Limbo Isn't Just a Game Anymore

I was afraid of limbo as a kid.

I mean, in general, I was just a scared kid and that manifested itself in my aversion to being chased and, in addition, anything that involved a room full of people watching me attempt to do something even remotely difficult. You know, difficult... like tip myself backwards from the waist up and try not to hit a stick that's balanced above me while I walk underneath it and the people watching sing a stupid song.

You know, it's a fucking terrible idea for a game. I think I would more enjoy pushing a tire around with a stick. Really.

But, anyway, yes, part of my hatred for limbo comes from my general dislike for being the center of attention. I have seriously faked injuries so as to avoid "playing" limbo. (Can you call it "playing?" Who cares. You get it.)

Anyway, limbo.

As an adult, the word "limbo" has this whole other meaning - besides the obvious meaning, which conjures up images of the game's frequent inclusion at silly corporate celebrations and bad luau themed birthday parties. Shudder.

As an adult, limbo means that someone - in this case, me - is in an awkward position. "Limbo" means that my twenty-somethin' ass got stuck while crouching under the limbo stick, trying to pull of some awesome dip move that would hopefully keep me from being eliminated.

As an adult, limbo means that I'm teetering. I'm balanced on the balls of my feet and I'm fighting the downward draw of gravity while my body spends precious, time-suspended moments trying to decide how to reconcile the fact that it is not, in fact, balanced, and is certainly not equipped for a backward dip/forward motion move.

In a series of somewhat unrelated, but domino-effect, life moments, I now find myself in a metaphorical place not unlike the balanced body suspension so commonly associated with the game of limbo.

And, after this series of recent events, here I am, teetering under the metaphorical limbo stick - wondering which way I'm going to fall, if at all. Maybe I won't fall, but instead I'll disrupt the stick. I'd rather that. I'd rather not take a terrible tumble in front of a room full of people. I'd rather hit the limbo stick and watch it go down instead.

In this case, the limbo stick is being lowered by two things: One, the fact that I am single. And, two, the rental prices in New Bedford. Allow me to explain...

Have you ever shopped for an apartment as a single person?

Me either.

Know what?

It's fucking impossible.

One bedroom apartments are priced for couples; they are at least six, seven or eight hundred dollars, some are nine hundred dollars a month.. some are even one thousand dollars a month.

One thousand. Dollars. One thousand American dollars. Per month. For a one bedroom. Ridiculous.

Now, apartments that have two bedrooms are, comparatively, a mere seven or eight hundred dollars a month - and, yes, some are nine, but not many. The majority are reasonably priced for two people.

It's such bullshit. Nothing is priced for one person occupation. Everything requires a partner in crime.

Okay, Universe, I get it. Thanks. Now lay the fuck off, please.

A Tale of Two Cities

I live in a neighborhood of mixed intention. There are houses owned by attentive, meticulous people who drive Cadillacs and nice Nissan SUVs, there are houses owned by well-meaning landlords who just aren't willing to paint or trim the bushes, there are houses owned by absentee landlords who rent to college kids, there are houses that are old and houses that are new, and tenement houses and single-family houses and friendly neighbors and neighbors who just put their heads down and walk inside, pretending to have never seen you.

It's not like some neighborhoods, where people have decided to congregate because they have a certain income, taste level, or geographical favor. My neighborhood is a mixture of young, old, rich, poor, renters, owners, black, white - whatever. We're all here because of every reason and no reason at all. And I like that about it.

I don't, however, like defending where I live to people who don't understand the city. The city of New Bedford is a lot like this neighborhood. It's full of homes that are architecturally ahead of their time, because they were built when the city was steeped in money courtesy of the whaling industry, but they're mostly run-down examples of what once was, owned by people who either don't care or don't know - the historic shingle marking the home's antiquity on the exterior of the house is an afterthought, something they've never considered to be important or relevant.

Once, a relatively intelligent friend of mine told me that he would never live in this part of the city. Maybe one or two blocks away, but he would never, ever live in this neighborhood. It was a bad neighborhood. Bad, bad Neighborhood. (Neighborhood walks away with it's tail tucked between it's legs.) At the time, it was really hard to say, "No, it's not," because recently - maybe one or two days prior - a man was shot in a driveway two houses away from mine. My street was taped off with caution tape, the police were everywhere, and the neighbors - young, old, rich, poor, renters, owners, black or white - stood on the sidewalks, mouths agape.

So, during that conversation, I just had to shut up. I had to say, "Okay, you would never live in my neighborhood," and I had to walk away, smiling but knowing that my confidence in my neighborhood had, indeed, been challenged that night.

Last night, I got home around five o'clock to meet my mom, who had just done some grocery shopping and arrived back to my apartment. She's visiting from out of town, and had been out house hunting and errand-running all day. The plan was - stay in, cook dinner, have a low key night.

So, I got home, I went in the side door with my friend Eric, who left moments later via the same side door. About an hour later, my roommate Cecily left via the front door. About twenty or so minutes after she left, my friend Karin arrived at the side door. During the course of the evening, my landlord was in and out of his apartment on the second floor, leaving by the front door and then coming back in again several times.

Karin, my mom and I cooked dinner, chatted, ate, and then around nine o'clock we left the house via the front door - my mom stayed home. Karin and I met our friend Jenna for dessert at a nearby restaurant. At some point, during our departure from the house, Cecily arrived home. Karin and I arrived back at home around midnight; I left the car, waved "bye" to Karin and headed towards the front door when something on the sidewalk caught my eye. I bent down to see what it was, glimmering in the dead leaves that litter my sidewalk...

My mother's wallet and keys.

My mother's red leather wallet and her set of keys had been sitting on the sidewalk, mere feet away from her car and the door to my house, since five o'clock that evening. It was midnight.

Midnight.

Everything was in the wallet. Money. Credit cards. Everything. Her life. Intact. And the car, still there. She had no idea it was even missing; she was sleeping soundly when I walked in, brandishing the chilled wallet.

So, take that people who don't believe in my neighborhood. Take that, people who don't believe in luck or miracles or New Bedford. Take that, life. And, thanks.

Pavlov's Yorkie

I spend a lot of my day on my laptop. I write this blog. I write for Facebook. I write emails. I write school crap. And, while I write, typically from my couch, this is where my Yorkie, Kota, sleeps - on the cushions of the couch, head pointing towards the window so he can watch for cats, or head down so he can sleep.

I write a lot. I'm a writer, though, so I guess it's not that weird. And, clearly, it means that I type a lot. My fingers do the talking, walking, expressing. I've often wondered what my words per minute pace is.. I bet it's good. Anyway, I digress. (As usual... my brain may my rely on my fingers for correspondence, but it doesn't stop my brain from working as fast as my fingers can type.)

I also spend a lot of time on my cellphone. I text. I call. I receive texts. I receive Facebook notification texts. (Which might have been the worst thing I ever did to myself, and I don't have any clue how to undo it.) And, my mother calls at least twice a day, my friends call at least three or four times... my phone, as they say, is always "blowin' up."

I call. I text. Mouth & fingers do the talking. Blah blah blah, yak yak yak, yada yada yada.

I'm attached. Not necessarily attached to the actual technologies, but I'm... accessible. Overly accessible, I think. I have three emails, one Facebook, Google chat, Facebook chat, two blogs, one website, two phone numbers, one laptop, one iTouch; I'm mobile, stationary, mobile... it's too much.

I had a techie freak out on Monday - I wanted to just leave it all very far away from me. And, for a brief time, I did. And, it felt good.

So, anyway... this morning, I sat on the couch and began to write a post - not this one, actually - and in the midst of it, my phone vibrated; a text message had arrived. I flipped the phone open, typed a response, and closed the phone. My dog, who was sleeping peacefully nearby, raised his head - on alert. After studying me for a moment or two, he put his head back down. I opened and closed the phone again. He had the same reaction. Then I closed the laptop. This time he not only raised his head, but he stood up. His face said it all: Where are you going? You shut your things... I understand this to mean that you're going somewhere.

Fuck.

My dog responds to the click-closure of my technological devices that I'm constantly attached to.

In dog, the departure from these devices means I'm on the move. He has the same reaction to my putting on shoes and a coat as he does my closing my laptop or cellphone. This means that if I am home, and just sitting around comfortably, I am always on something, and when I prepare to leave, I leave the something behind. He understands this. Clearly, he's more attune to my habits than I am.

I'm techobsessed. I want to unplug.

Finnegan Begin Again

When I was a kid, there was a song on some sing-along-song tape I had about "Michael Finnegan," and what I remember from this song is this: "There was a man named Michael Finnegan, he grew fat and then grew thin again, (something something something) poor old Micheal Finnegan, begin again," which then brought the song through another round of poor old Michael Finnegan's ups and downs, wishes and woes. (Of course, you have to say "again" as "a-ghin" not "a-gahn" so that it rhymes with Finnegan. Just so you know.)

Anyway. Here I am, about to write a post about beginning school again (ahem... a-ghin) and all I can think of is Michael Finnegan. So... I had to share.

This beginning that I'm embarking upon is the beginning of the end of my graduate school experience. My last semester. My thesis-writing semester. My semester of growing up. My semester pre-wicked-serious-overseas-internship. My semester of seriousness.

And what do I have to say about it? Finnegan begin again. That's what I have to say.

I don't know if this means that I'm awesome, or if it means my brain works in mysterious and completely arbitrary ways and will forever lead me to points of irrelevance instead of points of profound introspection. Like, the synapse maps in my brain go from, "I'm starting my last semester of grad school," to "Poor old Michael Finnegan," which I last sang while riding in the back seat of my dad's cranberry colored Volvo station wagon with tan leather interior.

The same Volvo station wagon that we got into an accident in on Christmas; my cousin Ethan got a bloody nose and the woman who's house we called the police from gave me a candy cane, which I promptly hid between her couch cushions because taking candy from strangers was wrong.

Wait - ask me what I learned during my Baroque class in undergrad. I don't fucking know. Ask me what year something was painted, or what artist painted what, or what movement came before what movement and where it originated. (All of which an art history major should know.) I have no memory of learning it. None.

But I remember the smell of the kiln in the basement of May Hall, where I had all my classes. I remember the sound of the printing press when we ran through a woodcut. I remember the smell of wood being carved, cut... metal being cast... paper mache drying. I remember the long days I spent masking slides on a light table, the warmth of the sun bleeding through the windows of the slide library, my eyes watering, my callous throbbing from gripping the X-acto knife. I remember the feeling of the wide wooden banister that my hand hugged as I flung myself down the stairs from third to first floor every day at 4:30, the hope of a mild-mannered evening commute making my feet move faster than they should have.

My brain is weird.

Foxwoods: A Haiku

I went to see Bodies Revealed today. (Which, is an amazing exhibit, and I highly recommend it.)

It was a nice day for the drive to Foxwoods, and I was with my bestie, Meg, so we had a blast... we always do.

But.

I have never been to a casino before.

And, guess what I learned?

Casinos are totally effed.

A haiku about Foxwoods:

Fanny packs, booze, smoke.
Elderly scooter drivers.
There are one cent slot machines.

Thesis Shmesis: A Rant About Grad School

This post is for venting purposes. If I couldn't type this out right now, I would scream and screaming in the library is frowned upon. I want to scream, though. I really do. This post is the quiet, passive version of screaming. Though, I am typing forcefully to relieve some of my tension. It's kind of helping, but not really. I'd much rather scream.

Okay. So. Here it goes.

As part of our thesis proposal, I am required to investigate the field in which I hope to obtain employment. This, for me, means the field of Science Writing/Communication/Journalism.

The results are not totally disheartening, in that there are actually jobs - and seemingly quite a few of them, especially in Maryland which I haven't yet figured out. Anyway, the problem becomes this: The majority of the jobs want writers with science backgrounds, not writers with writing backgrounds and an interest in writing about science. They want hardcore freakin' scientists who used to stand around in lab coats but because they're so well versed in the way of the sciences, they've decided to impart some of their genius on the rest of the world in the form of written communication.

I am not good at science.

I am good at understanding science, but not because I am a scientist, it is because I am a problem solver. I like to find reasons and solutions for things.

I like to write about science because I like to take something confusing and break it down, I love to find a metaphorical way of showing/telling what the hell it means to me, you, and everyone we know.

Yes. I love it. This probably makes me a giant geek but I don't care. I like being a geek.

I love metaphor. I love metaphor and analogy and I love using words to make things happen, make things change, make ideas more accessible and make concepts more clear. I love explaining something difficult in a way that makes the person's face go "ohh" when they finally get it. See how cool this crazy science is? See why this completely ridiculous discovery is important and fascinating? I love turning on the light bulb.

But I am not a scientist.

So. Now what?

Eff. Eff. Eff.

I Now Pronounce You "In A Relationship With..."

As I was perusing the Sunday Globe this morning, I found myself dwelling amidst the wedding and engagement announcements.

I read them because I'm nosy and it satisfies my preferably sarcastic world view when people publish mundane details, like what color their bouquet was when they got married on the beach in some random New Hampshire town. (Incidentally, it was "pink stock, cream-colored double roses, and bells of Ireland.")

This is the kind of information I'll share at a party.

"I mean, really," I'll say to a girlfriend while we sip mojitos, "who cares what color her bouquet was in July? I mean, hell, if I cared about your bouquet, I should've been at the damn wedding!"

I perused my way through the wedding announcements, and moved on to the engagement announcements, where I found an even more surprising piece of information.

I read, without any initial interest, that so-and-so and so-and-so, the son of these two, and the daughter of who's-her-face and what's-his-name are in love. He does this awesome thing, she does that awesome thing, they went to these schools and now they're telling the world they're getting married.

Typical bullshit, nothing out of the ordinary, and then this:

"The two reunited after 25 years on Facebook."

Are you fucking kidding me?

1. Who cares how the hell you met/reunited/rekindled/fell for one another? You don't read "The two got hammered on New Year's Eve and the relationship blossomed from there on," do you? No. You don't.

2. Getthefuckouttahere that Facebook is a relavant inclusion in your engagement announcement. Puh-leeze. Social networking sites are not that important. (Shit... are they?!)

3. The sentence is a grammatical trainwreck. It sounds like they've been on Facebook for 25 years.

Um, editor? You could have chopped off the "on Facebook" and I would have cruised right past this lovely announcement without even a blip on my sarcastic, overly sensitive, grammatically correct, somewhat bitter, radar screen.

But, instead, you've inspired this post. So, thanks.

It's A Jungle Out Here

Let's play a game.

The game's called: ...The Hell?!?

Ready?

Go.


On my porch steps. Serious. What the eff?

I've deduced that it's some sort of bug shell with an actual living bug, but I can't tell if the living bug was once living in the shell, or if it's sucking leftover brains out of the shell or something. And, also, I think it's a cicada.

Thoughts?

In other news: I made a drastic change in my personal appearance yesterday.

Bright red hair! I love love love it.

Also.

I'm obsessed with the Dirty Projectors album Bitte Orca.

So. Effing. Good.

Go buy it. Or at least listen to the track Stillness is the Move. You will fall in love.

Okay, that's all. Hodge podge post, hollah!