A series of unrelated sentences regarding Thursday:

I can’t wait to wear sandals again. Project management software is useless if you’ve no project management skills. Overbooking yourself for 4 after-work activities with 5 people in a 3-hour time period is unrealistic and, frankly, rather stupid. Does anyone know how to fold down the seats in an SUV? I can only tell how late it is based on the number of times I’ve had to pee at the office. We need a good plot, a decent writer and more actors for the film — We need it! We need them! The battery charger is lost. I wanted marinated tofu today but ate lasagna instead. Last night, I nearly threw a toasted English muffin in 6-year-old E.’s face in a moment of extreme fury; he demanded, in his OCD obstinancy, that I toast the muffin for EXACTLY three minutes and cut it symmetrically. I can’t figure out how much of my wrath is directed at him or at the recognition that I possessed the same obsessive traits in childhood. There were no organic Granny Smiths at the store today. Nick says kindness to me lasts like saffron. I love that metaphor. I have to go to MIT. I have to go now, I have to acquire vehicles and assistance and move to an apartment I may immediately love or hate. Such is life.

I took a sick day today, burnt from too many weeks of running around and tired from driving Ry to the airport at 5a again. Also, I had another ortho evaluation scheduled for late morning.

Unlike last time, after which I sat in E.’s car for 15 minutes crying, this time I chose an ortho I’d done some research on. He’s right in Davis and has a huge, fancy office with a widescreen flat TV against the wall in the waiting area. I knew he’d be mad expensive, but it turns out he’s actually cheaper than everyone else, uses more advanced technologies, and will “fix” my teeth in 18-24 months, instead of the near 3-year term I was quoted by the other guy. He also knew more of what he was talking about and explained my problems better and all-around made me feel good.

Except he was like 10 years older than me, and began his consultation with: “Looking at these pictures (of my face and teeth), it’s shocking; I would never guess your teeth looked like that. You’ve a very attractive woman, you know…it doesn’t match up.” Ok, so it sounded like he was throwing me a line. But that’s better than that oral surgeon in 1999 who took one look at my face, declared my jaw was moving, and proceeded to describe in detail how he wanted to break it and wire my teeth together for 6 weeks. I cried after that appointment, too.

The other thing about this young doctor in Davis, besides the fact that he’s smart, affordable, uses the latest technology, and likes to pay cheeky compliments, is that he employs a harem of attractive young men to run his front desk — boys who look like Gael Garcia Bernal
and wear white linen suits and speak English and Portuguese and probably 9 other languages, and who book you for future appointments because you can’t say no. Um.

So apparently, I’ll be broke as all hell soon but finally getting all this teeth crap over with. Which means I’ll be stuck in Boston for however many years it takes to have me looking hot and chewing properly. Somehow, though, I don’t mind anymore.

Bring on the realignment! Woo!

Every year since I was born, my mom hides an Easter basket for me and every year she includes a box of Luden’s Cherry Coughdrops. I don’t know when the tradition started; we just decided at some point that Luden’s tasted like candy and had about an equivalent medicinal effect, so why not include them in the Easter basket? So I just came from a night out with the Moms and she brought me not just a plant but an Easter basket of Philly Tastycakes and, yes, Luden’s Cherry Coughdrops. We saw “Born Into Brothels” at Kendall which was simultaneously uplifting and depressing, I ate some awesome pecan pie, Mom lost her glasses and put on too much perfume — it was a traditional Dougherty holiday, even though the holiday begins tomorrow. It’s good to see her, though. I love my mom.

I watched the quality Olsen Twins movie with Ry earlier this afternoon, before my crew’s super 48 production meeting in Corcord which went swimmingly, all things considered. Everyone on crew is so cool and funny and good. Blah blah blah, I love everyone, blah blah.

It’s true, though. I’m not even kidding. I should be more audible in my gratitude, cause these days I really am grateful for everything. ESPECIALLY the blue skies.

I stayed at work until eight tonight editing the band doc; had to set the alarm when I left because I was the last person out. Now I’m sitting in Baby-G’s house, listening to him cough sporatically in his crib through the plastic walky-talky here in the kitchen. If he cries for more than 10 minutes, I check on him. But he doesn’t, so I sit here editing video while my stomach growls.

Had a long talk with S. in England last night, courtesy of Skype. She’s debating what to do with her immediate future after graduating. Like the rest of us in days of yore, she’s still harboring a shred of hope that Real Life won’t suck her in, that she won’t get stuck in an overpriced apartment with a crappy day job, that she can hold on to her liberal life of international travel and jobs that maybe sorta pay the bills. I tried to tell her we all expected it would be easy at 21, we all thought we could have that lifestyle and even more…and we can; as long as we’ve saved up several thousand dollars before running around cowfields and cornfields and foreign cities for months on end, with nothing but a baguette and a stash of McVittie’s in our pockets…

but I digress.

My mother is in town. I’m tired. It’s Good Friday, though I see nothing good about the Christians’ wordwide celebration of Jesus’s death. I really don’t get that. Why not just focus on the resurrection? Wasn’t that the whole point? Everyone dies; not everyone rises again. Let’s dye some eggs, eat chocolate bunnies and think about that.

It’s so quiet here. I can hear several clocks ticking, the hum of the refrigerator and the disgruntled buzz of my external hard drive. I would love a large slice of pecan pie a la mode right about now — or baked Alaska, for that matter — but Oleana doesn’t deliver. Boo. On the up & up, E. from work just announced he’s buying a BMW motorcycle, and taking his golf clubs out of storage. Which means that, in addition to being taken to the opera regularly, I get to golf and ride around on a motorcycle all summer. My grandfather would be so proud.

I had this awful dream last night inspired by the insect-biting incident a few weeks ago. I dreampt I went to A.’s house in the morning, she had just had a big party and people were still awake and walking around. JJ from Brooklyn was there, too. I was talking to him about how I was going to move in a few days later. When A. left the room, he started complaining about these giant welt-like bites on his legs. “Ew!” I said. “Where did you get those?” “Here,” he said. “I mean, everybody gets bitten in this apartment. I think it’s the cat’s fleas or, I dunno, just something that bites. Ask A. about it.”

A. came back in the room. I confronted her about the biting insects. She finally relented, admitted it was a problem and there was nothing she could do to get rid of them. “Listen,” I told her. “If there’s one thing I absolutely CANNOT live with, it’s sleeping in a place with any type of bugs, especially bugs that bite.” “Well, I’m sorry,” she said. And added a few minutes later: “Actually I’ve decided I just want to live alone. I don’t even want a roommate. I’m sorry.” Damn, I thought. What now? I phoned Ryan really quickly to see if he still had a room available for me. He wasn’t there so I left a message, crossing my fingers. I was homeless again.

And THEN….
I went outside and tried walking down the street to my office, when suddenly the sky went dark and cloudy and, looking up, I could see the long spinning tube of a tornado coming down towards Cambridge. “Oh my God!” In an instant, the air became opaque with greyness and mist; I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, or anything in front of my face for that matter. People began running into buildings and basements. I thought no one was left on the street so I started yelling — “HEEEEELP!”

Finally, I felt a hand on my shoulder through the greyness. I heard a guy’s voice. The person led the way in front of me, and I followed, or maybe I led the way and he followed. I just remember waving my arms like a walking stick so I wouldn’t crash into anyone.

And then, just like that, just when the winds had kicked up and I thought for sure we’d be swallowed alive, the clouds broke and the sun came out. It all happened instantly. There was Prospect Street, as if nothing had happened at all. I don’t remember what happened to the guy. It’s possible I looked up to discover he was Brent, my ex-boyfriend of 2002-3, and gasped; or it’s possible the guy was just gone. It was a dream, my recollections are vague and hazy. I just remember thinking: “My God, what just happened? Did that really happen? Which is the reality?”

It’s kind of like the Steve Tannen song I’ve had stuck in my head for two days: “You know what? Just forget it/ Name something and I regret it/ The sun sets like surrender/ And I guess I misremember that whole time…

It was the sweetest fever dream/ You probably don’t know what I mean…”

Last night I watched the boys‘ video footage from their 6-week tour. Most of it. They did a very good job, shot it well, got some great scenes, gave me a lot to work with and made me very excited about finishing the whole doc in general.

On the second tape, there was a scene where they’re driving in the van and start to give personal messages to me. Keeping in mind these were four testosteroned boys stuck in a van together for over a month, their acclamations varied from “Ryan says we love you so I guess we do” to Jame’s “I feel a greater kinship with Audubon than with fried chicken” to a broader positive analysis of my body. Despite the borderline objective gender-based comments and playboy references, their individual monologues were kind enough to feed my ego for at least a week. Also it reminded me how much I love having so many guy friends. It’s way better than a harem of wimpy girl friends, but never better than an international network of tough female compatriots, thankyouverymuch.

(L-R: Ry, Jay, James, & Matty on top)
I would post a clip of some of their very funny tour footage, but I’m still in the capture phase so we’ll have to settle for this photo Jay sent from their trip. 48 comes before all other projects. And then summer comes. I can’t wait to jump on A.’s trampoline in the mornings, bike in the daytime, box at night. My bones have forgotten how to move. I am going to get back in shape or die trying.

Sometimes I have to remind myself what life was like a few months ago — how England was: the perpetual rain; the mad dashes home in drizzle to make a quick sandwich; the long, wet Tuesday night walks to the meetings of the Manchester Amatuer Photographic Society. The perpetual rain. The perpetual cloudy skies.

It’s been cloudless here for nearly a week. Cloudless and 50+ degrees. The true New Englanders wear shorts, t-shirts, flip flops even. Being not at all a “true” New Englander, I keep my jacket on, but at least I’ve eliminated wearing my hat and gloves, and not just because I left them in New York accidentally.

Last night Ry and I got burritos and ice cream and rented SNL’s Best of Christopher Walken DVD, which I highly recommend. I fell asleep so heavily afterwards I don’t remember anything, except waking up like clockwork to my own internal alarm at 9a exactly.

And by the way, don’t ever think Elvis movies aren’t important. Just now, I was in the kitchen here at work, eating lunch, when our IT guy tried toasting bread and the toaster oven caught fire. Real fire! Like flames! Quickly recalling a scene from Sunday’s screening of Girls! Girls! Girls!, I made like Elvis and grabbed a container of salt to mute the flames. Success! Which just goes to show Elvis movies teach you critical life skills.

My mother is driving from Philly to visit me this weekend, for Easter. I forgot to tell her I have a production meeting I can’t miss. She and I will be going to the Cape on Sunday, pretending to be rich, crazy ladies….or just pretending to be rich. She and I are like chemicals: you put the two together, you never know what you’re gonna get. Could be an explosion, could be the cure for dementia. I’m banking on a mild fizzle. For shizzle.

First of all, I totally take back that comment about not having a social life. Because man, I haven’t slept at all this weekend. I should have said: “I just realized I have no typical social life.” After going to bed at 5a Saturday and working all day Sunday, I went out to The Burren to see Danielle & Teresa & Larry sing, and to let polite guys buy me cranberry & seltzers and to tell Hugh McGowan how much I enjoy his music. Then I got a frappe for Ry and went over to watch our Sunday night Elvis movie.

This week’s movie: Girls! Girls! Girls!
General plot: Elvis works on a boat he built with his father. Someone else owns the boat, but Elvis’s only goal in life is to own it for himself. His fisherman’s life is complicated with too many hot women, including a lounge singer at a club where he moonlights. It’s at this club that he gets in a fight with a drunk. The drunk’s date chases him out the door, spends the whole movie wooing him. Finally she buys him his father’s boat as a present, but Elvis says: “I earn my own money! I don’t accept hand-outs from no one!” We think he can’t stand this crazy chic, but he ends up marrying her, after manhandling her and very nearly getting it on on several occasions. I don’t remember the very very end because, well, I kind of fell asleep during the last five minutes.

Best line of the film: (Some girl to Elvis) “Scuse me, can you tell me how to get to–”
(Elvis, exasperated with women) “SCAT! SCAAAAAAT!!!”

Best accurately-predicted line of the film by Ry: (Lounge singer, to Elvis, after female love interest walks away) “What is she doing here?”

I don’t not recommend this movie. It was classic Elvis in the sense of making absolutely no sense, everyone’s personalities changing per scene and season, a suffient amount of homoeroticism, a couple good boat chases, and women going stupid over The King. As Ry aptly noted: “This movie is 12% great…But it’s also 100% terrible and 100% awesome…”

I’m going for 100% awesome. Which is a larger parallel to my life in general. ROCK!

(That’s a Hugh McGowan lyric reference. Just another local musician I’d never heard of before but now listen to all the time.)

So anyway, SPRING IS AWESOME. I can tell because good, fun things are happening.
Reviewing my Saturday til its 5a ending, I think I really made use of a great 50-degree day: brunch with BB, an extended sabbatical at Sephora where I finally came away with a new summer perfume (“Sake”, by Fresh) which is taking a while for me to get used to because it makes me smell like a person I’ve never met…then I went to an indoor driving range with J., which was insane because the wall is 10 feet away from your putting area so when you slam the golf balls they travel for about .003 seconds before crashing into the wall in front of you. It was really funny too, because they have these webcams that record your swing so you can watch it afterwards and learn what’s wrong with your stance, etc. But J. and I just stared at our bodies: “God, is my butt really that big?” “Do I really have such awful posture?” “Man, I hate myself.” But it was all in good fun.

Then we picked up S. and drove over to other S.’s party in Dorchester where J. and I proceeded to beat everyone in pool. Then I 86′d over to the Paradise where Ry had his big (sold out again) show, which I watched in a corner from the 3rd floor balcony because it was so crowded with ex-high school football stars and dancing hippies. Afterwards I joined D. Miraglia and T. Storch, also singers of the Beantown scene, and retreated to T.’s kitchen for our own afterparty since the boys were more interested in drinking and talking to girls who’d put out (even though our company was way more enjoyable). So that was it: I made two new pals, and they’re actually girls! Who’d have thought?

And now, I offer up the bulk of my Sunday to the sacrificial alter of Perpetual Childcare. Someone’s gotta pay the bills…

— compared to my contemporaries. But that’s ok. For now.

The best part of my incredibly boring evening of sitting around for four hours in case a baby woke up was not the part where I read aloud an essay in Harpers on “American Exceptionalism” but rather the 2-mile walk home, blasting the Run Lola techno soundtrack on iPood at 11p down the looooong hallway of the MIT building (the “infinite corridor”) while making conspicuous eye contact with all the boy scientists in an effort to determine if they were really MIT students or just jacks like me, taking a warm indoor shortcut to or from Mass Ave.

The part where I realized I have no social life was when I walked past throngs of hip 20- and 30-somethings standing in the outdoor line to get into that new club, whatsitcalled, Middlesex Lounge (where I went only once, on a reconciliation mission to say hello to G., only to turn around after getting there and realizing he wasn’t spinning that night). So I walked past them tonight and they all stared. At first I thought they were staring because they thought: “Why is that 20-something with the really cool jacket walking alone instead of coming into this hip club? She must be super lame.” Then I figured they might be staring because they were thinking: “Wow, that’s a really cool jacket.” Then it occured to me they were probably staring because I was walking in time with my music, which was Franka Potente’s fast-tempo’d techno single, meaning I was walking incredibly fast.

What can I say? I’m incredibly fast.

Fast as in The Autobahn.

Ha!

***On Edit***
Babysitting 5+ nights a week doesn’t make me entirely lame, ok? It just means I cram a week’s worth of socializing into one day & evening, which will be tomorrow’s brunch, party, other party, & show. And whatever, dude. I still wear miniskirts. You saw the photo.

***On 2nd Edit***
Why am I being so defensive? I think the excessive childcare is getting to me. There is a limit to the amount of hours you can spend being jumped on, wiping up cracker crumbs and peeling small dirty underwear off the floor. I’m really nearing that limit.

***On 3rd Edit***
Props to Nayiri for the hallway photo link.