Lent

I miss midnight after Mardi Gras, the hours everything shuts down.

I don't remember why I was out that night, the first time I ever saw it; in New England snow plows clear the streets after storms, in New Orleans they pushed beads to the sides of the roads, pulled from the trees what they could.

There's a clarity that comes when something is over, the initial quiet after the storm, before the real pain, the real work. The hours when you heave off what was, make room for what will be.

There are beads in the trees year round, though.
You can't ever clean everything away.

Big Pissin Up In NYC*

*My dad came up with this title. Months ago. He won't stop reminding me that I haven't written 'the most important thing' yet - a post about places to pee. Anyway, the title is brilliant. So, here you go, Pops. (This is also your birthday present.) 

A significant portion of my job entails scooting around* Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn taking pictures of gorgeous old buildings. I've mentioned this. I'm led on weird micro-tours of insanely luxurious interior spaces. I get lots of reading done on the subway. I meet pseudo-and-actual celebrities in surreally intimate environs. It's pretty great. Except when I have to pee. That part can be a bit of a bummer; I have to pee all the time.

It's my own fault, because I am absolute freak about hydration. I understand that skipping one of the eight (or ten or twelve, stop counting) glasses a day won't immediately transform me into shriveled and flaking cornhusk-doll version of myself. I know that's not true But...what if it is true? (What if I turn in to a scarecrow???) It at least sounds like a slippery slope. So I drink fucking tons of water all the time. Which is fine, since bathroom access isn't usually a serious issue.

Except when it is. When I'm running around all day, and my water bottle's empty, and my bladder's full, and I am nowhere near my hotel room, and won't be for hours. Then I have to find somewhere to pee. Those times, I wish I had a George Costanza app that would tell me the closest, cleanest, accessible bathroom. Then I remember that would require me to own and operate a smartphone, and I'm all 'blech, nope', and give myself a baby high-five (right -I clap softly) for my unmatched self-reliance. I have scouted these locations on my own. You're welcome?

Starbucks:

 My boss told me that Starbucks gets a tax break for allowing complete public access to their bathrooms. The tax break may or may not be real, but the access thing certainly is. This is good, because there are approximately three Starbucks locations on every block. This is bad, because 97% of those bathrooms are full of people already hip to this. Including people in various stages of homelessness. Not judging! But if you're waiting in line for more than a few minutes, be aware than you might be waiting on someone to finish washing their armpits in the sink.

Of course, they're not all overrun with people making the best of a hygienic apocalypse. Just use your judgement: avoid Starbucks bathrooms proximate to subway stations. Or in the Village. The Christopher Street/Sheridan Square location (YEAH I KNOW THEIR FORMAL NAMES) is a fucking horror show. It's staffed by the nicest people ever - seriously, so pleasant, all of them - but the line for the bathroom, which is constantly five people deep, is like a slow-moving human conveyor belt of impending tragedy. Everyone exiting the bathroom looks like they were just forced to slaughter a childhood pet to survive a famine. Avoid.

DudeBros seem to be an antidote. DudeBros must be some sort of bathroom-dweller repellent. I get it, I also find them fairly repellent, but I'll take a minute to appreciate their contributions to my bladder relief. It doesn't matter what neighborhood  you're in, if you notice a Starbucks packed with DudeBros, just run in and use the bathroom, even if you don't have to go. They're immaculate. It's weird.

Restaurants: This is a better move, but you might have commit to a story. At least have one prepared in case someone tries to seat you. 'I'm looking for someone' is usually enough. Then on the way out just be like 'Sorry, guess they aren't here! I even looked in the bathroom!' and run out. The best play is to not even make eye contact with the host and walk in there like you were out having a cigarette or something and you need to wash your hands before you eat. Pick some place midrange, and it's likely no one cares about their job enough to stop you. This applies to bars, too - I'm just too likely to get waylaid in a bar, it's not an efficient time-management option for me.

Large Retail Stores: 

Large retail stores are so much better than restaurants. You won't have to interact with anyone, you won't need a story. They're rarely crowded. You might get to spend some weird time in a store you'd otherwise have no use for. My personal favorite is the Babies R Us in Union Square. Why there is a two-story Babies R Us in this location, I have no idea. There's no parking. Are you going to stock up on cribs and strollers and manhandle them onto the subway? That seems awful for everyone. It does help explain why the whole store is always empty. Especially the bathroom! Sometimes you'll wander into my favorite species of human: The Confused Male, holding like, a breast pump and a mobile, just looking absolutely terrified, but don't make any sudden movements, and they won't bother you.

Whole Foods are also great for bathrooms. Except the one, interestingly, also located in Union Square. This bathroom is basically a bare toilet semi-concealed behind a Venetian blind in a rectangular room that allows way too many people inside. It's like being pee-interrogated in front of a firing squad, it's awful. But most of them aren't like that.

Note: Bathrooms in large bookstores are basically the same as a Starbucks bathroom. There's always weird puddles inside and somebody's lost grandpa is standing by the door trying to figure out how to drink out of a dirty water fountain, it's horrible, don't use those.

Hotels: So hotels are my favorite way to go, and I highly encourage you to seek out the bathroom in the lobby or ballroom and maybe get a little lost and explore in there. These bathrooms are ALWAYS the nicest, and have the best soaps and mirrors and lighting, but I implore you to MAKE SURE IT IS A HOTEL. And not a named apartment building. One afternoon this spring, I ducked into a lovely, grand old building somewhere near the 72nd Street subway station and found myself tangled in a conversation that hopped an express train to Crazy Town. When I walked in, a doorman asked me who I was there to see, as was his job. Rather than just admitting my mistake like a normal person, I MADE UP A NAME. But not a whole name, I just said "Mark". When he responded that there was more than one Mark in the building, I said "I have to make a phone call" and just ran out the door. I didn't reach for my phone or anything. Dude was legitimately trying to help me, and I created a situation where - best case scenario - he thinks he kept a Craigslist prostitute out of the building. I bet the bathrooms in that joint were amazing, though.

Portapotties:  NO HAHA JUST KIDDING NEVER.

This is a picture of the last time I used a PortAPotty for urination purposes.

That is the face of a person's whose sensibilities have been so deeply offended, she's afraid they might never recover. Honestly, I don't know if they did. Note the sadistic joy on Farid's face, as they awaited my exit. (Kyle took the picture, they'd used these filth chambers already.) I hate PortAPotties. Loathe. I find them vehemently uncivilized. I don't like peeing on top of other peoples' pee. It's disgusting to me. And I know there's no way the mix of filth below me will like, travel up my pee stream and infect my urethra but that's all I'm thinking about when I'm in there. But we were at a beer festival, it was literally a hundred degrees outside, there was nowhere else to go, and I was dying.
Next time, death is an option.

Anyway, stay hydrated! It's worth it, honestly. Your skin will look great.



*I can scoot on foot. I'm like the housekeeper from The Jetsons.

Mr. Jackson If You're Nasty

The summer before my 2L year, I walked into the New Orleans LSPCA a little after 4:00 in the afternoon, looking for a puppy.

My roommates were still gone, and would be until right before classes started in a few weeks. I was lonely. (I've never denied being emotionally impulsive.) Besides, I'd wanted a dog all last year anyway, I lived a five minute walk from school, in a big, wonderful house with a little backyard - it might never be a more perfect time for a puppy. And it didn't feel right, living in a house without a dog. I'd always had dogs, I was a dog person.

That's what I was looking for: a dog, some charming mutt of unknown provenance, a puppy that would grow into a hefty canine, one that would take up space in my car, on the couch, in my life. There had always been a dog. My parents adopted Onyx, their pointer/lab mix three years before I was born. She guarded me when I crawled around on my baby blanket, wouldn't let strangers too near without my parent's permission. Simon, the massive Rhodesian we adopted the summer before ninth grade, slept outside my mother's bedroom door nights my father was working in Boston, keeping an eye on all of us, on the street outside, from the top of the stairs. We had our own special thing, too - he protected the hell out of that house, but never blew up my spot when I snuck home late. That's what I was looking for.

But it's not what I found, those puppies were a mess, either sickly-looking, oddly-tempered, or like they'd grow up to be about purse-sized. No, no, no. That wouldn't do at all. So I turned around and started back. You can try again in a few weeks.

The puppies were at the back of the building, so I had to walk through a full row of the adult dogs to get to the door.  I kind of said hi to them all, but didn't pay them much mind - I wanted a puppy, someone I could know from their start. I was three-quarters of the way down the line of kennels when, on my left side, a stocky brown dog who'd been sitting patiently, stood up on his hind legs, and pounded the cage with his front paws. Not aggressively, just a 'Hey! Over here!' Then he sat back down, and looked at me.

He was adorable. Chocolate brown with a white streak down his chest, big liquid eyes, a face shaped like something between a heart and a square. He didn't bark, he didn't pace. He just looked at me. I read the card pinned to the cage. His name was Hershey, he was about a year old. He was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier mix. I'd never even heard of that before.

The staff starting coming out through the kennels - it was almost dinner, time for everyone to go. One woman saw me standing where I was and stopped. Her face lit up, slowly, almost cautious. 'He is a great dog,' she said. 'Great.' I nodded. 'We're closing now, but come back tomorrow, take him out.' I said I would, said goodbye to the dog, and left. I don't think I'd planned on coming back, but the next afternoon there I was.

I took him outside, and he was friendly and sweet and all, but kind of...aloof. He wasn't fawning all over me just because I happened to be there. It was cool to meet me, but let's all be reasonable. It was weird, but I kind of respected the hell out of that. And, let's be honest - there's nothing I love quite like an emotionally unavailable man.

The staff was thrilled. They were all in love with him. He'd been there for months, after being left in the parking lot with a chain around his neck. They'd put him in a children's camp program, brought him around as a breed ambassador dog. They could not figure out why no one had taken him home.

And that's the story of how I met the dog we now call Baylor Jackson, canine homie extraordinaire, the oldest soul I think I've ever encountered, and every single thing I was looking for the day I walked into that animal shelter. We had to spend too many months apart that next year, because I went a little crazy, and then nature went very crazy, but otherwise, we've been together ever since. I picked him up in Houston, after Katrina - a friend's aunt had taken him in, one of the greatest kindnesses I've ever experienced, for which I am eternally grateful. She fell in love with him too, of course. When I showed up that night he was fat as a pig, she'd been cooking him his own dinners, full plates of food. She gave me a gallon-bag of frozen turkey on our way out the door: 'he loves my turkey.' He sat on my lap the whole drive home. My legs lost feeling somewhere outside of Lake Charles, but I didn't care.

In the end, it didn't matter that we didn't know each other from the beginning. I'll never know what happened to him that first year. There are clues - he still has scars on his ears, and one on his head if you know where to look. He's not a big fan of tall men, and he hates it when people give daps. HATES it. There's something about knuckles-hitting-knuckles that upsets him deeply. So no, I don't know, exactly, but I have an idea. And it doesn't matter. The day we met was it's own kind of beginning, for both of us. You can start over anytime.

We made his birthday August 12 - exactly a month between my brother's and mine. Which means he will be ten this year. Ten. He's grown in a grizzled bit of old-man beard, but otherwise he's largely the same. People on the street regularly ask if he's a puppy, actually don't believe me when I tell them, which is hilarious to me, that would be the weirdest thing to lie about. And now, nine years down the line, I think about that puppy lesson all the time. You can have the grandest plans, you always think you know what's right for you. But you probably don't. There's probably someone who knows better than you. And it's okay to trust them.

Happy Birthday, Baylor Jackson. Thanks for picking me.

Travel Tips for Post Modern Women

I like this time of year because I travel for work, and 80% of my work travel consists of 'walking around New York in the springtime taking pictures of lovely old buildings'. Honestly, it's pretty great. Even when it's exhausting, or cold, or I'm lost in Brooklyn on a subway that's basically a Jurassic Park Ride of Underground Trash, it's still pretty great. There's a lot of takeout sushi and trashy television and fresh towels and other such things sorely lacking in my everyday life. And all this work travel actually improves me as a person. After weeks spent with someone else emptying your garbage cans and replacing your toiletries when you hoard them in your suitcase, it gets that much harder to tolerate your own filth and disarray*. But there are challenges. I was going to tell you about all of them at once, but that post was so long I didn't even want to read it, so I'm separating it into three parts. This part is about subways. The next parts will be about peeing, and hotels. Aren't you so excited! Okay, Part One:

On The Train: Avoiding A Terrible Fate

Subways are a great invention. They allow you to zip through subterranean parts of a city like some kind of PowerMole. They allow for delightful multi-tasking, like reading en commute. Sometimes there's cool views. They reduce your obscene American carbon footprint, if only somewhat. You're exposed to an interesting cross-section of the population you might never encounter otherwise.

Subways are also HORRIBLE. You're trapped underground with thousands of other scrambling assholes like some Escape From NIMH gone horribly awry. It's too hot, or too cold. It smells like...something unidentifiable, with whiffs of human stink, rat parties, desperation, and poop. You are occasionally crammed next to and up against the very worst humanity has to offer - by whom, I mean, PEOPLE WHO DON'T TAKE THEIR FUCKING ENORMOUS BACKPACKS OFF.

In the end, though, it doesn't really matter: subways are a necessity. And there's almost nothing that makes you feel more competent and self-actualized than being able to effectively navigate a subway system. And it's a skill that translates! To other cities! It's an awesome skill. But there are things to watch out for.

Don't Be A Statistic
When I was little, my mom told us not to stick our arms out the car window. When we persisted, she informed us that, were another vehicle or stationary object to collide with our outstretched limbs, they would be sheared off, likely mangled, and unsuitable for reattachment. I've never stuck so much as a finger outside a moving vehicle again without recalling that warning. I've passed it on - to children under my supervision in at least one instance, several adults in others, and have noted it's immediate effectiveness. On the children. The conclusion here is that adults are incredibly stupid. Because the last year has been filled with stories of people FALLING ONTO TRACKS AND GETTING RUN OVER BY TRAINS. The simple solution here is 'not standing too close to the tracks'. Especially if you're drunk or physically unstable in some way. It's not hard not to fall down there. In the getting pushed scenario...I suppose a crazy person could drag you from by the wall and push you, but that's a lot more effort. And if they're really intent on you as a target, you might be able to buy yourself some time by like, yelling for help. Which you can't do if you're basically standing on the yellow line, dude, just STEP BACK.

Listen to Your Rape Alarms
Some of my friends laugh at me because I'm insane and we'll be going somewhere when all of a sudden I'm like 'my Rape Alarms are going off' and we need to turn around. I am not embarrassed at all about doing this because we live in a horrible world where horrible things happen to everyone, and this COMPLETELY includes small women who wear giant headphones and tend to be lost in their own worlds. Knowing this about myself, I try to be extra-aware of even the faintest alarm bells. As my mother told me (years after the limb-shearing warning) 'If you stop at a rest stop by yourself, you will get raped'. She is totally going to deny saying that, but F was standing in the Hunter's Hill Circle kitchen with me when that bit of knowledge was passed down. When we got into his car and pulled down the driveway (she dropped that right before a road trip) he was like "The scariest part of that was how sure she was. I'm scared of rest stops now, too."

So anyway, sometimes my rape alarms go off in subway stations. This is because subway stations can be hella creepy. Especially isolated tunnels and stairways. ESPECIALLY THIS COURT STREET STATION ENTRANCE FOR THE R TRAIN. Holy shit.

I've been to other entrances, but I sort of stumbled on this one after taking pictures of a building across the street and thought 'Oh, I'll just jump on here' and went down the stairs. When I got into the station, surprise: it was one of those weird entrances that are primarily for elevator access. I HATE being in those giant elevators with strangers, I always think some Lord of the Flies shit is going to break out, so I look for the stairs. There are always stairs. Although sometimes...they're horrible creepy. Like this time. It was a really long, narrow staircase. I'd gone down about a flight and a half thinking 'Yo, this is an incredibly rapey stairwell' when I came upon THIS:

Oh fuck, is that a CARDBOARD RAPE PAD? Jesus, okay, that's weird, just keep going Katherine, deep breaths**.

HOLY SHIT WHOSE PANTS ARE THOSE? At this point I seriously considered turning around. Like, it was noon on a Wednesday in fucking Brooklyn Heights, and I assumed I must be halfway down the stairs already and I had an appointment to make, so despite the CLANGING alarms, I pressed on, down the next flight: 

OH MY FUCK WHERE DOES THAT TINY DOOR GO? IS THIS LIKE RAPE NARNIA? I still had no idea how much more of a descent I was in for, and I couldn't run, because everyone knows when you run  down stairs in a horror movie, you fall down the stairs and Kevin Ware your leg in half and then have to drag yourself down the grimy ass steps all wounded and dirty, but I will tell you: I have never walked so swiftly and carefully in my life. 

Of course everything was fine, I realize it was just an odd collection of possibly-homeless items on a stairway. I caught the next train and made my appointment on time. An appointment at which a crazy old guy showed up on a bike to let me in, and then offered me champagne, and he seemed kind of drunk already, so it wasn't clear if he was joking or not. I declined, politely Note: the only time Katie Neuner declines free champagne is when a crazy old man offers it to her while she's essentially locked inside his house. Even if it's Veuve. Which it was. (YOU DID SOMETHING RIGHT, MOM AND DAD!!!)

The irony is not lost on me, that much of my job entails entering strangers' super expensive houses where large wooden fortress doors close behind me and pretty much no one knows where I am. But sometimes I guess you have to figure on the good in humanity, and assume that most people don't a) have a torture dungeon and b) want to trap you in it. I, at least, have to figure that, or else I'd never leave the house. Just stay out of abandoned stairwells, kids. 

Of course, later that day I was exiting another subway station and came across this: 

So, wtf, everything, maybe we should all just totally stay inside.

*For those of you who know me well, this something of a mind-altering shift. Filth and Disarray have been my homies for a long, long time. Shh, don't say too much about it, I might get scared.
** I call myself Katherine when I need to steel myself, or get my shit together. I use my Mom's voice and it is a SUPER effective motivational tool.

Crack Rock

Guys.

I am crazy about Frank Ocean.

Like, I know, 'woohoo, Katie, you and everyone else who listens to r&b, congratulations.' But it's more than that. I haven't listened to an album over-and-over-and-over again like this since...well, since Fiona Apple's new album came out a few weeks ago, but she's my soulmate, so that's sort of an anomaly. Anyway...'Channel Orange', my goodness. It's on Spotify, it's on iTunes, it's on his Tumblr, there's like, a thousand ways you can listen to it, so just go.

And not to be ungrateful, Frank, but it's about g.d. time. 'Novacane' came out like, a year and a half ago. I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it - in a rental car, lost in New Bedford, looking for some old shipping magnate's house to take pictures of in the rain. I stopped at the Visitor's Center to pee and get directions (Dear everyone who works at the New Bedford Vistor's Center: you are fucking delightful humans, and your facility is lovely) and when I got back to the car, the first song on the radio was Mssr. Ocean's debut. The DJ was like 'Okay, I don't even know guys, this dude is on some new school Prince shit, and it's...it's just crazy, listen' and he played it, and I was like 'OH MY GOD THIS GUY IS SORT OF ON SOME NEW SCHOOL PRINCE SHIT, AND IT IS CRAZY' and then I totally missed the turn and forgot the directions and ended up in Rhode Island, which like, isn't hard from New Bedford, but still.

So then 'Swim Good' came out, all that 'Nostalgia Ultra' business, and he did some shit on 'Watch the Throne' that was pretty ill, but not enough! Of him. So I pretty much decided 'this guy is never coming out with a full album because he hates me' and I half-forgot about him, because I have ADD and I am not medicated.  Or not, whatever, sometimes there's just a lot to think about.

Then, recently, I'm sure you've heard, he wrote this really lovely post on his Tumblr/blog/whatever about his first love, who happened to be a man. And mostly I was like 'Oh shit, Frank Ocean's album is dropping soon!' (I actually think stupid shit like that) because, honestly, if you can fall in love with someone, isn't that just nice enough on it's own? But the internets went batshit, and it made me think about how true it is, that hip-hop and r&b are so straight-centered, and it was pretty fucking brave and beautiful and honest of him, to put that out there, and then Pitchfork gives Channel Orange a 9.5, and fuck, guys, this might make a difference.

Some of the songs are girl-centric, some are pretty gender-neutral, and then there's something like 'Forrest Gump', which besides having an adorably smart chorus, is totally progressive in that sex-light I've been talking about. I mean...I don't know quite why everyone's always so focused-insistent about hip hop's homophobia issue -- of course, I get it, it is, but it's like everyone trips over themselves to talk about how homophobic hip hop is, when, in reality, is indie rock so much better? Is ANYTHING? Go anywhere. Even 70's glam rock. Mick Jagger was apparently fucking David Bowie for half the decade, but he's still singing about Angie* and heroin. 'Channel Orange' might be, after a full lyric breakdown, the most interestingly sexually progressive mainstream album like...ever?

Oh, and also, IT'S FUCKING AWESOME. I've listened to 'Thinking Bout You' approximately 85 times in the last four days. (I know he released it last year but I missed that.) Even if you don't give a crap about anything I just talked about, if you like music, just listen to this shit. Actually, first, look up the performance of 'Bad Religion' he did on Jimmy Fallon last week. Watch ?uestlove's face. It's crazy to see someone you idolize get that 'Oh my fuck' look. It's amazing.

So, to reiterate: Guys. I am batshit crazy about Frank Ocean. Get yourselves there.

*And I know, Angie was Bowie's wife? The 70's were crazy.

Share Your SpinBrush, Whore.

(I always mean 'whore' in the good way)

Wait, so it's weird that I keep a toothbrush in my purse at all times? Everyone doesn't equip themselves with a full-time Travel Toothbrush? Other people are that certain about when they'll see their at-home toothbrush 100% of the time?

Maybe this speaks to my somewhat unstable lifestyle, but I find it's excellent social planning. No one bats a lash when you're like "Yo, can I borrow your toothpaste?", but most people are hard core weirded out when you're like 'Hey, so I'm just going to polish mes dents with your Spin Brush real quick?' (Bless the friends who are totally cool with that*.) I mean, humans do all manner of weird shit to each other with their mouths - the toothbrush seems like such an arbitrary line. A toothbrush is probably one of the cleaner things of someone else's that you can stick in your mouth.

Anyway, yeah, I do find myself wanting to brush my teeth in other people's bathrooms on the fairly regular, and no, it's not because I'm some kind of escort (I wish! If we learned anything from the 90's, it's that if you're a hooker with good oral hygenie, Richard Gere will save you in the end**) but because I have emotional problems and abhor regularity and routine and frequently find myself not-at-home when it's time to brush my teeth***.

I don't think it's that weird, or necessarily indicative of sluttiness (although I am both kind of weird and kind of slutty, I don't think there's any correlation.). But today, when my Travel Toothbrush fell out of my bag, my boss had a lot of questions about it, and it got me thinking.

Also, it had gotten separated from it's container (by which I mean 'the off-brand Ziploc bag I store it in had busted') so it was just floating around in there all raw, which is gross, but it's a pretty new purse so there's not a lot of tobacco flakes and Kashi dust littering the bottom yet. Still gross, okay. Sorry.

Anyway, Travel Toothbrushes are cool. Brush your teeth, yo! And eat your vegetables! I know I seem like a shitty person to take lifestyle advice from, but that shit is probably why I'm still alive. Also, drink water. SEE? I'm a genius.

* Like following the debased summer of 2006 when - in September - four of us realized we all thought the purple toothbrush was ours. And then were like 'We should probably just toss the purple one? Since we have worked it out.' (Word up, Spot kids!)

** And that George Costanza is mad rapey! Seriously, I'm not letting my hypothetical daughter watch Pretty Woman until she's like, twenty-eight. That movie does not prepare young girls for life. Don't trip, though, we are going to watch the shit out of Dirty Dancing. No fast forwarding through the botched abortion scene, either. That's a useful message. Wrap it up, yo!

***Which is actually like, all the time. I have the worst teeth. I look at sugar and I pop a tiny cavity.

See what I did there? Richard Gere saved you in the end!

Winter 2010, Nutshellized

"Right behind lack of confidence, and right before lack of knowledge about general American History, lack of manners is one of my ultimate turn-offs." - March 10, 2010

One of my favorite things about GMail is how easy it is to play 'One year Ago Today'.

Last winter was so weird. I wrote that to J + S (our on-going three-way journal, coming up on it's second anniversary) after cutting off relations with one gentleman companion after he displayed an egregious intellectual error. A few weeks later, I was sort-of email dumped by a guy I hadn't really been dating.

The first incident occurred after Gentleman #1 made the mistake of asking whether the Pilgrims and Columbus were contemporary travelers. No, he didn't say it like that. I think he said 'didn't they happen at the same time?' Which, I guess if you look at them both like diseases, isn't completely off base. We were driving down the highway, and I don't even know what inspired the comment. I just remember being really, really startled. Like, dude, we grew up in Massachusetts. It's like, Pilgrim Central. And Columbus? Did you not attend elementary school? You didn't learn the rhyme about 1492? No?

It wasn't like I demanded that he pull the car over right then and there. But I never saw him again after that weekend - and we had been hanging out a lot. In retrospect, it was a pretty shitty way to handle the whole situation.

A few weeks later, I went out with a friend-of-a-friend. He wasn't much like the dudes I usually hung out with, and I figured it was worth a shot. We had two of the chastest dates I've ever been on. Tuesday night dates with plenty of beer and zero sparks. This was in early February. I'm forever getting involved with people at the beginning of February, and making that whole Valentine's Dilemma all the more awkward. Anyway, a week or so after our last date he sent me this relatively convoluted, totally indirect email about how 'something happened' with someone else and how he hoped I wouldn't be mad at our mutual friend, because 'he was the dud'. Dude, obviously you're the dud. You're referring to people as 'duds'.

Then I started sleeping with my roommate. That was actually the least awkward of all of the above situations. There was a while where I felt like I should teach a class on How to Sleep With Your Roommate and Have It Not Be Awkward. One time we even high-fived over the not-awkwardness. Lesson One: Make sure your roommate is someone you're cool high-fiving over vague social relations concepts. Lesson Two: Make sure there's a shelf-life on the roommate situation. Preferably, one of you should move out of the house (and the city, and the state) within three or four months. Lesson Three: Have other roommates. Lesson Four: Don't tell them.

Anyway, that's what was happening one year ago today. 2010 was crazy.

The Favorite Son of Greenfield Mass

Tom Bergeron has a book!!!

I love that man. And this picture is the best fucking thing I have ever seen. I want this on a t-shirt.

Quincy Delite Jones Jr...How Could You Be Anything Less than Great?

Word Up, Queen Latifah.

Last night were the BET Awards, and I have to say, that if I am ever given the opportunity to attend an awards show - just one awards show, ever - I would not choose the Oscar's, or the Grammy's, or even the MTV Awards. No. I am picking the BET Awards. That was the best fucking awards ceremony I have ever watched. I didn't get home till around 9.30, but as soon as I opened the door and stepped inside, I was commanded by the Brother and the Other Roommate to enter the living room immediately. I didn't even get to put my damn bag down.

The Brother, the OR and the Dog were sitting in completely darkness, utterly enthralled by what was on the screen. When I walked in, the Brother whispered "it's the BET Awards. Al Green is getting a lifetime achievement award." And he was! And it was a fucking party! Seriously, people were getting down at the BET Awards. Everyone was standing in the aisels, just dancing. Most people had, obviously, been doing their down dances to various Al Green songs for the past 20 or so years (please, you have your own moves to these songs, too. I do, anyways) so it was kind of awkward, but also, nobody cared, because you have to dance to these songs.

And the craziest thing about the Al Green award was that it wasn't even the best part of the night! No! Neither was the Lil Wayne performance or any of the other insane moments I saw. The best part of the night was the Quincy Jones achievement presentation and acceptance. First of all, I had no idea that Quincy Jones a) did so much incredible humanitarian shit or b) was 75 fucking years old. Item b sort of informs item a, when you look at it - he's had a lot more time to accomplish shit than I realized - but still. And I steadfastly refused to believe he was 75...until he took to the podium to give his acceptance speech.

Holy shit. It was the best acceptance speech I have ever heard. It was one of those speeches that makes so little sense that you have to check with the people around you to make sure it's legitimately non-sensical, or if you just aren't getting it. I still have to admit - maybe Quincy is just on a totally different level. Maybe I'm not capable of understanding him.

I can't find this on YouTube, but I honestly didn't look that hard. If you're good at YouTube, just see if you can dig it up. It's totally worth it. It's the best acceptance speech of all time. My favorite moment, by far, is near the end of the speech, when he says "If it rains...get wet." and then holds his hand up like 'ohhh' and the crowd totally leaves him hanging. That's when I knew no one else got it, either. And it was hysterical. Like, we weren't ready for that catchprashe. I'm almost ready now, though.

Other brilliant moments are when he references scientific advances (he's on the board at MIT? For real? Awesome.) and pronounces 'genome breakthrough' like it's the name of a band, and when he makes comparison statements with an empty second line...

Because if it rains...get wet.

Anybody?

Come on Ride the Train, and Ride It

Ah, the T. The occasionally convienient, frequently frustrating hot mess of mass transportation, where your experience is guaranteed to be different every time. There is no damn sense to the T. I know it isn'tlikely, but I believe the people who designed Boston's subway system drew their inspiration from the terrorists of urban planning that mapped out downtown streets. Why are all the stops on the Green Line so close together? Not just on the B Line down by BU (that portion of track makes me believe in pure, free floating evil. It's a tunnel of bad karma) but even through downtown.

Half the time it's faster to walk. It's not a very big city, MBTA. We don't need a whole lot of stops just to impress the tourists. They'll figure out how to get lost on their own. At any given hour, there are entire Midwestern families who are going on Day 3 lost in the Public Garden. I've seen it. They can't seem to get out. And then there are the people who get lost on the Freedom Trail. A red line indicating the trail IS LITERALLY PAINTED ON THE SIDEWALK, and yet. But enough hating on tourists, I'm not really addressing their oblivion today.

No, the T-Ettiquette offenders I'm targeting today make up our local population. People who live here, people who write into the letters sections of magazines and newspapers to complain about students who won't remove their gigantic backpacks, high school kids who won't stand up so the pregnant and elderly can sit down, or tourists who open their fold-out maps of the North End -emblazoned with big cartoon cannoli's and a caricature of Paul Revere's head impaled on the steeple of North Church - directly into their faces.

Yes, those people are annoying. But everyone knows that. And I don't think they're the norm - they're just the spokesperson for the group of assholes they represent, and those people need vacations and education as much as the rest of us. You know how sometimes you're visiting a strange city, blending in, trying your hardest not to annoy the people who actually live there, and then you spy another one of your kind - the visting - and they are so freaking conspicuous, you actually feel shame. With their fanny packs and their books of maps and their infuriating habit of stopping directly in the middle of the sidewalk whenever they have a thought...I don't think most tourists are like that, because I'm not. Just like most college students aren't complete d-bags. We only notice the shittiest members of their demographic and judge the whole group. We all do it, sorry.

One thing we don't all do, it seems, is adequately shame local contingencies of asshole T riders into reforming their behaviors. Seriously, Bostonians, what the hell is wrong with you? I have to spell it out? Oh, a list would be more user-friendly and effective? Fine, then, I'll list your problems. And tell you how to fix them. You're welcome. Assholes.

1. Why is your music so fucking loud?
Jesus Christ! When your ipod/discman/zune/other new technology I'm unfamiliar with is louder than your ringtone, we have a problem. Yes, 'we'. We share the problem. Your problem is that you are an inconsiderate turd, and my problem is that you are hosting Inconsiderate Turd-a-Palooza '08 in close proximity to me. Your musical suck-fest is holding me hostage. I can hear every word, man, and I don't happen to dig Linkin Park. Don't you have anything else on there that doesn't crap ass so tremendously?

And hey, InconsiderateOne, how are your ears feeling? How's your hearing during normal day-to-day conversations? Not so good? Are you always unintentionally yelling at people and freaking them out by coming across as the most intense person alive? Are your personal relationships suffering? I think I can help you! Turn...down...the...volume. Also, get some better tunes. Yours are the worst.

2. What level Sex Offender Are You, Anyway?
Listen, creepo - if we're bothing standing on a packed train, holding onto the metal pole for support, don't slide your hand down the pole so it touches mine. Like, don't EVER do that. Especially don't leave your hand all in contact with mine, and then look down at me and smile. Because it makes me think that you're going to drug me, steal all my organs, and then place them in a shrine decorated with my skin and lit by candles made from my body fat.

Nooooo, it doesn't matter how cute you are. The last time this happened to me, the space-violator was completely normal looking, well dressed, attractive. I still got off at the next stop and walked 30 blocks to get where I was going. 2:00 on a damn Tuesday afternoon, I don't need that shit.

3. Are you going to share that paper/sandwich?
Of course people read on the T. And sometimes, they grub. I engage in plenty of the former, and none of the latter, but that's mostly because I am incapable of eating anything without a fair portion ending up covering my lap, my face, or my hair, even when I am eating somewhere completely stationary. That's a personal issue though, and I don't see anything wrong with the gifted among us taking part in a little grindage on the go.
That said, there are plenty of people who are reading or noshing who should not be allowed to do so on the train. If your newspaper must be opened all the way for you to enjoy reading it, then you need to get your own damn seat, or wait until you get where you're going. If you need to extend into my seat, then you need to a) say excuse me, then b) fold your paper back on your side. Same goes for food. If you're able to eat your sub without jabbing me with your elbows, and without spilling tomatoes and mayo all over the car, then snack away, man. However, if your intention is to have a fucking picnic all up in my area, then you are an asshole, and you need to put your shit away. Also, if your food is incredibly pungent, you need to wait till you're in an open-air environment. It may be delicious, but between the homeless guy, the guy who is apparently opposed to showering at the gym, and your panang beef - it's too much.

4. We won't leave without you, I promise
Oh, that heading doesn't refer to you unlucky bastards running towards the T as it closes the doors and makes moves to depart the station. It's not waiting. Bye! You just look silly running! Stop running, already. Goofball. I'm actually talking about the people who CANNOT wait for everyone to get off the train before shoving their way on. What the hell is wrong with you? Is there a seat you like better than all the others? Are you in training for something for which this is an integral activity? Is it so hard to wait until everyone else is off - and JESUS YOU'RE GOING TO STEP ON THAT BABY.

They aren't the only ones guilty of creating congestion havoc. There's also the Door Hoarder. You know - that person who stands in front of the door the entire ride, and when it stops at oh, say, Kenmore on a summer night at 6.30 when about 780 people are trying to exit they REFUSE TO GET OFF TO ALLOW OTHER PEOPLE TO PASS BY. I have seen those people get like, trampled - and they don't care. They just cling to the pole by the door. You crazy freak, you can get out for a second. Say it with me now...we won't leave without you. I promise.

There's more - oh so many more - but I have to go get on the T now. Orange Line!!! You know, the other day, I saw a PSA ad on the Orange Line warning teen hos about the dangerous pimps out there? It broke down all the pimps moves, what they'd say, what they'd buy you...it was the most informative ad I've ever seen. And also, my hands-down favorite, ever. And I've only seen it once. Once! I'm on the T all the damn time! That must be the worst-funded public awareness campaign in history. Pimps got teen hos in this city locked down. They're a well funded group, too - when was the last time you saw a pimp and his teen hos riding the train? Your shitty manners have likely turned them off the whole experience.