Here piggy, piggy


November 09, 2008 :: 2:02 PM

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painted pig :: roman baths, bath, uk :: september 4, 2008

This is one of my favorite pictures from our London trip.  Not because I’m particularly enamored with pigs or the Roman Baths but because of how this picture came to be.  I’m in the ladies’ room, washing my hands when I see him (her? it?).  The window is open a crack.  Just wide enough for the zoom lens on my camera.  Let’s just say whipping out a camera in the middle of a crowded loo is pretty much frowned upon.

It’s those odd little things that make vacations special.

So, while I’ve been away, I finally figured what I want to be when I grow up and found a job doing exactly that.  Amazingly, it does not involve public or private accounting.  But that doesn’t mean my not-yet-conferred diploma is useless. Well, that’s not quite true, it does involve accounting, I’m just not an accountant. I’m a bookkeeper. It doesn’t feel like a step backwards. In many ways it’s a huge step forward.  The position is a better fit for my personality, my work ethic, my need for background noise and my love of wearing jeans to work. (Some of the best perks aren’t monetary.)  I need to send out huge props to my career counselor and my baby brother, Bry.  Between ripping my resume to shreds, starting it over from scratch and spending too much time in the car heading to CT the following weekend, I really considered all my options and my skills and settled on the description of the perfect job.  Amazingly enough, that exact job description appeared in the Boston Globe.  And now I’ll be working there.  I start on the 17th and I’m pretty excited.

I also found out my eldest cousin on my mom’s side is engaged.  Our relationship is still pretty broken, for want of a better term, so I’m not really surprised I found out via Facebook.  That doesn’t mean I’m not hurt or disappointed, but I’m willing to try to get over it.  I am thrilled for her - this is a huge milestone and something she’s wanted for a very long time.  Plus, he seems like a sweet guy.

The BU hockey team is off to an amazing start.  This senior class - especially the two captains - did something magical during the off-season.  This is what last year’s team should have looked like.  I still miss last year’s senior class dearly, but these seniors, and the incoming freshmen, have taken the existing team to a whole new level. We followed the team to Lowell on Friday and after a disappointing start, the third period turned into a nailbiter.  We came away with the W, but I don’t want to ever see a game like that again.  My poor heart can’t handle it.  Also, we sat in front of some kid who is working part time for a junior hockey league. Let’s just say he shouldn’t have been so cocky.  I mean, seriously, a junior league? I worked in the minors and the NHL and some of the guys I’d met during my time in the pros would eat him alive.  I know it’s a starting point and I know he’ll get whatever job he wants because it’s easier to move up if you have the experience, but he should have really gotten off his high horse.

Also - Obama got elected.  Not a huge surprise, although it did look like it might be a bit of a close contest in the days leading up to the election.  I couldn’t get behind him.  I’m not sure why - but I wasn’t impressed with his DNC speech in 2004, like most of America, and no matter what her faults, I loved Hillary.  But now he’s president-elect (can’t forget that one word… it’s not official ‘til Jan. 20) and after his acceptance speech and his immediate actions since, I’m starting to see what everybody else saw.  So I was slow to jump on the Obama bandwagon.  I’m still not 100% sure that he can get it done - he’s inheriting a really large, really ugly mess and I’m not sure this is something he could handle even in two terms successfully - but he’s given me hope. I haven’t felt that way for a long time.  Not just because he broke through the racial barrier, although that’s important, but because he immobilized the people in this country in a way I haven’t seen since the rampant wave of patriotism, of pulling together, in those dark days following Sept. 11.  I still get all verklempt thinking about it.  I saw in the news that Jesse Jackson had been there when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed and seeing him in tears in Chicago, watching the realization of King’s dream, was powerful.  More powerful than a lot of things we were exposed to that night.

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream…

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…’

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…

I have a dream today!

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day…”

See the full text of King’s speech here.

I’m here—just distracted


October 29, 2008 :: 9:43 PM

I know, I know.  I vanished off the face of the earth. Again.

Living my life offline has suddenly become a job that requires time and a half. It’s strange.

The only good news is I’m done with school and I’m graduating with a 3.85.  That’s summa cum laude—the highest honor you can get at my school.  I get the diploma in January and will walk in May.  The only reason I’m walking is those three little latin words. I want to show off, and by damn, I deserve it.

I just had business cards made up and they have this domain on them, so I guess that means that I need to start blogging here again. The back end over here is due for a severe upgrade and I want to redesign the site so that it fits “the brand” as it were.

Now that life is calming down, I plan to be over here a lot more. Honest and for true. 

 

SAVE THE BOOBIES!!!


October 01, 2008 :: 10:25 PM
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It’s that time of the year.

Pay to see ‘em, show ‘em off, donate, donate, donate!

However you choose to help, it’s important to SAVE THE BOOBIES!

 

Refreshed.  Refocused.


September 06, 2008 :: 7:09 PM

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me at stonehenge ::  salisbury plain, uk :: september 4, 2008

For whatever reason, I seem to go to London when my life is in some sort of turmoil.  When I went in high school, it was after my mother died.  When I went in 2002, it my first birthday without my dad and the 10th without my mother.  This year, well, there’s some behind-the-scenes stuff going on.

I’ve tried to stay away from the real world all week - but it hasn’t been easy because I’m still in school, doing an online class.  I’ve spent this week lost in London, being a happy tourist and forgetting I’m supposed to be worrying about things at home.  It’s been healing.  I don’t know why, but London “fixes” me when I’m broken.  It’s probably got something to do with the fact that I’m far away and completely lost in what I’m doing.  Staring down the Royal horsies at the Royal Mews.  Quacking at people while on a Duck Boat (just as much fun as the ones in Boston, in case you’re curious).  Getting a wicked bad case of vertigo on the London Eye.  Falling in love with the show “Mock the Week”. 

Going in the circle, and touching the stones (!!!!), at Stonehenge.

Here’s the part of the programme (HA!) where ya’ll think I’ve lost my mind.  Or I confirm that fact for you.  Whatever.

Ever since I gave up on the idea that there is a Christian God, I’ve been interested in other religions.  For whatever reason, I was drawn to the pagans.  Stonehenge, of course, is a spiritual center of sorts.  You can google it all you want to get the history, but I can tell you, there is some sort of magick going on over there.  I felt it in high school, I felt it in 2002 and this year, it rocked my world.

We spent a fortune on a tour SPECIFICALLY because we could go into the circle. At sunset. 

We got to play with dowsing rods* and prove that there is some sort of power there, in that circle.  I can tell you, there is something going on there.  It’s not quite that the rocks hum or vibrate or anything really perceptible, but there is something going on. I can feel it, but I’ve always been tapped into that “other realm”.  (A story for another time. Maybe Halloween.) Standing within the stones, touching them, walking among them was such an experience and I’m glad that we were able to have that opportunity.  It put a lot of stuff into perspective. Stuff that had been carried forward for years…  stuff that was better off being left firmly in my past. When we boarded the bus to leave, I felt such incredible closure. 

It’s almost as if whatever power lives there knew what I needed and gave it to me.

And I can’t thank it enough.

 

*Dowsing rods are debunked more than they’re proven to work.  David Allen has proven, to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you think of something like spinning a paper clip that’s hanging on a string, you can make it happen without moving your hand.  So, I know some of it is me. The rest… well, if you’ve ever had a planchette fly across an ouija board and crash into a wall when YOUR hands are the only ones on it, you’ll probably understand where I’m coming from.

Equal opportunity


August 22, 2008 :: 11:02 PM

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arsey :: da ‘brook :: august 13, 2008

Arsey is the kind of dog my dad liked.  Stupid.  Lazy. Cute.  The only thing she demands is love.  24/7/365.  She can never get enough.  NEVER.  Actually, my dad did like her.  A lot. And the feeling was pretty mutual.  They were buddies for the brief time they knew each other.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot recently.  I’ve had a few BFOs recently about my future - what I want, where I’m going, how I’m going to get there - and I think in terms of what would make my dad proud.  Forget Jesus - WWMMDP is the question on all the cool kids’ lips.

It’s taken me a ridiculously long time to figure out what I want.  Doing that horizons of focus bit a few weeks ago helped, but recent events at work are helping more.  I know I can get what I want out of a workplace - I just need to take my time and make sure that what is shown to me is truly in line with what I want.  It’s not easy.  I’m so willing to jump at the first chance that it’s hard to take that step back and say “this is not what I want.”  I’ve had some weird experiences lately.  Twice I’ve been passed over at the last minute because the job description changed.  I was jerked around by this guy who had no intention of hiring me due to my commute.  I almost made one of the largest mistakes of my life when I seriously considered working in Worcester for the Baby Sharks.

Patience has never been my strong suit.  And it’s never been Arsey’s either.

I think we both need a cookie and some lovin’.

 

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