hindset is 20/20, am I right?!  Then it started thunderstorming and we went to bed at 9pm.  The tents almost fell over in some of the most intense thunderstorming I have ever witnessed.  We all slept for 12 hours.  When we woke up it was still fucking raining.  We packed the tents up in the rain.  We packed the canoes in the rain.  We got back in the wet canoes and set off for the last 8 miles to the canoe rental place.  We were all disgruntled.  Oh I forgot.  When we were setting up camp the night before a bunch of douchebags on a douchebag retreat canoed by and asked us to show them our tits.  I showed them my middle finger, but I don’t feel that it was a strong enough statement.  Eh.  Anyway, on Sunday morning it was raining on us in the canoes, everybody was a grouch.  Then the sun came out, yay!  We were paddling pretty hard because we needed to get back to the canoe place because everybody who hadn’t been gorging themselves on beef jerky (read: everyone except Billy and Mike) had to poop.  The jerky has the handy camping side-effect of causing constipation.  Anyway, we got towards the end of the line.  The Narrows.  It’s the most dangerous part of the river and we were told to stay all the way to the left to make sure we did’t hit rocks or capsize.  Billy and I made it through.  It was really exciting and kinda fun and I felt really powerful and awesome.  We turned around to see Ashley and Mike going through The Narrows in the worst possible place, hitting rocks right and left, getting all turned around.  We laughed.  Katie was making it through pretty easily.  Billy and I paddled some more.  Then we turned around to check on Ashley and Mike and all of a sudden Katie is in the water and all the stuff from her canoe is scattered all over the river.  Somehow the most experienced of all of us has flipped her canoe over and stuff was everywhere.  She’s level-headed as I said earlier so she managed to get her canoe righted and we picked up most of the stuff she lost and she didn’t freak out.  But there was lots of paddling up river and maneuvering and it was really hard.  But I forgot that I had to poop!  Eventually we made it to the canoe rental place, dragged our boats up on the ramp and got everything returned to its rightful place.  And I got to poop thank God.  We were all filthier than any normal person should be and we went to Wendy’s and sat in the corner so as not to offend anyone.  Then we drove to a bed and breakfast in Amish country called the Susquehana Manor.  It. Was. Awesome.  Gorgeous and creepy and there was a giant tub in our room with those golden lions feet on the bottom!  It was seriously great.  We got scrubbed up and went out for a great dinner and bought road beers!  You can do that in Pennsylvania!  And we played wii and went to sleep and slept like the dead.  Then we got up early for a fantastic breakfast prepared by the lady of the house (this place was so old timey and awesome that it makes me want to say stuff like lady of the house) and then we went on our way.  We visited various touristy Amish-y shops and bought some garbage.  I petted a couple sheeps.  They were cute.  I don’t know, we did some shit.  This post is getting insanely long.  Are you still reading this?  Is anybody?  Am I even reading this?  Barely.

By the end of it all we were pretty exhausted but felt accomplished.  I really like my friends.  And we explored another state in this great country of ours.  Seriously this post is insane.

Good day, sir.

I said good day!

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.