OTHER pics...

i've been meaning to show you (as per multiple requests to replace the bloody t-shirt)

brushin' the ole teeth

Abby's gay pride jello. can you believe that thing?! only a transplant from Utah could pull that off

Scooper bowl 2007


Mom reading with Max on her head



What does this painting make you think of? (is it just me?)





I had a wicked bad cold

Some kind of Special

yeah, so yesterday we got to help out at the special olympics, you know it was really fun. Got to cheer and shout and flirt like crazy. hold hands and ask people the names of their pets.
all of that athleticism flying around I guess I was feeling festive or envious maybe, I don't know: I kept leaping over the chains sagging down between posts--you know, to keep the cattle out or something. Abby was too chicken to leap. she prefered the cautious approach: throwing one leg over at a time. which made me laugh at her and call her a wuss.
anyway, fast forward a few hours, I was going over one such chain and somehow got my feet caught up in it and fell over hard. tree in a forest, just really SMACK straight on my chin.
I thought I was cool at first and tried to shake it off, until I noticed my hands and arms were wet and looked down to a whole lot of blood coming out my chin. yeah me-here to help out and I'M the one who ends up in the emergency room. YEAH MAN.
The best things to come of it:
a) look how tough my volunteer T-shirt looks (blood stains are a definite improvement to the pink parrot)
b) while other volunteers were out hunting down abby (my ride) I got some TLC from my super-crush who happened by just in time to see me covered in blood :) got the damsel in distress thing down. word
c) woot. more stitches (this will be a scar upon an already existing scooter accident scar from when I was 6) I got 10 new stitches: 2 inside because I cut down to the bone.
The worst thing to come of it:
a) paying out of pocket since I have no health insurance

I am going to mexico mid-July. If anyone wants to come hang out with me you are so welcome. It's just going to be donkeys and sunshine.

what a cutie

ARE YOU READY KIDS??

oh kids! what can I tell you. things are going faster than meat on Monday. I can't seem to pin myself down

pinp pipinp pin pin

(tinkly pinning down noises)

I am sick of ABDICATING. no more abdication

Here's what I am reading (with ne'er a suggestion in sight):

the Grapes of Wrath (my bday present to myself this last year)

some Audre Lorde

more Anne Lamott

I have been on a weird biographical tangent lately

I am going to start writing about Boston. Because that is what this blog is all about.

his life was a one in a million shot

who in their right mind

would leave this?

squint your eyes and look closer

oh hi. I am writing to you for the week. it's turned into something like that. I am becoming so predictable-I think I have domesticated. hahaha ha. boston town has warmed up, but it's all wet. we live next to a lovely pond where people fly fish and jog and deal drugs in the bushes. a new flavor from coolidge corner land of trader joseph's and community composting workshops.

Abby's favorite thing to do is get lost navigating the city streets and my favorite thing to do is to hold the city map (it's an atlas really) and go "uhhh..." I am trying to teach her how to use public transportation.

man what can I tell you. I got a haircut. I'd show you, but my camera is still mad about that armpit incident. I am reading some trippy stuff-lots of nonfiction, but it's summertime now and I'm ready for a novel. any suggestions?

so dang fast

lake winnipesaukee was a success ang buhay ko! yeah baby, I made it under 2 hours with 14 BIG FAT seconds to spare. what a victory, I didn't think I would actually make it.
Happy mother's day to mom.
Abs and I had a nice summery dinner at our friends' home--homegrown asparagus and corn and organic chickens. I don't think my body even knows how to deal with the real foodness of it all. this is us farting around on the cape after the race. icing our sorry ankles in the ocean

the Davenport and me

Well the davenport (abby) and I finally moved in together. kind of. I guess technically I am living on our friend Riva's couch until we can work out the bogus bed we bought off craig's list and until the person whose room we are taking gets her stuff out (would be nice), but probably sometime tomorrow it will be official.
Our friendship has never made a whole lot of sense, but only in trying to move in together have I fully realized how ridiculous it all is. something about fish and birds...
I think I'm the fish.

("Hweeeee....want to give me an example?"-Andrew Beck)

well, like yesterday trying to move stuff around so we could atleast sleep on the floor I somehow ended up stuffing shoes into this ridiculous hanging shoe contraption of Abby's that crinkles when you touch it like a bib at the dentist's.
my shoes: 1 pair of dress shoes, running shoes, flip-flops (no vans...sniff sniff...--see March 5th posting).
Abby's shoes: freaking fifty million.

Abby calls my music "ballads of the drugged-up lost soul". her music gives me flashbacks to EZ listening with Delilah in Julie Thompson's mother's car on the way to High School,
interspersed with waves of nausea.

me: Indian food, sushi, independent film
abby: Friday's, Disney channel specials

we both like NPR

I guess you get the idea. what amazes me is that we somehow still enjoy eachother so much. I think it has something to do with the way Abby, for all her straight-lacedness, swears at bad traffic. that and our mutual delight in mocking ourselves and eachother.

School ends this week. my job (Kittergirls) ends with this month. then it's really hard to say. I am still planning on coming back to good old Provo next January, probably for a semester. so woo hoo! bust out the wasabe

have a happy May Day

moving on

goodbye Naples Rd

(better email me before you write)

(should any of you write)

okay I know I can be more of a leap first and look later kind of a girl and so I will often get really excited about things that turn out to be CRACK HOUSE MOMENTS (ex: volley ball in jr high, calling Mandy at 2 am New Years morning to profess my love for the Jew, Joanna Newsom) but THIS is the real deal yo!
Regina Spektor is my best discovery since Fiona Apple a year ago (I know, I found Fiona shamefully late in life, but at least I found her). Regina is RADical! Here's a little taste, but don't be shy after you hear this one to poke around a bit, because they're all SO good

Samson (dedicated here to my sweetest downfall! ohhhh!)

I didn't take that first picture

I just like it because Perez looks hot! can I please reincarnate as a real runner.

Well last Monday was the Boston marathon. I was feeling kind of gloomy, like the weather, but I decided to walk down to the race (just down my street really) to cheer on the runners for a bit. I ended up by this great old woman in a big old LLBean parka and with a thick boston accent. Though we were around mile marker 20, it was still pretty early on in the race and so runners were only trickling by, letting her cheer on every runner by name--or at least by whatever their most distinguishing feature/article of clothing was. "That's right Notre Dame!" "Go army!" "Moustache, yes!" she was great. after she left I was kind of down--I really wanted to slip her my phone number and ask her to call me every so often and leave inspiring messages on my voice mail

Since Monday our weather has looked up--the sun came out (it's been about 3 weeks since we'd seen it) and today we were suddenly in the 70's (as opposed to high 30's that windchill turns into low 20's). I know mom loves it when I talk weather.

I've been feeling sunnier too. You know I could use a good hug, but who couldn't? we probably all could. and I get told "i love you" like 20 times a day by three cute little girls, so how can I complain. I dropped my camera trying to take a picture of this monstrous bruise by my armpit and now the video part won't work. dang it aall. no more youtube rants.

older people

Rebecca's eighty something mother suffering from dimensia has been our longtime visitor. I run into her in the hall sometimes and admire her inspiring collection of knitted accessories--booties, hats, those parka things. sometimes I get urges to set her free when no one's looking--like the last (yes, mandy, LAST) surviving ant in the kitterman's antfarm--except like that ant I know she wouldn't make it long on the street. I guess she's also half deaf, so Rebecca and other members of the family are always yelling these days. There's just so much of "WINDOW!!! mom, I said do you want me to open the WINDOW?!" a girl like me can take. and only so much that poor old lady can take I'm sure. When I met crazy people I used to always feel grateful that they weren't my parents, now I add and that I'm not theirs.

This is not Rebecca's nuts mother, but it is a picture of the loveliest fish in the sea. Don't you just want a kiss?

Happy belated Passover

Well last week my bud Aimee and I decided to crash a passover. For some reason we decided we could pass as Jewish--my old roommate thought I was a Jew. she was Mexican. (which all resulted in a lot of weird Anne Frank in Mexico poetry that my professor told me was too politically incorrect to ever see the light of publishing). Aimee, on the otherhand, couldn't look more Sacandanavian.

Anyway, our dreams of kind of benignly blending in died pretty quickly--the rabbi greeted us at the door with big boisterous Hebrew--probably something like "happy passover"--and all we could do was stare at him and giggle nervously before we ran away to a table in the back. I was hoping we could hide amidst one of the families too preoccupied with their ADD children to notice our obvious Gentile-hood, but instead we were joined by Stephanie (a twenty something-very Jewish) and two (fifty something) newly divorced Bachelors--Eli and Moshi--looking for love. I tried hinting to Stephanie that we weren't Jewish by saying this was only my second passover (thank you Brother Ludlow) and that she would have to help us along, but she just said she hadn't done a lot of formal passovering herself and that we could help eachother out (oh crap).

Well real passover is a far cry from the watered down grape juice version of brother Ludlow. lots and lots of long Hebrew prayer songs (lots and lots of mumbling and moving my lips so people don't catch on that I have no idea what is going on), lots of strange ritual food combinations ("take a bite of matzah"-"now take a bite of your lettuce with some horseradish on it"-"now make a matzah sandwhich with the lettuce and horseradish and take a bite"-"now put the matzah on your head and dance like a chicken").

The real delight of the evening was Eli deciding that I would make a great wife number three. How these men interpret my discomfort and complete lack of interest for mutual flirting is always a mystery to me--but it happens enough to keep my wondering.

The good news is that as the evening went on everyone got a little drunker--even Aimee and I on our grape juice loosened up after four hours of insanity--and by the end no one cared that we had no idea what we were doing, the kids and the charismatically childlike rabbi were dancing around the room, Moshi was trying to help Aimee see that her French ancestry really came down through the house of Isreal and I was giving my email address to Eli for free Hebrew lessons. Aimee and I stumbled home, arm in arm singing "DAYENU!" to the night sky--maybe Kristia was right. I felt pretty Jewish.

Meanwhile in Boston town--I am looking to move. checking out South American NGOs for some summer work. doing well.
love you, erin.

to whit

For those who don't know, Whitney Nelson, my brother Andrew's girlfriend/almost wife, died last Sunday. Andrew is doing amazingly well and is still lost in his missionary work in Pennsylvania.
Last week I was too sad to write my own words. poetry is made for those kinds of times. I felt for a little while that the world was all sold-out of joy. but already I find it creeping back, slowly. shy and awkward--a little more jaded, more world weary, but essentially, the same.
'This is what the atonement's good for', Abby reminded me last Sunday night walking around Walden pond where the sun played on low branches that rose up out of the water like glorious forearms, 'for swallowing up pain and guilt and regret and death--leaving us with clean lessons.'

Now that Whitney is gone I am suddenly flooded with all the lessons I should have been accepting from her while she was still alive.
that life is good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of it, that people are good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of them, that there are a million ways to be alive and who am I to judge instead of love.

I want to thank her for what she gave me: the confidence to wear high heels as a tall person, a working knowledge of the wonders of hairspray (why didn't I know about this sooner?), the blonde streak in my hair.
I want to thank her for challenging me. my feminism, my femininity, my relationship with Andrew and with my mother.
I want to say I'm sorry for not accepting these lessons more gracefully.

I love you Whitney Nelson. We were growing our hair out in a race to our elbows. I think of you when I eat tortilla soup.
I am glad that I knew you and I am better for it.

LOVE.erin

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W.H. Auden

Good Week

the worst day

well Paul just came upstairs to confirm my fears: due to an odious series of events my shoes accidentally got thrown out with the trash this morning.

Feeling HOT

yeah baby.

'

life has been a bit nutty lately. my day(s) off are devoted to one task at a time (as per the depressed people article mom sent me "don't set your goals too high/don't expect to actually do anything with yourself"): go to the library, call someone back, get milk--any one of those could make for a full day. today was phone BU. I ate my toad in the morning, but then the rest of the day you have toad breathe.

'

You can see from the picture how I feel about oranges. I really love them. I feel we are kindred organisms. mandy is coming to visit me on the 13th of march-isn't that nice. what a sweet pants.

My body is feeling quite healed but all the same I've traded the boston marathon for a half marathon in NH in May. my ward actually has a big team that runs it every year. we are: Team Sweet Feet--Faster than the Green-line. cute. I don't think I actually am faster than the green-line these days. I need new running shoes that don't make my feet feel like spaghetti. smelly Harris, I think about calling you just about everyday, but at this rate we are going to be grannies. maybe you should call me. Big crazy Jewish men, on the otherhand, can please give it a rest.

happy day off

It's Friday--what I lovingly refer to as my day off, when really I only work 2 days a week and go to school 1--and in honor of that I took a walk this morning over ice and snow to visit the frozen Charles.
two things you should know:
1. it FINALLY really snowed here
2. ever since I realized that the river in Eternal Sunshine is the Charles I have been obsessed with the idea of it freezing over
Well, it finally has and I don't know where the geese went--they must be hiding in a Dunkin Donuts somewhere cursing New England weather.
I have these horrible cover letters that I saved for myself to write today (on the day off) and now I want to do anything but*. I know Mom's shaking her head--she's going to send me an article on procrastination. anyone want to reenact the motorcycle diaries with me this summer? I'm looking for adventure.
erin

*so far: re-figure out the Kalai song on my guitar that I already figured out and then didn't write down and then forgot, learn the countries of the caribean, make weird peanut butter/flax seed contraptions (a sure sign I need to grocery shop), email links to stupid things to mandy

Frank O'Hara and I wish you a happy saint valentines day

Morning

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

--Frank O'Hara

give me something to go on

february 5th

hey there
it's been so long I feel a little shy...let's talk about the weather
Winter has finally come to Boston. yeah. It is, however and according to the BFF Abby, "stupid ugly winter". Stupid ugly winter is when you have all the crappy stuff about winter (the cold, dead things, ice, dirty half melted snow) without the good stuff about winter. you know the good stuff--winter wonderland type stuff. I think I experienced that one night--I was coming home late and it had just snowed (probably 3 inches or less) and coming up to my house nobody had walked in it yet and even though it was night the snow made everything bright. it made my porch seem sacred--like I should sleep in the yard rather than muss up the snow. that only happened one time.
so for those who know and those who want to know!!!!I somehow tore or stressed an intercostal muscle and if I didn't know my anatomy better I would say it's a big fat pain in my BUTT. (Abby, who isn't an anatomatician told me it must be my metatarsal) For a few days it was so bad it hurt to laugh--I was telling people to please try and not make me laugh. the worst part is I can't run on it. I tried (stubbornly--against cyber-doctor's orders) the other day and after 2 1/2 miles I was ready to cry and I had to stop. I think I did cry on the way home. running makes me feel strong and this stupid muscle makes me feel like an invalid old lady--"hold up there wipper-snapper! where's your hurry!". After a couple days of resting it, though, it feels a lot better and in the interim there's always yoga! yeah yoga!
School is going well--I am part time right now, just two and a half classes (one is a block class). the best one is the epidemiology of AIDS-really interesting. I might save someone yet. I saw a man in the subway yesterday with a sign "living with AIDS" I didn't know what to think, I don't understand that kind of humility--anyway you look at that word. I gave him my T-card because I didn't have any money. I am reading too much at one time, including:
mountains beyond mountains (almost done--in fact it's due at the library tomorrow)
on beauty (thanks Merran--I got the one with voices. I listen to it while I knit)
dummy's guide to meditation
some "so you're a retard" self help books
On Poverty (again!! I thought I was done trying to read this book, but then the library had a cute soft cover copy on display--I am a sucker for cute soft covers)
etc. etc.
Jeff, I lost the scrap of paper where I wrote your recommendation--please recommend it again.
erin

maligayang bati kaibigan

dream of yu

I like you spelled that way--that way maybe I dreamt of you, but maybe I dreamt of some Chinese man instead

I dreamt that you were fresh home off your mission. home was this mix of provo and boston. your hair was long (because you hadn't cut your mission hair yet--weird dream fact that doesn't make sense now). we kept riding around in this mini van and we kept taking these shortcuts by riding along the subway tracks. I knew we weren't supposed to do it and like 3 times the subway came along and almost ran us over, but they never honked at us so we just kept doing it. finally I got sick of almost getting run over so we started biking everywhere. frank was alive and you carried him everywhere we went under your arm--like mandy carries scoop. I told you that there was so much music I wanted you to hear it was crazy and we were both really excited for me to play it for you. for some reason we rented a hotel room. I left the room to get something on my bike and had this whole dream montage of Erin on her Bike (like the Ringgo goes Walking Alone Outside montage) and then when I came back I realized that we shouldn't stay in a hotel room because mom probably really wanted to see you and because I didn't want to spend money on one when we could just go home. from outside on my bike I called to you to come out (the hotel was Grandpa's condos). you stuck out your head and said "Erin!" in a whiney, leave me alone voice. your face had a partially drawn mustache on it, like I caught you in the middle of play acting like a little boy and you said "I just need some time to think!" my feelings were hurt because I really wanted to be with you, but a guy nearby had heard it and was kind of shaking his head like he was on my side so I just said "well that's REALLY great!" sarcastically, more for him than for you. than as I was leaving I told you to take care of frank. you complained, but I said I couldn't ride with him on my bike (which is when I realized that somehow you had) and you said okay. I suddenly felt kind again, instead of hurt, and said I would just go ride around for a while and give you some time. as I was riding away I thought how you were just off your mission and of course you had a lot to think about and I decided I would ride home for you and get you your journal to write in and maybe some church music to listen to. I was worried about leaving Frank. probably because I was starting to wake up, I realized that he was actually dead now, and so since he wasn't real I didn't really have to worry about him.

love is an imaginary friend

happy MLK day

hey! I miss my family so much this week it's just silly. thank you for the little ways you all keep in touch. and what are the chances of moving the family headquarters to someplace more palatable (California? Oregon?).
It's a rainy Martin Luther King jr. day, school starts tomorrow and I am just trying to sort it all out
Right now I am blanket applying to all these different internships (Dear Madams and Sirs, I am so crazy passionate about ____________
fill in the blank:
AIDS
the Anti-Smoking campaign
Obesity
Sri Lanka)
and it's funny how something so little could end up dictating my whole career. When you're little and you want to save the world you don't realize that your ability to change anything will be pared down to what you can fit in a wheelbarrow and you'll run around trying to knock people in and you'll be lucky and happy to catch some flying spectacles.
sometimes I'm down to thimbles

I don't really have anything to say, I just wanted to replace that embarrassing i-pod pic
Erin

for anyone who knows how long I have been waiting to make this purchase

after this I promise I'll be a good non-consumer

vegans eat NUTS

Hey yo, it's been a nuts week: started with my Jew & ended with cadavers.

The vegan thing is pretty cool. I don't really understand how it can last for too long but my body's totally into it--I feel agile clean light, good really. After 4 days of almost vegan perfection I really felt like I was reaching some kind of higher plane or something--then the Jew had to take me out for buffalo wings and icecream!!!! Ha ha very funny. The next day my BFF said if I could break vegan for a guy I could break it for her and we ate pizza.
So I worked non-stop the first half of this week and then was on some kind of social knee-high for the rest--pretty much out and about with folks every night, culminating in tonite's midnight excursion to the "Body Worlds" cadaver exhibit. It was AWESOME! I love the human body so much I've got to say it makes my world go round. give me a nice dissection, a couple cross sections, throw in an anomaly or two--I turn into a shameless geek! Seriously they should have let me give tours: everyone was leaning in to hear our conversations, turning down their lame hand held tourguide things
This week:
continue to chase the allusive 8 minute mile
make some new years resolutions (can I still do that?)
play it cool like the fool I am

love you, erin
ps
Brooklyn's blog ROCKS! and I love her (and Savannah & Madison)

high resolution

well supposedly I am trying out the new year vegan, but I just ate a chocolate chip cookie and only realized a moment afterwards what I had done. oh well it was organic so maybe that's not quite as bad??
happy new years again--I am sitting at the Kitterman's tonite--Wilbur the cat keeps eyeing me lustily! ha ha I cut off my bangs--they were getting so high maintenance I was started to feel silly. the funny thing is I was with Ray (my cousin who lives near Boston) and his family and his 4 year old Alora just recently took scissors to her own bangs. one night brushing our teeth she looked up at me and said "your hair is weird" that's when I suddenly realized that we have the same haircut only her excuse is she's 4. what's mine. I think I'm in love with a big fat Jewish man-Kristia will be so happy all her dreams for me can come true.

our HAPPY NEW YEAR playlist

Pretty Good Year-Tori Amos
Seasons of Love-Rent
All This Time-Sting
Man in the mirror-Michael Jackson
Rock the Casbah-The Clash
Dancing in the Moonlight
I Don't Feel like Dancing-Scissor Sisters
Strangers in the Night-Mel Torme
The River of Dreams-Billy Joel
Let Go-Frou Frou
A Long December-Counting Crows
This is the Last Time-Keane
Midnight Rider-Joe Cocker
The Twilight Showdown-Starlight Mints
Horns-Modest Mouse
Kiss Me-Sixpence
Every New Day-Five Iron Frenzy
Light and Day-Polyphonic Spree

1) oh so well behaved really
pig 2
3. quiet pig
4. not a lot that I can do
5. kind of awkward without you
6. Nu-nu
7. coy but fashionable pig
8. bold but fashionable pig
9. carefree but fashionable pig
10. Fly & Free: a journey into space the glittering sun in your eyes pulls you a light year away

JOY to BOSTON

PRovo, Peen 1&2, VA, CA, HI and wherever else you are found
Joy to the world
Merry christmas/maligayang pasko
and happy Buena Noche

Mom is my boston companion right now. We are housesitting for the kittermans-raiding their spices and eating off the china
Living between the two houses (a fifteen minute walk) is a little disastrous: no new pictures for you, I left the cord at the other house
maybe tomorrow

MERRAN O.

yes, since the email address I have doesn't work and there are at least 3 sad letters at your old address that will never get read you should probably write me. maybe you could give me a current address. that would be nice. Merry Christmas!!

mies pieds

I have a confession...

Oh no no no no I thought I was moderating your comments, but really they were cluttering up some inbox I didn't even know about. my L key has gone the way of my N key which is SOUTH. my other confession is that I went to NYC yesterday, but didn't take my camera--Abby said we didn't want to look like tourists and then proceeded to consult her big fat map! we got our nails done in China town and had hotdogs on the corner of 48 and 3rd. we also lost the empire state building (except I want to call it the eiffel tower) five times. It's dang allusive. DANG! what a funny word it's like a chinapot going over a waterfall.
I don't suppose, Boston, you'd like to snow?? I told my landlord (-ess? Rebecca) Utah has 3 feet. She said Utah?
Rock on.
-meeeeeeeeErin

my peeps

sweat er

good luck charms

do we really have to play this game?

my Tannenbaum

Dear Joanna Newsom

I like you a lot.

One a Day to Christmas

Really. it's my Christmas present to you.
Today's adventure: biostatistics homework and just what exactly does Syntax Error mean.

PAGPAPASALAMAT!!

maraming salamat, asante sana, cnacuba, muchas gracias, merci, agyamen ti adu!
anyway you say it, it means "thanks man!" and since this is the season of

thanksgiving I thought I would offer a little listing of my many blessings (and would welcome any lists.long or short.from all of you.in comments or emails).
I Am thankful for:

the kindness of cab drivers
Boston architecture & pizza
making rent for the first time since I've moved here
Mel Torme when I'm lonely
Burl Ives when I'm sad
my new friend Abby (who got me kicked out of choir for laughing)
humor !
my mismatched christmas socks (from TP?I think)
kittergurl hugs
how untouchable I feel when I'm running
Khristian and Buena's (two of my best friends in the Peens) decisions to serve a mission
potty humor and people who appreciate it
phone calls from my Mom
my indian roommate singing in the shower
Christmas smells:cinnamon, ginger, nutmeggy
super cheese Christmas music I LOVE IT!
christmas! (ang pasko ay sumapit!!!)
my Dr Spock bangs
the privilege to study at BU
my pretty freestyle
above all: the free will to love whom I will, come hell or high water-reciprocity or rejection.
and I do.

Happy Thanksgiving.I'm grateful for all of you
meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeErin

oui! I have changed my blog language to French and it's pretty fun! Okay, here is the condom ad I created for one of my classes--thought you'd all enjoy it. I guess you have to click on it to see it--c'est triste! ha ha. The "saja" brand is made up. It's a project for social marketing which is this capitolistic idea that selling a product will do more to change behavior than teaching better behavior. I'm kind of sceptical (Upton Sinclair love me, I've always been a bit of a socialist)--but it was fun making up my character. Our aim is 15-24 year old women in Indonesia--hence the head scarf.

two things

I kicked a goose and I ate caviar.
I always liked sushi with the "little round orange things" on it and I've always wanted to try caviar to see what it was like. Well, tonite eating my sushi I realized that they are one and the same. amazing
I kicked the goose because it was in my way on a run and I didn't realize that geese are a lot lazier/slower than ducks.

Wednesday!

well wednesday has become such a mad dash. I nanny from 7:45am (which puts me out the door by 7:30, up before 7! for me right now in my life this is crazy early) until 5pm, at which point I make a mad dash to catch a 30 min shuttle to the medical campus, take a 2 hour Epidemiology class and then 30 min. back on the shuttle. By the time I am home (like right now) I start to envy things like the alphabet pasta in my soup It is fun to be a nanny-for 20 hours a week I'm paid to pretend to be a homemaker and it makes me realize (sorry) just how really much that is not for me. Not that I don't love my job. I do! Today I got paid 12 bucks an hour to fold laundry while singing to Joni Mitchell! (while the girls were all at school) that's good stuff and I like the parts when they're home as well. BUT I think the reason I like it is because negotiating how many muffins is too many muffins with a 2 year old is SO different from my usual everyday stresses. It's fun to do dishes when your other choice is calculating the prevalence of schistosomiasis (cause I do that a lot)
Kudos to mothers that do it all the time. Kudos to women who don't go mad. I think my soup has cooled down and now I am so hungry. good night

It's been on a little while, and I so I am just shouting out
SHOUT

my three witches (minus one)

Ella and Milena trick-or-treating at my house before I have to dash to class (on Halloween?! stinks!)

Little Willa had to stay home sick

the thing with microwave popcorn is

I always get greedy I know it's going to burn but every pop I think "there's another one I woudn't have gotten if I'd stopped by now" and then I end up with a full bag of inedible popcorn

(this is a picture of breakfast, I'm not sure why)

good behavior bangs & bad behavior bangs

charles

Head of the charles was fun. Lots of venders with chowder and cider and also a band playing (rowapalooza) all set to the back drop of rowers streaming by down the charles river. You almost feel bad for partying while people are working so hard. rebecca (the landlord) asked if I rowed, I told her that I didn't have the upper strength (curse you Busco) The best band was Nada Surf (0f KOHS "Teenage Guide to Popularity" fame). They were good

The weather was also good--which was a kind of luck because the night before we had torrential rain. I've been waiting for that rain ever since Paul (the other landlord) pulled down my storm windows; I've been waiting for a chance for him to say "good thing I pulled down the storm windows"

Today the regatta continues and some friends and I are going to picnic along the river this afternoon. they are cheering for some bear

mad weird

I cut some mad weird bangs while Mandy was here. Actually we went under together at a very shady SuperCuts where all the magazines, posters and customers were men. She had to re-talk me into it twice. I'll try and post lots of pics in the coming days so you can see them properly...they don't always look this guinea-piggish
Tommorrow and Sunday is the head of the charles regatta--lots of JCrew fans rowing down the river. one of those beantown traditions I got the nannying job with the Kittermans (kittermen) only their old nanny doesn't really leave until early November I am also starting the taxicab driver study this week--got my first installment of Dunkin' Donut gift cards to hand out. Woooo I'm sure that will give me lots to say

Happy Halloween (say it like the tape)

last week was a black rain cloud that wouldn't rain, but tomorrow Mandy is coming for my birthday visit and now everything is sunshine and sea dogs