June 2004 Archives

I know the fickle, here today-gone tomorrow-ness of the Blog, but I can't help to mourn the loss of several significant blogs that I've had the pleasure of reading over the past few years. Thomas of Homoesque and Jon-Jon from Strip of Dirty almost disappeared simultaneously, literally in a puff of smoke, leaving the Blog desolate and less well-written. Chris at Southern Jubilee has been gone for too long, leaving me high and dry and now Barnes at Sardonic-Bomb has left the building.

It's like losing a something great. Of course I wish everyone well in their new ventures, but still, they were like home in a way and I miss them.

Since I missed the whole "J.Lo" phenom of a few years ago, which, on the whole wasn't necessarily a bad things since I'd end up "B.Go" pronounced "beeeeee-go" which sounds...well, lets be honest, a lot less cool than either J.Go or M.Jo, i've decided to jump on the next 15-minute moniker:

I give you: "iBeau", pronounced "EYE-bo". It could be the next evolution of Taebo except with less sweating and more eating of cookies. It's all about the eating of cookies.

I do hold 40GB (forty "gee-bee's", as we say out here in Barryville) of totally useless information, though. Fer instance, in case you're wondering...Princess Projectra, of the Legion of Super Heroes, became my all time favorite heroine when she left the group in a post-traumatic haze after the death of her lover, Karate Kid, only to resurface many episodes later as the masked, mysterious, and utterly kick ass Sensor Girl. Unlike Brainac 5, who though Sensor Girl was the reincarnated Kara-El, aka SuperGirl, who had been killed in the cross-over bamboozled Crisis on Infinite Earths, I didn't care who it was because her power had changed from being able to cast illusions to being able to see through illusions and wouldn'tchaknowit, the entire concept of space and time was one big illusion. I mean, how deep is that?

All I'm saying is that whole useless ditty, albeit facinating, literally takes up less then .000000000001 gee-bee's so I have plenty more where that came from. Also, I don't have that little plastic piece that fits in my bottom. Well, that's not exactly true but that's something of something else for some other time, kittens.

And I should really go to bed. Honestly, this seemed funnier in my head. Promise.

I know, I KNOW, already. What? We just teleported from St. John, New Brunswick back to Barryville a fuckin' week ago and I had nothing to say about it? Welcome to my world...I'm all about the fun, fun, fun of the first few days and wanting to share the load and then, somehow, logging on at .75 cents a minute from the ship to explain how we ate lobster rolls in Halifax seemed somehow...less, if you know what I mean. The vacation actually ended up amazing at the little town of Bar Harbor, Maine and a quick trip up through Acadia National Park to the peak of Mount Cadillac, though. If you can go, GO. Jeff and I are definitely going back to snark around. It was pure New England in the very best sense of the word.

Then we got back and had another week off work. Two week vacations are now going to be mandatory in my life. While we were inside sewing pillows and having hot sex all over our new carpet (as IF, Mary. You have to know that if Jeff's not letting me eat cookies on the new carpet then I'm damn well not hanging out the vacancy sign on my ass), the workers were tearing out part of our wrap-around porch to frame and screen it in. The whole of it should be done sometime next week and then we can enjoy long, late evenings out on the porch without bugs and all those other pesky rural country thingies that make being outside in the fresh air and woods so annoying.

Sunday I had the pleasure of bolting down to Philly for a work conference. Strangely, I absolutely fell in love with the area I was staying in, somewhere called the Old City and just around the corner from the Liberty Bell. You could wander the streets and find amazing old, brick townhouses and churches with ancient cemeteries stuffed in the strangest, most out of the way corners. Beyond that, I happened on a corner restaurant/bar that seemed to be the hippest martini bar in Philly and I'm NEVER at the center of any hip Universe but there I was last night. I honestly have to say it was the first time I missed living in the city, but not New York City since I was never within four blocks of anything even remotely hip or happening there. So maybe my aversion isn't to cities as a whole, but just to NYC. Maybe there is city life left in my yet.

In all the getting-fat of the last two weeks, my vacation is ending today as I just happen to be turning 34. I woke up with this humongous zit this morning which I'm hoping is good luck in some other culture because it just made me feel that much more self-conscious today. I do have to say I don't have crow's feet and other than a few anxiety furrows on my forehead that are badges of some real, gut-wrenching worry-warting, I seem to be holding up fine. I know I've had older friends in the past who were on steady courses of Botox and chemical peels at this stage of the game so something must be working right. Regardless, the other day after Jeff and I picked out the silliest, gushiest b-d card for me, he let me know that for my birthday, he was going to let me toss his salad. That being said, I want to toss his salad like I want to lick a bowl of anthrax so I politely declined and opted for more...me-focused monkey love, which I collected on after getting home from Philly...all over the new carpet. It's my birthday and my will must be submitted to.

That's the story and I'm sticking with it.

So we landed in Portland yesterday to perfect New England weather: cold, blustery, gray and overcast and it was alright with me. We jumped into a rental car and spent the entire time driving down the coast to Ogunquit (as I found out since I butchered the name yesterday) and all points back up the coast. Most of the little towns seem built for tourism and you can't throw a rock without hitting a bed and breakfast but it was all uniquely New England and beautiful in it's particular way. I already new I wasn't going to get to hook up with J.Go on this Portland trip but I was secretly hoping he was going to be at Gilbert's Grill and Seafood Shoppe when we stopped in for a quick lobster roll.

We cruised all night and wound up in the Bay of Fundy off the cost of St. John, New Brunswick, this morning. We hooked up with a great cabby who shuttled us all over the town today, pointing out the most amazing Victorian architecture and points of interest. Most of the stories he told were dated to the historical fire in St. John that leveled 2/3rd's of the city in nine hours back in 1877. The rebuilding of the city was quite substantial and impressive. The one place we really wanted to visit was Pigeon Island that was set up as a quarantine and immigration station for New Brunswich, swelling the ranks of the population with mostly Irish and Jewish settlers. The island is completely abandoned now but is reputed to have amazing old cemetary's of those immigrants that didn't live to get off the island.

For anyone thinking about taking a cruise, it's an awesome vacation. It's all eating and relaxing and doing as much or as little as you want and seeing as much or as little as you want. We have a little casino on our ship and yesterday I started out with $40 and wound up last night going to bed with over $200 which for me is impressive since I never win those kinds of things.

We're pulling out of St. John in about an hour and then heading around to Halifax tomorrow then Bar Harbor, ME the day after and then home to Boston on Saturday. The trip is simply zipping by.