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Wonderful night last night seeing my girlfriends even if the 80s music piped so loud through Scampo made us feel more like dancing than chit chatting across a big round table. But today, we got up late, and in a snap set out to see Boston on foot. After traipsing through the Common already barren and winterized, freezing our buns off, we raced down Newbury Street towards Patagonia and left with enough warm clothing to get us through the worst New Orleans winter.

On friends’ advice, we walked down Massachusetts Ave over the Charles River – THANK GOD we went to Patagonia first because I would have never made it across without my neck warmer and T was doubled up with two stretch hats, one that covered her ears and a longer neck warmer – I had a long sleeve shirt from the Gap, a Banana Republic zip up cashmere cardigan and a Brooks Brothers merino wool cardigan and a Banana long Matrix-looking leather coat. We looked to the left and to the right and admired the beautiful blue water of the Charles and then scooted our freezing butts over to MIT.

In the cab, the driver said he was wondering when the feds were going to offer a cabbie bail out plan – all they were asking is $100,000 to go around. I said, hey, why not?

We took a cab to Harvard Square and ended up at Z Square for a beer and a bite – we got a salmon goat cheese crepe and a flank steak sandwich – which was okay, but not very tasty – something I have noticed about food in Boston in general. I don’t know what it is but even the most expensive restaurant here in Boston leaves me jonesing for spice, but I think it is a cultural palate difference. T loved the lobster pizza at Scampo last night, but I found all of my bites needing to be kicked up a notch (thought I hate to reference the Polish carpet bagger from New Jersey who has helped put New Orleans on the culinary map again).

How can you measure yourself without a benchmark – what is good if you don’t know bad – is it difficult to get ahead while your colleague, a friend lags? Is it hard to be content in love when you know others covet what you have?

We were discussing a friend who did not get invited to participate on a literary proposal – on one hand, it says a lot to be associated with a special project but by its very nature, it is exclusive. What happens if the one being excluded is someone you care deeply about? Then enters a new conundrum – how to feel good when you’re friend doesn’t – is the spoils of success as tasty if everyone isn’t invited to supper? And if everyone sits at the table, how is the occasion to be celebrated – one for all, and all for one?

Over the years, I have witnessed first-hand how one’s success is tainted by the lack in another. It makes me wonder what is the nature of competition and whom are we competing against and for what?

A few nagging questions emerge, if everyone has it, does the nature of it change? To be offered an exclusive work deal by nature demonstrates you have an edge in that business. If every student in the class gets an A, is A devalued? Is A even desirable? What is the meaning of an A? If you get a C, do you become Dale Carnegie?

Maybe it is not one path, and there is a turn for everyone, multiple times, and when one door closes, another opens, and the passage of time is best viewed through this lens rather than one where there is a tiny slice of the pie, and someone’s got to it first, and ate it all before you had time to ask for seconds.

More importantly, are you a loser, if you’re not a winner?

New Rochelle – guy sits down says he heard the economy is so bad, gays are shopping at WalMart.

Take it from the Feldsteins – the Jews – my peeps – we didn’t invent comedy, but we sure know how to leverage it – I was in the car on my way to the train station in Connecticut yesterday morning – we were packed snuggly in the back seat when I saw out the window from my middle position a large open field full of geese. My colleague was explaining something to all of us in the car and I said almost as if I had Tourette’s: “Geese! Geese! Geese!” and he turned slowly and with only a slight pause said: “Must have gotten laid off too.”

Here in New York, I look closely at shoe shine men and wonder if I might not see someone I know. The times are that bad, perhaps. A few friends who follow the stock market from an armchair perspective have taken to sending me emails that are abysmal portents of doom with subject lines like 30 reasons why this is the worst depression known to man — no hyperbole there. Is my Pollyanna about to meet Dr. Doom, I ask myself, half kidding aloud and dead serious to myself.

Sitting in bed in NY, I checked my emails and a friend and my good neighbor had a near fatal accident and thankfully is writing me from home on the mend and I know the worst thing you could know is that someone you count on to be there would one day not be while watching an industry made of paper wealth collapse isn’t the end of the world. But still, change is always been wrest upon me always at the moment I thought I had come to calm. What goes on?

Is the continuing lesson uncertainty rules? Don’t get too smug thinking you have arrived because you will never get there – like yesterday at the wee hours of the morning when I woke in the dark, got to Grand Central Station to take my train, got comfy in my seat, put my head against the window to find sleep again, and the announcer said, “Train to Stamford has changed to Track 23” and suddenly the rush of everyone jumping from their seats and running to the next train – is that life? – just when you think…. get up, get up, get up and run….?

Ah well, hopefully I am around long enough to come back to all of this and connect the dots with wisdom. It does seem as if life sped up around 45 years of age and what appears on the other side of 45 is a sense of layering on arguments against everything I learned before.

It makes me think of my 93 year old grandmother who made us Better Than Sex cake at Thanksgiving and couldn’t help repeating the name of the cake over and over despite the fact that she had never said sex aloud the 92 years before. An opening is how I saw it.

The other day Al Quaeda sent out a message with base insults towards our president to be – seems the fact that we elected a Black man with a Muslim father might take some of the edge off of their cause. What I wanted to know is why these guys get top billing on all of our newspapers. I mean if some white skinhead idiot freak from Utah calls the pres to be a racial slur, does he get to go on the front page of the paper? Why keep giving this organization free press?

Meanwhile, on the train to Connecticut this morning, the front page of the New York Times has an article about Angelina Jolie – know what it’s about? – about how she manages her press. This is news? Give me a fucking break? The world’s economic structure is going to hell in a handbasket and I have to know that Angie likes positive press as opposed to negative?

Had cocktails with a colleague and discussed babies babies babies and how to get one and with that weighing heavy on our minds, we took a cab to Chelsea and met a friend at a tapas joint called El Quinto Pino – an aside is T tells me on el quinto coño translates to bumfuck Egypt. Meanwhile, we had a delicious bottle of Planeta red wine and yummy spinach and chickpea stew, goat cheese with honey and figs and walnuts, garlicky shrimp, and an eqqplant bite.

I came away from the night thinking my only insight into the baby jones is to keep stoking it till the basket comes floating down the bayou.

New York has been cold not as chilly as I had anticipated and of course, everyone has the heat cranked up so high, my lips are cracking. But from home I get a missive from the dog walker and I instantly miss my zoo.

The world here is in a quandary – is this the great Depression?

Back home, I hear the weather turned, it’s cold and maybe a frost tonight – which means the plants on the back porch are unprotected. Mom said Loca was in the yard for an hour and a half, I said she is not allowed back there because she digs – “I forgot.”

Meanwhile, mom said a little boy came trying to sell wrapping paper but she shoo’ed him away and the next day a little girl came up on the porch but saw mom and left. I said they are my neighbors and they are bringing me the wrapping paper I ordered from Mignon’s school fundraiser. “Oh.”

It’s cold but doesn’t feel as awful as I anticipated particularly as I am bundled to the hilt. Reminds me of when I was walking home from downtown San Francisco to North Beach where I lived and this homeless guy who was at the same corner every day – who was a nasty dog – said to me as I passed bundled with scarf, hat, gloves and heavy coat, “It’s not that cold, Bitch.”

I wrote earlier about how Whole Food likes to usurp someone else’s idea and then make their own generic reproduction of the item. EXCEPT Whole Food’s never tastes as good as the original. Well, then there is this water issue. Coke and Pepsi decided to enter the water business EXCEPT they don’t get it – they are refurbishing tap water not providing spring water and it TASTE LIKE SHIT but now, you can’t buy Evian, Poland Springs, Abita Springs anywhere because Dasani and Aquafina dominate the shelves because Coke and Pepsi dominate distribution.

I am in the mood to head to the hills and get a well – I’m so sick of big corporations thinking they have to have everything, give me back my tortas made by that small company, give me back my Texas handmade burritos, my spring water. Blech to big.