i feel a need to write. which occurs often.

but i don't know exactly what to say. which also occurs often...

boston was good in general. i'm back in california, and it's home now -- for sure. but sometimes, i feel like i'm still searching for a place.. vegas-the-puppy is snoring on the carpet right now, but in a few minutes, i'm sure he'll up and bounding around, looking for some fun. i'm tempted to take him on a walk -- i could use some fresh air to clear my mind -- but it's dark outside, and my neighborhood probably isn't the safest ever. and vegas is friendly, not quite fierce.

at the very beginning of the year, i said -- "hello 2007, what will you bring?" it was an innocent question, one that suggests that i look forward to the future and calmly take each day at a time (which i still think i do), but it was also a question that i don't think i was entirely prepared to face. each day, every month brings something new, something different. maybe i was too comfortable with the past and the present.


the red sox just beat the yankees at fenway park, 7-6, and swept all three games in their series this past weekend. i know the new players' names now, and i almost know their positions too. my favorite team is leading the AL east right now, and the pinstripes are waddling around in the middle... johnny damon still doesn't have any facial hair, and for some reason, that makes me really sad. but beantown is exiting fenway at near-midnight right now, happy. which makes me happy too. baseball makes me cry.

the beantown

i. am. going. to. boston.

i'm so excited. and i really don't have any idea why i'm so terribly ecstatic. i have a couple of good guesses -- and maybe it's the combination of all of them that make me thrilled.

i haven't been on vacation in a freakin' long time.
i haven't flown across the nation since last may... GASP!
i start to drool just thinking of all the wonderful food that i have to eat while back in boston. like ankara's ice cream and el pelon burritos and the other side cafe and oh gee, gwarsh!
i get to experience frigid weather. i mean really, california weather is just too perfect.
i love boston. it's the first city that i fell in love with. and i love it still.
i'm gonna buy me a new red sox hat.
speaking of the red sox, they won their home opener today! 14-3 against the mariners! beckett pitched an awesome game!
i'm gonna reminisce about college and cringe at everything that i blocked from memory.
boston is the only place that celebrates patriots day. i have no idea what patriots day is. but it's wonderful, and it's also marathon day, and you can't go wrong with marathon day.
maybe i'll wander around fenway.. and the commons.. and cambridge.. and boylston.
visit the old haunts.
and see my friends. lots of them. from all pieces of life.

i have good reasons to not be excited about boston too.... but i'm gonna try and enjoy myself. i think i deserve it.

hardly the norm

for new year's eve last year, i went down to LA for a long weekend, filled with old friends, sunshine, reminiscing, a wedding, and some hilarious memories. while down in socal, there was one afternoon/evening before neil's official wedding reception when 10 or 12 of us ran off to the beach and wandered around, finally settling down for some beers. while basking in the sunlight, we noticed something in the sky... some skywriting. and i'd forgotten to post it until now...

not quite the romantic message you'd expect to see in the bright blue sky....

want wi-fi? flush!

hehehehohohohahahaha

gotta love google: http://www.google.com/tisp/index.html
the new Google TiSP, free in-home wireless through your very own toilet.

and this too: http://www.google.com/tisp/notfound.html

tis the 4th month!

first off, holy cow, it's april.

secondly, i did nothing on this beautiful sunday. (well, let me rephrase that -- my lack of work or other commitments allowed me to relax, vege, and do my own thing today. that hasn't happened in a long while.) i woke up late, went running in 70-degree weather, randomly snacked on semi-healthy food, grocery-shopped, did some laundry, watched some useless tv, and sat around, enjoying a whole free day of wonderfulness.

and i also read a really interesting nytimes article.

way back when, in the days of non-profit policy work in the nation's capital, i often spent an hour (or two? or three?) reading news and news articles. some of it came with the work that i did -- making sure that i was up-to-date with the most recent happenings related to science and biodefense policy, but other news-reading was solely self-directed; i liked (and still like) reading and staying on top of intriguing stories and developing news. in particular, i like the new york times. it's probably good that i don't live in new york city itself because then, i'd be strongly inclined to spend hours upon hours reading the physical version of the paper. with the online one, i at least end up skipping lots of stories.

anyway, back to point -- and i do have one -- today, i read some stuff on nytimes.com and i came across this article -- "for girls, it's be yourself, and be perfect, too". at first glance, you might groan and think, "oh lordy, steph is reading crap, and who cares about the "tough" lives of girls, wah wah wah." or maybe, "there are better things to do on sunday afternoons than read nytimes articles about the females, etc". fine fine, both are probably true to an extent, but blame my background and my current work for my rabid interest.

it's a long, yet very well-written (as nytimes articles always are; i wish i could write for them) story about the hectic, contradictory, and crazy lives of numerous high school females at newton north, a prestigious public high school in the suburbs of boston. this strikes home to me 'cause 1) i'm familiar with the town of newton; 2) i'm a girl, and i was once, long ago, in high school, and amazingly, i still remember a few things from that time; 3) i work with kiddos nowadays, and i've got some pretty angsty ones.

these girls are high achievers who take loads of AP classes, participate in endless extracurricular activities, lead clubs and theater and groups, excel in sports and drama, stress out about college and standardized test scores and grades and classes, find themselves torn between finding enough time to sleep, enough time to do all those activities, finish homework, and remain sane, and enough time to have some free time. i think... i think i was one of those girls once upon a time.

it's funny though -- now that i'm looking at it all from a different perspective, i see how ridiculous everything is, and yet, at the same time, i encounter it enough to still understand those feelings. these girls write amazingly well -- their college essays are also published as links to the article, and their thoughts are coherent, elaborate, and deep. did we really think like that at the age of 17? i doubt i can write with such detail, imagery, or emotion anymore, but i'm pretty sure that i wrote like that 7 years ago. strange. one of the girls writes about the dichotomy between kentucky, her grandparents' home and her own background, and massachusetts, the current place she identifies with (and the vast differences between the two) -- and in a way, that essay reflects a lot of me too. even now, i end up explaining "tennessee" to friends and co-workers all the time. tennessee was weird enough in boston and dc; imagine the reaction i get when i mention it in california. ha.

the author also writes and talks about a bajillion other subjects and things that make sense to me -- stuff about dealing with varying pressures in this slightly-less-male-dominated world, about finding that perfect balance between schoolwork and free time (or hey, occupation and family/friends!), about deciding whether money or happiness (which job do you take, what do you major in) is more important. aha, life lessons after all. i guess they all started in high school. that's sorta disturbing that i haven't found a single answer yet... crappola.

anyway, for some reason, that nytimes story got me thinking, and so, i was compelled to write. i'm not entirely sure what my point is... (whoops, i guess i don't have a point?). maybe it's just amusing to me that i get questions about college and career and stuff from high school students, and i have answers ... but not really. hm.