So the happy madness of a packed weekend has ended, and I still have another day off. The girls and I stuffed into a rented gunmetal grey Chevy Grand Am (cleverly dubbed “Viper” by BB) and sped off to Saratoga to compete in a weekend-long competition of TAPIOCA PRODUCTIONS vs. HORNY GHANDI, otherwise known as Battle of the Blogs.

Welcome to the animated tour of the ravishing highlights of the weekend:

T-shirt competition

The first challenge. TP and HG went to Target, bought team t-shirts, spray paint, create-your-own-stencil kits, and went to town razor-blading cool logo designs onto matching shirts. I thought BB and I did a fabulous job, but I think the title went to HG for their ridiculously gangsta unicorn logo — in gold spraypaint — which totally outshined TP’s longstanding logo of a fish on fire in a flaming bowl of flames.

Gelato competition
Again, HG took the cup (ha ha) with this one, although I did discover for the first time, thanks to M., my newfound love of pistachio gelato. Other flavors of the weekend included tiramisu, strawberry, hazlenut, and chocolate.

Horseracing competition

Ok, so we were on a backwoods trail with several other adults and children and rented horses — it was still a race. A race of endurance! Stupidly proclaiming how high my riding level was, I got stuck with Red, The Horse That Knew No Rules. Red liked to diverge onto other paths in the woods, eat leaves, poop, and go right when I pulled left and left when I pulled right. However, western saddle riding is the best! HG got two points during this competition when one of the guys in line with us looked at our matching team t-shirts and asked, “So are you girls in some kind of crazy cult?”

Sleeping competition

I just have to acknowledge this unofficial part of the weekend battle, because Tapioca won with flying colors. And by Tapioca, I mean me. And by won, I mean I overslept every morning and also took a 4-hour nap in the middle of the day, followed by a 4-hour nap tonight when I got home. Nayiri, even though you can sleep face-down on the floor, I can still outsleep you anytime, anywhere. Grrr!

Shopping competition
This was a close tie, I think. Throughout the weekend we saw many interesting things: babies, bellies, hippies, horses, and lots of stuff for sale. After much contemplation and lots of walking, I came away with a periwinkle grey Ecuadorian shawl made of alpaca and suede, while N. took home some fancy dangling silver ruby earrings. If you morph us together, you get one styley Irish-Armenian-Phillipino.

Driving competition

I won this one. Hands down.

Mix tape competition
N., as always, won this one, hands up and down. Her original compilations were even organized by theme: Names, Places, Cities, etc. “Mix tape competition” is a little misleading, however, because they were cds and not tapes and tapes would have been way cooler.

Conclusion: Tapioca has a long history of throwing the best BBQs in Roxbury, but HG has better fashion sense and a greater capacity to consume gelato. I bow my head and concede the title, ladies. Thanks for such a fun weekend.

In other obsessive-compulsive luggage-ordering news, I finally figured out which Timberland rolling duffel bag I originally intended to order and am replacing the ugly one with it shortly. If you have to go on business trips, you might as well travel in style, right? There are only so many years you can take work-related flights wearing the same camping backpack you took to Central America. After a while, you turn 27 and start to reconsider what it means to look professional. It means carrying a wheeled orange duffel. Style, people. More than that, unabashed self-expression: we have to live in the color we want to express.

Been working on this monster all day today, which is how I know Wordpress is so much cooler than Blogger. My realm of responsibilities at work have recently expanded to include nearly all vehicles of online communication, a positive development on the whole, although the specific coworker collaboration it entails has yet to be proven effective or, more accurately, efficient. Needless to say, since I love my job, I gave it my all to make UUSC’s new blog more hip looking than its main homepage. It took some effort, lemme tell ya. The blog hasn’t been marketed yet, but when it is I’m hoping there’ll be a positive response. I want to make it as interactive as humanly possible…and I want to learn CSS upside-down and backwards so I can do it properly.

Dude, we’re going to upstate NY tomorrow. How come I keep going to bed at 2a? This is not condusive to happy restfulness, or to ensuing 4+ hour roadtrips.

I ordered some Timberland luggage today, but didn’t see the preview and now I’m convinced the bag is hideous. I always do this, I’m always so impulsive: I go crazy buying things online, only to not love them when they arrive. Dang it. Must write that down on the extensive List for Self Improvement.

HH wrote a nice note today. Despite the incredibly insistent rain, the world is spinning at a metered pace, I think. I can almost hear the ground beating rythmically. It calms me down.

I’ll see you all (in the non-linear, interactive, quasi-social cyber interpretation of “see”) on Sunday.

E., age 8, to her brother, age 6:
“I think when you grow up you should be an inventor, because then you can fix technology. I don’t like the way technology has developed. It’s weird, it’s ugly, it’s polluted.”

Kids are cool for so many reasons, but this dialogue illustrates the clarity of thought and analysis with which children are blessed. It’s an effort, trying to stay in touch with that ability to say what you feel even to the extent that you don’t make any sense and you don’t care. But that’s easier for a cute kid to get away with; when you’re an adult, people just think you’re crazy. I really don’t think anyone’s crazy at all.

“Come over,” Ry said the other night. “I’m going to cook dinner.”
“You cook?” I asked.
“Yeah buddy, I cook. I used to cook. I can cook. Whatever, I’m cooking dinner. It’s for our birthday.”

We had grilled chicken with au gratin potatoes from a box and green beans from a can. In all seriousness, it was an excellent meal. Then in a surprising maneuver, he busted out two Shaws cupcakes to commemorate our birthdays, since they’re back-to-back and he’ll be on tour for both of them. His roommate took pictures as Ry lit two matches and stuck them in the cupcakes in lieu of candles. An exquisite birthday event.

Last night I took Cee to watch Ry jam with Hugh, which was a nice time, actually, despite the exhaustion and the boys’ ensuing inebriation and the lack of hamburgers. After watching the pools of overflowing fish sloshing about Hugh’s pupils, I designatedly drove home in the rain with that feeling you get when your dayjob is impeding your natural flow of existence yet you like your dayjob but you just wish you were back on the Panamanian border, sipping pineapple smoothies and reading Smilla’s Sense of Snow…

but I digress.

3a. A long night. Boys singing at the Burren. Outings to Charlie’s Kitchen late, only to discover they were closed. Standing in a freezing swanky bar drinking nothing, eating nothing, watching Hugh’s eyes swim together like overflowing fish as he spoke to me. Ry got in a fight with a girl, or rather, a girl got in a fight with Ry. Had I realized she was yelling at him for no reason, I would have stood up for him and told her to get lost. But I was outside watching the fish in Hugh’s eyes and suddenly Ry was out and yelling and upset and it was so cold and rainy and there was driving to do and now it’s so late and that’s all for now.

So I met Inigo Montoya’s real-life son the other night. His name is Isaac and he’s a really nice guy with a mess of curly hair. Our conversation went like this:

Him: “You should try these caviar hors d’oeuvres. They’re delicious.”
Me: “Oh, no thanks. I’m working through an issue with seafood.”
Him: “What, you don’t eat any seafood at all?”
Me: “I’m slowly making an effort, but no, I don’t really actively eat any seafood.”
Him: “Why, because you don’t like the taste?”
Me: “Actually I have no idea. I think it’s more based on a ridiculous childhood fear. Anyway, I have to run because I promised S. I’d replace her selling tickets. She needs to eat cause she’s a vegetarian and someone just brought her a plate of this chicken.” [Motion to food stuffed in my mouth]
Him: “Um, that’s not chicken, what you’re eating. That’s swordfish.”
Me: “Whoops…”

I love swordfish now. It’s excellent! But you’d rather hear about the opera, wouldn’t you?

TOSCA (spelled with an O) was awesome. Here’s an animated photo montage to visually describe the evening:

Granted, the drive down took a whole 6 hours — I kid you not — in traffic, so we were a little late, but it all worked out and the music was excellent. The acting was too. Tosca’s supposed to be a lithe beauty but was played by a hefty, squat woman who nevertheless filled the role wonderfully, if not burst it at its seams.

There are many parts of the story I’d love to elaborate on but won’t, suffice to say that two little pigs and a third snoring pig in one closet-sized hotel room is a sitcom in itself. A line from one of Ry’s songs comes to mind as apropos: Two times the fun is far too many, and too much of a good thing aint no good. Otherwise, everything was kosher.

The rest of the weekend was spent planning for and then facilitating a Pete Seeger concert. I filmed it on my new Manfrotto fluid head aluminum tripod from B&H. These are some photos from the night and day after the madness had ended, including dinner at midnight with the photographer dude from the show who split a plate of ribs with me. I think S. & E.’s faces sum up everything:

On Edit: How come the only guys I keep meeting are Jewish DJs working as AV professionals? It’s just a little weird.

In other news, my pal Cee is visiting from London this week. The thrills never end, although they might at some point this weekend in Saratoga when BB and I are thrown off our horses and gamble away our pensions at the dogtrack. Kidding…there will only be lots of eating. Woo!

This is priceless, and brilliant: organic produce “Store Wars” spoof.

I walked for hours tonight. In heels. Got blisters. Didn’t care. It was a lovely night.
I’ve taken to walking alone at night, and I quite like the routine. Used to do it in high school — I used to run at night — just to clear my head…and to impress my high school boyfriend, then a track star, now a gay go-go dancer, but that’s an entirely different story. Tonight there was a smoke stack over Harvard that looked like a sea horse, and there was a puddle that looked exactly like a donkey. Old tires and new flowers intermingled on the edge of private gardens. See, there’s a little country even in this city.

Been having some sentimental moments lately, though I won’t go into detail, except to recount tonight’s editorial while babysitting: the dad wanted to know if I’d be (true to my own fashion) picking up and leaving Boston again soon. I told him no, I signed a contract at work, I’ll be here for a while yet. “Good,” 8-year-old I. said in her overly articulate way. “I don’t want you to move away. I like you. I want you to keep being our babysitter.”

I really think self-worth has everything to do with what children think of you — or at least it should.

I’m going off to NYC tomorrow. It’ll be my first opera at the Met (Tasca), and while that’s quite exciting, I’m more looking forward to Saratoga next weekend with The Funny Ladies and a bunch of New York horses.

Yknow, I really have to stop being such an asshole and start writing back to my friends. I honestly don’t know how I still have any friends, since I never ever stay in touch with them. Man, I’m such a jerk.

The best line Hugh McGowan ever wrote, aside from “Sattled and spurred by regrets, my horse kicked her heels and she left” was: “So again I turn to this — another poet’s absolution — as if I could write it down and make it go away.”

My favorite thing about living in Somerville is having a bathtub.

My favorite thing about writing online is you don’t have to make any sense or maintain consistency, and you can be as selfish and confessional and bleak and uninspiring as you want, and people will still read you anyway. It’s a new kind of autobiography, a renewed communication based less on human interaction and more on emotional bonding with complete strangers and their individual experiences. I would write a thesis on this idea, but (ha ha!) I am no longer a student. And so it’s all for you.

I made a quick tribute video for J.’s dad’s retirement. It took all night, and it’s not a very good segment, but I was tired and achey and up til 4am. Part of the late bedtime was due to a Burren field trip with Ry to watch Hugh McGowan sing, but that was requisite. I love going there and I can’t explain why. The people are all so weird and neat, that’s why, and the bartenders don’t care if I just drink seltzer. Every year I spend in Boston is so interesting and different. That’s a great thing.

Have I mentioned what a terrible crush I have on Gael, code name for the ortho assistant? He’s probably reading this thinking, “I knew she was crazy! I knew it!” No man. I’m just a writer. I sensationalize all aspects of my boring daily life to feel like it’s dynamic, interesting, and literary.

Despite the incredible pain of moving and clenched teeth getting plastic chains attached to them (emphasis on incredible pain) the experience was, as always, fun, because all the guys at the office are funny. Reason number 947 why Gael is the best thing ever, in addition to his hotness and his niceness and his Bossanova: he plays the piano…

…in church.

It really could never get any better than meeting a nice international dude who’s into all types of music and fun dancing and sadistic aesthetic dental work and no medicine or drugs who is sarcastic and funny and who plays the piano in church. Were I to create a bulleted list of ideal traits in a guy, these would all be on there. Like, at the very top. Because I’m odd, and the traits I value in others are skewed a bit from the norm. Gael also put up with my quiet crying and not-so-quiet moaning as he elasticized a tooth that aches like all hell. He did a good job, considering I’m a tough patient.

Doc and I spoke a few sentences in Spanish after the madness had ended, and the assistants overheard.
“You speak Spanish?” Gael asked.
“Yeah,” I said, omitting the fact that my Spanish is terrible.
“You’ve gotta learn Portuguese,” he said.
“So I can eventually converse with our children in their native tongue?” I asked silently.
“Today’s word is ‘ciao’. You probably already know ciao.”
“Yup,” I said, turning to leave. “Boys, I appreciate all your torture today. Ciao.”

I don’t get to see them for a month! A month! What am I supposed to do with myself til then? Just casually show up at the Brazilian Cultural Center, like I’ve gone there consistently since my freshmen year of college, which was the last time I went for capoiera? Not a good plan.

So the moral of the story is moving teeth hurt like hell when touched, or tugged, or pulled by elastics and wires. The other moral is seering pain is tolerable when inflicted by a really nice funny hot guy. I’m getting a little redundant with my morals after all these ortho soliloquies, but I just want to document the little details so I’ll have something to look back on when I’m old, alone and have perfect teeth.

Word.