In Boston, and was trying to get home early but alas no flights available. Meanwhile, morning put on pause because:
Nov 24, 2008 … BACK BAY (WBZ) ? Three manhole fires in at Stuart, Tremont, and Boylston Streets have knocked out power in the Back Bay.
The calls home are a little disconcerting – Loca is puking, Arlene is trapped in the bathroom between the toilet and the wall and possibly dehydrated, Bam has escaped. That was just yesterday. Then today, Mom is now puking. T wonders why I get so edgy as soon as I am on the phone. I don’t know who to be more concerned about – the animals, the mother, the unknown.
One of the biggest mysteries in the world is how there are all these children in the world that need a loving home and how unbelievably hard it is get one. Forget about the fact that you are a single mother, a lesbian couple, approaching 50, even the hetero, young, white married couples with strong ties to a church jump through hoops to adopt.
We looked a website today and saw 7 Bulgarian boys and wanted to take them all. We spoke to everyone we came across on this trip about our efforts to adopt and from each person, we heard either a horror or a success story, almost as if it is just the luck of the draw.
I have faith though that our child(ren) is waiting for us because we have a home waiting for him or her.
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.