Moody

I think it's the upcoming move. Maybe I'm overwhelmed, or maybe I just know it's going to be a crazy next few weeks (especially this next week). Maybe it's the looming goodbyes. Whatever it is, I am not taking it with a whole lot of grace. I have been a moody, moody lady the past few days, and today is no exception.

My head hurts, my throat hurts, I am so tired and feeling completely run-down, and absolutely nothing is appealing to me. I want to hang out with friends, and then the next minute I don't. I want to be alone, and the next minute I need someone around. I want to do something, I want to sit by myself and do nothing. It's driving me crazy! I was supposed to bring a bunch of things up to NH today and drop them off, and I bailed on that because I just can't get my ass in gear. By the time I sort of had things ready to go, it was past 3:30 and I didn't feel like going all the way up there and getting down late. Maybe if I hadn't slept until almost 1:00pm... but then I feel like I really NEEDED that sleep. Yet for the 12+ hours I got, I am still tired. What is going on??

Hopefully I will feel better later... I'd like to have some fun over the next few weeks and not be a cranky bitch. It would be nice if I could figure out what was bothering me, but I just woke up in this funk! Though, come to think of it, the funk started to set in as I was on my way home last night, for no particular reason. I guess I was thinking about how there's a lot of times when I want to do something and I feel like something else is always holding me back. Whether it be internal reasons, external reasons, something tangible or not, something caused by other people or caused by myself, I never really feel like can just go and "do whatever." There's always some kind of string attached. And I'm not even sure what prompted this line of thinking... maybe I was thinking how I'd had fun that night and wanted to have more fun, but my body was quitting out on me (as were the people I'd hung out with) after a loooonnng week.

I mean, obviously things can't be how I want them to be 100% of the time. I guess since I have such a short time left (3 weeks to the day), I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it and just enjoy myself for the remainder of my time here.

Well anyway. Had to vent I guess. Thanks for reading about my moodiness :-) Hopefully whoever you are, you are in a better mood than me!

With Moderation in Justice, For All...

The first woman justice of the Supreme Court has stepped down and in doing so has opened up a potential political firestorm. I am torn. On the one hand, I am vehemently opposed to confirming a die-hard conservative (particularly a social conservative), and in event someone like that was nominated, I feel as though I could do no less than to throw myself headlong into the bitter, partisan political fray in order to protect my rights.

Let me be clear: the above scenario is not what I want. In fact, I'd rather this whole process be very unremarkable. I'm not sure that is possible, considering the gravity of the potential implications, the heated political climate, and the extra-hyper media. I can only hope against all hope that history (and our most recent presidential election) is no indicator and that we can easily select a moderate who will answer tough questions from each side of the isle and then be confirmed by a majority from BOTH parties, with the only dissenters being those far on the fringe on the left and the right. How refreshing it would be to see our President not bow to the whim of his "conservative base" - a clear minority - and instead nominate someone who represents what MOST of us stand for? And then, to see frank and honest debate and discussion during the confirmation hearing during which the nominee panders only to the law and his or her interpretation of the Constitution?

We desperately need a few things. First, we need courage. We need the President to be courageous and surprise us all with nominating a moderate. We need courage from the Senate to ask the right questions in the right way and not invoke political slander. We need courage from the nominee to face all questions and answer them forthright. Second, we need honesty, from all parties (the media, the politicians, and the nominee). Finally, we need the ever-elusive Common Sense.

Let our new Supreme Court Justice be a humble individual who lives and breathes the law. Let him or her not bow to political pressure, nor "legislate from the bench," nor "repeal the status quo." Let our Justice interpret each case with the objectivity required of someone in such a position, using precedent, common law, and that piece of paper known as our Constitution to guide them.

I once read (in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon) that "a good compromise leaves everybody unhappy." If this is true, let us be unhappy for a little while and later reap the benefits of a good, common-sense, majority decision. Because, in the end, choosing a glaringly conservative judge (or a glaringly liberal one, though the bench skews right these days) will only serve the interests of a few and for a short time, and will eventually be bad for us all.

So let's go. Someone surprise me.

The Lost Weekend

This past weekend was so lost that I have still not recovered from it, and it is now Wednesday. For the past two nights, I have passed out on my couch just after 7:00pm (I haven't made it through the first inning of the Sox game either night!) and slept through the entire night. That is absurd, even for me.

In my last post I talked a little about the Sox/Yankees game I went to... we lost, which was okay because we had a blast anyway, and there were still 3 games left in the series. On Friday night I caught the game at a bar across from Fenway Park and met up with a co-worker and his friends afterwards (they were all at the game). That was the night of the 17-1 blowout, so that wouldn't have been a great game to go to anyway. After a long night of debauchery, I woke up relatively early Saturday morning to attend the game at 1:20pm, which we of course lost again. So, I figured, why not have a few beers, go home and shower, turn right around and go to a Major League Lacrosse game! So we did. Then we had a few more beers, and went to this crazy bar after the game (for the "after party"... apparently lacrosse players have a lot of tube-top wearing groupies!). Another night of debauchery ensues, and... well I overslept for work the next day. But I made, eventually.

In all, none of the stuff I needed to do - see last post - got done. So here I am, Wednesday, 10 days before I pack up all my shit and move it to Ithaca, and I JUST started packing last night. Clearly I didn't get too far since I fell asleep just after 7.

One final note. Extremely weird, "paradigm-shifting" things keep happening to me. I use the prior phrase in quotes because it is kind of cliche but entirely fitting. I won't go into detail, but this weekend is another example of how things (good or bad, but fortunately mostly good) keep blind-siding me. I feel like I am constantly pinching myself, saying, "Is this really happening?" But it is. What to do with it all, I have no idea, except to enjoy the ride. I'm outta here in 3 1/2 weeks... might as well go out with a bang!

Happy Birthday David!

Sorry it's been a few days (if anyone is even reading)! There's a lot going on around here! I am definitely starting to get nervous about moving to Ithaca and going back to school. Not so much the school aspect, which will hit me later, but the fact that I move out of this apartment 2 weeks from tomorrow and I have about a million things I need to get done before that happens.

In the meantime I have been working my ass off (as usual), going to concerts, going to Red Sox games, going out... anything but what I SHOULD be doing, which is organizing my life so I can go through this particular transition as smoothly as possible. Unlikely that will happen, but a girl can dream.

Today I took the day off work, and do you think I am getting thing accomplished? No. I went to the Sox/Yankees game last night - first time seeing the rivalry at home in Fenway!! - so today I slept off the inevitable drunkeness that ensued. But, I had to get up at a decent hour because I had an MRA this morning on my shoulder which now is causing some serious discomfort. I'm going into the city tonight to watch the game at a bar somewhere, and then I have tickets to tomorrow's game too. Woo!!

I am a busy woman! The thing is, there's just so much I want to do right now. I want to see friends because I leave in 4 weeks. I want to go mountain biking some more - I flipped over my handlebars last time out and got this huge nasty bruise on my leg, and all I can think is, "That was awesome!" Who does that?? I was hoping to go shoot some hoops since I'm chilling by myself today (but due to the shoulder owie, that won't happen). I want to get all my aches and pains taken care of. I want to go out and meet new people and just have fun.

But instead I have to pack, do laundry, study some Exercise Physiology so I'm not too behind when I start Advance Ex Phys, pack some more, clean a lot, pack pack pack, work work work work, pack, work, clean clean clean... you get the picture. Also I should sleep and eat in there somewhere because we all know how cranky I get when I am missing either of those.

Guess I should go do some of that stuff listed above. Stay tuned for some reflection over the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor. I have more than the usual to say (and what I've been thinking may surprise some who know me). If I ever get to posting it, that is...

Happy birthday to my little brother, and LET'S GO RED SOX!!

Tomorrow is No Place to Place Your Better Days

Sometimes you just need to party like you are in college again. Hence, last night at the Dave Matthews concert. I went with a few friends from work, and we had a FABULOUS time! We showed up a few hours early and busted out the camping chairs (complete with cupholders!) and the cooler and ate and drank our way through the next few hours. While we were boozing it up, naturally we made friends with the people in the car parked next to us, who were boozing it up as well. When everyone drinks, everyone's friends! They were so much fun. Apparently they were from Florida (but originally from MA) and they had taken a WEEK off work to follow DMB around the east coast. Crazy! So Derek, Tara, JC (Julie), Steve, and Steve's quiet girlfriend whose name I don't remember, if you ever stumble onto this blog, you guys were a really great time. Especially Derek, who was trying REALLY hard to hook me up with someone by the end of the night, hahaha. We also met some random people in another car near us, so it just ended up being a huge block party-type atmosphere. Who could ask for any more! Then, to top it all off, they played #34!! I was not aware of this until this morning, but apparently they haven't played that song since 1993, when it was released on Under the Table and Dreaming. Crazy!

I certainly cannot capture the feeling of what it was like last night in words. I can, however, provide a set list and an assurrance that most of the fun we had should be illegal (and some probably was). My suggestion to you, dear reader, is to go try it out for yourself! Until then, "Say Goodbye..."

DMB 2005-07-09
Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
Mansfield, MA

Everyday
Dream Girl
Don’t Drink the Water
Drive In Drive Out
#34
Say Goodbye
Time Of The Season
Hunger For The Great Light
You Might Die Trying
Lie In Our Graves
Steady As We Go
Stand Up
Crush
American Baby
What You Are
Encore:
Old Dirt Hill
Pantala Naga Pampa
Rapunzel

Born to Run

My last day of work before I go back to school full-time is 5 weeks from today. That's frightening. I can't believe that I have been out of school for over 2 1/2 years, and I can believe even less that I'm finally returning to finish. What a long, frustrating process it has been. Honestly, at this point Ithaca hasn't even accepted my credits that I transferred in, nor have they given me a financial aid package - it's JULY people, I start classes in a month and a half!! If one or both of those falls through, that's it, I have to withdraw and I can't go back. I have to be able to finish in one semester, which I can't do without those credits transferring in, and I have to be able to pay for it, which I can't do without a generous financial aid package. So despite having a going-away party planned, despite having an apartment in Ithaca ready for me, despite moving out of my Boston apartment in 3 weeks, there is still a lot that is up in the air. That doesn't sit well with me - I am a planner, and I like to have everything put in place before I go diving into something.

Despite the setbacks and the uncertainties... I'm really excited. How can I not be? I've been working toward this moment every day for the past 2 1/2 years! It sucks that I have to leave 2 steady jobs here. It sucks that I have to leave my friends and an apartment and a relatively steady life to return to utter chaos (especially since I have no idea what I'm doing with myself AFTER I graduate in December). But, these are necessary evils and I will gladly face them. Heck, I'm only gone from here for 4 months, and I will be back for 2 Sox games in Sept, and I get 3 days off for Thanksgiving, etc. It will be okay.

I'm just a creature of habit. So giving up my daily routine is like turning my entire world upside-down. I think maybe it will be good for me! Difficult, but therapeutic.

Speaking of therapy, I have to get back to work. Some co-workers just showed up, and we need to discuss last night's loss and the spate of recent trades... oh yeah, and some stuff about some patients (at least when my boss is hovering nearby). As so many have said before, I gotta just "Keep on keepin' on."

Inspire me

What inspires you? For me it's mostly emotion. And since the strongest emotions I tend to feel are negative (sadness, anger), that's usually what my creativity reflects. Like when I write poetry, which I don't do much anymore, it tends to be kind of depressing. It's too bad, really, because generally I'm a happy person anyway. Shouldn't my work reflect that? Even my blog posts are tediously serious most of the time. Yet I'm someone who craves comedy, who seeks it and thrives on laughter. Is that because I can't find it inside myself, so I need to seek it elsewhere? I really don't think so. I just like to surround myself with happiness to compliment my happiness. And my sad/mad writing is just an outlet. But I wish I could put that happiness I feel into words.

Why do I blog? Because I have something to say. No matter how mundane, there's always some thought process going on in my head - even when I'm sleeping (which is why I'm a borderline insomniac I'm sure!). Sometimes the thoughts just spill out any way they can... So, haha, that's what you guys all get to read, my verbal diarrhea! Lovely.

On that note, I depart for restless sleeplessness. Hooray for the Sox winning 2 out of 3 against Texas despite having a pussy closer. Not hooray for my overworked body and brain. I promise a more coherent blog next time!

I (heart) NY

I clearly have too much time on my hands, because this is the third post I've made today. That's okay. Really it's just because I FINALLY got the blog up and running the way I want it to, and now I can actually write about stuff I want to write about!

And for the record, no one will ever accuse me of having too much time on my hands.

I don't really get any vacations from work this year since I'm going back to school in the fall, so I have been taking a series of mini-vacations on holiday weekends. I went to the Cape on Memorial Day weekend, and this past weekend I went out to New York for the 4th of July. I went to visit a friend who I see maybe once a year if I'm lucky. The thing is, he is a REALLY good time to hang out with, and we have some pretty crazy experiences whenever we get together.

This weekend was certainly no disappointment. In a matter of 4 nights and 3 days we managed to go out drinking, drive up to the camp in the Adirondacks, rent mountain bikes, get lost on said bikes for FOUR HOURS (more on this later), drive to Lake Placid, hike Whiteface Mountain, explore a river we drove by, go out drinking again, kayak back and forth on Mirror Lake for few hours, drive back to the camp, drive back to Utica, and drink an entire bottle of wine in roughly 20 minutes. Needless to say, we never made it to see the fireworks on Monday night because we were BEAT.

On the plus side, we did manage to knock off a lot of the ideas we had put on a checklist of things to accomplish for the weekend. Now, about the biking. In my photo album (link to your right), there is only one picture of me and one picture of my buddy on our bikes. This is because we were so exhausted, so lost, and getting absolutely massacred by bugs. Had we stopped, the bugs may have eaten us alive - God knows they were trying to anyway. We decided to be adventurous (mistake #1) and try a new trail. This trail is one of the harder trails and is roughly 10 miles long (mistake #2). We decided to try this despite already doing about an hour and a half of mountain biking already (mistake #3). Turns out, this trail has not yet been cleared of roughly 2382394 downed trees that fell over the winter. Also, it's more of a cross-country ski trail than a bike trail. Also, it's not very clearly marked, so that if you try to follow the most direct route back to where you started, you end up at the edge of some trees marked "PRIVATE PROPERTY" and warning you of your impending death should you proceed. Did the lady who gave us our bikes and maps inform us of this? No. Why would she?

We paid to rent the bikes for a total of 4 hours, and when all was said and done, we hobbled back into the bike shop with about 2 minutes to go. I never thought my legs would work again. Did I mention most of the trail was uphill? Ridiculous.

Hey, at least we can say we did it. And it's a good story! But it would have been nice if we could have taken some pictures without fear of a giant mosquito flying off with the camera. If I never see another bug again, it will be too soon.

All in all, the weekend was incredible. Surely I will pay for it (my glands are swollen already... I can hear my body cackling, "You wanted to push me to the limits? I will curse you with the worst cold you've ever had!!"). It could have been the alternating 4 hours, 12 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours of sleep I got all weekend. Or the beer. Who cares! It was worth it.

Thanks for a great time buddy :-)

Lake Placid

Lake Placid (view from Whiteface Mountain)

Welcome Back

Well, I'm finally back! I left the blogging world for a little while as I have not had reliable access to a computer and/or the internet, plus I am pretty much busier than I have ever been before. But, I realized that I missed blogging and wanted to start back up again. So here I am, fresh and anew with a different blog and an older outlook. Ok, not THAT much older, but it's been at least a year. You can do a lot of growing up in that time!

The new title... "Trapped in Transition" seemed appropriate. The only thing that is constant for me is change. I toyed with the idea of a "nomad" theme, because half the time I find myself practically living out of my car, but in the end I settled on what you see here. To that effect, I will try to post a picture of my latest travels (the one I want is a view of Lake Placid from the summit of Whiteface Mountain). Though it doesn't speak to "transition" per se, travel is transitory and thus it's relevance.

More on my travels later. For now, welcome back to my endless ramblings. Adieu!