Check it out — seems an intern discovered them at the bottom of a closet in the office, and now they’re being published, 40 years later. God bless interns.

I’ve been under house arrest all weekend and then some, due to the insipid bird flu or whatnot. Since I’m convinced this stupid ailment doesn’t really exist, it’s started existing less and less, especially today, but I’m still holed up, relying on DD’s generocity to cook me Italian dinners and special soup and bring me coffee and Thai food. I have a theory which I’ll always hold to: when sick, don’t change ANYTHING about your normal diet. Food has no impact on health; it’s all psychological. That said, I’ve happily continued to indulge in N.’s Godiva dark chocolate truffles, chocolate brioches, dark roast decaf, cookies, ice cream, wild mushroom ravioli, etc., etc.

It’s freezing outside, they tell me, and I can feel it through the walls. I’m leaving the country for a big trip in five days and I’m not at all fully prepared, but I suppose one never is. Any advice for the shopping list? So far I’ve got bug repellent, water purification powder, mosquito netting, duct tape, sunglasses, power bars…it’s all very daunting. I want to pack the smallest bag possible and just go, take lots of moving photos, stay healthy-minded, etc. But suggestions are always helpful. Danke.

The moving train of my orthodontal adventure continues to tunnel through winter with its engine in flames.

“My bite is all messed up,” I told the doc, when he asked me to bite down. “I know. Your bite is terrible,” he said. “But that’s normal. The teeth are moving all the time.”

So, he did things to realign me again, though I don’t know what. He popped off two brackets, then had his new assistant [Gael's replacement] recement new ones to my teeth via a horrible mouth-stretching plastic contraption, causing me to swallow acetone since they didn’t use the spit-sucker the entire time, ending with my throat burning for a while. When all was said and done, I had new brackets and new wires (he wanted to put on metal wires but I refused, citing the fact that I already look 12) and now, two days, three muffins, two bowls of overcooked noodles and many hours of achey mouth later, everything looks great. Except, needless to say, for the gaping hole in the front of my mouth waiting to be filled by my now infamous impacted canine, which is *still* hanging out just above the gumline, inching down ever so slowly. The only uplifting thing is that I don’t have to yank it down with clear rubber bands anymore in the front of my mouth; they’ve attached invisible rubber bands from my molar to the impacted canine, pulling it down in a much more subtle fashion.

In other news, I got my passport renewed today. Can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I got the last one. Looking at my old passport, I noticed my teeth in the photo. How messed up they were at eighteen! How straight they are now! I like when I see fast returns on investments. It keeps the blood boiling and the gratitude high.

September, Doc says. This will all be over by September.

Dude I posted my first video blog. It’s just me in Ry’s van, driving around Vermont this past weekend, but I think it’s kind of cool.

This is so incredibly funny. (Watch the video)

Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to Indonesia and Thailand in two weeks. For human rights work stuff. We fly in east both times, which means going halfway around the world to get there, then the other half to get back. We’ll be doing follow-up tsunami reconstruction reporting, focusing largely on Burmese refugees doing forced work in Thailand. I take photos and write about it, eat curry, try not to get malaria, etc. Very exciting, no?

In other world news, let’s have a moment of silence for the 1500+ people in the Phillipines who died in the mudslide this morning. I think we’ve had enough of natural disasters for one lifetime.

she’s moving slowly toward nowhere good, the car is in neutral

with the brake at a right

angle to the floor. everyone can see them through the windows,

and the burnt light falls

evenly on their intensity but this infidelity

can’t last too much longer. it’s like the train

she’s supposed to be on; it’s like

the overcast sky, the sheen of her new shoes, the table he’ll soon fill

with flowers and deceit; a good freeze kills,

but lies burn faster through the body and this is the

hot red truth they’re both avoiding, hungry, inspecting

one another in the backseat like two starved dark birds

competing for the kill.

I just joined ourmedia.com to start vlogging (video blogging). They have a podcast (not entirely comprehensive, but hey) that explains technically how to begin video blogging, although I’m still kind of fuzzy on how to go from WordPress or Blogger to an iTunes podcast. Any tips?

Apparently if you want your media (video) hosted, you have to subscribe to archive.org or to blip.tv. I chose the latter, and it seems like a good site. It allows you to auto-synch your video posts to both your blip.tv blog (tapioca visual tour) and your regular blog. They also integrate flickr and del.icio.us, allow for mobile posts, and provide a comprehensive selection of syndication options, text and media-focused.

So much progression in modern technology, so little time…I’ll post a full step-by-step setup process once I figure it out. Stay tuned for the upcoming Home Workout podcast D. and I will shoot tonight…

We cleaned out her late grandfather’s late wife’s apartment in the Prudential all day Saturday. The whole place was filled with dust mites and trash and furniture from the 60s. We put on rubber gloves and bug repellent and went to work, dissecting the life of a secretive old woman who left behind salad tongs and silver platters and china teacups and who left no one behind to appreciate it. Some stuff was her husband’s, and now one of his modern art prints hangs in my kitchen, his blown-glass orange vase lives on my table, a French thermostat dice-shaped pen holder made of amber sits on my desk at work. “I don’t want any of this stuff,” my roommate said. “It’s dead peoples’ things. It creeps me out.”

“At least we kind of know who these people were,” I said. “It’s better than buying dead peoples’ things at a thrift shop, not knowing where they came from.” What’s fascinating is how quickly life comes and goes and how fiercely we hold on to the things we acquire, even when they gather dust. By the time I’m 90, if I live that long, I don’t want to own anything. Maybe a bed, some eccentric rings, some colorful boots. Maybe an ice cream scoop, but that’s it.

And now it’s El Dia del Amor, not that every day isn’t full of love. The kids gave me extra Valentines they’d made. I put their paper affection in my back pocket and forgot about it. That’s a metaphor, people.

Now that the moon is boiling
like the blood where it swims

the claw marks of those
who preceded us across this burning floor

- John Yau, from Borrowed Love Poems

Other than getting my teeth fixed, the best investment I’ve ever made is joining Boston Sport Boxing Club. D. and I completed our first personal training session the other night, which lasted over two and a half hours and has had me limping for two days. Pain before beauty, pain is beauty, what’s the expression? Whatever. Just as long as I can punch a solid hole through a solid wall without shattering all the bones in my hand, I’m happy.

In other news,

I keep having nightmares about octopus. The moral of that story is never watch your friend eat baby octopus — whole — at a sushi bar, or anywhere else for that matter. Last night’s dream was about a girl at a pet shop who took care of this one little octopus and loved it, but I bought it off her, then I didn’t take care of it, then it stung me and crawled on me, then it became a giant spider and the girl picked it up. I returned it to her, told her to keep it and love it because I couldn’t, I didn’t want it after all, it was a scary aggressive octopus for Pete’s sake. [Cue Zak Smith's octopus drawing! Now!]

In self-oriented audio-visual news,
I still can’t think of a valid film idea, and my editor doesn’t want to do the 48-hr film project again, despite our win last year. I’m crying on the inside. On the outside, I’m just freezing.