Not all boys are evil

Of course, you knew that. I'm just being a little inflammatory for fun.

Last night, George and I went to the WFNX Heaven or Hell/1988 Prom/Halloween party at the Harp. Total blast, of course. But we're old, so eventually we had to take a break from dancing and sit down.

Separated in the crowd, I sat at a table in the corner and waited for him to find me. From there I could see him come into the back room, look around, not see me ... and then start talking to a young, cute, petite blonde. Officially I'm "not the jealous type" (at least that's what it says on my driver's license), so I watched for a few minutes, but then I got tired of waiting for him and walked over.

As soon as I approached, his face lit up and he put his arm around me as he introduced me to the promo girl handing out leather-bound thumbdrives. They were pretty big and clunky, and the 500 MGs wasn't nearly enough space to make it worth carrying one around. But he'd felt bad because no one would stop for her pitch at a party where everyone wanted Bacardi light-up devil horns.

I know there's been radio silence for a while. And you may have questions about the cast of characters. I'm sorry about that. But I'm trying to keep mum for another month or so, just until things sort themselves out. Until then, just rest assured that everything is fine (if incredibly busy), and that I'm very happy.

How's tricks?

Lately, when I say this (usually over IM) to folks, I'm met with confusion or bemusement. I was beginning to think that this is another one of my quaint regionalisms. But apparently it's just a bit rare and archaic:

From the "Hello, Howdy, Hi" section of Listening to America by Stuart Berg Flexner (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982): "Hello, Howdy, Hi, or words to that effect are used by most of us several times a day.Surprisingly enough, 'hello' didn't become a truly common greeting until the mid 1860s. It comes from 'holla!,' 'stop!' (French 'ho! + la, there), used to attract attention, hail a coach, ferry, etc. 'Hi' is just a variant of 'hey!'; it had been used as a shout to attract attention for over 500 years before we began using it as a greeting in the 1880s. 'What's up?' dates from the 1880s, too.'What do you know?' 'What do you say?' ('whata-ya know,' whata-ya say') and 'How's tricks?' date from the mid 1920s."

I'm suddenly feeling very inspired...

xkcd's Numerical Sex Positions

That satchel full of dynamite?

I didn't expect its detonation to involve projectile vomiting.
But now I know that's an actual descriptive term, not just hyperbole.

When you drank enough to send the very best

... and drunk dialing isn't good enough, Google introduces Mail Goggles.

Dude, I wish the Cokehead Alcoholic had had some kind of filter like this...

Virgin in Springfield hospital window

Haneway's dad is in the hospital, with the end stages of lung cancer. If you're the praying type, please send some his way, and for her whole family while you're at it. He's an amazing guy, and while we've all had about a year to prepare for the possibility of losing him, it's still hard, of course.

I'm going out to visit him today. At this hospital.

I love religious phenomena, and this reminds me of the one that touched our family during Cancerpalooza and its continued aftermath a few years ago. And I hope this is a good sign for his prognosis.

But I'm not looking forward to the crowds of the faithful, nor the cynicism of the detractors.

Daily horoscope annoyance and frustration

Scorpio (10/23-11/21)

Your expectations are growing too lofty right now -- you are aiming so high that you are bound to be disappointed when reality hits. You need to scale back your ambitions and believe that everything is happening the way it needs to happen, in the best time frame. Getting comfortable with having less control over where your life is going right now is easier than you think. All you need to do is open your heart and let someone else make the decisions for now.

Accepting a time frame? Having less control? Sure, that sounds like something I'm comfortable doing.

Though honestly, this is exactly what I needed to hear today, it's very appropriate.

What I did on my summer vacation

If anyone has noticed a big pile of rubble in my driveway over the summer, or that I've been really obsessed over issues like gutter drainage, or that I've been a little domestically obsessed in general... well, I've been doing some housework. I had our gravel-and-asphalt driveway torn up and replaced with pretty pretty paving stones.

This was my driveway earlier this summer. Old cracked asphalt with huge frost heaves down the middle. If your car rides low, you'd probably scrape the bottom against it. It was very hard to shovel, and impossible to plow.


This was the parking area at the end of the driveway. When the developers who sold me the house were renovating, they tore up the asphalt here, because it was so bad. But instead of pouring fresh asphalt, they just filled the area with gravel. Messy gravel, impossible to shovel in the winter, painful to walk on barefoot in the summer, murder on my heels all the time. And the kids in the neighborhood were always playing with the stones, scooping them up, piling them on the deck or the stairs, making for slippery dangerous walking conditions (remember that scene in Home Alone with the marbles?).


Since I live in a two-family condo, and the expense of any master improvements gets split between us, when the time came to fix the driveway, we decided to do a really nice, top-of-the-line job with pavers. They're easy to plow, smooth on bare feet, last forever and really up the resale value. They cost more than asphalt, but they'll never heave from frost, and we'll never have to redo the work. Check out the driveway now!


And the parking area in back!


I really love it. You have to come over and see it! We had some bumps along the way, including a drainage issue that added about 20% to the final cost. But now all the gutter water is diverted to a system that waters our front garden, instead of running into the street and making puddles, or ice. And because I got so involved and informed about the project (they joked that I'm more familiar with the product catalog than they are!), and I was so nice to the workers (I brought the guys drinks and/or donuts in the mornings), they said I'm their favorite customer!

Yes, yes, I know that, at least in part, they were sucking up so that I give a good recommendation (as I'm the kind of person folks go to for recommendations). But whatever the reason, they threw in a bunch of work on the back steps and walkway... for FREE!

God I am so tired.....

Feeling kind of beige....

Maggie Kennedy, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be:

Khaki Salmon Palin

Who knows, Khaki Salmon Palin, you just might be president one day!

It's awesome when some random internet quiz makes you feel totally validated

Maggie's result for How geeky are you?...

Cool Extrovert

Hey! You scored 43% Geeky, 74% Cranial and 19% Introverted! Brilliant! I honesty wanted to call this category "the perfect human being" but I thought too many reading recent results of other test takers may take offense.

I do believe this category is most likely the smallest percent of the population. (I mean, if everyone were like this wouldn't the world be a better place?) You, my friend, have balanced intelligence with an incredible personality, and have found a way to avoid geekiness.

You may find the combination of personality and brains can sometimes come off as conceited, and there are instances when you may bump heads with people. Being as people-smart as you are, you may find empathizing and listening to others, even if you know they are incorrect in something, can avert even the biggest problem.

Take How geeky are you? at HelloQuizzy

Money well spent

When a rock-climbing 27-year-old hottie hardbody (yes, yes, it’s the Captain) called my breasts “gorgeous” this weekend, in a playing-doctor scene that really should have given my almost 38-year-old self some serious body anxiety . . . well, I have to admit, it made the $10K I spent on that reduction a few years ago totally worth it. I promise, I will never again complain and get all insecure that they’re a teeny bit lopsided.

But what about B, you might ask? Well of course I’m thrilled when he admires me as well. But he’s not objective. And just because I felt validated by the Captain does not mean I don't also appreciate it when it comes from B; it’s just that I was prepared for the young hardbody to be a harsher judge, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

Oh, calm down. It's okay, B knows all about it. He let me play out some lingering distractions as I conquer my long-standing commitment-phobia. This unexpected hook-up with the Captain came after two years of flirtatious IMs and racy text messages that I never thought would ever transcend the typed word.

Sample exchange #1:
Captain: Why are you wearing panties? Why aren’t they around your ankles?
Maggie: Because I’m getting cash from the ATM

Sample exchange #2:
Captain: It’s hot and I’m in bed. Are you naked yet?
Maggie: Nope, playing Scattergories with my roommate.
(Later I fed the cat, too.)

Holy shit holy shit

Speechless:
DFW found dead this morning

Okay, maybe a few words of babble -- It took me a full year to read Infinite Book, only because it was too heavy to bring on the subway with me. But I loved every minute of it, and still refer to it often. I once met David Foster Wallace at a book reading in Union Square. I found him kind of superior and unfriendly, but hey, he was a genius! Also, I was at the end of a very long line of fans, and the woman in front of me had, very heavy-handedly, been hitting on him, so it was understandable if he was running low on patience and wanted to get back to being a genius.

He was an author I found myself thinking of in frequent random moments. As much as I love Faulkner and Marquez, and of course Joyce, Wallace was the one who colored, informed and spoke to my actual life, instead of taking me to other places.

I am sad.

my life as a scene from "Office Space"

So, at work right now, I'm consulting on someone else's project, as I am the resident expert on a tool that they want to include in a new section. This project has a Basecamp discussion board. And our office has a project manager who tries to keep all the active projects moving along in an orderly fashion.

This morning, someone had a question for me on the group discussion. I need to get an answer elsewhere, I have already sent out an e-mail asking for the info, and now I'm waiting for a response, which I expect later today.

The project manager just came up to my desk, leaned against the wall of my cube, and asked if I'd seen the message. ("Hi, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports... Did you get that memo?")

I explained to him that I did see it... ("Yeah. I got the memo.")
... and that I'd already requested the info... ("And I understand the policy.")
... and that I'm expecting an answer soon... ("And the problem is just that I forgot the one time.")
... at which point I'll post the answer to the discussion board. ("And I've already taken care of it so it's not even really a problem anymore.")

The PM then told me that he needs me to look at the question that was posted on the message board... ("Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now.")
and provide an answer. ("So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!")

I told him again that I'm already working on an answer.
He suggested that I post on the message board that I'm working on getting an answer.
...
At which point I asked him if he'd ever seen Office Space (and the guy who sits next to me burst out laughing).

The Netflix subsidy program we all subscribe to

I once kept Children of Men out for over a year without watching it, and I'd already seen it.

A fine time to not be pregnant

Grub Street came up to Boston in search of cheap lobster. Serves them right for going to the Crab.

I believe I just got my idea for what to serve at that dinner party in a month....

Baby Whisperer: my next career

I am a Baby Whisperer extraordinaire, and Auntie Maggie to countless children at home and abroad. But I always figured this was a calling, not a vocation.

Until this weekend. I just taught a seven-month-old baby to swim! First I got him acclimated to being in the water. If he got upset, we stepped out for a while, then we went right back in. Once he was calm with me holding him in the water, I put him on his back.

First I held his head with one hand and his back with the other. Then I let go of his back, but kept his head up. Then, once I saw that he was holding his face above water on his own, I slowly... let go.. of his head! And he was floating! All on his own! He was wailing a little hit, but his mother said that was the sound he makes when he's determined and trying to do something, not the upset sound.

Soon he stopped making sounds at all, and just floated. Then he started to kick! It was lovely to see.

After a bit of that, I turned him on his belly, but didn't let go. Still, he kept his face out of the water, and kept kicking. He even paddled a little!

Videos on YouTube. E-mail me and I'll send you links. I'm seriously considering "infant swim instructor" for a second career.

Afterwards, he was wiped out from working so hard, and all that excitement. We wrapped him up warm and snug, and he crashed hard in his mummy's arms. The next day, I took him on a pony ride at the horse show. We joked that I'd teach him to ride a bike next week, followed by bourbon and cigarettes.

What color is your aura?

The magnificent Nina has posted a color quiz for us all. As my life is very introspective lately, any and all analysis tools are helpful.

Especially when they're pretty spot-on. Check this out!

maggiebex took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Strives for a life rich in activity and experience..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

My Existing Situation
Sensitive; needs esthetic surroundings, or an equally sensitive and understanding partner with whom to share a warm intimacy.

My Stress Sources
Wants to overcome a feeling of emptiness and of separation from others. Believes that life still has far more to offer and that she may miss her share of experiences if she fails to make the best use of every opportunity. She therefore pursues her objectives with a fierce intensity and commits herself deeply and readily. Feels herself to be completely competent in any field in which she engages, and can sometimes be considered by others to be interfering or meddlesome.

My Restrained Characteristics
Feels that she cannot do much about her existing problems and difficulties and that she must make the best of things as they are. Able to achieve satisfaction through sexual activity.

Insists that her goals are realistic and sticks obstinately to them, even though circumstances are forcing her to compromise. Very exacting in the standards she applies to her choice of a partner, and seeking a rather unrealistic perfection in her sex life.

My Desired Objective
Strives for a life rich in activity and experience, and for a close bond offering sexual and emotional fulfillment.

My Actual Problem
The fear that she might be prevented from achieving the things she wants leads her to play her part with an urgent and hectic intensity.

Fights against restriction or limitation, and insists on developing freely as a result of her own efforts.

Sure, YMMV, but I enjoyed it. If you take the quiz, please let me know how well you feel it got you.

Speaking of my life and what I want to achieve with it -- please continue to send whatever positive vibes or wishes or karmic juju or whatever your magic of choice in my direction for a desirable outcome. After all, you know how I "pursue my objectives with a fierce intensity and commit myself deeply and readily"!

PS: And then I could not stop myself from taking it again. Diff results, some overlap, still pretty good:

maggiebex took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Longs for a tender and sympathetic bond and for a ..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts get fined

While I applaud their continued efforts, I guess sometimes a little caution is in order.

Amphibious

Michael Phelps Returns To His Tank At Sea World.

because we love the Onion.

Monkey patterned baby blankets!

From lovely Rikshaw Design.

Ow, now my womb hurts. Need baby to wrap in monkeys, STAT!