[weekend/vacation] tv, Memorial Mass, assorted complaints -- the usual overlong overdue entry
Friday
I downloaded Firefox 2.0.0.4 on my work computer.
I'm not sure how I feel about the glossy gray rounded edge style.
It gives me the red-underline spellcheck in all windows where there's a composing box, which is neat.
I'm really not sure how I feel about the fact that the close tab is on the active tab itself, not off at the end -- so you can't just quickly click closed a lot of them (unless you start at the far right end).
Also interesting (and kind of annoying), only a limited number of tabs are shown, so you have to use the drop-down menu at the end of the bar to select other ones -- though this does mean you can actually read the titles of your open tabs (the ones that are showing) which ultimately makes navigation easier.
In other news: I am tempted to switch to S2 so for the ease of seeing what other tags an entry has when viewing by tag [I also really like the sidebar of tiered tags -- as seen on emotionalperil, marginalia, nikitangel, etc.,], but I hate S2 on principle, and it's so unwieldy. Okay, my S1 mainpage ("lastn") style is tweaked from one that someone had already customized, but still, not that hard -- whereas S2 so often feels non-intuitive to me. *growls*
[I also continue to be annoyed by people who force their styles on the comment page. I have my flist set to give me ?style=mine, but when I'm browsing other journals, or visiting from Message Center or Memories, I have it inflicted on me. Yes, I know there are GreaseMonkey scripts for that. But still.]
And so often I'm browsing journals of people who do have S2 and it makes me sad that their entries aren't (consistently) tagged. Hi, "cataloguer at heart" = no lie.
/complaint (for the moment, on that topic, anyway)
***
The book my mom's boss is co-writing, turns out they don't need the References, which is good news for her in that she doesn't have to format them, but this makes the baby jesus me cry 'cause it's a nonfiction book, how can you not include References? And it's easy to list them all in the back, so it's not like they're gonna infringe on your reading experience. Are people really gonna be intimidated by the presence of superscript numerals? Oh the irony that the title is: "Come on, People! On the Path from Victims to Victors."
I felt tired after dinner (had kinda napped on the train ride home) but obviously 7:30pm is a bit early to go to bed -- especially when you're sleeping on the living room couch.
Excluding West Wing at work, this is the most tv I've watched in I don't know how long.
We watched Jeopardy (trivia learned: W. H. Harrison was the first POTUS to die in office).
My brother channel-surfed during the commercial breaks, so we watched a large chunk of The Simpsons -- "Eight Misbehavin' " [11.07] -- and some snippets Malcolm in the Middle -- "Secret Boyfriend" [7.06].
I was frequently like dead from laughter at The Simpsons. For shame. Hi, that show is not allowed to be that funny.
Malcolm in the Middle had a character who struck me as a Topanga knock-off, and my brother said I should know the actress, and indeed, it was Hayden Panettiere.
A couple minutes before 8:00 it was pointed out that Smackdown would be on soon. Aww, father-daughter bonding. The most recent pay-per-view was Vengeance: Night of Champions (all 9 titles up for grabs -- I hadn't even realized they had that many).
I was surprised to see Mick Foley in the clips since the last time he retired I thought it was for real. (I know that sounds ridiculous in this context, but I remember him talking about how much abuse he had put his body through, and how he has young kids and everything, so I felt much more like the actor was retiring than like the character was retiring.) I read somewhere later that the WWE Championship match was the champion versus four former champions, which would explain it.
Dude, in researching Vengeance 2007, "Match 6: Special Challenge Match for the WWE Tag Team Championship: (Champions) Deuce N' Domino with Cherry vs. Sgt. Snuka (Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka)" ::boggles:: I remember those from when I watched two decades ago (so I recall the latter as "Superfly Jimmy Snuka" -- and wikipedia-ing him, his son is "Deuce," of the competing tag team in that match). Okay, self, step away from the wikipedia (I could stay there for days).
Throughout the night we got clips of the past series of Edge-Batista matches. I absolutely loved the moment of Teddy Long coming out and saying, "I am ordering you back into that ring right now." And I totally felt for Batista when he lost that match to Edge on a count-out.
Anyway, the first match of the night was Ric Flair versus Carlito.
Ric Flair's movements felt so stilted. My dad pointed out that it was well-played on their part to give him a rib injury 'cause then you can blame it on the injury rather than on his advanced age.
The announcers were commenting on how Carlito had dumped Tori Wilson (one of the WWE Divas) all, "Why would you dump Tori Wilson?" as if personality match etc. means nothing. Yeah, I know I overthink everything and am clearly not their target audience.
My wikipediaing of the above-mentioned tag team Deuce & Domino post-dated my Friday viewing, and I had never heard of them before Friday. My immediate reaction was to think of karabair because of the names :) Their style reminded me of Grease which was weird.
Their opponents were these two black guys from Brooklyn. Before they came down the ramp they were totally checking out D&D's low-rider, which they had parked at the top. JBL talked about "ogling your car," and the whole way it was played was like some guys hitting on your girlfriend. It was very weird.
I felt like D&D were the bad guys, because of blatant cheating, but I also felt like the black guys couldn't be good guys, not the way they were coded.
Of course we totally called that after they got cheated out of their win they would make off with the car (the text elided how it got from the ramp to the parking lot). This was again very weird, 'cause it was played much like violating a woman, and the teammate who seemed more in charge was talking about all the money they could make off of selling it for parts and I was like, "Oh, the fiction that you're not getting paid royally for all this," and the other teammate wanted to pick up lots of chicks (he didn't quite use the phrase "fat-bottom girls," but almost).
We had two of the WWE Divas Victoria and Vicki (whose idea was that similarity?) fighting about "You think you're more wild than I am?" which of course made me think of Dar's cover of "Wilder than Her."
Passersby included Hacksaw Jim Duggan (! old school), Howard Finkel, Farooq
JBL: "I have my own football card." / Michael Cole: "I have my own WWE card." / JBL: "So does Howard Finkel."
Eugene codes as a bit Downs syndrome, which disturbs me. One of the announcers quipped that the Great Kahli was Kryponite.
Oh, and there were ads for a new tag team: a short blonde guy, and a tall skinny guy who seemed like a lobotomized Bushwhacker (which only this moment as I type it do I realize is a totally derogatory stereotype of Australians [okay, Wiki says New Zealand]; the connection never occured to me as a child). It was very weird.
Batista's match against Edge was a non-title match, and he was out for "punishment." I continue to really like Batista, but I have no interest in Edge, which makes any investment in the rivalry/saga difficult.
I also saw more commercials than I have in ages.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the Gossip Girl book series is getting its own tv show.
The first commercial I saw for Reaper looked like a Ghostbusters knock-off, and the title made me think of Dead Like Me, but the commercial with the line, "Your mom and I sold your soul to the devil"? For the win.
I hadn't realized that the Transformers movie involved an attack on mankind; I have vague memories of the cartoon (and toys, of course) from my childhood, but I don't think of
We saw plenty of ads for Just For Men -- hair color for guys.l One of them said something about the "real you," 'cause yeah, the color your hair naturally turns into isn't the "real" you. ::rolls eyes::
We saw the anti-drug commercial with the kid with the mirror -- 'cause your friends can't always see what they're doing to themselves or whatever, but it was weird because the boy reflected in the mirror really didn't look bad. A little mopey maybe, but I was expecting stringy hair heroin chic or something.
We saw lots of ads for Bowflex: 20min/day, 3days/wk, 6wks . . . yeah, I have great difficulty believing you could lose 70 pounds (as advertised) and turn into those cut, built models doing only that -- or even doing that with a rigorous diet change. I found myself thinking of jennyo and how she's been working out an hour a day like 5 days/wk, plus walking all over the place and a serious diet change.
Relatedly, I'm gonna sign up for:summer specialty program:
pilates on the ball [5:30 - 6:30 pm]
This dynamic and fun pilates routine on the stability ball and mini-ball will challenge balance while strengthening deep abdominal and back muscles. All levels of experience are welcome. Prior training with the stability ball, mini-ball, and/or with pilates is not necessary.
Tuesdays, July 17-August 7
cost: $40/member ($50/eligible non-member)
Sign up at the reception desk.
Saturday
My great-aunt Grace died early in June, and we went down to Falmouth for the Memorial Mass. It was held at Saint Elizabeth Seton Church, which is a very new church. It actually reminded me a lot of Protestant churches. Lots of bright stained glass.
This was the second time I'd ever been to a Catholic Mass, and I was annoyed that no program was provided.
I was looking at the Missal, and they place us in Ordinary Time, which kinda threw me as CWM has been saying "[ordinal] Sunday of Pentecost" on its bulletins. The calendar did note stuff like Birth of John the Baptist and Assumption of Mary.
The hymnal only had one line of music notes per line of words, which I liked.
The hymns were: "How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace," and something else which was familiar to me (Mom?).
That last hymn had optional inclusive language which we were asked to use -- we still said, "God our Father," but a line about brothers was changed to "with each other" and there was another change, too. I approved of
A soloist did the song: "And He will lift you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand."
The Scripture readings were from Wisdom, Romans, and John. I disliked that they just said, "The such-and-such reading is from the book of whatever," without giving chapter and verse. It reminded me uncomfortably of the olden days when lay people were entirely denied access to the Bible.
The Romans passage was the part about, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (from Chapter 5). I like that a lot,
The John passage was the story of Lazarus (from Chapter 11). I was struck by Martha saying, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day," because I thought Jews didn't believe in a Resurrection -- hence the focus on procreation, lineage, etc. (though on reflection, it occurs to me that the importance of bodily integrity would imply belief in a bodily resurrection). Jesus' response of "I am the resurrection and the life," is a well-known phrase, but it takes on powerful resonance in that contrast.
In his sermon, the priest talked about Grace as Martha and interpreted "I have come to believe" as process, which is an idea I like but isn't how I read this text. (If you have come to believe, you are saying you were in process but are done now. Am I wrong?)
I can't remember the context, but the priest said "Baptism is forever," which just wigged me out on a number of levels.
The priest kept talking about "sacrifice," and I kept wondering if they were going to take up an offering, but it was just prelude to the Eucharist. Hi, Catholicism, you wig me out like whoa. See also the prayers for the dead; I am uncomfortable with this concept to begin with (see also my issues with intercessory prayer, period), but I was also really confused as to what the Catholic belief in fact was, because there was both "blah blah blah she is in Heaven with God now" and "blah blah blah she will be raised up on the last day," and I was like, "Aren't those mutually exclusive?" I guess it could be that your spirit goes to be with God until the End of the World when the New Heaven and New Earth come and we all get new bodies of glory or something. Anyway, I was confused.
I continue to enjoy incense, though we were discussing afterward what the point is exactly. A symbolic purification was suggested. Given all the talk about sacrifice, I wondered if it was supposed to mimic the animal sacrifice of the Temple (Old Testament class, ftw).
I was watching the priest prepare the Eucharist, and he had a vial of orangeish liquid which he poured, and a vial of clear liquid which he appeared to put just a little of in -- I was guessing it was holy water. My brother later said, though, that it looked like people going up to get Communion only got wafers.
I was somewhat surprised to learn that my brother is Open Table. He also dislikes the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and I wasn't surprised that he felt it unfair for Catholics to exclude him from taking Communion, but he said things like, "Isn't the point that Jesus did it for everyone?" He thinks the Table should be open to all Christians and probably to all people. I said that at the churches I go to, they'll say that you just have to have a genuine desire for God or something like that, and he said that sounded right to him.
The priest kept doing "Peace blah blah be with you" and we would say, "And also with you," but it wasn't until like the third time that we actually exchanged signs of peace.
We did the Hail Mary and the Our Father (stop after "deliver us from evil," priest says something, then we said something but I didn't really know it). I expected there to be a recitation of the Creed as well, which there wasn't (though in looking back at my time at St. Catherine's, there wasn't there either).
Afterwards was the "collation" downstairs. They had wine! Oh, Catholics. (The last big church function I went to was Trelawney and Eric's wedding, where there was no alcohol at all because it was being held in a Methodist church.) Oh, and they had plastic flatware that looked silver; bravo.
There was a slideshow with soundtrack -- Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and another song I didn't recognize.
Various people gave eulogies, and like the priest they posited Grace as a sharp wit and etc., which surprised me as I think of her as tiny and quiet.
Tracy liked my dogtag. Grandma asked about it. Miles asked who "Tell" is; I said there was a period between the words.
We met assorted people: Patty (who my mom said is a librarian, though I didn't have a chance to follow up on that), Brooks, Arne (Norwegian, pronounced w/ long E), Arne's friend Mike, Rick and Ceri (pronounced like Kerry -- from Puget Sound area), Nancy (Harry's niece, who did some eulogizing).
I told my brother my wedding present to him would be a family tree.
The next day, my mom e-mailed us a brief outline. Her father was one of six children; that helps explain how there are so many cousins. And those six kids spawned sixteen (not counting step-kids). Our world is significantly smaller: our parents plus living siblings = 5, with a spawn of 4 (again, not counting step-kids).
The spread was mostly cold cuts, chicken salad, etc., but I had some fruit salad, a roll, and some chocolate cookies (which had peanut butter inside! which was yummy, but I felt there should have been tags for people with allergies) and was fine.
After 2 hours, people were dispersing and were asking us if we were going over to Arne's afterward. I was feeling physically tired (I could blame it on the half a glass of Chiraz I had, but I'd slept on the couch and had been on my feet and extroverting, so that was really the more likely culprit) and decided I had reached my socializing limit, so my mom stayed (her brother was already committed to bringing their mother back, so he could just drive her too) and my brother and father and I went home.
Coming back from the restroom I picked up some Catholic pamphlets. "Top 10 Reasons to Come Back to the Catholic Church" and "How to Get More out of the Mass" looked interesting, but clearly it was all about "What the Church Teaches: Same-Sex Marriage."
***
I finally went to Keegan's to get my watchband fixed/replaced. I also stopped by the library -- in part because I was purposely postponing going home to where OriginalRoomie's high-energy chatty family would be waiting.I was wearing my light blue shirt, Beth said it was a great color on me, was in fact my color. I tend to prefer darker colors, but I can see that. (And she didn't ask me if I'd lost weight! Which, okay, is Marcia's schtick, but still. I don't actually have weight issues, but I get so tired of the idea that looking good clearly equals looking thinner.) She said, "You look great -- better than you ever have before. Whatever you're doing must agree with you."
I told her I was learning ASL, and she said she'd learned some way back in the day but forgotten most of it now. But she signed that sentence, which I was impressed by.
I really should check out Simmons' night school program. She said she thought if I went into librarianship I should become an academic librarian -- academic or some specialty like business, law, medical library. People tell me this, and I'm honestly not sure it's true, but I haven't hashed out exactly what "being a librarian" would look like for me ideally, so I just nod at people.
She said she can see me running my own library (♥!) and if I ever need reference letters, let them know :)
I forget how it came up, but my dad and I finally looked up "que sera sera." Was nice to know that we're right that in Spanish it would be "Lo que será, será.
There has been some minor controversy about the reputed language of the song title. The phrase "Que sera, sera" was an alteration by the songwriters of a quasi-Italian phrase, "Che sara, sara," a fictional family motto in the 1954 film The Barefoot Contessa. It is not Spanish, Italian, or French (but is acceptable in spoken Portuguese). The correct Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese renderings of the phrase are:
* Portuguese: O que será, será
* Spanish: Lo que será, será
* Italian: Quello che sarà, sarà
* French: Ce qui sera, sera.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_sera_sera#Trivia
I saw Mrs. Leary on my way back to the train, and she mentioned Glasgow. I'd heard about London, but Glasgow was news to me. Sigh. Last time I flew overseas people worried (it was summer of 2003, so people were still recovering from 9/11; I memoried this entry as "i'm not afraid of flying overseas even with a war") and I'm not enjoying starting to have these conversations again.
OriginalRoomie's family was actually not overwhelming (and they did dishes and bought lots of food including booze and ice cream).
My "For the Next X: A Benefit CD for RAINN" arrived, and I am underwhelmed. Anyone want it?
Sunday
I thought my string of dreams of destruction was over, but this morning I had an extended dream which was not only full of destruction but also actually hit me on an emotional level, as the previous string of dreams hadn't.
As I walked to the laundromat, a car drove by and a guy in it yelled, "Happy Canada Day."
OriginalRoomie's mom's chattiness is starting to grate on me.
However, she asked about where to go to get a new parking pass. I hadn't realized mine expired Jan. 1 rather than 12 months after I got it, so that was good. I have definitely been loaning them to visitors, though, and no one has told me they've gotten a ticket.
And they keep washing our dishes, so I can't complain too much.
Do I want to even have a birthday party this year? I'm already planning to party two weekends in a row, and the Saturday that looks like it'll work better for more people is the date of the CWM benefit concert.
Monday
I slept for ~9 hours. Rock.
OriginalRoomie's mom gave me a heart-shaped throw pillow with an American flag design. Um, okay. Last time she gave me a couple of nice gold-and-black ones.
I did a couple errands and went to the gym.
I was kinda tired, so I started in the weight room, did a few of the machines.
I decided to try the the StairMaster. Intensity ranges from 1 (lowest) to 20 (highest). I started at 1, which felt obscenely slow, and ended up spending most of my time at 7 (my average was 6.3).
I am not a fan of the machine. I kept stepping too far forward and thus smushing my shoe, and I felt like I had to keep watching the stairs because if I wasn't I would get off rhythm and that would be bad. I also felt like I was being bad to my back, like I was leaning down funny or something, but I couldn't figure out how to do it right.
I had plugged in 20minutes (Fat Burner program, 'cause why not), but I stopped at 10min 'cause I didn't feel like dying.
workout summary: 41 flights of stairs, 0.84miles
I stopped by the office to see if Katie had killed herself from boredom yet :) and chatted with her and Greg for an hour or two.
Katie said her mom has been stressing for the past 8 weeks trying to find a dress to wear to her cousin's wedding. This led to conversations about how when it's your own kid's wedding, and I insisted that my parents were not of that sort, was like, "They will wear clothes..." though this then prompted ideas (which I did not voice) about having a nude wedding. Which then reminded me of a recent conversation with Katie about a wedding one of her roommates is going to which will have a pig roast. I'm a vegetarian so of course I'm opposed to this in principle, but I also thought it would be such a great visual to have a giant pig roasting on a spit. Katie was joking about going dressed in tattered clothes with a nametag saying "Simon" and going off to die in the bushes.
I felt like I should go clothes shopping but was really not excited about that. Meh. Tomorrow will be more productive.
I saw Katherine from CHPC on my way out of the T station. She's reading Jasper Fforde, on her son's recommendation. Yay.
I hadn't realized they lived right on Curtis St. so close to Davis Square (for some reason I thought they lived up toward Medford).
What is up with our disappearing trash barrels? I know we started out with 3 (I recall boggling that we filled them up since there were only 5 of us living in bathe house, and my family of 4 growing up would fill up one trash bag maybe 3/4 of the way each week) but we've had 2 for a while now, but tonight we were down to 1. [Edit: Turns out DownstairsNeighbors are moving to a place closer to the Square, but I think all the trash barrels pre-dated them anyway, so that doesn't help.]
I do not react well to people fussing over me -- which I think is a control freak thing.
OriginalRoomie's grandma was moving stuff in the fridge so I could fit my stuff in when I came back with groceries, and I was like, "No, it's fine, I'll make it fit, don't worry about it {flaps hands}."
Hi, it's my birthday in a week. Craziness.
I downloaded Firefox 2.0.0.4 on my work computer.
I'm not sure how I feel about the glossy gray rounded edge style.
It gives me the red-underline spellcheck in all windows where there's a composing box, which is neat.
I'm really not sure how I feel about the fact that the close tab is on the active tab itself, not off at the end -- so you can't just quickly click closed a lot of them (unless you start at the far right end).
Also interesting (and kind of annoying), only a limited number of tabs are shown, so you have to use the drop-down menu at the end of the bar to select other ones -- though this does mean you can actually read the titles of your open tabs (the ones that are showing) which ultimately makes navigation easier.
In other news: I am tempted to switch to S2 so for the ease of seeing what other tags an entry has when viewing by tag [I also really like the sidebar of tiered tags -- as seen on emotionalperil, marginalia, nikitangel, etc.,], but I hate S2 on principle, and it's so unwieldy. Okay, my S1 mainpage ("lastn") style is tweaked from one that someone had already customized, but still, not that hard -- whereas S2 so often feels non-intuitive to me. *growls*
[I also continue to be annoyed by people who force their styles on the comment page. I have my flist set to give me ?style=mine, but when I'm browsing other journals, or visiting from Message Center or Memories, I have it inflicted on me. Yes, I know there are GreaseMonkey scripts for that. But still.]
And so often I'm browsing journals of people who do have S2 and it makes me sad that their entries aren't (consistently) tagged. Hi, "cataloguer at heart" = no lie.
/complaint (for the moment, on that topic, anyway)
***
The book my mom's boss is co-writing, turns out they don't need the References, which is good news for her in that she doesn't have to format them, but this makes the baby jesus me cry 'cause it's a nonfiction book, how can you not include References? And it's easy to list them all in the back, so it's not like they're gonna infringe on your reading experience. Are people really gonna be intimidated by the presence of superscript numerals? Oh the irony that the title is: "Come on, People! On the Path from Victims to Victors."
I felt tired after dinner (had kinda napped on the train ride home) but obviously 7:30pm is a bit early to go to bed -- especially when you're sleeping on the living room couch.
Excluding West Wing at work, this is the most tv I've watched in I don't know how long.
We watched Jeopardy (trivia learned: W. H. Harrison was the first POTUS to die in office).
My brother channel-surfed during the commercial breaks, so we watched a large chunk of The Simpsons -- "Eight Misbehavin' " [11.07] -- and some snippets Malcolm in the Middle -- "Secret Boyfriend" [7.06].
I was frequently like dead from laughter at The Simpsons. For shame. Hi, that show is not allowed to be that funny.
Malcolm in the Middle had a character who struck me as a Topanga knock-off, and my brother said I should know the actress, and indeed, it was Hayden Panettiere.
A couple minutes before 8:00 it was pointed out that Smackdown would be on soon. Aww, father-daughter bonding. The most recent pay-per-view was Vengeance: Night of Champions (all 9 titles up for grabs -- I hadn't even realized they had that many).
I was surprised to see Mick Foley in the clips since the last time he retired I thought it was for real. (I know that sounds ridiculous in this context, but I remember him talking about how much abuse he had put his body through, and how he has young kids and everything, so I felt much more like the actor was retiring than like the character was retiring.) I read somewhere later that the WWE Championship match was the champion versus four former champions, which would explain it.
Dude, in researching Vengeance 2007, "Match 6: Special Challenge Match for the WWE Tag Team Championship: (Champions) Deuce N' Domino with Cherry vs. Sgt. Snuka (Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka)" ::boggles:: I remember those from when I watched two decades ago (so I recall the latter as "Superfly Jimmy Snuka" -- and wikipedia-ing him, his son is "Deuce," of the competing tag team in that match). Okay, self, step away from the wikipedia (I could stay there for days).
Throughout the night we got clips of the past series of Edge-Batista matches. I absolutely loved the moment of Teddy Long coming out and saying, "I am ordering you back into that ring right now." And I totally felt for Batista when he lost that match to Edge on a count-out.
Anyway, the first match of the night was Ric Flair versus Carlito.
Ric Flair's movements felt so stilted. My dad pointed out that it was well-played on their part to give him a rib injury 'cause then you can blame it on the injury rather than on his advanced age.
The announcers were commenting on how Carlito had dumped Tori Wilson (one of the WWE Divas) all, "Why would you dump Tori Wilson?" as if personality match etc. means nothing. Yeah, I know I overthink everything and am clearly not their target audience.
My wikipediaing of the above-mentioned tag team Deuce & Domino post-dated my Friday viewing, and I had never heard of them before Friday. My immediate reaction was to think of karabair because of the names :) Their style reminded me of Grease which was weird.
Their opponents were these two black guys from Brooklyn. Before they came down the ramp they were totally checking out D&D's low-rider, which they had parked at the top. JBL talked about "ogling your car," and the whole way it was played was like some guys hitting on your girlfriend. It was very weird.
I felt like D&D were the bad guys, because of blatant cheating, but I also felt like the black guys couldn't be good guys, not the way they were coded.
Of course we totally called that after they got cheated out of their win they would make off with the car (the text elided how it got from the ramp to the parking lot). This was again very weird, 'cause it was played much like violating a woman, and the teammate who seemed more in charge was talking about all the money they could make off of selling it for parts and I was like, "Oh, the fiction that you're not getting paid royally for all this," and the other teammate wanted to pick up lots of chicks (he didn't quite use the phrase "fat-bottom girls," but almost).
We had two of the WWE Divas Victoria and Vicki (whose idea was that similarity?) fighting about "You think you're more wild than I am?" which of course made me think of Dar's cover of "Wilder than Her."
Passersby included Hacksaw Jim Duggan (! old school), Howard Finkel, Farooq
JBL: "I have my own football card." / Michael Cole: "I have my own WWE card." / JBL: "So does Howard Finkel."
Eugene codes as a bit Downs syndrome, which disturbs me. One of the announcers quipped that the Great Kahli was Kryponite.
Oh, and there were ads for a new tag team: a short blonde guy, and a tall skinny guy who seemed like a lobotomized Bushwhacker (which only this moment as I type it do I realize is a totally derogatory stereotype of Australians [okay, Wiki says New Zealand]; the connection never occured to me as a child). It was very weird.
Batista's match against Edge was a non-title match, and he was out for "punishment." I continue to really like Batista, but I have no interest in Edge, which makes any investment in the rivalry/saga difficult.
I also saw more commercials than I have in ages.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the Gossip Girl book series is getting its own tv show.
The first commercial I saw for Reaper looked like a Ghostbusters knock-off, and the title made me think of Dead Like Me, but the commercial with the line, "Your mom and I sold your soul to the devil"? For the win.
I hadn't realized that the Transformers movie involved an attack on mankind; I have vague memories of the cartoon (and toys, of course) from my childhood, but I don't think of
We saw plenty of ads for Just For Men -- hair color for guys.l One of them said something about the "real you," 'cause yeah, the color your hair naturally turns into isn't the "real" you. ::rolls eyes::
We saw the anti-drug commercial with the kid with the mirror -- 'cause your friends can't always see what they're doing to themselves or whatever, but it was weird because the boy reflected in the mirror really didn't look bad. A little mopey maybe, but I was expecting stringy hair heroin chic or something.
We saw lots of ads for Bowflex: 20min/day, 3days/wk, 6wks . . . yeah, I have great difficulty believing you could lose 70 pounds (as advertised) and turn into those cut, built models doing only that -- or even doing that with a rigorous diet change. I found myself thinking of jennyo and how she's been working out an hour a day like 5 days/wk, plus walking all over the place and a serious diet change.
Relatedly, I'm gonna sign up for:summer specialty program:
pilates on the ball [5:30 - 6:30 pm]
This dynamic and fun pilates routine on the stability ball and mini-ball will challenge balance while strengthening deep abdominal and back muscles. All levels of experience are welcome. Prior training with the stability ball, mini-ball, and/or with pilates is not necessary.
Tuesdays, July 17-August 7
cost: $40/member ($50/eligible non-member)
Sign up at the reception desk.
Saturday
My great-aunt Grace died early in June, and we went down to Falmouth for the Memorial Mass. It was held at Saint Elizabeth Seton Church, which is a very new church. It actually reminded me a lot of Protestant churches. Lots of bright stained glass.
This was the second time I'd ever been to a Catholic Mass, and I was annoyed that no program was provided.
I was looking at the Missal, and they place us in Ordinary Time, which kinda threw me as CWM has been saying "[ordinal] Sunday of Pentecost" on its bulletins. The calendar did note stuff like Birth of John the Baptist and Assumption of Mary.
The hymnal only had one line of music notes per line of words, which I liked.
The hymns were: "How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace," and something else which was familiar to me (Mom?).
That last hymn had optional inclusive language which we were asked to use -- we still said, "God our Father," but a line about brothers was changed to "with each other" and there was another change, too. I approved of
A soloist did the song: "And He will lift you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand."
The Scripture readings were from Wisdom, Romans, and John. I disliked that they just said, "The such-and-such reading is from the book of whatever," without giving chapter and verse. It reminded me uncomfortably of the olden days when lay people were entirely denied access to the Bible.
The Romans passage was the part about, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (from Chapter 5). I like that a lot,
The John passage was the story of Lazarus (from Chapter 11). I was struck by Martha saying, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day," because I thought Jews didn't believe in a Resurrection -- hence the focus on procreation, lineage, etc. (though on reflection, it occurs to me that the importance of bodily integrity would imply belief in a bodily resurrection). Jesus' response of "I am the resurrection and the life," is a well-known phrase, but it takes on powerful resonance in that contrast.
In his sermon, the priest talked about Grace as Martha and interpreted "I have come to believe" as process, which is an idea I like but isn't how I read this text. (If you have come to believe, you are saying you were in process but are done now. Am I wrong?)
I can't remember the context, but the priest said "Baptism is forever," which just wigged me out on a number of levels.
The priest kept talking about "sacrifice," and I kept wondering if they were going to take up an offering, but it was just prelude to the Eucharist. Hi, Catholicism, you wig me out like whoa. See also the prayers for the dead; I am uncomfortable with this concept to begin with (see also my issues with intercessory prayer, period), but I was also really confused as to what the Catholic belief in fact was, because there was both "blah blah blah she is in Heaven with God now" and "blah blah blah she will be raised up on the last day," and I was like, "Aren't those mutually exclusive?" I guess it could be that your spirit goes to be with God until the End of the World when the New Heaven and New Earth come and we all get new bodies of glory or something. Anyway, I was confused.
I continue to enjoy incense, though we were discussing afterward what the point is exactly. A symbolic purification was suggested. Given all the talk about sacrifice, I wondered if it was supposed to mimic the animal sacrifice of the Temple (Old Testament class, ftw).
I was watching the priest prepare the Eucharist, and he had a vial of orangeish liquid which he poured, and a vial of clear liquid which he appeared to put just a little of in -- I was guessing it was holy water. My brother later said, though, that it looked like people going up to get Communion only got wafers.
I was somewhat surprised to learn that my brother is Open Table. He also dislikes the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and I wasn't surprised that he felt it unfair for Catholics to exclude him from taking Communion, but he said things like, "Isn't the point that Jesus did it for everyone?" He thinks the Table should be open to all Christians and probably to all people. I said that at the churches I go to, they'll say that you just have to have a genuine desire for God or something like that, and he said that sounded right to him.
The priest kept doing "Peace blah blah be with you" and we would say, "And also with you," but it wasn't until like the third time that we actually exchanged signs of peace.
We did the Hail Mary and the Our Father (stop after "deliver us from evil," priest says something, then we said something but I didn't really know it). I expected there to be a recitation of the Creed as well, which there wasn't (though in looking back at my time at St. Catherine's, there wasn't there either).
Afterwards was the "collation" downstairs. They had wine! Oh, Catholics. (The last big church function I went to was Trelawney and Eric's wedding, where there was no alcohol at all because it was being held in a Methodist church.) Oh, and they had plastic flatware that looked silver; bravo.
There was a slideshow with soundtrack -- Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and another song I didn't recognize.
Various people gave eulogies, and like the priest they posited Grace as a sharp wit and etc., which surprised me as I think of her as tiny and quiet.
Tracy liked my dogtag. Grandma asked about it. Miles asked who "Tell" is; I said there was a period between the words.
We met assorted people: Patty (who my mom said is a librarian, though I didn't have a chance to follow up on that), Brooks, Arne (Norwegian, pronounced w/ long E), Arne's friend Mike, Rick and Ceri (pronounced like Kerry -- from Puget Sound area), Nancy (Harry's niece, who did some eulogizing).
I told my brother my wedding present to him would be a family tree.
The next day, my mom e-mailed us a brief outline. Her father was one of six children; that helps explain how there are so many cousins. And those six kids spawned sixteen (not counting step-kids). Our world is significantly smaller: our parents plus living siblings = 5, with a spawn of 4 (again, not counting step-kids).
The spread was mostly cold cuts, chicken salad, etc., but I had some fruit salad, a roll, and some chocolate cookies (which had peanut butter inside! which was yummy, but I felt there should have been tags for people with allergies) and was fine.
After 2 hours, people were dispersing and were asking us if we were going over to Arne's afterward. I was feeling physically tired (I could blame it on the half a glass of Chiraz I had, but I'd slept on the couch and had been on my feet and extroverting, so that was really the more likely culprit) and decided I had reached my socializing limit, so my mom stayed (her brother was already committed to bringing their mother back, so he could just drive her too) and my brother and father and I went home.
Coming back from the restroom I picked up some Catholic pamphlets. "Top 10 Reasons to Come Back to the Catholic Church" and "How to Get More out of the Mass" looked interesting, but clearly it was all about "What the Church Teaches: Same-Sex Marriage."
***
I finally went to Keegan's to get my watchband fixed/replaced. I also stopped by the library -- in part because I was purposely postponing going home to where OriginalRoomie's high-energy chatty family would be waiting.I was wearing my light blue shirt, Beth said it was a great color on me, was in fact my color. I tend to prefer darker colors, but I can see that. (And she didn't ask me if I'd lost weight! Which, okay, is Marcia's schtick, but still. I don't actually have weight issues, but I get so tired of the idea that looking good clearly equals looking thinner.) She said, "You look great -- better than you ever have before. Whatever you're doing must agree with you."
I told her I was learning ASL, and she said she'd learned some way back in the day but forgotten most of it now. But she signed that sentence, which I was impressed by.
I really should check out Simmons' night school program. She said she thought if I went into librarianship I should become an academic librarian -- academic or some specialty like business, law, medical library. People tell me this, and I'm honestly not sure it's true, but I haven't hashed out exactly what "being a librarian" would look like for me ideally, so I just nod at people.
She said she can see me running my own library (♥!) and if I ever need reference letters, let them know :)
I forget how it came up, but my dad and I finally looked up "que sera sera." Was nice to know that we're right that in Spanish it would be "Lo que será, será.
There has been some minor controversy about the reputed language of the song title. The phrase "Que sera, sera" was an alteration by the songwriters of a quasi-Italian phrase, "Che sara, sara," a fictional family motto in the 1954 film The Barefoot Contessa. It is not Spanish, Italian, or French (but is acceptable in spoken Portuguese). The correct Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese renderings of the phrase are:
* Portuguese: O que será, será
* Spanish: Lo que será, será
* Italian: Quello che sarà, sarà
* French: Ce qui sera, sera.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_sera_sera#Trivia
I saw Mrs. Leary on my way back to the train, and she mentioned Glasgow. I'd heard about London, but Glasgow was news to me. Sigh. Last time I flew overseas people worried (it was summer of 2003, so people were still recovering from 9/11; I memoried this entry as "i'm not afraid of flying overseas even with a war") and I'm not enjoying starting to have these conversations again.
OriginalRoomie's family was actually not overwhelming (and they did dishes and bought lots of food including booze and ice cream).
My "For the Next X: A Benefit CD for RAINN" arrived, and I am underwhelmed. Anyone want it?
Sunday
I thought my string of dreams of destruction was over, but this morning I had an extended dream which was not only full of destruction but also actually hit me on an emotional level, as the previous string of dreams hadn't.
As I walked to the laundromat, a car drove by and a guy in it yelled, "Happy Canada Day."
OriginalRoomie's mom's chattiness is starting to grate on me.
However, she asked about where to go to get a new parking pass. I hadn't realized mine expired Jan. 1 rather than 12 months after I got it, so that was good. I have definitely been loaning them to visitors, though, and no one has told me they've gotten a ticket.
And they keep washing our dishes, so I can't complain too much.
Do I want to even have a birthday party this year? I'm already planning to party two weekends in a row, and the Saturday that looks like it'll work better for more people is the date of the CWM benefit concert.
Monday
I slept for ~9 hours. Rock.
OriginalRoomie's mom gave me a heart-shaped throw pillow with an American flag design. Um, okay. Last time she gave me a couple of nice gold-and-black ones.
I did a couple errands and went to the gym.
I was kinda tired, so I started in the weight room, did a few of the machines.
I decided to try the the StairMaster. Intensity ranges from 1 (lowest) to 20 (highest). I started at 1, which felt obscenely slow, and ended up spending most of my time at 7 (my average was 6.3).
I am not a fan of the machine. I kept stepping too far forward and thus smushing my shoe, and I felt like I had to keep watching the stairs because if I wasn't I would get off rhythm and that would be bad. I also felt like I was being bad to my back, like I was leaning down funny or something, but I couldn't figure out how to do it right.
I had plugged in 20minutes (Fat Burner program, 'cause why not), but I stopped at 10min 'cause I didn't feel like dying.
workout summary: 41 flights of stairs, 0.84miles
I stopped by the office to see if Katie had killed herself from boredom yet :) and chatted with her and Greg for an hour or two.
Katie said her mom has been stressing for the past 8 weeks trying to find a dress to wear to her cousin's wedding. This led to conversations about how when it's your own kid's wedding, and I insisted that my parents were not of that sort, was like, "They will wear clothes..." though this then prompted ideas (which I did not voice) about having a nude wedding. Which then reminded me of a recent conversation with Katie about a wedding one of her roommates is going to which will have a pig roast. I'm a vegetarian so of course I'm opposed to this in principle, but I also thought it would be such a great visual to have a giant pig roasting on a spit. Katie was joking about going dressed in tattered clothes with a nametag saying "Simon" and going off to die in the bushes.
I felt like I should go clothes shopping but was really not excited about that. Meh. Tomorrow will be more productive.
I saw Katherine from CHPC on my way out of the T station. She's reading Jasper Fforde, on her son's recommendation. Yay.
I hadn't realized they lived right on Curtis St. so close to Davis Square (for some reason I thought they lived up toward Medford).
What is up with our disappearing trash barrels? I know we started out with 3 (I recall boggling that we filled them up since there were only 5 of us living in bathe house, and my family of 4 growing up would fill up one trash bag maybe 3/4 of the way each week) but we've had 2 for a while now, but tonight we were down to 1. [Edit: Turns out DownstairsNeighbors are moving to a place closer to the Square, but I think all the trash barrels pre-dated them anyway, so that doesn't help.]
I do not react well to people fussing over me -- which I think is a control freak thing.
OriginalRoomie's grandma was moving stuff in the fridge so I could fit my stuff in when I came back with groceries, and I was like, "No, it's fine, I'll make it fit, don't worry about it {flaps hands}."
Hi, it's my birthday in a week. Craziness.