It's not for me.

It's not.

I can't do it.

I expected to feel a slight twinge tonight, at my friend's wedding rehearsal.

Actually, that's not accurate. I expected to be infected, tonight, at my friend's wedding rehearsal. I expected, that somehow, by watching my friend be treated as 'the bride', I would feel jealousy, and be filled with the desire to have "my day", as my friend will have "her day" on Saturday. I am, by nature, a jealous person. If someone is treated specially for any reason, I can be relied upon to feel jealous. I've been jealous of a tonsilectomy.

I wasn't jealous tonight. I wasn't anything. All I knew, being taught how to process, being slapped on the back of the head by an old woman, watching my friend be taught how to light candles and not trip over her husband's feet at the kneeler, was that I didn't want to do this again.

I'm just not interested. I can't imagine dressing my closest friends up in little formal uniforms and marching them down an aisle, to watch me perform religious rituals that approach personal meaninglessness. I can't imagine paying and paying and paying and paying and paying, just to throw one party that makes almost no one happy.

Let's shock some kids!

Which story am I referring to? Is it this one about a Texas school teacher fired for taking ten year olds to an art museum where they may have encountered nude artwork, or is it this one, about a school for the handicapped and disturbed that uses electric shock as a behavior modification tool?

Let me do the second one first and the first one second.

I'm for shocking the mentally handicapped. Let me tell you a story. My mother teaches autistic children, in the public school system of the town I grew up in. She had a student several years ago who was autistic, had downs syndrome, and was born with both fetal alcohol syndrome and a serious, rare neurological defect that vastly diminished the size of the pre-frontal cortex. The pre-frontal cortex is beginning to be thought of as the moral center of the brain. It's involved in weighing rewards and consequences. This student did not have one. She could not 'learn', as we know it. She had preferences. She had behaviors. She could not plan, or delay gratification.

She learned exactly one thing in my mother's classroom: Not to touch the radiator. Because the radiator hurt. Operant conditioning, and classical conditioning don't (as far as we're able to tell right now) use the same pathways as other forms of learning. It's hard to think about hurting children; it's hard to think of a child in pain and not think of abuse; but when a child may not be able to learn to stop harming themselves, or to stay out of danger, or to develop skills that may allow them to walk down the street, or visit their parents, or sit on a bus, without that- I'm not going to deprive them of it. We know how it works. We know that it works.

Ok. Done shocking kids like that.

How about nudity?

This I actually need explained to me. By what mechanism is seeing nudity harmful to children? In what way is Janet Jackson's tit, or marble David's teensy dick, at all dangerous or innappropriate for children? I would understand, perhaps, if we all had a cloaca until age 18, when genitals appear in our pants like fungus after rain...but not when all children have a set of goods of their own.

I understand, completely, the rationale for shielding as much as possible, children from depictions of sexuality and sexual behavior in adults. It's confusing for them, and too much information, and very graphic or lurid depictions may actually be traumatic. But nudity is not sex. (Which is not to say that children don't have any sexual-like behaviors. Fetuses masturbate in the womb. But a fetus doesn't fantasize about putting its penis stub in an unseen unimagined vagina)

How will children be harmed by seeing non-sexual nudity in a completely non-sexual environment? I saw nude statues and nude art often as a child. I'll admit, later (age 12-17) I did spend a good amount of time researching in various books of nordic, south american, greek and roman art for what this thing called an "erection" looked like. I couldn't quite get whether it came up or went out or what, and I certainly didn't know it got any BIGGER. What can I say. I was a late bloomer.

That's off-topic, though. What I really want, and what I'd love someone to tell me, is the PROCESS by which children are harmed by nudity. How was a ten year old boy or girl, verging on puberty themselves, possibly put in danger in any way, by seeing a depiction of some long-dead nipple? I can imagine how their parents were harmed. Perhaps, if you've got a ten year old child who does not yet know that the opposite sex has a different set of equipment, that may be embarassing for you as a parent.

I suggest you visit

a lush in rio.

No, not him.

This.

Because not only does it feature my writing,(here and here) it also features my (lack of) improv talent, and some (geniunely) talented individuals, exploring such topical humor as "What if thirty koalas attacked a leprechaun?" (warning, link contains sound)

A-ha!

Mixed drinks with diet soda gets you drunk faster.

Finally, something to explain that when I almost never drank, it was so hard to get drunk; and now, when I drink more often, I get goofy fairly swiftly.

It's because I don't want to get fat(ter). As a woman, I have three constant, insane, shameful, horrid goals, which I was indoctrinated with in childhood, possibly by ghosts or the patriarchy. 1)Make people like me. 2)Don't get too fat. 3) Never be not-so-fresh.

Don't worry, I haven't fallen for these. And I won't. Because they terrify me. I, as an adult, am able to live a life while my vagina smells like vagina, and not fruit or flowers. I am sure that anyone would find it discomfiting to find a box that smells like products from Yankee Candle.

But I have fallen for splenda. I love diet soft drinks. I love them so. I love anything fizzy with no calories, because I hate drinking water. I don't have the attention span. Without diet soft drinks, I would probably dry up and blow away.

When I drank very little, I would drink things like Grape Crushes, Midori Sours (I know, gross-I can't believe it myself), Cosmopolitans, Lemon Drops, etc. I'd drink the kind of sugary-sweet drinks that would be very useful, were one trying to get a middle-schooler absolutely toasted. If it was the color of gatorade, and served chilled or over ice, I'd drink the hell out of it.

But when I began to drink a little more often, I switched to rum and diet coke. And suddenly, I was getting rowdy from amounts of alcohol that would ordinarily leave me dull-faced and inhibited. I didn't know what to blame. I wondered if I'd offended my liver or other organ. I breifly had a theory that related to my shoes. I wondered if I'd ever NOT been such a cheap date.

But now I know. It was my beloved artificial sweetener, my bitch juice. My bitch juice was turning me into a two-beer queer. But knowing is half the battle. And now that I am poor, and plan to never, ever drive again (more on that later- suffice it to say, I hate the motherfucking ghetto) I know how to get drunk more cheaply without resorting to beer. Which is awesome. Diet Coke and me: Drunkening since 2003.

CIANA didn't pass.

Awesome.

Do you know what CIANA is? It was legislation that republicans and sundry other conservatives wanted to pass, criminalizing the act of bringing a minor across state lines to secure an abortion, by anyone but her parents. It also criminalizes any doctor, even in states without parental consent laws, who does not obtain sufficient proof that a minor obtaining abortion is from the state she is having the abortion in, and that anyone accompanying her has the legal right to.

A lot of people seem to think there's nothing wrong with this act. They think that an abortion is a medical procedure, and as such, it's reasonable to need parental presence or consent. Of course, there are tons of cases where we allow people to act in loco parentis. For example, on a field trip to New York fifteen hundred years ago, when I was young, a girl traveling with our group had abdominal pains in the middle of the night. She was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered that she had mono and her spleen had burst. She had emergency surgery. The chaperone was not prosecuted for having secured medical care for a minor without parental consent, because that's not a crime.

There's also the impression that the ONLY reason that a person, not a parent, to take a minor across state lines for an abortion is to circumvent parental consent laws. Not true. There are many states with few abortion providers- it's likely someone in that state may be closer to an out-of state abortion provider than an in-state one.

Another joy to this act not passing is that if it did pass, it would set a dangerous precedent for when Roe is overturned (if it ever is, which I do not think is out of the question), allowing states where abortion is illegal to prosecute residents who have had abortions in other states. Imagine, someone living in South Dakota, traveling to Minnesota for an abortion, and being tried for murder upon return home; or, alternately, never being able to return home. Imagine female refugees, millions, unable to ever return to anti-abortion states for fear of prosecution.

I wanna be an ambulance chaser.

I do.

I love my torts class. I love my civil procedure class, and I love taking 30% of things.

I don't care what the common perception is of personal injury law. I don't care. People get hurt by other people. Then, they get to have some of the money of the person who hurt them. Also, their lawyer gets some money. I will be a lawyer, and I would like to have some money.

This is simplistic. Far too simplistic. But it's no more simplistic than the argument against tort lawyers. When an injury happens, either the person to whom the injury happens ends up bearing the burden, or someone else does. It would be equally unfair for the injured person to always bear the burden, or for someone else to always bear the burden.

So we have a system that serves to determine who should pay. And it's a good system. And someday, I'm going to have a very large television.

When I am rich

I will always over-tip.

Always.

That's all.

I win.

You may not know this, but I live in student housing right now. It wasn't a great decision, but I get to pretend that I'm not paying rent, because the housing and utilities are billed with my tuition, not monthly.

It's strange to be an adult, storing all your grown-up dishes and furniture and things and stripping back to an old person's semblance of freshman year of college. And it's even stranger to enter a room full of the same furniture that occupied your first dorm room, six years ago: Modular bed, desk, and flimsy bookcase.

Or at least I thought the bed was modular. When I moved in, I forced my poor boyfriend to help me haul the parts of a full-size futon up four floors, on a 90 degree day, because I was under the impression that I would be able to dissassemble the school-provided extra long twin with the four inch thick vinyl mattress (perfect for celibacy). But I couldn't get the bed to come apart. I thought it was the same exact model that they had at Bennington- the kind that becomes a loft or bunk or drops down to the floor.

But I couldn't get it apart. My boyfriend told me that it wasn't the kind that comes apart. My parents told me it wasn't the kind that comes apart. I wiggled it. I hit it with a mallet. I yelled at it. I threatened it. So I put it on its side, shoved the futon up against it, and lost a precious 10 inches of bedroom space. vThat was five weeks ago.

Today, I got the bed apart.

It was awesome. I got home, and I remembered: You have to turn it upside down. That's all. You just have to turn the frame upside down, it comes right apart.

I win. I am awesome. You can't even comprehend my awesomeness.

It's not so bad.

Seriously.

Forget 1L. Forget it. Everyone talks about how the first year of law school is a trial by torture. It hasn't started yet. I don't know if it's going to start. Maybe it's that most people who go to most law schools either come straight from undergraduate, or went straight from undergraduate into some fairly predictable office job, or some really 'meaningful' field work...

I spent the past three years working and going to school, both as much as I could. I finished three years of school in three terms. I paid my rent. I didn't have more than four hours a day off. All I have to do now is read and go to class. It's simple. It's almost childish.

Yes, it's a lot of reading. Yes, it's sometimes dull or complicated. But nobody sticks pins in my urethra when I miss an answer.

I miss my job.

I really do. I miss working. I miss making myself a coffee before I leave. I miss talking to eighty people a shift. I miss my coworkers. I miss having the same thing to complain about as eight other people have to complain about. I miss going out after work. I miss the magical transformation from coworkers to friends that happens after some rum and a change of clothes.

And goddamn, do I miss the coffee.

I want to be a barista again.

Do you know what adulthood is?

Adulthood is missing more people than you currently see. And nobody warns you about it, either.
I've got people scattered over half the world, who at different times were my everyday folks. And now, not. Adulthood is achieved at the point where those people you'd like to see outnumber those people you do see.

Or else, it seems like it must be. And some of my prototypical grownups would seem to have the same experience.

Breasts.

I was at a diner a weekend ago, and I saw a woman nurse a child large enough not to require a booster seat. He was that lanky-post-toddler age, where they're not wearing baby clothes, but miniature people clothes. I don't know. Maybe he was four.

The woman sat down, and began to nurse this child, as she ordered, and as she waited for her meal.

I bet you're wondering how the Hobo felt about this. Is she, being in general pro-free, pro-health, anti-prude, going to say that it's perfectly fine to nurse a child in a restaurant? Is she, being generally anti-child, and generally anti-annoying yuppy parent, going to be against this public nursing?

Hobo didn't know herself. Because Hobo has read studies supporting breast-feeding. Hobo does, in general, not at all support the general body form and function phobia that is inherent in American culture. Hobo thought for a minute. Hobo decided that she was perfectly fine with it. Because the kid was eating, and it was a restaurant, and obviously, the restaurant didn't serve breast milk, so restrictions on outside food and drink shouldn't apply to him.

Then the waitress came back. And the waitress dropped off three plates of food. One for the mother, one for the father, and ONE FOR THE CHILD. Which, in my opinion, changed everything.

Because if the kid doesn't need the breastmilk for breakfast, I thought, then there's no reason to nurse him in public. And it's not a good way to encourage him to learn how to be in a restaurant, what they're about, and how to deal with waiting for unfamiliar food. But, parenting judgements aside, as I am not myself a parent, and don't actually know how to teach a kid to do anything- it just changed the tenor of the situation for me.

So, coincidentally, a few days ago on salon.com, there was an article written by a woman who was still nursing her four-year-old son. I didn't think much of it, but I read the letters. All two or three hundred of them.

They seemed pretty evenly decided between two orthodoxies, with a half-dozen or so juvenile trolls thrown in.

Orthodoxy A: Breasts are for babies! Nursing is great! Anyone who thinks that there's something wrong with any nursing of any child of any age is just sexualizing breasts! Which is WRONG! Because BREASTS ARE FOR BABIES! Not men. Not sex.

Orthodoxy B:Nursing is good, and all, but, come on- the kid's going to have memories of his MOTHER'S breasts. Which is gross. Because breasts are sexualized. And if you have any memories of a part of your parents' body that is sexual, you'll become a pervert. The mother must hate her husband, because she's giving her son her breasts instead of to her husband. MAYBE she's FRIGID!

For an accurate picture of the letters, just throw a "for better or worse" between every few clauses of the above.

I think that nursing is such a fractious issue in our society because there are the two orthodoxies, without any recognized (or admitted!) middle ground. Either nursing is seen as something that must be private and brief, but is an important sacrifice of the mother's sexuality and bodily integrity for the child's benefit; or the sexualization of breasts is a mere social construction that masks their true and sole purpose: nursing.

To that, I say, go to the zoo. Look at primates. Try to find me some gorilla titty. Or some chimp titty. You can't. And the reason you can't is because in most other primates, the female breasts remain very small unless actually engorged with milk (or flattened out and droopy after). It's obvious, then, that human breasts are a sexual characteristic under sexual selection- that is, they are a feature so attractive to mates, that natural selection has worked to enlarge them. Some anthropologists say that breasts are the bipedal answer to hidden vaginas- our vaginas are between our legs, whereas a chimp vagina is basically on their butt. Visible from behind. So bipedal primates with upright posture and hidden oestrus needed a characteristic that advertised fertility, and post-pubertal status. Thus, enlarged breasts.

Breasts are for sex.

Even though they're very obviously also for nursing.

So how do we reconcile these two features of America's favorite body part?

To read salon, we don't. We can't handle that a naturally sexual and sensual feature is also an important factor in child-rearing and bonding. Because we can't handle the words Sex and Children in the same sentence without calling Fox News in. We can't handle that a woman's breasts might remain sexual objects to her, even as they are nurturing a child. A woman (and I'll try to find reference for this when I get the time,) once had her child taken away because she told her therapist that she experienced sponteneous sexual arousal while nursing. My initial reaction to that is "ew". Because, really, we don't want to think about stimulating parents. And, as far as I know (remember, no babies here) frequently, nursing is painful, uncomfortable, and intrusive. But a person with an atypical physical reaction to something that involves a sensitive area, and is meant to stimulate oxytocin (a neurotransmitter that facilitates bonding, and is released during NURSING and ORGASM) should surely not be labeled a pervert, right?

So what, then?

Breasts are for babies. But they're also for women. And for men. And for sex. So what do we do? What can we do when this dialogue just dissolves into each side denying the basis of the other side's argument? Do we have to play King Solomon, dividing the booby, and say that nipples are for babies, and mammary glands, but areolae and fatty tissue are for sex? And trix are for kids?

P.S. There was a very interesting study a while ago, that I'll try to find the citation for later, that found that certain of the 'benefits' of breastfeeding, when study groups are adjusted to account for education level and socio-economic status, are not as pronounced as originally thought. Which is interesting, as it seems to reconcile the paradoxical evidence from early last century when formula was seen as better nutrition for babies. Whatever upper-class, educated mothers, with abundant resources tend to do will always seem to give their babies an edge, when in fact, their edge may be an accident of birth.

I'm working on a humor piece.

For a friend's thingie

It's dirty.

But it needs editing like crazy. I'm supposed to be reading for property. But instead, I'm working on a submission to (it's hard to say what it is- humor thingie? literary magazine? not entirely ...it's...a new thing) you can visit it hereHotNudeTeens.com.

It's dirty.

When it's done, and submitted, if they publish it, I'm going to post a link. But at the moment, I'm using it as an exercise in character and plot without actually having any character, or plot.

You may not know this about me

But I hate weddings.

I really do.

I'm not the type of person to hate weddings. I like family events. I like getting dressed up. I like appetizers and wine.

But I loathe weddings. I loathe that we take what most cultures do in one afternoon, or at most, a long weekend, and stretch it out over six to nine months of engagement functions, wedding showers, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, dinners, after-parties and ephemera. I can't stand the fact that we've taken such a respectable and time-honored custom as exchanging goats for women and bastardized it to include up to four separate gift registries, a half-dozen or more uniformed attendants, and a cake that costs more than my student loans budget for a term's living expenses.

I hate the ridiculous, uncomfortable dresses, the rented formalwear, the dyed or leased shoes. There are no other remaining occasions where adults ask their closest friends to dress in matching and possibly used clothes and wait on them, nor many occasions that we mark, in our vastly privatized romantic lives, with catered food and a rented hall.

"Hey, Uncle Ted! Have a bacon-wrapped scallop! Today's the day my little girl gives her first hand-job!"

"Mrs. and Mrs. Rubenstein invite you to celebrate the occasion of their son, David's, first same sex relationship"

Why do we? Why do we do this? I understand that the rituals have meaning to some people, and among the religiously oriented, the ceremony can be incredibly important. Others have always looked forward to having that first dance, or being given away. Some people even like wedding cake.

Personally, I like cake. I like eating meals with people. But I've never been able to maintain lively dinner conversation with 150 people. Ten is probably my limit. Fifteen if there's alcohol. So that's all of the tradition that I find appealing. Unfortunately, wedding cake doesn't taste good. So that's one off.

But I can imagine, extrapolating from my deep personal relationship with cake, that there are people who find parts of weddings touching and meaningful.

But what I do NOT buy is that everyone who has a wedding likes every little bit of the American wedding. Some people like bands. Other people like their family. Are you really going to tell me that you find chicken a la king, dj's, cummerbunds, and pink roses on a field of baby's breath all deeply and personally symbolic of your unique romantic relationship?

I really can't think of anything else about the whole wedding brouhaha that means anything to me. I do really, ideally, celebrate any occasion with between four and fifteen people. Not eighty. So that's out. I don't like uncomfortable clothes, and I look awful in white. I love men in suits, but not tuxedos. I just can't get over that they don't own their pants. I don't like to coerce people to get me gifts, so showers and registries are out. I don't like clubbing or male strippers, so the bachelorette party is out. I don't dance or like music, so any DJ or band would be out. I don't like flowers, so that'd be out. I don't like videos or most photographs of me, so that's out. I'm not religious, so no church wedding for me. Personally, I believe that what the state of Massachusetts has put together, virtually any man may put asunder.

I like the idea of a proposal. Not the one-knee thing, though. It's too submissive. Not very creative. And we don't go down on one knee for much in life these days. Catholics do it at mass. But it's two knees. And there's a padded thing. A kneeler. Football players go down on one knee, I think. And I hate football.

The reason that the whole proposal thing appeals to me is because I like to mark decisions in life, not transitions. I was remarkably unaffected by my own college graduation. Wearing a bizarre costume and waiting in line did not make me feel like any momentous threshhold had been crossed. I'm sure that getting married would be a similar emotional non-event. The moment before a decision is made, however, the moment of formulation of intent, of anticipation, is a heady one. I can't remember much about the first time I actually had sex, but I have many treasured memories of considering the possibility. I like auditions more than rehearsals, Christmas Eve better than Christmas, and I LOVED applying to law schools.

The other aspect of proposal that appeals to me more than wedding is that not only does it require less of me, it also requires, unlike weddings where you try to manufacture a perfect manifestation of the deeper meaning of a relationship out of jordan almonds and satin-dyed shoes, that someone plan something about a relationship, but really FOR the other person. (Gender neutral there- see. It's like feminism, even when I'm talking about how getting presents is better than throwing a party). And planning, and thinking about what a person really wants, and really means to you, is the essence of romance (Men don't get enough credit for the planning that goes into a decent proposal. When, where, what kind of ring, what to say, how not to fart). Whereas thinking about what a person, their parents, all their friends, certain coworkers, and extended family, would like to eat for 45 dollars a plate is dismally prosaic.

But, all in all, like kittens into cats, engagements turn into weddings, and something cute and fuzzy and loveable turns into a resentful box-shitter who may or may not carry hepatitis.

I suppose I'm meant to be an old maid. Which is fine with me. Because I'd make a great crone. I'm very good at cranky.

When I was a seven year old girl, alone with a priest

and asked to make my first confession, I lied.

Because I have an extraordinarily contrary nature. If you put me in a school with four hundred nader supporters, I'll end up pro-war. If you put me in a relationship with a charming republican, I will threaten to leave him in the parking lot of a computer store in Warwick, Rhode Island, over affordable housing. If I'm studying Fellini, I'm going to go home and watch Romero. If I'm reading Petrarca, I'm going to use the word "fuck" in my term paper.

If you put me in a room full of bright-eyed, eager, individuals with passions for social justice and making the world a better place for kittens and puppies and women and transexuals and immigrants and minorities and none of them cares how little they'll make in the public sector, ever...

I'm just going to put on a straight face and tell them that I decided to go to law school because I liked the movie Legally Blonde, and that when I grow up, I want to be an ambulance chaser.

I'm passionate about things. I care deeply about reproductive rights, and affordable housing. I believe in the power of law to shape society-

But I'm about three weeks in and 50,000 in debt, so excuse my inability to talk about how I'm going to save the world until I can find the library and pay for a sandwich in cash. I think that'll happen sometime next fall.

I'm just not good at resume conversations. If I'm interviewing, I'm interviewing. If I'm working for a cause, I'm working for a cause. But I don't want to spend two hours twice a week sitting in a circle talking to people who all want to assure each other that they really went to law school because they wanted to help people.

Social workers help people. Teachers help people. Nurses help people. A really good janitor can do more for human dignity than a bad lawyer.

It seems to me that a career in law is a luxury of a kind that we're not supposed to talk about. We spend three years in school, learning, and accruing debt. But after those three years, we have a chance of entering the covetted knowledge-worker caste. Whether we're fulfilled or not, none of us will work with our hands, or have a sewn-in nametag, again. I don't think a lot of my classmates have really thought about this. I have.

I literally worked my fingers to the bone, at that cafe. The skin on my hands peeled off, from fingertip to the top of my palm. I never worked little enough that it could heel. For a while I was able to get gloves, but when they ran out no one knew where to get more. When they replaced them, they were so baggy that instead of protecting my hands from the bleach, they trapped the solution next to my skin. I woke up, I served, I cleaned, I went to class, and fell asleep to do it again.

I don't want to make it sound torturous. It wasn't, really. Even with my skin peeling off, it was the best job I ever had. I worked with some of the brightest, funniest, most generally worth-while people (seriously, call me. Let's have a drink. I miss you guys!) I've ever met. Brighter than I've met at law school, actually. R, N, T, E, even P- fundamentally intelligent people.

What the FUCK were we all doing working at a coffee house? (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Food service is below NO one.) But seriously, N. I mean it about the smarts. You need to get your butt into a classroom so you can have someone other than your husband tell you. You think T is the only one who can get a 4.0? You guys ought to be classmates. Immediately.

But I've digressed. What working there taught me, and what a lot of my classmates may not be privileged enough to know, is that a lot of very bright people are working in careers that don't recognize their minds as a great asset. And they do it for a lot of reasons. Some don't have a choice, others have made the choice to put most of themselves into another aspect of their life (raising children, for example). But there are some people who just haven't had the opportunity to get the credential that would allow them to enter a field where they'd be appreciated more for thinking than smiling.

For 150,000 dollars, a bachelor's degree, and a 97th percentile LSAT score, I may have bought my way in. Not earned. Bought. And I'll never, I think, believe that I earned it. And if I do begin to believe that I earned it, I won't think that it had anything to do with aptitude or merit. It's luck. It's the benefit of having parents who could afford to help me out while I finished my undergrad. I bought my way in, and now all I have to do is hang on for three years. Drop out rates at law schools are way down. Mine is under 4%, I think. That's less than my high school. Like, 18% less.

I think that's why I feel the need to lean back in my chair and say "Well, you know, I figured, it'd be easier than getting in to grad school...and I'll make tons more money".

People like to pretend that they're going to be selfless, middle class, public-interest lawyers without realizing that the very act of using an education this expensive to trot after pet causes is, in fact, an enormous luxury.

You can be middle class, even poor, without the privilege of being able to help anyone on the scale that we may become able to. It's amazing to be able to go to school, to take on debt, to become something, just so you can further your cause, leading to your own self-fulfillment. And we talk about it, not as if we are phenomenally fortunate- but as if waiting for a pat on the back?

I don't think this is coherent.

I don't think it makes sense.

But people may be able to get at what I'm talking about.

And I do mean it about my co-workers. I've almost never met anyone smarter than you guys.

Wow.

Everybody's ganging up on Deval Patrick in the debate.

I'm complately going to vote for him, though. He's awesome.

I am nearly paralyzed by debt.

I think about my student loan debt in class.

I think about my student loan debt in the shower.

I think about my student loan debt in the grocery store.

I think about my student loan debt every time I use my new (entirely necessary) laptop, or touch my expensive textbooks, or watch my free-with-unbelieveably expensive student housing cable.

I'm haunted by it.

I can't believe I actually made the decision to pay for law school when I could have gone for free. It is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. Northeastern isn't so great. It's ok. But it's not crushing-debt great. I could be going to any number of law schools that were perfectly eager to throw money at me. But fat girl had to go for the one who played hard to get.

If you see me, slap me. Then feed me. Jesus Christ, I'm an idiot.

Can this relationship survive?

My boyfriend and I have weathered a lot of difference in these four years. Apart from the severely personal that would turn blog into LiveJournal...there have been political conflicts (he's a republican, whereas I have compassion for the human condition), geographic conflicts (When I lived in Vermont, he lived in Massachusetts. When I moved to Massachusetts, he responded by immediately moving to Rhode Island), and philosophical conflicts (sometimes, he thinks I am being unreasonable, whereas I counter that he is an asshole).

But through all this, we have maintained what I like to think of as a remarkable partnership.

I think, however, I've found the limit of our relationship. You see, I like movies.

I like movies like a high-school nymphomaniac likes sex. Like grimy Sandi, taking all comers regardless of charm or hygeine or whether they'll buy her a Junior Bacon Cheese first, I don't excercise what many would call 'judgment' when it comes to films. Sure, there are some movies I don't like (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Man Bites Dog, any with helicopters), but the movies I do like, I like regardless of quality or redeeming characteristics.

I'm not like some bad-film purists I know (Hi Rob!) or serious film students, (Hi Paul!) or relentless blockbuster consumers (Hi April!). I span all categories. But I can be counted on to watch any movie that has a decaying skull as a movie poster.

My boyfriend likes "good movies". You know, movies with thoughtful dialogue, sensitive and understated acting, or Eddie Murphy.

This leaves me watching many fine films alone. Such as the first three Jason movies a friend loaned me. Which I loved the hell out of. Alone. Weep. Cry. Tragedy.

Recently, looking for a movie to watch on on-demand, I suggested this or this . He did not agree to either. Although I think the one with the zombies in the forest would have been pretty awesome, and guarantee a scene with a chainsaw in it.

We ended up watching this . Which I didn't mind at all. Because I'm a whore. And I'll watch anything. Boyfriend pretty much hated it. I'll admit, it's not a great movie. But, it has Samuel L. Jackson. With Asthma. Julianne Moore, doing basically what Julianne Moore does. Which is fine. Not great. But fine. If I were Julianne Moore, I'd act like a woman with larger breasts, but that's just me. And, it features Edie Falco,who is interesting when she is not Carmela Soprano.

I'll admit. It wasn't the best movie I've seen in a long time.

This was. I recommend it, without reservation. Unless you happen to be my boyfriend. Then you won't enjoy it. Because it features zombies, aliens, and australia. And it's wonderful. And it's creative. And it's just pretty great as a whole. It's one of those movies that if you had diarrhea, you'd seriously consider adult diapers, in order to maintain continuity.

But can I live in a world, in a relationship, where I can't share my greatest joy (zombies) with the man I care for, somewhat?

I've seen a lot of relationships come and go. And I've seen interracial romances work. Long-distance. I've seen relationships work where one partner actively tried to undermine the other in all things, for twenty-five years (Hi, mom!). But I've never seen a relationship work where one partner was pro-zombie, while one partner didn't even like Dead Alive. Which, if you haven't seen it, is the zombie movie to show to people who don't even like zombie movies.

Disclaimer (To Guy): I don't mean it. You're great. I'm sure we'll overcome our differences. But next time I pick a movie, I'm not going to try to be kind and choose a middle-of-the road thriller. I'm going with something where somebody's guts come out. Because if you're going to hate it anyway, I might as well love the hell out of it.

The view from my window

when I lean back, as yawning, is of the Prudential Center.

And at this moment, grey sky behind the Prudential Center.

I'm starting to realize that at this moment, my life is the result of less thought, effort and planning than it has been at any other time, except when I found myself suddenly home from Vermont. Last year, at this time, I couldn't have imagined owning (renting) this view, and this tiny room, and the massive pile of boring/intriguing textbooks.

Exactly one year ago, (one year and two days ago) I wrote ... There's no point in being 23 right now. Motherfuckers used it all up. Alex P Keaton fucking Dot Com fucking Real Estate fucking Social Security fuckers. I'm young, bright, hard working. And I'll be poor forever. Unless I go to law school. Which I probably will. But I'd rather write a shitty novel...

I'd still rather write a shitty novel.

But law school doesn't seem so bad so far. A decent way to spend 150,000 dollars I haven't made yet. My roommates are fine. My room is atrocious. My classes are dull and slow. Hopefull it gets harder. And I mean that, dammit. Because if it stays like this, and the internet persists in being unavailable in the classroom, I don't know how I'm going to get through it.

I like reading the cases. The cases are interesting. They're stories. And it's fairly clear, as yet, what we're supposed to get from them. The only think that seems bad so far is that I may have chosen the touchy-feeliest law school in the country. They've just eliminated what was their legal writing course and replaced it with one that an upper-level student tells me is just an excuse to hug and cry.

I had thought that law school would bring more drinking and reading, not more hugging and crying. If I'd been good at hugging and crying, I'd be back at Bennington. I'd have excelled at Bennington. They'd have have given me the key to the fucking school. The presidency. I'd be the dean if I could just hug and cry.

But I'm not a hugger and cryer. That is why I'm so bad at wakes. I"m a good stander and shuffler. Which is why I'm better at funerals.

I'm also typing this entire blog post while staring at the ceiling, to see how good I am at touch typing. Pretty famned good I'd say. I'm considering taking notes on my laptop. Although two of my professors have told me that they'd prefer we not take notes at all.

Here is my most fervent hope: That this, this hugging and crying and free beer, and kind professors with soothing voices and genial styles, is all a ruse, like a fat girl in a corset.

That in a week, or two, the corset comes off, the rolls are exposed, and the stress and heartache and long hours I'd prepared for finally come to fruition. Because I can take anything. Anything but more hugging and crying. But maybe the fangs will never come out.

I've accepted the relative lack of creativity in my life. I've accepted the relative lack of ME in my life. I haven't accepted spending three more years talking about how a subject is relevent in my life.

Can I please just have my three years of torture and my hundreds of thousands of dollars, please?

Hobobarista's Greatest Hits.

I don't know how much time I have to blog now that I'm a law student. Well, tomorrow is orientation. So, if you miss me, check out some of these hot, well-written numbers.

Lust

No Panties

Hot Preteen Action

Titty!


Enjoy, kids.

Sandwiches I would like to eat.

Turkey, Bacon, Romaine Lettuce, Greek Dressing, Tomato, Red Onion- On sourdough.

Roast beef, Cheddar, Iceberg Lettuce, Tomato, Boursin, Sprouts, Cucumber- In a whole-wheat wrap.

Aged Cheddar, Sauteed Mushrooms, Sliced Onion, Tomato- Grilled, on Pumpernickel.

Peanut butter (Store brand), Jelly (Name Brand)- On wonder bread.

Sandwiches I would not like to eat:

Shit and Ranch Dressing on a Maxi pad.

Ham and American on White.

Balogna and Swiss on an English Muffin.

Food I currently have in my kitchen:

Cheerios (plain)

Cranberry juice (generic)

Ramen (plentiful)

I am pleased to report

that for the purposes of defense, in case of zombie invasion, my apartment is excellent.

I am on the fifth floor of a building with a double-locked foyer and, unfortunately, no elevator. Of course, everyone knows that elevators will mostly be disabled or full of zombies, in the event of a zombie apocolypse.

But check this out, my friends.

My room, and no other room in my suite, has a private, dead-bolted entry onto an exit stairway from which one can only exit, never enter. Very convenient when trapped on the fifth floor, waiting for help that never comes. When we finally despair of ever seeing another helicopter or aeroplane again, and zombies let in by some errant child attempting to locate a lost pet flood the lobby and hallways, I do have an escape. Which is very very nice.

I care about this a lot.

In addition, all the hallways in this building are very short. Which means that all zombies in hallways are plainly visible from any doorway. Good for fighting your way out. And, in the case of 28-days-later style commando rationing missions, I am close to both a little bodega and a large supermarket.

Yes, the zombie defense potential of my new apartment is well worth the room so small I can sit on my bed and touch every piece of furniture in it. When the zombie apocolypse comes, I'll forget that the smoke detector appears to be disabled, and the kitchen floor seems to be constructed entirely out of scuff marks, and that the fridge seems to have two tempretures- luke warm and luke cold.

Neurons are so cool.

Seriously.

If I have one piece of advice for the world, for people as individuals...if it is at all possible to take a neuroscience class, take one. Because there is nothing like learning how much and how little is known about what thinking and feeling are actually 'made of'.

I was looking back at my notes from some classes over the past year. And I sat there for about twenty five minutes, just looking. The amazing thing about the microanatomy about the nervous system is that the function and anatomy of individual cells are known in great detail, but the interactions between those cells and how consciousness arises from that is knowledge that is still emerging.

We know exactly how an impulse is conducted down the axon, jumping and skipping like a stone on water, releasing neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft, which bind to receptor sites on the dendritic spines of another neuron, which then sends an electrical signal bouncing down its' axon...

But how the thousands of impulses, transmitted by thousands of neurons, create consciousness- create silent, abstract verbal cognitions such as "Should I write about nudity on my blog that people I know read?" or "I like peanut butter sandwiches" is still completely unknown. A scientist can open your skull and directly stimulate your brain, making you see red, twitch your thumb, feel pressure on your toe- but we've got no idea where to tickle to make you think "My mom's name is Katherine"

I look better naked than clothed.

I swear to god I do.

Can you imagine the injustice?

I've got to walk around, at work, at social events, at formal occasions...looking less than my best. Because it just happens that the way I look best is approved only for the smallest and most select audience. I have to frump around, slumped and slouched and pinched into clothes that never seem to really look right, knowing that I've got something better underneath.

And you know what? I bet there are a lot of people in the same situation. By no means all, but many people do look better naked than clothed. Further confusing the naked/clothed situation is that you can't tell, from looking, who is walking around with their best outfit buried three layers deep.

I've taken life drawing classes, spent time backstage assisting the chronicly braless with quick changes, taped and reinforced and glued people into clothing made of paper and bubble wrap, and gone to a college where clothing was an option not always taken. I've seen more impersonal naked than most people of my experience.

And I've come to the conclusion that you can't always tell. The beautiful girl with the elfin face might have breasts so small and wide-set that her entire torso seems chronically surprised. The broad-shouldered guy with the slim hips and long legs may have his grandad's scrotum between his knees. The girl with the flat wide ass that makes her look squat in skirts may have yards of glowing skin, ankle to eyebrow. You can guess, but there are no guarantees.

Looking better naked or in clothes isn't just about the revelation of flaws, though. It's about coordination, and scale, and vulnerability. There are some people who need something, a bit of cover or color or fabric, a sock or scarf or underpants...not to cover, but to anchor, to contrast, to guard or dignify. Very beautiful looking men are very likely to look better when given something to wear. The frequent soft-core gay porn theme of jeans pulled half down is popular for a reason. Cuts the sweetness a bit. A squeeze of lemon in your diet coke.

I look better naked, I think, because there's something futile in dressing for me. I look out of scale. I can't do sweet and soft because I'm not insubstantial. I'm tall and broad and floaty blouses and soft sweaters make me look less dreamy and more like when Christo wrapped central park. I can't do tailored-sharp because my face is pudding-soft and, despite my occasional tantrums and bizarre sense of humor, I'm about as tough, as down to business, as fresh whipped cream. But naked, there's no way for me to try to be anything I'm not.

I am very good at vacation.

But I am phenomenally shitty at being unemployed.

I can't do it well at all. I wander around my apartment, which is not large enough for a good wander unless I go into my roommate's room, and I touch things. As I pack, there are fewer things to touch. So now it's like I'm just doing very tiny laps. Living room, mattress, television, side door, futon, loveseat, front door.

I still wake up early. Even though there is nothing to wake up for. And I go for a walk, and have a cup of coffee, as if there's something specific that should come afterward. Got to get an early start. On nothing. So I'm stretching the final packing of my apartment into a month of work. After a couple hours sorting and packing and visiting my storage space, I start making elaborate plans for lunch. Which are then scrapped in favor of a peanut butter sandwich.

And always, there's this profound unease. And I figured out what it is. After being so overscheduled, doing the working my way through college thing, and the going to work thing, and the long distance boyfriend thing, and the prairie dog thing, andthe benzodiazepine thing...I'm not used to doing nothing unless I'm supposed to be doing something else, or if I'm waiting to do something else.

So I'm at ends. I can't do nothing; but there isn't anything to do. I clean. I vaccuum. I walk. I bike. I wait for people to call. I think about dying my hair. I consider several shades. I consider baking brownies and cakes. I consider more obscene ice cream cakes. I consider cupcakes. I watch movies that are good-bad (Friday the 13th Part 2) and bad-bad (The New World. Stay away.) I fold. I list. I hang out at my parents house, with my parents. A lot. I hang out at my apartment, alone. I drive to Providence and play the boything's computer games. I've watched five seasons of the Sopranos, two of Dead Like Me, and two of House.

I wrote a thingie for a thingie. I helped record something for the same thingie, which entailed a visit to NY, to a friend, and was thus awesome. I wrote a sestina. And you can't read it.

And still, I've failed at unemployment.

I know that I've failed, because successful unemployment should lead to relaxation, rejuvenation, reconnection to old hobbies. Thus, I should be relaxed, with fewer grey hairs, and perhaps having painted, sewed, or knit something hideous and entirely useless. And maybe baked a carrot cake. Because carrot cakes are fucking sweet. Instead, what have I done?

I've had many, many "I'm a genius!" moments. For those unfamiliar, an "I'm a genius" moment is the moment of self-congratulation you experience immediately before doing something incredibly stupid. The best thing that the "I'm a genius!" moment can lead to is wasted time. Most often, it leads to bodily injury and humiliation. Often it ends in a hospital room, explaining exactly how you managed to injure yourself in that precise way.

Like the time I decided to make roasted potatoes, and didn't want to mess up my cookie sheets, so I took several sheets of aluminum foil and fashioned an oval of tin foil with high sides, and filled that with potatoes and bacon bits and butter-

Grabbed it from the oven.

The tin foil collapsed.

And the butter (450 degrees, or something) ran all down my arms. And it hurt like a bitch.

My current "I'm a genius!" moment is that, maybe, if I spend time standing on my head with no bra on, the force of gravity, upside down, will counteract the effects of age and gravity, and perhaps encourage my breasts to be higher up all day long. There are several obvious problems with this program.

Such as that the stretching of the ligaments will be the same, as long as the forces of gravity and the weight of the breasts are the same, regardless of the direction of the forces. A program of spinning around and around and around and around with no bra would be more effective, if engaged in long enough, as the combination of centrifical and cetrifugal forces would combat the forces of gravity as long as I was spinning. But that wouldn't be more effective than wearing a bra all the time. I can't turn back the clock. My nipples are not superman.

So that, I think, accurately demonstrates that I have too much time on my hands.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck can eat my dick.

Look at this.
Sorry, it's the view

Two issues here. The final one is how Elizabeth Hasselback can eat my dick. But first, there's how Joy Behar and Barbara Walters don't understand how emergency contraception works.
First.

Barbara Walters isn't quite clear on how EC works. It prevents the fertilization of an ovum by sperm, primarily. It does that by preventing ovulation. It may also, in some cases prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. (Not, technically known as an embryo at that stage).

Joy Behar reveals, in a very stilted attempt at a light-hearted monologue, that she doesn't really have a very good idea of how human reproduction works. She starts to say that she can have sex on a monday, and prevent conception on thursday...the implication is that conception must occur during or immediately after the sex act, and thus, even on thursday, EC must interrupt a life already in progress. And that is why people believe that Plan B is an abortifacient.

It's not.

Everybody who saw "Look Who's Talking", raise your hand. Now, I want you to put your hand back down, and take a deep breath. What you saw over those opening credits, narrated by the very soothing voice of Bruce Willis, was not a scientifically accurate portrait of how conception occurs. Let the betrayal recede for a moment. I'm sure thatAmy Heckerling didn't mean to mislead you. It's just more cinematic that way.

Conception can occur days after coitus. And, mostly, it does. Because that's the way we're designed. I'll tell you why:

Chimp Balls.

Chimps have enormous balls. Gorillas have little balls. They indicate that chimps are polygynandrous, and gorillas are polygamous. Humans have medium balls. And, importantly, human females show no physical indication that ovulation is occuring. That allows both men and women to be sluts. So women can have sex all the time, with multiple partners, while no partner knows for sure that she was ovulating during their time together. Which is why human men don't eat babies. (infanticide is a really bad idea if you don't know which offspring are yours) But Elizabeth Hasselbeck does.

Anyway, if Amy Heckerling had wanted to accurately show conception, she'd have had Kirstie Alley go home from having sex with her boss, make dinner, take a shower, go to sleep, wake up, drink some coffee, go shopping- two or three days worth of activity intercut with sperm bushwacking through her cerivical mucus. Finally, perhaps when she's sitting at her desk the next day, a big round egg busts through, rolls down the fallopian tube, and collides with some bored sperm who've been there a while. Maybe they could be cartoon sperm, with little watches. Sitting on a bench or something. Eating gyros.

But how does that work? Weren't we told at rhythm method school that the fertile period is very short, and that the egg doesn't last for very long, and that the vagina, cervix, and uterus are hostile to sperm?

Sure, buddy. And if you buy that, I've got some transubstantiation to sell you.

That's what was assumed for a long time. Because sperm are fairly delicate. By the time the porn star wipes her face, those little guys are more than on their way to certain death. And, the vagina can be a turbulent, hostile hell-hole for sperm. Most of the time.

The vaginal and cervical environment changes. Because it's wily. Because it can't fucking be trusted. Most of the time the cervix is all clotted up with gross ucky mucus, and the vagina has a PH that kills sperm. But, for a period preceding ovulation that can be as long as 10 days in some women, the cervical mucus changes. The vagina becomes welcoming. Instead of killing sperm, the whole system becomes very nurturing.

For the hostile vagina, cervix, and uterus, I want you to picture the Vietnam War of tons of movies I havent' seen. It's mucky. People are angry. Death is all around. You need a machete to get through the swamp. Your best friend, Tex, dies right beside you. You're bleeding and starving, waiting for an airlift that will never come.

For the nurturing vagina, cervix, and uterus, I want you to picture the yellow brick road. Everyone is pleasent. The sun is shining. You've got a path right to where you're going. It doesn't matter if you take your time at the Emerald City. Everything is going to be fine.

That's how it is.

But people still think that conception is a car accident. Shit! Sperm ran a red light! Hit the egg! That's LIFE! Can't undo that! When, really, emergency contraception could step in, slow motion, and put jersey barriers in so that the egg doesn't even make it to the intersection.

The second issue is: Elizabeth Hasselbeck has no idea what she's talking about.
"That's like having a baby and leaving it on the street."
Elizabeth, you're full of shit. You're less than a talking head. Furthermore, you're really shitty at being pro-life. It's better to have a baby and leave it on the street, because someone else can pick it up and take care of it. If you believe that fertilized egg=baby, because that's what Jesus said, then it's much WORSE to eject six or eight or thirty cells, because they die somewhere in your grody vagina without even a funeral.

Furthermore, if you believe fertilized egg=baby, absolutely, completely, morally, every time, then you should actually be encouraging more women to use hormonal contraceptives perfectly, and only refrain from hormonal contraception when they are trying to concieve, and then for the shortest time possible, and only after serious, in-depth medical and genetic screening.

Because about half of all 'pregnancies' as measured by fertilized ova, end either before, or very soon after they are detectable. It's natural. Not all fertilized eggs become babies, even when no action is taken to prevent them from becoming babies. And, if you're a religious person, that's got to make you wonder whether god would shoot souls from his holy-ghost powered soul cannon just to have half of them die unnamed, without a gender, without nerves or memories or childhood pets, ending up smeared on sweaty, store-brand kotex, and tossed into bathroom trash with Q-tips and empty tubes of depilatory .

I don't know if I'm religious or not. But if I were, I certainly wouldn't believe that. It's just a bad system. If I were religious, I think I'd trust that god shoots the soul in right before the brain becomes capable of consciousness. It's just thrifty that way. Shows that he's thinking ahead.

Anyway, Elizabeth Hasselbeck isn't required to believe what I think it's sensible for her to believe. But she is kindly invited to eat my dick.

Tom Keane, you cunt.

But at least you're an honest cunt.

Two weeks ago yesterday, the Boston Globe Magazine ran an article about how high housing prices are actually a good thing. The article was written by a man named Tom Keane.

Here's a quote.

"Still, how about the fact we've historically been so expensive? Doesn't that shut out those with lower incomes? Aren't we, in effect, creating a state only those with good jobs can afford? "Yes. And it's intentional."

It's not tongue in cheek, friends. He's being genuine. He goes on to talk about how it's a good thing that Massachusetts has high housing prices, because it's an indication that Massachusetts is becoming a state for rich people. And that, he says, is good for the state. If the state doesn't include any poor people. Here's his heartfelt conclusion:

"The new-style Massachusetts economy is unbalanced, favoring the highly educated and providing few well-paying jobs for those with lower skills. Good thing or bad, it's a situation that isn't going to change any time soon. How does one deal with it? Not by treating a symptom - somehow squeezing more housing into an already crowded state (indeed, even if we could build a lot more, demand from the rich would likely keep prices high). Instead, what we need to do is give people the education and training they need to become part of the Bay State's economic mainstream. Rather than trying to make housing cheaper, the solution is to make people richer."

"I'm sorry, Tom Keane, for ruining your lovely little conclusion there, which would seem to be unassailable. Who wouldn't want to be richer? Who wouldn't want everyone to be richer? Aw. Poor Puddin's a republican. Poor puddin' thinks we still believe in compassionate conservatives.

Mean democrats don't want to give everyone a chance to be rich! Mean democrats want to keep the poor poor, for some evil reason!

Except that everyone can't be rich. Unless rich people want to do everything themselves. Watch their own kids. Cook their own meals. Use the self check out. Make their own coffee. Possibly, Mr. Tom Keane imagines that all the shit jobs will be taken by the teenage children of the rich, who will never have to use affordable housing.

Of course, the teenage children of the rich would make lousy schoolteachers, police officers, construction workers, store managers, firemen, interns. Maybe, maybe, with the increased housing costs, and increased property taxes, maybe that would be passed on to the teachers, so they make enough to live in the communities they teach in. Maybe gnomes will pop out of my vagina and start weaving golden tampons out of the ether so I'll never have to go to CVS again.

And no, conservatives, I'm not saying that people need to stay poor in order to provide services- I'm saying that because the rich don't want to pay $8.80 for a cup of coffee and $150.00 for an oil change so that automotive technicians and baristas can live indoors without bringing down property values.

When you pay for services and goods (which were originally services) you pay for where the person servicing you slept and went to the bathroom. I made 8.00 an hour plus tips. Coffee cost $1.89 to $4.89 a cup. My bathroom door doesn't have a knob. My bathroom floor has random holes in it. The window doesn't close. I share a one-bedroom apartment with one other girl, and the heat never budges past 55 in the winter. I dream of meat and cheese and sundays off.

For perspective, I have a T-Shirt that cost $7.90. I'm sure that the person who made the shirt sleeps with more than four people, and uses a squat toilet. Possibly they dream of vaccinations.

That's economics. When goods are expensive, and people don't consume very much, the people who produce those goods might dream of a standard of living approaching those of the consumers of those goods (and services). Think about it. You have 3,000 dollars to spend on clothes. If you buy 30 pairs of 100 dollar jeans, less money potentially goes to each person who made the jeans (after marketing and all). If you buy three pairs of 1,000 jeans, each person who made the jeans gets more of your money. And has to make fewer pairs of jeans to approach your income.

Also, practically- Not everyone gets rich instantly. You have to be quite rich for your children to never be poor. Kennedy rich. So you get in the position that my parents and their friends are in: Homeowners swapping for children. If you give my post-adolescent daughter a below-market rate apartment, I'll put a good word in with the woman down the street for your son, because her son is renting my condo- and we can all pretend our children aren't really living at home.

That, or all these rich folks will have to ship their kids off to college, and hope to hell they don't want to come back until they're rich enough to afford a home in the new economy. Which is what's happening now. Have you noticed there are only two ages in Boston- College and Middle?

There are no young people. I didn't even notice I wasn't welcome until I visited a friend in another city. My boyfriend started to get pissed off that my class anxiety was replaced with geographic jealousy, when I couldn't stop talking about how there were people my age, just walking down the street, living life, going to bars, eating brunch - Like they had a right to be there.- Something I'd never experienced before.

You simply can't have a state without affordable housing. Well, I suppose you can. For a while.

But is it right?

Tom Keane makes the jackass argument that if there were more affordable housing, it would just be bought up by the rich, and become unaffordable. I don't doubt that. Look at Triple Deckers. What once were the stereotypic face of affordable housing in the northeast, they're now snapped up, flipped, and condoed, as 'flats' for the ironic rich.

So what do we do? We stop them. Absolute free-market capitalism isn't an ethical principle. It's something that jackasses seize upon to justify a society based on a grubby, grabby philosophy. If you can afford it, you deserve it. But that just leads to a world where when anything is in limited quantities, only the very rich can afford to enjoy it. Beach front property. They're not making anymore. So who has it? The rich. Is that right? No. Is it wrong? If we decide that it is.

Jackasses like Tom Keane and my boyfriend would have you believe that all of Massachusetts is like beach front property. Because the rich want it, then they can have it. And fuck everyone else. If you can't afford it, then you have to move. Get out. Because there are rich motherfuckers waiting for your space.

I am a cute girl.

Are there any funny women?

I have recently come into contact with several quite funny men, due to something I've become involved with. (Something with which I've become involved, for you grammarians). One of these very funny men was previously involved with something similar, but all male.

Which, it seems to me, is not a departure from several highly influential funny things. Monty Python, for one. Are women not as funny as men? Or is it just that men dressed as women, or imitating women, are more funny than women as women could be?

It seems that if the man in a dress theory were correct, then successful comedic troupes performing sketch comedy and the like would be disproportionately male, while forms of comedy that don't involve characters would be entirely gender balanced, or at least nearly. Standup, which is verbal, and doesn't usually involve complete assumption of characters. So, we would expect to be able to list as many funny male stand ups as funny female stand ups.

Unfortunately, I'm hard pressed to list more than three funny female stand up comics. And one isn't really a stand up comic, being more of an actress who occasionally does stand up than a comedian. Sarah Silverman. Also funny and female is Maria Bamford. And there's this hungarian lesbian who seems to be fairly funny. But as I can't remember her name, it is very possible that she isn't successful. Sure, there are other female comics who are amusing or popular, but there men who are popular and not funny; See Jim Breuer.

So why aren't women funny?

A certain segment of feminists would explain that women ARE funny; that women do not actually make people laugh or become successful in professions that require humor can be explained by the male-dominated media culture. Because women are not funny like men, we do not believe that they are funny at all. These feminists would explain that female humor is inherently different than male humor, but just as valuable. They would explain that it is more gentle, narrative, less absurdist. And for these reasons, it does not get as much attention and praise as male humor.

Another segment of feminists would say that those feminists are being sexual determinists in believing that individuals are more defined by physical gender than by the choices they make and the culture they live in. These feminists would say that women are not funny because society pressures them to be quiet, demure, ladylike, and cede the spotlight to men. Society pressures women to be sexually appealling and attractive, qualities that may be risked by making faces and saying things like "ass-magnet". These feminists might insist that it is our culture that forces women to choose between being pretty and witty.

It may be a combination of both of these factors; some women are not funny because they are by nature unfunny, and some women are carefully nurtured to be not funny. And some are feminists who deliberately cultivate humorlessness.

Why are you doing that?

I'm sitting in my living room in my bra and underpants, eating warm cake out of a frying pan. Intermittently, I yell something about the opressive heat. The thermostat in my living room says that it is 94 degrees in here. I am dripping sweat. It is more than disgusting. I have nothing to drink but warm iced tea, because the ice lives in the kitchen, where the oven is on, and it is probably five million degrees. Sweat is running into my ears and making them itch. It is running into my eyelashes and eyebrows, and into the cake.

I can't tell if I'm crying or my eyeballs are sweating.

I am eating cake with a knife. It is warm. It is gross and chemical tasting. It is from a mix. It makes me deeply unhappy. It is in a nonstick frying pan with a plastic handle. It has cream filling and strawberry glaze. It tastes like strawberry fruit pies and preservatives.

If you came in my front door right now, you'd ask "Why are you doing that?"

It is a very, very long story. A story that, conveniently, will sum up everything that has happened since I left my job one month and three days ago.

You see, about a month ago, my boyfriend and I went on vacation to lovely, beautiful Delaware. A woman from his work, who is a generous and charming and altogether wonderful individual, agreed to watch his difficult, neurotic, obstinent, truculent (witty and delightful) parrot, Hakeem. For this service, all she asked in return was baked goods.

Immediately after I returned from Delaware, my boyfriend went back to work. With the lovely woman, whom we'll call Baimee. The lovely woman wondered where her baked goods were. He, I'm sure, told her, that I was still on vacation, and as soon as I was back, I would get on it.

I got back on Monday, after three weeks on the cape and one weekend in New York, taping an improvisational comedy program called "A Lush In Rio". Which is an anagram for hilarious. Actually, it's an anagram for hilarious n. On monday, it was too hot to cook. So I packed.

Because, you see, I'm moving in a few weeks. And I'm moving somewhere where I can't bring all my shit. I have so many dishes I'd have to start running a beginner plate spinning class or go orthodox kosher to use them all. I have pots and pans and books and furniture. Tons of furniture. I had to double the size of my storage space to put it all away.

So on Monday, I boxed up most of my kitchen, started to sort through my clothes and books, and bought ingredients for what I consider one of my tastiest recipes: Chocolate chocolate caramel cheesecake brownies. And I called my boyfriend and I told him that the next day I would bake Baimee's brownies, and drive them to him, and he could give them to her on wednesday morning.

"Brownies?" he said. " I thought you were going to bake her a cake. She's intrigued by your bake'n'fill cake pan ."

"Well, I already have the ingredients for brownies."

"Bake her a bake n fill cake. I'll reimburse you."

"Ok" I said. Not remembering that the bake n' fill bake set was already packed. And hauled. To the back of my storage space. Down the street. And not remembering that he couldn't reimburse me for anything, because I lost my ATM card. And thus, couldn't buy anything after I spent my last twenty dollars on gas home from Providence, brownie ingredients, and a box of generic cereal.

But I'm a game girl. So Tuesday morning, , I went down to my storage space. If it was five million degrees at my apartment, it was fifty million at the storage space. But I moved boxes, and I found my bake-n-fill. And I brought it home.

Wednesday morning I finished packing up my living room stuff, except for my furniture and my computer. I have pounds and pounds of books and dvds sorted into boxes for storage and for law school. And then I started baking a cake. I don't have any cake ingredients, remember, so I started making a boxed cake mix that included filling and glaze. Then I opened my bake n fill.

There's a pan missing. The most important pan. Without the base pan, it's a bake n fall the fuck out. And I know why it's missing. It's missing because when I made the titty cake, the titty cake was in it. So the base pan didn't get put back into the box with the other pan. It got put somewhere else. Somewhere deeper in storage

I had an "I'm a genius!" moment. I poured the batter for the base into a non-stick frying pan, knowing that like all "I'm a genius" moments, this would end in tragedy. I took my shirt off, because it was boiling hot once the oven was on. Then I realized that- the bake and fill cake pan requires two boxes of cake mix. Because it's like a four layer cake. It's big. I only had one box of cake mix. So when I filled the dome pan, it didn't fill very much.

You can see where this is going. The cake in the frying pan cooked in twenty minutes, just before the plastic handle of the frying pan started to blister. The cake in the dome pan did not form a dome. It formed- a dimple. I gamely tried to assemble the cake anyway. The dimple broke in half when I tried to get it out of the pan. It didn't even cover the cream filling.

This cake was no reward for a person who has spent a week feeding and caring for an animal as emotionally manipulative and noisy as Hakeem.

At this point, I was so sweaty that my bra began to slide around, my shoes were mooshy, and my pants were off. I had every fan in the house in the kitchen, but it just blew the hot around. But I could not let Baimee down! No! Because I am stubborn! Because I have a sense of justice!

Because I make poor decisions and had to distract myself from the fact that I had just signed promissory notes for loans totally 42,000 dollars.

So I started baking my chocolate chocolate caramel cheesecake brownies. Which I will give to Baimee. Well, I'll give them to my boyfriend to give to Baimee. And began, while they were baking, to sit, in my underpants, eat the failed cake (which I just now gave up eating and threw out) and sweat into the loveseat.

You know how when you're eleven

sometimes, you can't sleep for days thinking about some jackass thing you did or said to be a douchebag, and how everybody is going to hate you for it? And later, at maybe nineteen, you realize that everybody is just as self involved as you are, so they don't notice all the douchebag things that you were sure you did?

I'm eleven.

The difference is, over the past, say, five days, I've actually been saying really douchebaggy things to people, thoughtlessly, and it sucks.

If you think you may be one of those people, I almost completely guarantee that you are.

And I'd like to extend my deepest, sincerest apologies. I'm going to try to be a little bit less summer's eve, folks. I promise.

We are what we write.

I spent the majority of my free time last winter writing about emergency contraception. How important it is that it is accessible. Thank god it's accessible to me, and that I'd done enough research to know how to get it quickly.

I didn't have to go to an emergency room, or hunt down a non-catholic physician in Eastern Massachusetts (Which should be called O'Massachusetts, sometimes).

I knew of place to get it. The internet. There is a doctor, a man named Matthew Wise, who has done more to ensure the accessibility of emergency contraception than Planned Parenthood, and he's done it at his own risk. He runs a website, where he is able to consult with patients and prescribe emergency contraception seven days a week.

Bless you, Matthew Wise.

Fuck you, Durex.

Two Chicks Kissing

There's a trailer currently being shown for some vapid summer teen movie that features, as nearly its only selling point, two teenage girls kissing in a jeep. As if we needed to be told, text informs us that this situation is "hot". A single male onlooker, obviously socially unfortunate, encourages them to kiss again.

The motif of two ostensibly heterosexual females engaging in sexual behavior is currently accepted as a popular and potent male fantasy. Much coverage has been given to the 'new' phenomena of teen and college age girls putting on a 'show' to get male attention.

Because, remember, if there is evidence in the popular media about adolescent female sexuality, there will be brow-furrowing among right leaning pundits about the need for a return to modesty, and among left-leaning pundits about the need for higher self-esteem in young girls.

But in this situation, what intrigues me is what it says about the sexuality and self-esteem of boys and men. What does it mean when the hottest sexual act imaginable by an individual makes that individual redundant? What does it mean when your fantasies leave you out? The male onlooker is left, standing 'outside the jeep', dick in the proverbial hand, alone.

Doesn't that suggest a pervasive male culture of self-loathing? Imagining a scenario where their genitals, their body, their orgasm- are out of frame? I think this psuedo-sapphic explosion is a symptom of dangerously low male, not female, self esteem. Perhaps it comes from the media; mens' bodies are kept far more under-wraps than women's. Breasts will get you a PG-13, a flaccid dick can get you an R. I don't think I've ever seen an uncovered erection in a general-release motion picture. Men may be growing up associating their own bodies with hard-core pornography only, and by adulthood, they will have been told that that mode of expression is, by definition, exploitative to women. (which I don't entirely buy, either)

Or maybe it is our parental culture that gives boys the impression that they are 'dirty' or 'gross'. Let's consider circumcision. American parents circumcise boys because they don't want to have to teach them to care for their genitals. It is a surgery to prevent conversations about hygeine. Dan Savage wrote about not circumcising his son

"As for washing "that thing," well, when the time comes to roll back and wash underneath -- which won't be until age three-ish, according to Dr. Spock -- I can't imagine that washing under my son's foreskin will be any grosser than digging hard-packed shit out the crack of his ass and folds of his scrotum; mopping vomit off of floors, tabletops, car seats, highchairs, house pets, house plants, my boyfriend, my mother, and the top of my head; or sitting through multiple matinee screenings of Elmo in Grouchland"

Imagine growing up with parents who felt the opposite way. That anything having to do with your body was grosser than anything having to do with shit.

And, any suspicion that your male body is filthy or dangerous would only be confirmed by current methods in teaching sex education. The questions that teenagers ask, when given the opportunity, reveal not just a dangerous innocence when it comes to sexual matters, but a kind of superstitious phallophobia that cannot be easily shaken with either science or logic.

Questions like "My girlfriend gave me a handjob and I ejaculated and then the next day she got her period and she used a tampon and now could she be pregnant?" or "What if my boyfriend has an erection and I'm sitting on his lap and the precome comes out of his penis and it gets on my skirt could I be pregnant?" or "I touched my boyfriend's penis and now I have a rash on my hand we're both virgins anyway do I have AIDS".

Poor boys. Ejaculating aids and pregnancy through four layers of fabric.

More later.

And by later, I mean possibly next week.

I'm going to the beach.

A Dirty Joke. Told Old-Timey. And Wrong.

A young man, having secured as his companion for an evening a girl of no good repute, and living in a very small town, perhaps near the sea coast, and having a decent amount of fear for the health of his generative organs, found himself in a pharmacy purchasing prophylactics.

He approaches the counter, and speaks with the proprietor, entreating that man to sell him a french letter of fine vulcanized rubber, stout enough to withstand the onslaught of ill humors certain to flow freely from the congested female area of that ill-favored, yet generous lass, once she found a state of excitement; yet, the young man continued, of a thinness and delicacy that he should be able to enjoy the skills the young lady had learned from her many companions who had been to the orient.

The gentleman behind the counter, a chemist by trade, saw from the glint in the young man's eye that he had buggery on his mind. The two men laughed together, and talked of the many variations of vulvae they'd encountered, and shivered together with fright at the pox!

They young man purchased his contraceptives, and went on home to prepare for his encounter with the harlot. He set out, as was the custom, to pick up the young girl of expansive temperament from her parent's home. Yet he was soon chased down the walk by a man he recognized as the pharmacist!

The young man cried out..."But your fly is open, your cock is hanging out, and there is come dripping on your shoes!"

I am feeling old, fat, and unattractive.

It's a pain.

I feel my life whipping by me.

And it's not that I want to savor the moments, as they come.

That would be too sane, and reasonable.

Instead, I want to mope, about things that are not happening. I am not beautiful. I was never a beautiful nineteen year old, never tempting jailbait. And now, I enter my mid-twenties, the sexual equivalent of Cracklin' Oatbran.

Sensible, Useful, Serviceable, and above all, an acquired taste.

Nobody says "You know what I could go for? Some motherfucking cracklin' oatbran!"

People want a steak, a piece of chocolate cake. Mousse. Champagne. Whipped Garlic Mashed Potatoes. (I am hungry, by the way) They lust after thick cheeseburgers, 80/20, smoky bacon, a slice of swiss cheese melting from the heat of the meat, sautee'd mushrooms sliding earthily from between the buns...

What do the condemned eat, for their last meal? Fried Chicken. Strawberry iced cream. Pizza. Lobster.

Nobody wants Cracklin' OatBran. It's shit at parties. Nobody makes Cracklin' Oatbran Party mix. Even frumpy old Chex gets tarted up with Worcestershire Sauce, pretzel sticks, and cocktail peanuts for the occassional barbeque.

You could have Cracklin' OatBran every day. It would work tirelessly to regulate your digestive tract. Generously supplying at least thirty percent of the RDA for dietary fiber, with a slightly sweet taste and a reliable gritty, nutty, semi-crunch experience, it could be a staple.

But you wouldn't love Cracklin' OatBran.

You wouldn't get excited about Cracklin' OatBran.

You could appreciate it. But would you recommend it to others? Would you, as the box suggests, put it over ice cream, or bake it into muffins? Would you try to see if there was a way to incorporate more of it into your life? Would you, delighted by this unassuming breakfast cereal, talk it up to your friends?

No.

You fucking wouldn't.

And here's the tragedy, folks.

It is the birthright of every female to at least be a cheeseburger for a year or so. Something mouthwatering, for a while at least. Even the plainest girl, with the blush of youth, high breasts and slim waist of the genetically gifted post-adolescent, can be lusted after with the tumescence of a gourmand.

Everybody gets to be the star once. It's like the special olympics, or a middle school play. Even the thick-tongued semi-literate recent slovakian emigre gets a solo.

But not me.

When the cast list is announced, I am always one step up from scenery. I am the tree. I am nothing special. One of the chorus, at best. "Townsperson". "Woman #5".

And it's not that I think I should be the star.

I just want to know what it's like.

Inherent to current western conceptions of the feminine experience is a time of broad-spectrum sexual appeal. I've missed out on that part of the experience. And I'm 24. I've got a year left to try to be beautiful.

Let's see what it would take.

1. Lose 50 libs, at least.
2. Braces, and teeth whitening.
3. Banishment of the eastern european legacy.
4. Learn how to wear make up and clothes.
5. Stop being an awkward bastard.

Apply Desitin.

Why?

Because when something isn't quite a pain in the ass, but more an irritation of the rectal region, perhaps due more to a shitty conjunction of circumstance allowed to continue too long, it's more like diaper rash than anger.

I'm a little irritated, is what I'm saying.

I get home, to blog, to pick up my mail, to clean up a bit, and do some horrid girly beauty treatments that one absolutely has to be absolutely alone to do (but which are entirely necessary), and I slowly come to the realization: My roommate, as expected, is at work. My roommate's boyfriend is still here.

She's not home. I haven't really been home in weeks; yet there is a stranger here, spoiling my solitude, who does not pay rent.

I can't commit my reeking ablutions, with a stranger here. Or, rather, I will be confined to the hot, sweaty, disgusting bathroom.

And it's my fault, for 1. Never setting a policy on who can be here when we are not here.
2. Not warning my roommate that as this is my apartment, I reserve the right to be here any time.

It's important that I mention, though....

I really like this guy, this boyfriend. I think he's keen, I think their relationship is sweet, I think it's all really nice.

Bad Meeting.

So. Lets look at two concepts in food. And let's think about them.
First, we have sliced bread. It's a breakthrough, in convenience, in portability (sandwiches without pre-siced bread can be either a triumph or a tragedy. There is no middle ground.)

Second, we have pudding in a tube. Chocolate. From the fine people at Hershey's.
it seems to offer the same conveniences. It also improves portability. And with it, convenience.

The difference is that sliced bread was an innovation that fills a need. Possibly, it was one man's eureka.

And portable pudding is the perfect example of a concept I like to call "Bad Meeting".

Bad Meeting is what happens when self-congratulatory groupthink ejaculates into the radioactive petri dish of sleep deprivation, insanity, and marketing, and is allowed to grow in the fertile medium of too much resources, nurtured by yes-men, and never, ever, ever doubted.

Encountering the products of bad meeting, you can almost hear the giddy brainstorming of men and women, clad in business casual, wringing every flow chart, inference, and thought bubble granted them by their degrees in communcation, of all logic or meaning.

"So, when do people eat pudding?"
"No! Think outside of the box! When DON'T people eat pudding?"
"For breakfast?"
"Yogurt's got that market cornered. When else don't people eat pudding? And why not!"
"Genius, Lenny! Genius!"
"Um...At work? Because....because...it'll get on their paperwork?"
"And why don't they want it on their paperwork?"
"It'll stain....we could do clear pudding!"
"It'd have to be greaseless, too."
"Fuck. Ok. Not at the desk, then. But you're thinking, Amy, I like that."
"Ummm....in their cars?"
"Why not?"
"Because, you can't steer and hold a spoon"
"There are lots of things you can't do and hold a spoon. But maybe, just maybe, you could still eat pudding. If that wasn't a problem."
"We could pack a special spoon. An on the go spoon! Maybe...with a strap. To hold it to your finger. Like a banjo pick!"
"You're thinking of a mandolin, I think."
"No, I'm pretty sure it's a banjo."
"Listen, it's not important..."
"That's fine, because it's a banjo"
"I will destroy you."
"You're both missing the point. No matter what you do, pudding in a cup is always a two-hand job. Unless..."
"Yes, Amy, unless...."
"Unless you drink it! We could make it really thin....and...then they could use a straw..."
"No, no, we learned during the instant consomme debacle that people don't like sucking room temperature gels through a straw."
"Shit."
"But what if...what if it was only a straw. Like a pixie stick! But huge!"
"Yes! A tube! Full of pudding! Then people could eat it everywhere! "
"I'm seeing tie-ins! Extreme sports! Let's see if we could get someone to do it on a snowboard!"

Hot Donut.

Many, many weeks ago, in conversation with a friend from far away, I learned that in other parts of the country, people prefer to eat donuts hot off the line. I was confused. Hot Donut? I thought. Eh. Hot, cold, it's just a donut.

But I got that friend some hot donuts, from Krispy Kreme, one day. I tried it. It was alright. Better than any cold glazed donut.

But then. I went to Delaware. And I saw a sign that said "Always Hot Donuts!" and I thought...hmm. Let's give Nichole another try.

So the next day, my boyfriend and I tried these hot donuts. And these donuts were made after they were ordered . Between being ordered and served, they were made. Cake donuts. Glazed and sprinkled. Oh. My. God.

Forget about sex.

Sex is fucking old news, unreliable, and messy. If I want to end up slightly sticky, somewhat guilty, and on the edge of insatiability and satisfaction, I'll have a hot donut.

Brotherhood.

Later, America, Road Trip, Hot Donut, Bad Meeting.

Brotherhood is a new series on Showtime. It's set, and shot, in Rhode Island, a state I have some cause to spend a moderate amount of time in. Which pleases me. Now, those scummy New Jersey folks can't location drop from the Sopranos without a New England answer; remember, we had our mafia first.

However, there are several problems with Brotherhood. I'm going to go chronologicaly, rather than in order of magnitude. Because it's the only way to do it. God, I want some fucking ravioli.

First.

The second or third scene in the first episode features a girl having her earring ripped off, her boyfriend kicked onto the ground, and threatened with rape, in front of a bookstore in gritty downtown Providence. A bookstore I've shopped at. Where I've leered at a beautiful, gay, near-shirtless clerk. Symposium Books. Gritty, no? It's right near a cuban restaurant I frequent, and less than a mile from an inordinately, unneccessarily upscale downtown mall, which seems to be so ritzy, clean cut, and suburban, that it's killing the malls that actually are in the suburbs.

Just not a believable scene.

Second.

The accents. Oh, my god. First, I'm going to admit that a Rhode Island accent is not neccessarily a Boston accent. There's a little more "w" in it. A Boston accent has almost no "w" in it. "Cah", not "Caw". The rhode islanders in this series mostly talk like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting; that is, like people from Maine with serious chromosomal abnormalities. Thick tongued, slow, loving that "ah" sound.

The secret to a reliable, urban, New England accent is speed and efficiency. People like to think that New Yorkers talk fast; not so, compared to Bostonians. People from Boston, it has been studied, speak faster and are more impatient than anyone else in the US. And it is consonant deletion, not vowel addition, that allows us/them (because my accent was mostly beaten out of me, while immersed in non-newenglanders of every stripe, in Vermont) to make ourselves understood at high verbal speeds.

And "ah" is not actually the sound that replaces "ar" "er" or "or". They're more precise than that. For the love of god, don't linger. Just because Steve Sweeney does, doesn't make it authentic. That's his schtick. And if you forget to add the "r" between vowels, to delineate words- you're instantly inauthentic.

Fionulla Flanagan, however, gets her accent spot on. She sounds exactly like my Great-Aunt Eileen. And demographically, she is my Great Aunt Eileen. Daughter of irish immigrants, settled in New England, spent a good amount of time Rhode Island. Perfect. I expect her to reach out of the television and ask me whether I have a boyfriend and why girls these days don't wear slips.

Third.

This isn't an error, this is just weird. A scene takes place in Olneyville New York System (New York System is a wacky Rhode Island thing that has nothing to do with New York. Little hot dogs, with celery salt and meat sauce) which, despite being a place that it's not reasonable to me as a place that these characters would meet, is a fairly authentic bit of local color. But nobody's eating.

There's the neon sign that says "Hot Weiners", but nobody in the place is eating one. Nobody. There isn't a weiner in evidence.

Fourth.

'The hill' is described as being primarily poor white families, distinguishing it from the East Side, where rich people live (True! and Brownies!) and, I assume, Olneyville/Manton, where minorities mentioned probably live. Not. Entirely. Accurate. Maybe thirty years ago. When it was the heavily Italian home of the Patriarca crime family. (They were headquartered in a building quite close to an Indian Restaurant my boyfriend and I like)

My boyfriend lives on Federal Hill. And, according to my experience, and observation over the past two years, poor white families are the only demographic absent from the hill. Guatemalans, Bolivians, and other central and south americans are well represented. Closer to the highway, hipsters and young, upwardly mobile gay couples cluster close to two overpriced eateries, and one mob front/infrequently open diner. African American families are evident in my boyfriend's neighborhood, as well as students. But poor white families I haven't seen evidence of. Even at the grocery store.

White flight hit Providence hard.

Fifth.

Brotherhood gets racial politics wrong. First. They want to bring racism from 1970's south boston and Dorchester into 2005 Rhode Island. Doesn't really ring true. Sure, racism persists. But the character is different now. The type of racism depicted, a paranoid type where the pasty majority fears losing ground and neighborhoods to an 'other', is largely over in New England. Racism is quieter these days. White flight is over. Gentrification has begun. The neighborhoods that the irish characters didn't want blacks to move into are already into and out of their hands, split between newer immigrants, artists, and pioneering homosexuals. (like my boyfriend's landlord)

Racism in New England, in the Boston area, and the suburbs, is different. It's ignorance. A character, an older woman, refers to "Hmongs and D.R.s" moving into the neighborhood. First of all, to be authentic, she'd have to say "Orientals, and Spanish people". Because in New England, the racists don't care where you're from. They pick a difference, and stick with it. If you speak spanish, you're spanish. If you're slightly tan, with an eastern eye, you're "Oriental". Like the rug. Always.

Sixth.

Too much self conscious Irishizing. "Like the fat girl at a parish dance." "Did you learn to park like that in parochial school?" Irish bars. Irish festivals. Geh. Give it up.


What I like about Brotherhood?

Location. Symposium Books. New York System. The Green bar. (Yick. I don't believe these people would actually go to that bar.)

Lots of violence. More than the sopranos. Female infidelity. The plain looks of Annabell Gish.

But what do I like about Brotherhood?