This week's Slate Diary is the saddest thing I've read in the longest time.

Ugh, cookie dough and frosting for breakfast.

Mmmm, cookie dough and frosting for breakfast!

I really like it when people close to me call me Jen. It's nice. I really hate it when strangers just automatically shorten my name to Jen. It creeps me out.

Okay, so I know that my novel is going to take place in an Internet retail office. I know it’s going to star an early thirtysomething woman who probably has brown hair, brown eyes, about oh, five four or so. But what happens to her? What’s her story? C’mon, guys, I need some good plot ideas. This isn’t cheating! I can’t write my novel with anyone, but I can certainly milk everyone for ideas. When my brilliant novel gets published, I will thank you profusely in the acknowledgments for your genius ideas, and I’ll even buy you a martini. Let’s hear it, folks. Give me some ideas!

I took a quick peek at Adam's wish list, as he has a birthday coming up (yeah! on December 8th, he’ll finally be in his thirties, just like me!), and though he’s promised me a list of things he wants, he hasn’t yet done it (although I bet this weblog entry corrects that situation!). And lo and behold, what’s on his wish list? Books. Books as in a bound set of white pages with tiny black marks, which you need to spend considerable time staring at, turning pages, looking at more black marks on white pages to comprehend. Books as in the type of things you need to spend time (lots of time if you’re not a speed reader) reading. Um, hello? This is from the man who spends all of his weblog time bitching that he has too much work to do and way too much reading? This is from the man who has a stack of books yeah-high that he’s “going to get to?” The man is a junkie. He must be stopped! Anyone who sends him books is merely an enabler. Don’t do it, man! You want to send Adam something, send him drugs, send him booze, send him tobacco! But friends don’t let Adam read books.

No, this is not a critique on the horrific Boston drivers (although, really, can enough ever be said?). This is an acknowledgement of my own dangerous driving. Today was a blissfully traffic-free day. So la-la-la I’m driving to work. I’ve got some Kanda Bongo Man playing on the c.d. I’m obsessing about that fact that while I may have an idea for my novel, I don’t actually have any semblance of a plot. And I realize, I’ve driven about three and a half miles and I have no recollection of getting from point A to point B. It’s like I just tune out while I’m behind the wheel, and I start daydreaming about anything from my plot to take over the world [doh! I said plot even though I’ve already admitted I have no plot!] to what I’m going to have for dinner to wondering if I really like this new shade of hair color I picked out (it’s more dark brown, with not many hints of red. Nothing drastic, but I’m still not convinced yet). When I realize that I have no idea how I got to wherever it is I am, I immediately wake up and pay attention to the road. Until the next thought enters my mind… I’m thinking this isn’t the safest way to drive, and if I weren’t so lazy, I should probably just take public transportation. This is why Adam always drives when we go anywhere together.

Does it make me a sick person that I want to be on Winona's jury?

A quote from long ago Winona (from the IMDb): "I read biographies of the greats, and they were so messed up that I thought I'd better mess myself up. But I couldn't. I'm too small."

Girl, Interrupted, starring our favorite shoplifter:
Susanna: [narrating] Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted.

This probably isn't just a spoke in her menstrual cycle. (Name that movie. Not you, Mark). Why am I following this so closely? Maybe because it's so much easier than reading about Moscow or Iraq or Israel or even our own gubernatorial race...

So, if anyone ever came to our site through our home page, they'd have seen our lovely wedding pictures... and then gotten stuck. But I've decided that anyone who wants to find their way to our blogs gets what they deserve, so we've thrown up a home page that actually has links to other places on our site. How is that for a novel concept? This may end up like a real Web site yet!

Just a few days to go until Nanowrimo begins in full force. I'm a little stressed about it, because I had all these plans to get things done before it started, and of course, I haven't. Cleaning, paying bills, outlining my novel, getting some sleep. Well, except for the outlining my novel, that's what December is for. Although I'm feeling a little gypped that Hanukah starts in November this year. Don't they know this is my busy month!

Last night we had a get-together at a bar in Harvard Square to meet some of the other people participating in the area. It was so nice to have an evening out without any talk of cases or any CWIT-type comments. They were geeky, insane, writerly types. Just like me. I felt completely in my element. There may be hope for this city yet.

We went to a party on Friday of mostly Dartmouth and HBS people. I was talking with someone and after discussing being married to a b-school student, we had the following exchange:
me: So, do you have a girlfriend?
him: [silence] Um. no.
me: Oh, I'm sorry, do you have a boyfriend?
him: [pause again] No.
me: You paused, so I wasn't sure.
him: I paused because I was startled by such a direct and personal question.

And I thought I was on best behavior.

Tonight was Oktoberfest at good ol' HBS. They did it Spangler-style (Spangler, if you recall, is the ostentatious student center). They had an oompah band, which for some reason we sat right in front of. They had two largish busty woman in low-cut frauline dresses dancing around. They had bratwurst, which was pretty darned good. And they had beer. You know. Bud, Corona, Sam Adams. Is that what they really serve at Oktoberfest in Germany? Of course the evening sparked a minor tiff between the boy and me. Kara and I were e-mailing and she said, "Are you going to Oktoberfest?" to which I replied, "Huh?" Adam has this nasty habit of forgetting to tell me when there are things going on socially, so I either a) hear about them at the last minute, b) hear about them from a friend, or c) hear about them after the fact. I think what annoys me most about this is I feel it puts me into the stereotypical "wife" position of "you never tell me anything! Why don't you talk to me?" which just makes me cringe, because I know Adam is not a social guy and I know that he tells me everything else (I think I could discuss half the cases he studies), but this just irks me. Half the other partners (who are we kidding? I keep calling them partners. Let's call a spade a spade. The other wives) simply go in and read their husband's e-mail. You know I won't go there. I don't want to snoop. I just want to know everything. You do see the difference, don't you? Now, he's started forwarding me every piece of social e-mail, so next week we have the Halloween party and despite the fact that I detest--and that's with a passion--costume parties, I've decided it's a good idea for us to go. I thought of an extremely low-maintenance costume, so that part won't be too painful. I'm not sure why I feel I subject myself to this, except that I do feel a little bad that we've been neglecting so many of the social events.


My line of work breeds obsessive-compulsive behavior. Scanning text over and over looking for minor typos, stray commas, misplaced modifiers. Makes you batty sometimes. When I'm doing my own writing, it's just as bad, obsessing over each word, trying to find that perfect combination of letters that's going to make my piece just leap off the page. But what this does is breed OCD into the rest of my life. I find myself checking the stove to make sure it's off; checking one more time, because am I really sure I saw that it was off? Sometimes I look at things without really seeing them; and then, just before I walk out of the house, I think, "Did I really see it off?" so I check a final time. Now my coworkers are adding to my neurosis. Adam and I have a new best friend. It's our crock pot. What a magical machine! Amazing how something that cooks so slowly can be such a huge time-saver. Throw things in the morning. Come home to a yummy dinner. When I mentioned it to my colleagues, they agreed the idea was a great idea, but they'd worry about fire. "Really?" I asked. "You think it could cause a fire?" "I once went home during lunch one day because I forgot to unplug the coffeemaker." "You unplug your coffeemaker?" "Sure! It could start a fire otherwise." I'm already paranoid about things touching the radiators and starting a fire when we're out (our paper bags are by the kitchen radiator). Now I have to start worrying about our appliances? Great. Thanks, guys.


This is what keywords people are searching for that have brought them to our site:
jenny brown puyallup
kansas city zephyrs
spam recipies
joe galli
121
nscpnextprev
zakim bridge sucks

Can someone please explain to me why "It's snowing so I need to go back to bed" is not a legitimate excuse to skip work? This is going to be a long winter...


I've had at least three thoughts that I wanted to blog about over the past couple of days (including something a coworker said that made me reply, "Oh, that's definitely going into the blog") that of course I can't now remember. I don't blog at work. Simply bad form. Sometimes, if I have a spare moment, I'll stick my thoughts in an e-mail and send them to myself at home so I can pop them in later. But that too often doesn't happen, which means you are probably missing out on some of the most intelligent commentary that you could ever possibly read. Too bad for you.


Bought tickets yesterday for Adam and I to go to New Orleans around Christmas. It will be a late 30th birthday present for him, since his birthday is smack in the middle of finals. Already planning my meals. Mmmm, oysters. After that, we'll be in London for a weekend in February (Martin, if you're reading this, we need a top 10 list of things to see in London, preferably that can be done in a single day). And then, the holy grail of trips. Jazz Fest with the gals. Mmmm, more oysters.

All right, so less than meaningful commentary today. But you should have read all the stuff I was going to write, had I not forgotten it. And now, the snow simply isn't stopping, so I'm off to my first attempt at the wondrous feat known as "driving in snow." All Bostonians, steer clear of the black Toyota Camry going 20 miles an hour.

This is what you can do with me once I die.

The best part about making your pledge to public radio is hearing your name on the radio. Now I can listen to Morning Edition guilt free for a year.


I'm definitely in the camp of lazy voter. Don't get me wrong, I do vote. I registered to vote in Massachusetts when I got my driver's license and I made sure I remembered to cast my ballot for the Democratic primaries in September (an odd system is in place here, which I don't completely understand: the primary for the governor's election, which occurs very soon [I don't want to say when because I'm pretty sure that if I don't remind Adam--a Republican--to vote, he may forget thereby meaning that for once my vote would count instead of merely canceling out his vote], happened in September, giving the politicians just under two months to campaign. I'm not sure why the Republican candidate had already been selected). What I mean by a lazy voter is in Seattle, I waited until I received my Voter's Guide to the Candidates, read through it, and made my choices. If in doubt, I called my friend Barb, whose political leanings are quite similar to mine, and ask what she thought. If when I got into the booth, I wasn't sure, I either voted Democrat or just skipped that one if I couldn't tell. For the primaries here, I took a "blind test" on the WGBH, which asked my opinion on a bunch of political issues and then told me which candidates held the same views I did. I was in line with two candidates (Shannon O'Brien and Robert Reich), so I did what I always do when in a real political conundrum: I called the Tweedle Twirp (and for those not in the know, Tweeds is currently working toward her Ph.D. in political science), who gave me the wise wisdom of if two candidates are truly equal and you feel they'd both do a good job, vote for the woman. Sage advice.

But now we have the elections coming up, and while my choice for governor has been made, there are other issues that I'm not so clear on. For instance, there's a referendum on mandating immersion English for ESL students (nothing but English in the schools--if school workers continually use another language with students, parents can sue them) instead of creating bilingual classes. I heard the pros on the case, and they seemed reasonable. When the law was instituted in California, ESL students scores on the standardized test went up significantly. Wow, solid case. But then you hear the other side, which points out that the test is brand new. Yes, ESL student test scores went up. But the test was brand new when they first noted scores and over a couple of years all students tested went up, and the non-ESL students had their scores go up by almost twice what the ESL student scores went up. So the immersion program doesn't work. Or does it?


I think I've figured out what's been bothering me this whole time. I've met a number of CWITs who definitely fall under the stereotype of the CWITs. But I've met a number of partners whom I really like: they're smart, they're working, they're fun and friendly. One's a chemical engineer, one's a nuclear engineer, one's an M.D. And then it hit me. My whole problem--not just with the CWITs, but with Boston as a whole--this place is conservative! And I don't mean politically. This is a "proper" place, and truly, I'm not a proper gal. A woman at my office was telling a story about a bad date and she mentioned that he made a crude remark. After much cajoling, she finally said, "Well, I can give the initials. He made a reference to a b.j." Can you imagine any of the KAG back home not tossing "blow job" out as if they were talking about their new shoes or why their manager sucks (which is probably when the phrase "blow job" would come up)? Then, last night on Friends, there was a story line that had to do with porn and masturbation, but nothing that couldn't be said on network TV. One woman said, "Can you believe that that kind of stuff is on at 7 p.m. in parts of the country" and another concurred, "That's why my kids aren't going to watch TV when I have them." Now, this is not a critique on these women, who are absolutely in their right on this. It's just a comment on the cultural disconnect I feel out here. I've been trying to monitor myself. Now, I don't have a particularly foul mouth (my mother gets credit for the most f-bombs in a single sentence at any given time), but plenty of "hell"s and "oh my god"s have slipped from my mouth. And if I get particularly going on a subject, a few other words might slip. But I've become a "heck" and "oh my gosh" person, because it's so easy to offend people here.

I'm thinking back to my own grad school days, at the University of Washington. There were no married couples. No talk of people wanting bigger rings (truly someone said that when her husband graduated, she wanted a bigger ring from her husband, not that the one she has is small--no one I'm hanging out with, though). No talk of trips abroad or formals. We sat around in divey bars drinking beer and dishing, sometimes about literature and writing and sometimes just about life. And the cursing? It was rampant. And it was good.

Why Sandra doesn't like the changes in my page:
"perhaps...change is hard...there is very little that is consistent and familiar in our worlds...constancy gives us a sense of security that although people change, they move, they evolve, they take on new interests and new friends, there is a sense that there are fragments that will always be what we know and can rely on while we get used to the new...i.e. Mrs.Adam Medros going to an Ann Taylor fashion show."

My weblog seems to be generating complaints these days. Both in the form of "Go back to the old format" (which is fine, but tell me why) and the "Why didn't you write about what we did together?" First of all, I don't always feel like writing everything I do. Second of all, maybe you weren't all that interesting. Third of all, this weblog is a privilege, not a right, so deal.

As long as I'm on the weblog topic, I've tried to make text a little more readable by making it wider on the page. Does anyone know how to make my icons appear just between the days and not between each entry?


I turned in two writing assignments yesterday. Talk about nerve-wracking. I'm a writer. I've been working as a writer for a while now (since, what, 1998?) and I have a master's degree in creative writing. Yet, it doesn't help. Whenever I turn in a piece for a new editor, there's that gut-wrenching feeling of "What if they hate it?" Getting used to a new style, a new way of doing things is difficult, and waiting for that initial feedback is torture. Every editor employs a different style of editing and each one takes adjusting to. This invariably passes. Once you know what to expect it's easier--although turning in assignments is never actually easy. But in the meantime, it's just a lot of deep breaths.


Speaking of deep breaths, I find that when I'm doing yoga at home, instead of being of aware of the alignment of the body and of the flow of breath through my body, all I can think about is how much more dirt is on the floor compared to the last time I did yoga. And since I never clean, I always have that thought.


There's a whole community of them! Boston Blogs. I found it out when the woman who runs it e-mailed me to help out with Boston Nanowrimo stuff. I am not alone in my geekdom!


The fashion show was last night. I had a lovely dinner with Kara beforehand, and since that's the kindest thing I can say about the evening, I'll just end that there.


I've started getting bits and pieces of ideas for this year's novel. I should make an outline (from the FAQ: "Outlines are encouraged. Notes are encouraged. Partially written chapters are punishable by death"), but I don't seem to be. Mainly because my ideas are too amorphous. I don't actually have a beginning or a middle or an end. I am jotting notes here and there--the trick is to then find them when I'm ready to start writing. But I'm eager to start. Which is a good sign. I just need to make sure the house is properly stocked with bourbon before I start. Because who can write at 3 a.m. without a glass of bourbon nearby (preferably Knob Creek or Maker's Mark)?

Happy Birthday, Claire Bear! I'd say go out and hunt salmon and pick berries on your special day, but I'm not sure there's much of either in NY.

Today was my first truly free day in over a month. While having house guests was fun, there's a certain relief to a day off entirely to yourself (and never before has Columbus Day been a day off, but then never before did I work for a university). I, of course, had a long list of projects to get done, but after finishing my blog, really didn't feel like anything else, and I frittered away the rest of the day. In fact, blogging tonight is really more of a duty than a pleasure, because I don't feel as if I have anything meaningful to say. What's worse: if you come to the site regularly and I haven't written anything? Or if you do come and I've blathered on about really trivial boring stuff (which is rather presumptuous of me--I mean, am I saying that what I write is important and interesting? Who are we kidding? I'm just one of probably a million out there who's poring out her life in a weblog. But that just gets me going on the point and meaning of weblogs and what does it say about me, and I think we've been there enough). Perhaps tomorrow I'll have an intelligent thought.

The font big enough now? Is this easy enough to read? This site is a permanent work in progress, so I'm open to suggestions on an ongoing basis.

Okay, I'm going to start making changes. Bear with any quirks.

The decision to start running again has forced me to start watching local news. The treadmills at the gym are all pointed to TVs with closed captioning, and in the morning, they're on the news (and why all three TVs are on the same channel is beyond me). A couple of comments:
1) Local newscasters are equally annoying all over the country.
2) They flashed the weather map, and I was momentarily confused, because the water was on the wrong side of the screen.
3) Every local station flashes the stock report for local companies. But first of all, when they show them here, the market hasn't even opened yet. And second of all, the stocks are boring. TJX. State Street Bank. Yadda yadda yadda. No excitement like Starbucks, Amazon, or Microsoft. Boring.

A New Look

So I'm starting to play around with new designs for my blog. If you have any favorite blogs, let me know. I'm checking a bunch out to see if there are particular styles I like.

Actual invitation from the Partner's Club: "Join us for a special speaker event with Dr. XX XXX entitled 'Living, Learning and Loving at HBS'."

Computer back in working order. Big sigh of relief.

Chill in the Air

Tonight may be the night I cave and turn on the heat. The weather is distinctly fall like--I've got to do some winter clothing shopping really soon. I'm feeling woefully unprepared for this. As I type, my fingers are numbing up. But the first time I turn on the heat always feels like such a defeat.

The Year of the Blog

I just realized that I've been keeping this blog for a year now. I didn't think I'd actually keep up with it, but there you go, I surprise myself. This is definitely a fun way to keep in touch with folks all over, but at the same time, it's a little eerie. I talk to friends, and I mention something and they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I read that in your Web log." This thing is a conversation killer for me.

What's New Is New

When DVDs first came out, there was somewhat of a mad rush to transfer video to disc, which created some poor quality movies. Gradually, folks, especially companies like Home Vision (with their Criterion Collection) got what DVD is all about. They made crisp transfers from new masters, pumped up the sound, and loaded on the extras. Now, mind you, some extras are bogus (I hate photo stills on the DVD and the other filler they put on), but the commentary makes DVD completely worthwhile. When Dave and the Claire Bear were here, we watched the Maysle Brother's Grey Gardens. The movie itself is a fascinating documentary about a mother and daughter--relatives of Jackie O.--living in this deteroriating house, going rather insane. But what really made the film come alive for me was the commentary track. Granted, I didn't watch the entire thing (it was late, I was tired, Adam had already fallen asleep in his chair an hour before), but it was captivating to here the "behind-the-scenes." In a sense, commentary tracks are the ultimate form of gossip, an acceptable form of gossip. A lot of DVDs are coming out pumped up, and owning movies starts to make more sense than renting them, because it takes so long to watch a DVD now. First the movie, then the commentary, then all the featurettes. A lot of other companies have jumped on the bandwagon making premium movie series (such as Warner's Infinifilm). (And of course, you get studios out just to make the maximum buck, as they did with Lord of the Rings, in which they rushed out a theatrical version and then started creating the special edition, so that some poor suckers got the bad version when all along the studio knew there would be a better version coming out.) But the point I was originally going to make is that many of the DVDs with the incredible features leave you scratching your head wondering, "Why that one?" Of course, some of it has to do with who studios can get to provide commentary and what kind of featurettes are available. And now, television shows are coming out at record speed on DVD. Granted, I fall prey to that one, as Adam and I eagerly finished season three of The Sopranos last night. Yet, upcoming releases include Malcolm in the Middle, Mad About You, 24, and The Shield, of which only one season is out! (By the way, did I mention I interviewed Michael Chiklis for work? He's a BU alum, you know.) I don't know why I find this immediate exportation to DVD disturbing, but I do. Vent of the morning.

Normally, on Tuesday and Thursdays, I wake up at a leisurely 7 a.m., get dressed, and then spend some time on my computer, checking e-mail, doing some writing, maybe blogging. On the other days, I wake at 5:10, go to spinning, and then come back and get stuff done until it's time to leave for work. Not having a computer really throws my morning. I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself. I got up a quickly checked e-mail on Adam's computer before he has to leave for school (I leave around 8:15 or 8:30; generally he's gone by 7 or so). How is it I've become so dependent on my machine, and not just my machine, but my machine attached to the world.

My computer is hosed. Dead. Kaput. And while we wait for service from Compaq, I'm reduced to using Adam's computer for the few minutes I can pry him away from studying. Which means little blog time. So all the brillant things I have to say will simply have to remain unsaid. You will have to amuse yourselves for now.

You know, it's harder to blog when things are right with the world. I have nothing to be sarcastic and cruel about. This weekend was a delightful weekend, with a visit from the Claire Bear and Dave. Yesterday, we walked all of Boston (or at least it seemed like that: we started out in Allston, walked through Harvard Square to the MIT Museum, and then traversed Newbury Street and finally made our way over to the North End). Today was spent eating waffles at home and then apple picking. Now, I need to figure out what to do with that massive bag of apples.

The MIT Museum is probably the coolest thing to do in Boston. Granted, it's no Spam Museum, but it's still definitely worth while. The section on robotics and artificial intelligence was quite interesting, even with the film narrated by Alan Alda, who didn't always seem to be getting what was going on. One thing pissed me off though: the sections on the male scientists always referred to them by their full name ("when Adam Medros invented this, he...") or their last name ("Medros was the first to realize..."), but the one female researcher was referred to continually by her first name ("and then Jenny created..."). How bizarrely and obnoxiously sexist is that? What I found really interesting, though, is that all the male researchers were trying to create these robots to do physical things, but the one female researcher, Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, is working on a robot that is a sociable robot. Kismet is made to resemble a human (with eyes, ears, mouth, and even eyebrows) and to mimic their emotions. I just find it intriguing that the women have gravitated toward this "emotional" kind of robot. I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. Anyway, there was also an exhibit of these cool mechanical sculptures by Arthur Ganson, the photography of Harold Edgerton (he's the guy who took the pictures of bullets going through cards and apples and whatnot), a holography exhibit, and then a history of MIT. Oddly enough, in the MIT history, they had two yearbooks out for folks to look at, and it just so happened that I saw one and thought, "That looks awfully familiar!" Of course it did. It's the same one sitting on my dad's shelf at home, so I got to show Adam, Claire, and Dave what my father looked like at 21.

But what the hell! Happy birthday, anyway, Andy! I'll dance to an Abba tune for you tonight.

I'm not really a computer person. When my computer starts wigging out, I just call Adam. But there are certain things I do know how to do that I simply take for granted. These are real live actual quotes from very intelligent people who did not just spend the last four years working at an Internet company:

• Wow, so Outlook will tell you when you have an appointment?
  
• Making folders was too much work. I just print out the e-mails I want to keep.
  
• You just put this list into Excel? How do you do that?
  
• You can make meetings with other people in Outlook? Oh, but no one here uses their Outlook calendar.
  
• We don't need an e-mail list. You can just put in everyone's name from your Contacts.
  

and my favorite...

• Did you know you could sort e-mails in Outlook by name?

I still turn on my computer and go to check my stocks first thing in the morning. Why can't I remember: East Coast. East. Hard for me to get in my head that the markets don't open until 9:30 out here. I miss Pacific time.

200-mile bike rides? Piece of cake. Triathlons? Do it in my sleep. Half-marathons? Please!

I thought I was tough. I thought could take on any physical challenge.

I have met my match: Spinning. Fast, slow, stand, sit, uphill, downhill. Kicked my ass. Wow. I got sick of feeling draggy so I finally joined a gym. After giving it great thought, I went with the more expensive Gold's Gym rather than the plush, nice new BU gym. Sounds weird, I know, but two things: 1) the BU gym closes at many of the school holidays, which means no access during the winter holidays, when I often need to work out most, and 2) for those of you who know me well, I'm a morning person. If I can't just roll out of bed and into the gym first thing in the morning, I'm just not going to make it at all. Gold's is a 15 minute walk from the house (but who are we kidding? Like I would ever walk there). I can come home and shower without all the fuss. And, their spinning class--three days a week--is at 5:45 a.m., which is perfect for me.

I already hurt. Yikes.

Nanoscary

I'm feeling a little out of my geek league in Nanowrimo this year. The posts are going wild in the forums and if you check some of them out, whoa. People are posting their pictures, telling their life stories, and essentially making this way more social than necessary. I want to write a novel. And I'd like to organize some group writing/coffee/drinking events. I do not want to post to a board everyday. The board has been open for two days. Someone has already posted 77 messages. These sure are people who will have time to write. Is anyone else out there partaking this year? I'd love to be able to commiserate with friends on this one again, even if it is via e-mail.