the pieces of my life

Went to my first basketball game last night.After establishing that 1) Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Magic Johnson do not play for the Celtics and that 2) two of them are not even playing basketball any more, I realized that my knowledge of the sport is pretty limited. It was a Partner’s event, yet everyone was scattered about the nosebleed section, so there are no good stories to relate except my absolute annoyance that when they welcomed the groups on the screen, we were listed as Harvard Business School. Um, excuse me? It was a Partner’s club event, and as much as the group may tick me off, we should take our own credit. The students were only there as guests of us, the nonstudents. We didn’t stay for the whole game, as I had to get home and pack (yeah, right. I woke up early and did it this morning), so we missed the end, and yet, I felt like I had seen it all. The flashing boards, the rotating ads, the screaming fans. Someone even told me there was a game being played somewhere down there, too! All the flashing and weird ads running all around the TV screen that circled the floor reminded me of those Japanese programs that was causing seizures in kids. I kept waiting for someone to go down.

As I alluded to, I’m off on another long weekend, this time back to Seattle. If you’re in the area (and you know me), come by FX McRory’s on Friday night at 5 to say hey. The rest of you will just have to wait until next week to hear from me again.

1) Adam said to me about a blogger he reads, “I wouldn’t like him. He’s too geeky for me.” Um, hello, pot? You’re black.

2) For those who wonder why I don’t blog more: Apparently, my entries are too lengthy. At least for Adam who took one look at the previous entry and said, “Oh, jeez, what are you trying to do to me? It’s going to take me all day to read that!”

Driving home from sewing class (where I made a be-yoo-tiful book cover), I kind of cutoff a driver as I was merging onto Storrow Drive. I say “kind of” because I’m not exactly sure. But it reminded me of being a junior in high school, when I had a one a.m. curfew unless I was driving in which case the curfew was midnight (my mom would say, “I’m not worried about your driving. I’m worried about the driving of all the crazies out there”). One night in late March, my father had a friend from high school coming to stay with us, and I was supposed to entertain his son, who was about a year or two older than I was. He was a strange guy, with a mop of dark hair and an almost cross-eyed look to his eyes when he took his glasses off, and he seemed to have a crush on me so I let him kiss me because there really wasn’t anything else to do. Anyway, he was okay, but there wasn’t much to do at home, so we decided to go out. I begged for a curfew extension, to which my mother agreed, saying one a.m. would be fine. But (and isn’t there always a but?) we had to stay on Miami Beach. Sigh. There was nothing to do in Miami Beach. Remember, this was in 1985 when the hottest place in town was Blackie’s on the Beach. No Madonna, no Sylvester Stallone, no hip clubs, no trendy restaurants, no happening Ocean Drive. Just a lot of old people. So we did the requisite loop around the Beach, and figured it was bogus. I mean at that hour, the only thing open was Wolfie’s. We were going to cruise the Strip. That’s right. You heard me. The Strip. Because we were young and cool and I was behind the wheel of my mom’s silver gray/blue Rabbit with the dark blue canvas seats, with no power steering and windows that had to be cranked. It even had a cassette player that worked if you jiggled the tape when you put it in. We were stylin’. And for those of you not in the know, the Strip was none other than the Ft. Lauderdale Strip, home to Spring Break, capital S, capital B. (Remember the movie?) Yep, that’s where we were going. And so we went. We got to the Strip. And we sat in traffic. And more traffic. As every college student in America, it seemed, looked for his or her chance to get drunk and lucky (remember, 1985? Drinking age was 19). So we made one loop around the Strip, which took forever, sitting in the car, not having any idea of what we were supposed to be doing. We only knew that we were there. We both acted as if there was not the most boring place on earth. At about midnight, I realized we needed to head back so I didn’t break curfew. There were only so many rules I’d break in one night. So we headed back. Only I got a little lost. After a few wrong turns, I pulled out onto the main drag back to I-95. Cutting off a car. A cop car. The lights went on. Panic hit me. The guy is trying to be cool, but I know he’s got to be worried, as he’ll get in just as much trouble, because after all, he’s a big college freshman, corrupting me, an innocent high school junior. We pull over and the cop comes out, a big burly guy–or at least that’s what it seemed to me. He could have been four feet three for all I remember. All I knew is that a moving violation at 12:30 a.m. in Ft. Lauderdale wasn’t going to go over well with my parents. The cop took a long look at me. “Where you live?” “Miami. Miami Beach.” “This your car?” “My mom’s. Really, my mom’s.” “You been drinking?” “No, sir! No, sir!” “Drugs?” “No! No!” I couldn’t stop repeating myself. Long pause. He stared at the guy, trying to make him out. “You got a license?” he asked. “Yeah, yeah,” I stuttered, rooting around for my purse. “I didn’t ask to see it,” he snapped. I finally could breathe again. No license, no ticket. My parents didn’t need to know. He finally let us go, and the guy acted all tough, but by now, I was really annoyed with him for no other reason that I had decided that he was an idiot. We made it home twenty minutes past curfew but my folks let it slide. Of course, the next week they found one of the guy’s cigarettes in the car, and assumed it was mine. Which would have been logical–I was a smoker–but it wasn’t my cigarette, because I wasn’t stupid enough to drop them in the car. And it wasn’t my brand. But I was out as a smoker because of this guy, and it started a whole chapter in my life that included my mother leaving obits of people who died of lung cancer on the kitchen table for me, but that’s a story for another night.

In my early twenties, I went through a phase where I swore off the New York Times, because I had been reading it daily, and it was simply depressing me. I find myself sinking back into the no-news phase. I used to wake up to NPR on my alarm, turn NPR on the radio as I got ready for work, and then listen to it on the way to and from work. A couple of weeks ago, I was waking up to it on my alarm and listening to it on my way to work. As of yesterday, I am waking up to it on my alarm. The news is just too much for me these days. Instead, I’m now listening, on my way to and fro work (did I use fro properly there? It’s such a lovely word to just drop in), a compilation from HMV of hits from the ’90s. Funny thing is, I hadn’t realized that the ’90s had their own music. I mean, there’s definitely a ’70s sound and certainly an ’80s sound. But discounting grunge, what is the sound of the ’90s? Whatever it is, these discs have it. The best part is I picked it up in London so it has all the songs I listened to when I was on a kibbutz that I never heard back home. Classics such as Shaggy’s “Boombastic” and Babylon Zoo’s “Spaceman.” How did I live without this collection?

The winter is seriously getting to me. I’ve got that lethargic-slept-too-much feeling that I just can’t shake off. Yesterday, I made Adam go for a walk in the rain with me, a lap around Fresh Pond, complete with massive puddle jumping and slush wading. Didn’t help. We went to a co-ed baby shower for Wendy, which was really fun (we got to paint onesies, the best party activity I’ve ever tried), but that didn’t wake me up. Came home. Adam had tons of work to do. But I was so tired, so I lay down for a little bit and Adam kept me company for a minute at about 6 p.m. When I woke up at 8:20 p.m., I noticed the electricity was out. Since it was too dark to do anything, we just went back to sleep. At 9 something the electricity came back on, but we barely noticed. I finally turned off the lights at 12:35 a.m. Adam, remarkable, slept through the entire night (I woke for a brief dive into Mrs. Dalloway, which I’m reading for book group–which I hear is an incredibly trendy thing to do, which makes me resist it even more–and somehow, I’m just not getting into it). We finally got up at just before 7 this morning, only I am once again confronted with the same lethargy, that cleaning the kitchen, reading the Sunday Times, and making berry waffles didn’t fix. I’m going to try yoga and then hopefully I’ll have the energy to begin all the organizing tasks I have for myself. That is, if I don’t decide to take a nap first….

Why do I find this site so fascinating?

It’s never a good sign when it’s not even ten a.m. and the entire package of Marshmallow Peep Bunnies that Adam got me (how is Easter candy out already?) has been devoured and I’m scouring the office for more signs of sugar. This is entirely due to my sheer and total annoyance at someone here, someone messing with one of my articles out of pure ignorance. Now, I have no issues with being edited–in fact, I adored the helpful critique I got last night from my new writing group–but arbitrary changes just to exert control steam me. Especially ludicrous ones that leave an article ending flat. I’m also steamed that even when I copy pages from The Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary to prove why the words ad interim and emeritus should not be italed, it is insisted that they are italed because of the whim of a head honcho. And you know what? I said I’d never rant about work, because it’s unprofessional, but the politics in academia are horrendous, and at this point, if they want to fire me, let them at it, but they’ll have to move quickly to beat me in giving my notice. Okay, so I’m not quitting. And they’re not going to fire me, because I smile nicely and say, “Can I rewrite the ending for you again? No? Well, that’s just fine. I’ll take it out and make the article weak and boring.” But a girl can dream, can’t she?

Have you missed me? I’ve been off gallivanting around the world. Well, not exactly. Just a weekend in London that turned out to be a longer weekend than expected. I could go chronologically through the days, but I’m just not in that kind of mood. I’m in more of a free-floating, not-feeling-terribly-grounded-right-now kind of mood so I’ll just let it all spill out and see what comes of it…. In all honesty, I’m not a huge fan of London. I don’t dislike the city, but I don’t think I get it like so many of my friends do. I have a coworker that goes doe-eyed at the thought of the city and just raptures at its marvels. Sure it’s a fun place, but given my druthers, I’d take Paris (or Budapest or Haifa or…) any day…. I hate flying coach. I don’t care how CWIT that makes me sound; it’s just a statement of fact: I detest coach. Those tiny seats and my constant shifting to avoid economy class syndrome. The backs of the seats have video monitors and on them you can watch the flight path of the plane, which would be very cool except when you get close to your destination and you can see the plane flying past the city, around the city, and in zig zags (which is what our flight did). I couldn’t figure out if we were dodging terrorist missiles or just lost….Rick Steves’s guidebooks rock. True, he lacks on things such as where to eat or where to stay (unless you’re unusually budget-minded; we were watching what we spent, but we’re no longer traveling on absolute poverty student budgets), but his guides through the museums are the best. I tend to get overwhelmed when faced with a museum. I start out reading every description and looking at every painting, but then I’m only an eighth (or whatever) the way through, and I’m tired and cranky and art-ed out. Rick Steves’s books have museum tours that let you hit the highlights. Every time I do one of his museum tours, I think, “Oh, when I’m done, I’ll go back and look at everything else.” It’s never happened. His a one-and-a-half hour tour of the National Gallery was just the right length to keep my interest. What can I say? I’m just not a cul-tahed person….The cigarette smoke in London is fierce…. The Underground is horrendous. The central line runs right past our hotel, only it derailed about a month ago and hasn’t yet been fixed. And it seemed that every time we had to go somewhere, we’d get on a train only to hear, “Green Park station is closed” or “This train isn’t running between Liverpool Street and Baker Street” and we’d end up circumnavigating London to go what should have been two stops…. Visiting my friend Emily from the kibbutz at her home in Ipswich was the highlight of the visit for me. She and her husband made us lunch, while I played with her gorgeous three-and-a-half-week old son…. Family actually seemed to get along this trip. Of course, there was lots of whispering behind backs, but that’s better than the outright punches often thrown to people’s faces (please understand, I’m not talking about my immediate family, who all get along more or less fabulously; I’m talking extended family only). My cousin asked me when I’d write the tell-all book, but the fact is, no one would believe it if I wrote it…. People keep asking me if the wedding was nice. I tell them the truth: I have no idea. The rabbi’s accent was thick enough that if he had been speaking Chinese, I might have understood more of it. It may have been a traditional ceremony, a personal ceremony, a humorous ceremony. Who knows? The synagogue was incredible–oddly enough it looked a lot like a church, with a podium for the rabbi to speak from (not the bima, but an actual raised podium like in churches) and stained-glass windows. My cousin looked beautiful and the reception place was fancy-shmancy (and now I know why I couldn’t find it when I Googled it. Everyone kept saying the reception was at the “Barclay Hotel,” which is indeed how it’s pronounced, even though those silly Brits spell it “Berkeley Hotel”). We had drinks at the hotel bar between the wedding and the reception, and I was impressed that the Tweedle Twirp didn’t say anything completely obnoxious when the waiter leaned over and half-whispered, “You know, Gwyneth Paltrow was sitting in that exact chair last night.” As someone astutely pointed out, for the price of those drinks, Gwyneth Paltrow should have been serving the drinks…. Adam and I missed the big anti-protest rally because that’s the day we went to Ipswich. The Tweedle Twins and my mom went. However, even if I could have gone, I wouldn’t have, because in the U.K., the protest wasn’t just against war, but against Israel, which of course, I have strong feelings about (from the BBC: “Anas Altikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain, told BBC News Online that the demonstration had got its message across peacefully – that campaigners wanted justice for Palestine and no military strike on Iraq.”). Let it be known that I’m not against a Palestinian state–I’m actually in support of one. However, I’m not comfortable amongst the anti-Israeli sentiment that I saw….Moira Redmond writes in the Slate Diary of the U.K., “You can talk to friends, acquaintances, chance-met fellow shoppers or other passengers on the train, and you will never meet anyone who supports the war whole-heartedly.” Redmond obviously hasn’t been talking to the cab drivers. Adam and I got an earful from one who went on and on about how it was important to do something about Iraq, and that the French weren’t supporting it because they were supplying the Iraqis with weapon parts. His speech really felt more anti-French than pro-war, although he was most definitely pro-war. There were lots of snips about how the French needed the Americans to save their butts during WWII, and how ungrateful the French are (again, from the British cab driver)…. We were supposed to leave London on Monday, but because of the massive snow storm, we were stuck in London for an extra night…. I’m sure there’s loads more to write–how Adam kept trying to get into the driver’s seat, wandering through Mayfair, freezing our noses on the upper deck of a tour bus, our delight at the treasures of the British Library, the fun of playing with my favorite cousins, lunch in the pub, dinner and a show with my family–but I don’t feel like writing anymore, so we’ll call this enough.

I’m really not normally a tense flier. But given all the news lately, it’s hard to not be worried as I get ready to head to London for the weekend. Tanks are surrounding Heathrow and and two suspicious people have been arrested, which I guess should be seen as a hopeful sign that the Brits are doing their jobs. I know that half of it is just the anxiety of trying to get work done before I leave and figure out how we’re going to get to the airport (I think we’re forced to drive given our schedules) and then figure out where to park (Logan has the most expensive airport parking I’ve seen yet). But I checked the plane out–it’s a 777 and our seats aren’t great seats (right across from the toilets), but they are convenient seats (right across from the toilets). And we got a section of two instead of one of those ghastly long rows of five. The inflight movies suck (yes, I checked out everything), but I’m hoping to sleep anyway, as we arrive at 6:25 tomorrow morning. We’ll take a quick nap in my parents’ room (unless, by some miracle, the hotel will give us our own room at 7:30 a.m., which I doubt) and then off to sightseeing.

I picked up Rick Steves’s London 2003, which looks like it has some great walking tours of the city (walking around it my favorite way to get to know a place). The Rick Steves books are also great because they have highlights of all the museums, and given our very short time frame, it will be helpful. But I think we’ll have enough time to get the flavor of the place. Since my parents arrived first, I’ve asked Peter to make reservations for us and the Tweedle Twins for afternoon tea tomorrow at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. You probably didn’t know this about me, but I’m a sucker for crustless cucumber sandwiches and real scones (not those hard as rock things you get from Starbucks) with clotted cream. With a nice pot o’ tea? Brilliant! Saturday morning we’re off to Ipswich to see a friend I haven’t seen in almost six years! Emily was a close friend when I lived on the kibbutz; she’s an English woman who married a kibbutznik. Anyway, they’re back in the U.K. and they have a new son, so I can’t wait to see her after all these years. Saturday night is dinner and a show with my immediate family (necessary to distinguish as 99 percent of my extended family on my mother’s side will be at this wedding, including all those British relatives I’ve never met) and then Sunday is the wedding. Happily, it’s an afternoon wedding, so Sunday is also good for sight seeing. Then, back Monday night. That’s our planned itinerary. A large anti-war protest is scheduled for Hyde Park on Saturday, but we’ll miss it with our excursion, and I have to say, given the terrorist threats, I’m not at all upset to be missing it.

So, till my return, I’ll drink a pint to you!