the pieces of my life

Those cute, furry gloves bought in Miami have no relation to things that will keep your hands dry in Boston. Related: Those adorable booties that got you through plenty of Seattle rain provide no traction, not even in the ten feet from your front door to your car door. If you don’t remove the snow from the top of your car, it will slide down and then be snow on your windshield. If you clear the snow from your car while standing under a tree, snow will fall on your head. If you drive ten miles per hour on the highway, someone is going to honk at you.

“Oh, you better watch out, you better let her lie, you better not shout, I’m telling you why, the Tweedle Twirp is coming to town. She’s always always sleeping. She never wants to wake. Don’t even try to get her up, she’ll be a crank for crankiness’ sake.”…Tweeds gets in today and the parents tomorrow for Thanksgiving!…How is it Adam’s the one back in school, but I’m the one who’s gained the freshman 15…Could it have anything to do with the two, count ’em, two Thanksgiving dinners I had yesterday? The one I had a BU during lunch or the one I had at HBS for dinner? (At $30,000 a year, we never, ever turn down we-really-paid-for-it free food from Hah-vahd.) And for the record, the non-Ivy League dinner was far superior… Why didn’t we get a snow shovel sooner?…Now I know the purpose of door mats. I’m guessing snow on the hard wood floors is not ideal…Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know that I’m afraid of driving in snow… Adam hasn’t blogged in an age. I’m getting to the point where I’m considering going into his blog and writing entries for him… We need to go to the grocery store today. Bet it’s going to be empty…. Oy.

Let me give you three truths, and then a multiple-choice quiz:

1. Wilson Farms is known in Boston for having perhaps the best produce in town.

2. Their fresh turkeys, which need to be preordered well in advance, are supposed to be delish.

3. You must pick up your fresh turkey before noon on Wednesday or they give it up for sale.

With this information in hand do you:

A. Compile a careful shopping list and then take advantage of their extended hours and go get the turkey and your other Thanksgiving needs before work on Tuesday?

B. Compile a careful list, give Adam detailed instructions that even he cannot screw up, and then send him midday when he has a break in classes?

C. Compile a careful list that you leave on the dining room table at home, while you take advantage of the extended hours and go within a half hour of closing on Tuesday, to get pushed, shoved, and generally trampled, as you try to guess at what you need, wending a shopping cart through a space hardly bigger than a garden shed, along with 50 gadzillion other people on a mission wielding shopping carts, in a town known for its horrible drivers, cars, shopping carts, and otherwise?

To get a little suspense going, I won’t tell you the right answer.

Well, in all honesty, I can’t say that I wrote a novel in November this year, as I could last year. Because this year, though I did hit 50,000 words (50,220 to be exact at this point), what I’ve got is probably about half of a novel. Last year’s was a self-contained piece–beginning, middle, and end–but this one still needs a lot more to it–including an ending. But now that the race is over, I can stop, take a step back, and perhaps plot out my baby (and if anyone wants to volunteer to read it and give me some guidance on what the hell is working and what isn’t, I’d be thrilled!). I think it’s actually okay. I mean I feel good about most of what I’ve written (okay, some of it is just filler), but it needs more of an arc, and it needs a good punchy–but not happy, I detest happy–ending. I mean what does she do? I’m thinking about making this a tragedy and having her be accepted at HBS at the end. But that’s pretty boring, and while I don’t want a happy ending, I don’t want an ending that will depress everyone (I’m kidding, HBS people! Well, partially, anyway). Writing 50,000 words in a month is really not that hard. In fact, this year, having already done it once, it was surprsingly easy. I never felt like I didn’t go out or didn’t do things to get it done. However, now the really hard part comes. Finishing the damn thing without the pressure of a deadline. Not that I’m a competitive sort or anything. No not me. But writing without having to, well, that’s something else entirely. Although, since I probably need a break from this one, perhaps this would be an excellent time to go back and start rewriting last year’s novel. Now there’s an idea! (Could someone please check in on my occasionally and make sure I’m working on something?)

What is up with Braintree? I mean who frick thought, “Gee, Braintree would be a great name for a city?”… Note to Adam: A blue shirt and khaki pants with a gray sweater over it is still a blue shirt and khaki pants…I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I find myself oddly longing to be shipped off to a warehouse to wrap presents like Santa’s elf on speed. I mean, what will I do with myself? How does the rest of the (American) world keep themselves occupied between Thanksgiving and Christmas?…Note to Martin: Age is only in your head until you start to experience back pain. Then it’s in your head and in your back…Why is Adam’s weblog still getting more hits than mine (don’t you click on that link! This is a test. You need to prove to me that you like me better) when he writes like three sentences once a week? And I know this because I check up on his stats–in a very noncompetitive way, of course… Does anyone else remember when people didn’t count “days till Christmas” but “shopping days till Christmas” and it didn’t include Sundays? Or am I making that up?… I read in a cooking magazine that some people “overdress” their sweet potatoes with marshmallows (or is it smarshmallows?). How can marshmallows ever be considered “overdressed”? What isn’t improved with the addition of marshmallows?…Including today, there are just 12 days–shopping and nonshopping–until Adam’s 30th birthday, unless I counted wrong (how many days until the 8th?). Or are you supposed to count the actual day of birthday in there? I’m never clear on that….Cold-eeze are magic…What the heck are we going to do on New Year’s Eve?…Why do you think our Founding Fathers decided to pick a state name–Massachusetts–that’s so hard to spell?…A sign of blogging too much? I keep trying to put ital tags–<i>and</i>–in my novel instead of just italing.

Hello, dahlings. How are you all? Jenny was too busy to blog for you–claims to be working on a novel or something; mentioned something about hitting 48,099 words–so she’s asked me, her alter ego, Jennifer, Hah-vahd wife extraordinaire, to step in for her. Really, I think it’s simply inhospitable for her to not take care of her guests, but then Jenny has so much more CWIT training to go. [What was that? Jenny, I don’t care if CWIT training is redundant. Are you going to let me handle the blog today or not?] Anyway, I am delighted to be here to tell you about our wonderfully Hah-vahd-filled weekend. Always a pleasure.

We began the weekend with some fun-filled drinking games at HBS! I say, there’s nothing more bonding then spewing beer everywhere as you pound back a cold one! Such team spirit! Robopounding–a game involving quarters–was deemed too challenging for such a group, so another game was chosen. Section A (Rah, rah Section A!) lined up on one side of a table and Section B (boo!) on the other. Each person was given a plastic cup of beer. The first person at the end of the table had to drink his beer and then flip his cup upside down. Once the cup was flipped properly, the next person could drink. Not an easy feat, I assure you! I know, because I was pressed into service during the first round when they needed more women, and as you, dear reader, know, I am always so happy to help out my dahling husband’s Hah-vahd pals. Of course, Jenny reared her ugly little head and snapped at the well meaning boy who, unknowingly, called her Mrs. Medros. I don’t know why she gets so uptight about that. As if Brown was such a superior name that she just had to keep it. Good heavens. More training, please. The highlight of this event, of course, was a proud moment for myself. My own sweet, dahling husband was the lynchpin of success for the team. As the anchor, he downed his beer gracefully and flipped his cup with ease. Section A chanted, “Tech Rep, Tech Rep,” and lifted Adam to their shoulders. I was able to get a good view of this while Jenny was busy pretending to be there with someone else.

We then had dinner with my friends. I’m sure a civilized lobster dinner at the home of friend would in no way interest you, so I shall merely say it was a lovely event, and Kara is a gracious host.

The end of the evening involved a trip to a lovely night spot, The Middle East, which had me thinking longingly of my days as a drunken New Yorker. I personally tried to recapture my youth by drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Oh, how I wanted to fit in. I enviously watched all the HBSers. They are not just reliving their younger days; these are their younger days. Sigh.

The next morning, my darling husband and I made our way to the HBS tailgate party. Once again Jenny surfaced as she scarfed down whatever food was available–rubbery hamburgers, mayonnaisey potato salad and cold slaw, and a Bud Lite–mumbling something about hair of the dog. As we walked over the game–the BIG game you know: Harvard vs. Yale–I was delighted by the showing of Crimson spirit. Those Hah-vahd kids are just so smart. My particular favorite was a dahling sign some students must have hung that read, “Yale: The World’s Best Safty School.” [But dahling, that is how they spelled it. And it must be correct because these are the world’s best and brightest]. Anyhoos, the game was simply mahvelous, well, that first quarter that I saw. Snuggled up in my big jacket, drinking the free hot chocolate HBS provided (wasn’t that so sweet of them? How many other schools are considerate enough to provide free hot–well, lukewarm–chocolate with their $30,000 tuitions?), it was still quite chilly! So I did the only thing any respectable CWIT would do! I left to buy my dress for Holidazzle, the HBS winter formal. Oh, what joy that was! Nothing I like better than buying clothes. Ah, well, I see it’s almost time to start making my sweetie’s dinner. You know, a good CWIT always has the house clean and an extravagant dinner ready for when her Hah-vahd husband comes home, and it’s never too early in the day to start preparing! Until Jenny lets me write again, ta-ta!

Louder now! C’mon, I can’t hear you! Let’s hear it for Section A! Rah rah Section A!

Last night there was a dinner for Adam’s camp–I mean, HBS–section. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what a section is, as I was just a few happy months ago, HBS is a mammoth school. They talk a big game about how selective and prestigious they are, but really, there are 900 students in Adam’s class. 900! How selective is that? If I were that selective when I got married, I’d have a harem of husbands by now. But, anyway, 900 students. So what they do is break the class into ten sections. Each section is given an assigned seat in an assigned classroom, and there they stay the entire day. The teachers come to them. (Are you following me? So not only is Hah-vahd “selective,” it is training its students to believe that if they just sit tight, things will come to them. Nothing like teaching an HBS student that the world revolves around him/her. It will make them all excellent bosses.) Adam is in Section A, aka Absolut A (I’m not making this up! This is the name they chose for themselves! Connotes tigers in the business world, doesn’t it?). Section spirit is paramount. Because Section A rocks. Section A rolls. Section can outdrink, outtalk, and outwit anyone! But most importantly, what I learned last night, is that Section A is waaaaaay better than Section B (as will be proven at tomorrow night’s Robopounding competition. Now, I’m not exactly sure what Robopounding is, but I do know it involves copious amounts of beer. Adam will be playing just so I have something to write about on Saturday).

In all fairness to Section A, the evening was a pleasure. A buffet dinner at the Bombay Club, a genuine attempt to make the partners feel included, and a lot of good-natured mockery. I had an extremely enjoyable semi-political discussion with the Libertarian sitting to my left, who was so kind that he didn’t even mock me when after my third glass of wine, I could no longer pronounce “Libertarian.” But, there were a few things that did annoy me to no end:

1. The “Girls of Section A Calendar.” Now, before you get your panties in a wad, let it be known that the images are harmless. Just picture after picture of the women in the class flipping off whomever was taking their picture. Harmless. But what’s with this “girls” crap? The women in that class are all adults as far as I can see, and I don’t hear the males calling themselves the “boys of section A.” C’mon folks. Time magazine may have declared feminism dead, but that doesn’t mean we’ve all gone back to being girls.
   
2. That they speak good. What is so difficult about the English language? All this time I’ve been picking on the CWITs for their tenuous grasp of basic grammar, when really, it’s the Hah-vahd folks who don’t know that “is” is a verb (so cap it damn it, when you use it in a headline!) and fail to understand the distinction between “fewer” and “less.” I elbowed Adam in the middle of a conversation when even he used “less” incorrectly. Of course, that just proves a theory I developed long ago at Amazon: HBS actively sucks away the part of the brain that holds the ability to speak and write correctly. I have yet to meet a single HBS grad who can use the word “literally” properly (how many times did I have to say, “No, actually, your brain is not literally going to explode, although I would pay good money to see that, if you could make it happen”). (And NO, this does not give you leeway to write me with spelling/grammatical errors in this blog. This is my journal that I am kindly allowing you to be privy to, and if I have to take the time to start editing myself, then I’ll never get anything posted, and I’ll get harassing e-mails from people reading, “Why haven’t you written anything? I keep going to your blog, only there’s nothing there,” and then I have to feel guilty, which leads to resentment, which will make me really not like you, so if you have a comment about what I say, post it in the comments. If it’s about how I say it, then friggin’ keep it to yourself!)
   
3. The forced bonding. As I said, the evening was pleasant, but there seems to be a false camaraderie, as if someone early on said, “Ohmygod, we’ve only got two years here so we better cram in all of our friend making and develop some team spirit superfast! Second semester is practically here! [insert smiley faced emoticon here].” Something about all the merriment just didn’t feel natural.
   
4. The waaaah factor. The evening provoked yet another minor temper tantrum on my part on how I refuse–refuse, I tell you!–to become a Hah-vahd wife. Adam, who never wanted me to become a Hah-vahd wife in the first place, took it pretty well. Luckily, this nasty fight shouldn’t rear its loathsome head again until the next HBS event…which is Saturday (okay, I confess, I’m not really going to make Adam Robopound a beer, whatever the hell that is).
   

As I write this, it occurs to me, yet again, that it would have been much smarter had I started an anonymous blog where I could talk about these things with no thought to repercussions. But then again, what the frick do I care? Bring it on Hah-vahd boys and girls!

I must go feed my crankiness with sushi and clean the house, for tomorrow–sheer heaven–we have a maid coming to really clean. (And did anyone just notice what happened there? Yep, that was me, starting to turn into the ultimate Hah-vahd wife: the dreaded CWIT! The proper CWIT always deals with her servants with a kind, yet firm hand. Although a true CWIT wouldn’t go home every night for over two months, close her eyes and say, “I believe in fairies!” as she walks into the bathroom, only to burst into tears when she sees that, once again, no cleaning pixies had come to scrub her bathroom, and then to not bother to scrub said bathroom, knowing that if she waits just one more day, somehow said bathroom would clean itself [who said bathroom?]. Now how was that for a convoluted sentence?)

Hey, check out the porn version of my site. You can try it too.

Diana not only finally has a blog (yeah, Diana!), but she has a very cool secondary blog called Two Seconds with overheard comments. Now why didn’t I think of that?

So it appears even in my Parisian fantasies, I’m low class.

Word count: 37,543.