JOG THIS

I walked three miles on Sunday.  Well, actually I ran about 1/4 miles (or less) of it.  The track was being occupied, so I really had no place to put down my sweatshirt and water jug while jogging on side streets.  Plus I was tired and it was too hot already at 70 degrees.

I do not understand why I can run a mile on a treadmill but barely 1/4 miles in reality.  It's embarrassing; it's pathetic; it's mind-boggling.  I should think being outside would be invigorating.  I find it to be invigorating (except when Psycho Bee attacks me).

If I can walk three miles, run 1/4 mile, do homework, bake cookies, and set up the pretense that I'm actually paying attention to a conversation I seem to be holding, all practically at the same time, why is running outside such a curse?

I've been doing a lot of driving this week and a lot of sitting while working on a research paper.  If that doesn't make my ass fat, nothing will, and to be honest, I'm not losing any sleep over it.  (Neither is my ass.)  But I should be, and that's the issue.

If you're out driving around and you pass some idiot who appears to be walking fast but is technically trying to jog, carrying a gray sweatshirt and red water bottle, please don't honk.  It might be me.  And at this rate, if you honk at me, I'll have a heart attack and keel over, and then I won't be faster than anyone.

I'd at least like to make it back to the couch so I can sit down.

DAMN BEE

Damn bee.

There is an armored bee that lives somewhere near my patio, and every spring it comes back and dive-bombs me while I'm cleaning the winter debris.  This bee appears to be outfitted with some kind of super-shell, a black insect version of the Batman suit, and the bee is afraid of no one and nothing.  It is immune to bug sprays of every magnitude.  Actually, spraying the bee just pisses it off.

It can hover for long stretches of time, giving the bug-eyed version of the Evil Eyes.  This bee is so large that, like passing hawks and passenger jets, it casts a shadow, scaring the buhjeezus out of anyone who is in the path of the blocked sunlight.  It stares me down when I stand up to it, and sometimes it chases me until I scream like a banshee and run into the house, slamming the door as if it might truly bore through and attack me inside my home.

Sure, you're thinking, "A bee that comes back every year just to terrorize you?"

Damn straight.

I've tried killing it, but it just buzzes around maniacally, knowing full well it can outsmart and outlast me.  It will hang around for several weeks, and then I won't see it again all summer, and I've never, ever bested it while it's here.  Every spring I think to myself, "Could this possibly be the year that the bee dies?"  I mean, let's be serious.  Just how long do bees live?  Are they like cats?  Or are they like tortoises?

Today after an hour of spraying, fighting, throwing things, and screeching, I sat down on the front stoop and gave up.  The bee flapped its mighty wings and held its mid-air pose like a miniature guerilla helicopter, making neither an advance nor retreat.  I held my hand up in surrender.  I didn't even care if it stung me; swear to Mother Nature, I was done. 

The bee seemed to acknowledge me, then it zoomed back over the neighbor's fence and was gone.  I didn't hear it nor see it for the rest of the time I was outside.  Perhaps that was all it wanted … today.  I've no doubt it will be back tomorrow, and the day after that, and every damn day until summer really rolls in and the budding blossoms on the trees have been replaced by leaves.  I won't miss that bee much, and it wouldn't matter even if I did.  It'll just be back next year like clockwork.

Damn bee.

ON NOT BEING SUNBURNT

I am pleased to report that I did not miss any spots on my shoulders or the backs of my arms when applying sunscreen today.  (Or my face, my forearms, my feet, and my legs below the knee -- all exposed today.)

For many of you, this would not be considered cause for celebration.  But for me, this is amazing.  The first day of sun exposure, usually at a sporting event as it was today, ordinarily means that I miss some area of skin with sunblock and end up with a Ring of Fire that make me look like a complete moron:  A stretch of forehead, the back of a leg, the top of one foot, one side of the nose, or my part-line/scalp.  

I have managed to survive three hours in the sun (mostly beating onto my back), and I do not … I repeat, I

DO NOT look like a piece of well-done bacon, I do not look like the outside of a Coca-Cola can, and I do not look like I have been tattooed with red ringlets.

Bring on summer. 

I am so ready.

(PS -  Yes, gentlemen in the bleachers who inquired, it was I who smelled like pina coladas today.  Just so you all know.  It was eau de Banana Boat SPF #8.)

KEEPING ME COMPANY

Ahhhh.  The weekend.

Of course I brought a pile of work home with me; of course I won't get to any of it.  I have my own work to do, will be attending a sporting event, and need to sleep (at some point) to catch up on all the other sleep I've been missing.

There's never enough time to cram into two days what should really take five.

Ahhhh.  Spring.

Of course it finally decided to arrive this week; of course the warmest day yet was the day I had to drive to my grad class in Salem, where the weather was twelve degrees cooler than it was inland.  Maybe it will be nice this weekend; maybe I'll remember to bring sunscreen to the sporting event since it's outside.

There's never enough time to cram Spring in between Polar Ice Days and the Dog Days of Summer.

I'm going to try.  I'm going to attempt to do five days of work in two days, and I'm going to attempt to enjoy Spring while it makes a quick pit stop on its way to the beach.  If I miss Spring when it whizzes by, tell it I waved from the keyboard of my computer and from the bleachers of a sports field.

Tell Spring I'm sorry I missed it, but its close friend Summer will keep me good company. 

YOU'RE NOT THE WEIRDOS I AM SEARCHING FOR

My blog yesterday mentioned weird people who attach themselves to me as if I really care what they have to say.  I was horrified to discover that some of my original blog pals thought I meant them.  

Holy palm-smack to the forehead, Batman.  Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING could be further from the truth.

To my CBS pals, you're stuck with me whether you like it or not.  You stood by me through Dark Shadows parodies, the Drapery Smackdown, and the Senor Ed fiasco.  We share the same brain; we are the Collective Consciousness.  To insult you would be to belittle my own inner cranium.  We are like the Stooges -- We are the Barons of Gray Matter.

To my WBZ pals, with whom I survived the implosion of Conversation Nation, the exclusion of the Sandbox (and the ultimate conquering of it when all the email filters went down), and the attempted coup by the Psycho Sandbox Outcasts:  You know you're not going to outrun me, especially Helga Jean and Ron because they have bum knees.

To my other pals - you know who you are, so naming you would just tip off the FBI and Homeland Security (like they have a great track record recently), I didn't mean any of you, either.  With whom would I go into Boston to see Corpse flowers, take crazy car trips, collect beach rocks for no good reason, drink Margaritas in the shallow end of the pool, sit outside at Cat TV, randomly attend cliff diving competitions (as spectators, people, as spectators), go to bridal fittings with ripped pants that expose ass cheeks, etc., etc, etc.?

The weirdos I'm referring to are the ones that people usually post on the website peopleofwalmart.com.  They're the strange people who wander around Home Depot and ask me if I work there.  They're the people who ask me for directions then tell me about their inflamed hemorrhoids.  They're the people who come into a near-empty movie theater and sit in my row right next to me even though there are 499 vacated seats elsewhere.  They're the people who walk down the street and accidentally sneeze in my personal space right as I pass by.  

Those people.

I'm a reasonably patient gal, but cut me some slack.  If there's a bizarre person anywhere on the horizon, he will zero in on me like a homing pigeon coming to roost.  I should just hang a sign on myself, paint a target on my back, or tattoo onto my forehead in giant, neon letters:  SUCKER.

But my blog pals?  My human flesh-and-bones pals?  No way.  You are NOT the weirdos I am searching for.  But I might want to slip you a bit of advice -- I may well be that weirdo you are trying to avoid.  I'm just putting it out there.  I'm nothing if not truthful.

If you're on the subway and the car is empty and I suddenly walk in and sit down somewhere, probably within ear-shot of you, run.  Run.  RUN.  I'm just saying.  It's like that moment where the person on the blind date suddenly realizes that they are the undesirable person behind the door of Mystery Date.

I am the strange one.

Consider yourself warned.

TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP ... THAT IS THE QUESTION

At some point I need to get a decent night's sleep. 

I haven't slept well since the Sunday before the Boston Marathon.  Could be the weather, could be the news events, could just be that's the way I am.  But I'm starting to wonder if my body even remotely understands what it's like to sleep for more than a few hours.  Last night I fell asleep, woke up fifteen minutes later, fell back asleep, woke up an hour later, then two hours later, then two hours after that, then I woke up ten minutes before the alarm went off.  I pieced together about six hours, but it didn't feel that way.  Felt more like three.

I don't know if it's middle age, general agida, or that I'm turning into Winston Churchill (who napped but never actually slept).  What it boils down to is that sleeping is a ridiculous waste of otherwise productive time.  Who the heck wants to get to Heaven asking for a do-over and have God say, "Look, kid, you slept 1/3 of your flipping life away.  Screw!"

The thing is - I like sleeping, I mean, I think I do.  I don't know.  It's not something I normally do.  When I go away on vacation, the first few nights at the hotel are spent walking the floors.  People think I'm exaggerating until they go away with me, and then they never make that mistake a second time.  I had to go away with a group of people several years ago to deliver a paper at a conference.  I warned them all of my bad night-time habit, but they shooed it off.  The next morning, all I heard was, "Wow, you really DO walk the floors at night." 

WTF.  Do you think I make this shit up?  Okay, I make some of it up, but I'm not making this up. 

I figure I have about another hour's worth of work to do, then I'll attempt to go to sleep.  I'll have nightmares almost instantaneously (I hit REM sleep faster than anyone I've ever met), wake up ten minutes later feeling like I've dreamt for a thousand years, snooze a little, then start the same cycle all over again.

Wash, rinse, spin, repeat.

Whatever.  The weekend's coming soon.  I can sleep then.  Maybe.  But it won't matter because it will be the weekend.  I can sleep in, right?  Except it's spring, and the birds start chirping around 3:00 a.m., and then the train rolls through, and then I can hear the clock ticking all the way from the downstairs living room, and it's too hot, and it's too cold, and…

Never mind.  I'll just keep typing this blog post.  Even if I doze off, it'll only be momentary, then I'll be back to my cheery-ass self in no time. 

But first, I think I need a nap. 

CROSS MY HEART

Sooooooo … I have to read an article for the class I'm taking.  The article is on "Right Speech."  It's a section of a lecture by great Buddhist practitioner Thich Nhat Hanh about only saying nice things to people, and how we should tell people, "I need to make myself more mindful before I speak to you so I will be silent for now and talk to you in some days."  I am also supposed to listen intently so that weird people will attach themselves to me and presume I am their friend.  I seem to have this problem even without the whole listening thing, so this probably isn't my best option.

Oh, boy.  This whole meditation thing is imploding in my face.  I actually burst out laughing while reading the essay.  I am at my day job when this happens, and one of my students asks me what I am working on that is so terribly funny, so I read some of it:  "Not speaking cruelly; Not exaggerating or embellishing; One part of our consciousness has to play the role of editor; Speak calmly…"  I look up with a blank expression and sourly lament, "Is this guy trying to kill me?"

Look, I'm all for saying nice things, but I also don't believe in being a liar.  One of my worst yet most stalwart habits is calling it like I see it, regardless of what that may be at the moment.  My best attribute is that I am willing (when calm) to see the other side as well and form a rational opinion, usually somewhere in the middle of the fence between the two sides.  (Even Erma Bombeck knew the grass was only greener over the septic tank.  No point in stepping into that.) 

But, only say nice things?  Never speak with a forked tongue?  Are you kidding me?  With the most corrupt administration and Congress in charge since pre-American Revolution King George III? 

Fuck that shit.

I trust my students.  You want to know why?  They trust me.  The trust me to tell them when they're doing well and when they're doing poorly, when they're behaving and when they're misbehaving, when they're being the most amazing kids on the planet and when they're being butt-heads.  And they will do exactly the same for me in return.  I have friends and acquaintances like that, too.  I surround myself with people who are, and with an environment that is, fun, honest, challenging, sometimes free of bullshit and sometimes, when need be, totally deep-six full of bullshit.

That's how I roll.  It's a birth defect, and I doubt any team of psychotherapists or behaviorists will be able to break me.  Thich Naht Hanh is trying; my professor is trying; my advisor is trying.  They all mean well, but it's going to crash and burn for them, so I hope they're wearing the correct protective garments.

When there's a fundamental disturbance in syntax, believe me, the grammarian will beat up the Buddhist monk every flipping time.  The simple difference between "Right Speech" and Right Speech is syntax:  "Right Speech" to Hanh means only speaking things that make people feel right inside by telling only those truths that are positive; in other words, the sin of omission - the old "I didn't lie; I just didn't tell you the truth" crap.  Right Speech, in my playbook anyway, means saying the right thing even if it crosses a line or offends someone because standing up for The Truth is more important than being PC-nicey-nicey.

It may not be the "Right Speech" the monk wants to hear, but believe me when I tell you it's going to be the god's-honest truth, cross my heart.

SLOW RIDE ... HONESTLY

If the Internet were any slower, I'd be powering via hamster wheel.

I have been waiting three hours for pictures to load, it takes almost three minutes for Facebook to load, it takes forever for my email to open, and it seems like Comcast is getting slower and slower and slower.  I'm almost ready to believe the turtle commercials.

The downside is that I have to continue to stay awake late at night because there is no way I'm going to try and reload those pictures tomorrow -- This is upload try #4.  I'm pretty much done with it.

The upside is that I have a research paper to write and I'm stuck sitting still and working on that.  I hate research papers.  All I'm doing is regurgitating shit that other people have already said or written.  What's the point?  That's right; there is no point.  But I'm writing one, anyway.

Well, I guess I'll go oil the hamster wheel again, maybe resort to the hamster dance to keep myself entertained while I wait for Com-slow-poke-cast to do whatever it is that it is supposed to be doing in five minutes ... as it stretches into hour #4.

Technology is a wonderful thing -- if and/or when it actually works.

BOSTON STRONG

Today is the one week anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings.

At 2:50, there will be a moment of silence in honor of the victims.  Also, it would be a wonderful time to say a prayer of thanks for all of the first responders, and send healing thoughts to those still recovering.

We are Boston.  We are strong.

For those who we hold in our hearts, we will always remember.  For those who shattered our hearts, we will never forget.

We are Boston Strong.

WE ARE MARTIAL ... not

Contrary to extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing media, Boston was not a Military State during the manhunt for the Marathon bombers/terrorists.  We were not "under Martial Law" here in Boston.

There was an order to try and stay in our homes starting late Thursday night and early Friday morning and a shelter-in-place order given on Friday afternoon when the FBI et al first suspected they knew where the terrorists were (they were correct), and after the first (but not before the second) shoot-out with law enforcement.

Businesses and offices shut down voluntarily first thing Friday morning because no one knew where these yahoos were for real and they had murdered a young MIT officer in cold blood execution style without compunction. Nobody FORCED us off the streets - We did it out of safety and concern and out of RESPECT for the officers of the law. People were asked to stay in for their own protection.  People who had left for work before the area was cordoned off were still allowed into their homes (with the aid of officers to be sure no one entered their homes to hide while they were away).

Had the shelter order NOT been lifted, the homeowner and neighbor never would've seen the ladder and the blood near the boat, and darkness would've fallen while we still hunkered inside... and the suspect surely would've bled to death during the night. Many of us listened to the BPD/State Police scanner that they could've shut down from the Net, but they did not. We knew (and were in the loop if we so chose, and I personally posted a link so you all could listen in real time, too) the MOMENT he was captured when the officer in charge reported, "Suspect is in custody."

Do not judge our city unless you were here and doing what you could (staying vigilant and staying out of the way) to catch TERRORISTS.  Two IED's on American streets -- Where else and when else in American history?

We chose to stay indoors and let the professionals do their work. That's NOT Martial Law -- That's common fucking sense. Period. As for the nut jobs .... uber-libs do not mean all Democrats, uber-religious conservatives do not mean all Republicans, and not all Libertarians, Tea-Partiers, nor Constitutionalists are nut jobs -- some just love their country. I'm an unenrolled moderate, the proverbial voting fence-sitter.

Believe me, this was no Martial Law. This was Boston doing what Boston does best -- leading by example.

BOSTON STRONG

Boston and surrounding communities are in recovery mode today.  Yesterday we were all very pissed off and extremely frustrated.  It was a long day of conflicting news reports that turned ugly quickly.  Our local news media started painting the younger terrorist as some kind of all-American boy who was under the influence of his big, bad, dumb older brother.

As the day progressed, and as real eyewitnesses came forward with video footage as proof, that turned out to not be the case, as if any of us here in Boston believed the media bullshit, anyway.

Turns out that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not only crafted bombs and threw them at police and blew up people at the marathon and engaged in multiple firefights with police including two in crowded Watertown neighborhoods, but he also ran over his brother's dying body with a stolen SUV. 

Yes, he's definitely what the media would call an "all-American boy." 

And while we're at it, maybe Russia should revert to its Cold War tactics.  Remember when someone in the Soviet Union (or one of its subsidiary countries) would say something controversial?  Neither does anyone else because that person would disappear to Siberia… if he was lucky enough to survive the curbside-to-curbside trip.  Many didn't.

Now, to prove that I truly do support the Constitution that I so ardently defend, the kid is entitled to due process.  Right?  I mean, he became an American citizen last September 11^th, right?  Yeah, like nobody sees the irony in that, kid.  Personally, and this is just my opinion, I'd rather he bleed out slowly so we don't have to waste valuable tax dollars on his ACLU defense fund.  But that's just me.  See?  I still mentioned the ACLU, so I'm still recognizing his Constitutional rights.  I can be a good American, too.

Here's where I don't get it, though.  If people don't like America, if you hate the USA whether you were born here or we nicely opened our homeland to you, then WTF are you doing here?  Seriously.  GO HOME.  No, really.  We'll take up collections and buy you plane tickets to go back where you came from.  Hell, we'll even send you somewhere else, if you like.  But if your sole purpose in life is to hate and kill Americans, you should start trekking back to your own country.  Now.  Today.  Yesterday, if possible.

Look, we don't ask you to be our best friends, we don’t demand that you learn our language (but, shit, we really wish you would so maybe we can actually speak with you), we don't even ask you to get a job.  But it's pretty much a given that if you hate us, well then, you probably might want to get your ass out of our country before we hand your ass back to you on a cardboard platter.

In the meantime, though, we'll let some in the media play Suspect #2 as some kind of hero and Suspect #1 as a martyr.  That's what they wanted all along.  Personally, we citizens of Boston and surrounding areas call them killers, terrorists, undesirables.  But we would never call them "all-American."  We'll let the uninformed media and the ACLU take care of that.

Boston strong.

SIDE TRIP TO SALEM

I have to go to the university today, this time for me.  I have to check up on my progress for my second Master's degree.  Oh, that sounds all hoity-toity, I know, but really I am now going to be stuck with two semi-useless degrees.  I have an M.Ed. and am dangerously close to earning an M.A. in English with a concentration on writing.  What that translates into in regular talk is that I can now teach. 

 Wait.  I'm already teaching.

Well, I guess now I can teach even more!  And still get paid what I get paid, and be even more in debt than I was when I started.

Whose dumbass idea was this, anyway?

The good news is that I only have to take two more real courses (one this summer and one in the fall), and then I have two semesters to write up my capstone project.  Now, if I wanted to be a total bitch, which I truly am so this is no surprise, I could simply print out and re-torque my blog and turn it in as my thesis. 

But that seems too easy.  Sure I spend anywhere from one to four hours a day writing and prepping and posting the blog.  But it almost seems like cheating.  Almost.  Except that I'm really writing it, and it really does take up a lot of my time.  Time I'm supposed to be spending correcting papers for my day job and writing papers for the degree I haven't quite finished yet.

So I'm meeting with the advisor today, figuring this all out, thinking I have four more courses to take before my capstone project, not two, and I decide to hang around for about fifteen more minutes so that my new plan of study can be formally emailed to the grad office, and I can trek on over by foot to sign it.  Why not?  I'm here, and I'm really not in that big a hurry to get back home.  It's a beautiful day, I snuck down to the waterfront for a few minutes, and I got some pictures of the ocean.  I sit in my car for a short bit looking at those.  Okay, might as well try to beat some of the traffic home. 

As I pull out of the parking lot, I debate which way home might be more clogged with traffic -- Salem center or Peabody Square.  This time of day and this time of year, it's really a crapshoot.  I decide to head down 114 into Salem.  As soon as I pass the point of no return, that infamous turn from Loring onto Lafayette, I see that traffic is at a standstill. 

Damn.  Picked the wrong way yet again.

But I am mistaken.  The reason for the delay is the massive accident in the middle of the street, an accident  that cannot be more than fifteen minutes old, an accident involving at least three cars, an accident in which a car has clearly been t-boned, shattered and battered across two lanes of traffic and smashed into a tree in front of a corner-lot house. Ambulances and fire trucks and tow trucks are everywhere, and the sidewalks on all sides are packed with witnesses and gawkers.

 Just happened.  Just loading victims onto gurneys.  Fifteen minutes.

Had I not decided to stay and sign my paperwork, had I not dawdled in the parking lot looking at my random Salem shoreline pictures, had I not stopped to let the woman walk in front of my car, the kid to cross the road, the college student to catch his runaway soccer ball, I might well have been involved in this accident.

Damn.  I feel lucky.  I feel philosophical.  I feel a bit sick to my stomach eye-ing the carnage.

Today isn't a total waste.  I'm gaining knowledge (more than halfway through the degree) and wisdom (rationalizing my trip home).  It's a two-fer.  If only I could figure out how to turn this all into a payable degree, like a Master's degree in Work Avoidance as it Pertains to the Probablility of Getting Out of Salem Without Too Much Damage; or an advanced degree in Lucky Dumassitis; or another diploma in Bullshitting 101.

Maybe this whole school thing is paying off after all.

Nah. 

PARKING IN ISTANBUL ... AND OTHER ODDITIES

I am geometrically challenged.  I know this; I accept it.  I cannot find my own way out of a paper bag.  If I were in a round room, I would get stuck in a corner.  My sense of direction is the worst on the planet, I cannot retrace my own steps, and I cannot follow the simplest of directions without creating the wrong driving shape on the map.

For instance, I have to go to a local university for a lacrosse game. 

This should be an easy shot.  It's one turn off the highway.  Honestly, I shouldn't have any trouble following Trapelo Road, which is an exit off route 128, and taking one simple turn onto Forest Street.  After all, I see the fields on the map.  It's a no-brainer.

Until I arrive at the fields and discover that, despite the address and the proximity to the college, these fields are not connected to the school.  Pissah. 

So I head further down the road and pull into the actual college.  I see a campus map and stop to read it.  Problem is, there are no sports fields listed on that thing, either.  I start driving through the campus that is, apparently, built on a mountain.  I wind around buildings, going down and down and down.  I feel like one of Maria's goats from her lonely herd, and I suddenly want to sing songs from The Sound of Music. 

After circling (or it could've be triangulating or maybe even quadralateralling) the entire campus, I ask two nice young women where their sports fields are.

"Are you here for the lacrosse game?"

I smile, suddenly hopeful, and respond, "Yes, I am."

"Well, you see where that cop car is?  Turn right there, go down the steep hill, then pull straight across the road and park.  After that, you can … oh, you could also turn at the light, go down the street, turn again, then turn again, then turn again, and attempt to maybe find the back parking lot to the athletic center…"

Nice girl, but I lost her somewhere around New Jersey.

I make it down the steep incline, wondering how in the hell anyone can survive driving or even walking this campus when it snows.  One could start at the top of the campus and slide into the road three streets away simply from the pitch of the cliff on which the campus sits.  I discover that the lacrosse field is behind several other fields, and that there is no place to park that is even remotely near the place.  After ending up at several dead-ends, I find a parking space near some distant tennis courts, which is about as close to the field as Istanbul.

After trekking across the Great Divide, I arrive at the field.  Only "field" is not quite the correct term.  I am appalled to discover that this extremely expensive, DII school has the world's oldest astro-turf surface.  As a matter of fact, it's a rug with some kind of springy foam under it.  The boys cannot even wear cleats.  Lacrosse balls are bouncing everywhere and the game resembles ping pong more than anything else.  The only "field" I've seen that was worse was in Worcester, and the surface was a semi-tar/plastic combination that was better suited to tennis and chariot racing than turf sports.  I ponder the incredible juxtaposition of this gorgeously built school, with its fancy buildings and its elaborate road system and its high tuition, and this absolutely perplexing excuse for a sports field.

The only thing more perplexing is where the team's bus parked.  Apparently it's down and around behind the field house building.  Problem is, locked gates are everywhere, and it's a mystery as to how to get to the parking lot where I am supposed to meet the bus to deliver goodies for after the game.  As soon as the game ends, without even saying hello to my kid, another parent offers to drive with me to the parking lot.  Somehow she has managed to find it.

We trek back to my car, which requires several rest stops and a Sherpa.  Once located, we climb in and begin the trip that should be two lefts.  Simple.  Even I cannot screw up two lefts.

Once we start driving, though, it becomes evident that this is not going to be an easy task.  We turn left, which means we are driving away from the field.  This sort of makes sense … until we go two streets away to the next light.  This seems too far away.  Then there's another left.  Then a right, then a left and a right, then a right around a building and then, finally, another left into a back lot.  There are multiple dead-ends on our way to the back lot, and I realize as I park the car that I am craving cheese … not because I am particularly hungry but because I suddenly feel like a mouse in a maze.

Listen up.  If you're going to charge the actual shirts off people's backs to send their teenagers to your school, you may want to make it, oh, I don't know, more maneuverable, more user-friendly, and maybe put down some decent astro-turf that wasn't installed when these students' grandparents were attending classes there.

That's just my random thought process.  I mean, first of all, if a school has a map for drivers to stop and look at, it should probably include the sports complex.  Secondly, if there is parking (or something resembling it), it should be easier to find than going in a convoluted octagonal serpentine design when the field is directly behind where you start.  Lastly, if your school is going to be built on the side of the Matterhorn, make sure all your students can sing "High on a hill was the lonely goat herd." 

You know, just in case.

I DON'T KNOW WHY

I am writing a research paper.  

I would like to say that I don't know why I am writing a research paper, but I truly suspect that I do know why I am writing a research paper: It's a requirement for the class I am taking.

I don't know why it's a requirement for the class that I am taking because this is a writing class, a seminar class.  We are supposed to be writing not researching. 

I don't know why we are researching and not writing, especially since the class is about writer's blocks. Shouldn't we be disproving block theories or something?  Shouldn't we be finding ways to master our blocks (if we even have them)?  I hate writing research papers.

I don't know why I hate writing research papers.  After all, one doesn't actually write a research paper; one simply steals a research paper and adds a bibliography.  It's an entire paper about someone else's work that you claim you understand and assimilated into some epiphany that sounds remotely like, "In conclusion, I have learned never to take a class with a research paper requirement ever again as long as I live." And you suddenly want to shout, "AMEN!"

I don't know why I suddenly want to shout "AMEN!" because I haven’t been to church in a really, really, really long time.  I haven't been to church in a long time because the Church Lady hated teenagers, and I was co-teacher of the middle school youth classes at Sunday school.  I got tired of fighting the Church Lady, and lacrosse started every Sunday at 11:00 a.m., which, for Protestants means the middle of church services, so my family and I just stopped going and went to lacrosse games, instead.

I don't know why lacrosse started so early on Sundays except that maybe the lacrosse association was run by Catholics who could go to church on Saturday afternoons because they have enough masses at every church to ensure multiple collection plate passes in a single weekend, like the Bingo gross without having to actually call any numbers.  "And the Lord said, B13!"  Or maybe it was run by Jewish people who could attend temple on Fridays, or maybe, just maybe, the lacrosse program was run by a bunch of stinkin' atheists and agnostics, but I really think the agnostics would balk at Sunday morning games, you know, just in case.

I don't know why agnostics would balk at lacrosse trumping church since they're non-believers, sort of. 

Okay, agnostics are Christians with commitment issues.  Agnostics are the perpetual bachelors of the religious world, the true survivors of the age of Davey and Goliath.  They are the proverbial fence sitters who will swear Christ's name all over the damn place but slap you senseless if you fart near a church.

I don't know why you shouldn't far near a church.  Perhaps I could write a research paper about it.

I don't know why I'm writing a research paper.  Perhaps it's because the old lady swallowed a fly.  I don't know why she swallowed the fly; perhaps she'll die.

DEATH NEAR THE DIRTY WATER

I am sick to my stomach today.  Sick over what happened in Boston this afternoon during the marathon.  There are no words to express my outrage at what transpired in my city on this proudest of holidays here in our state, Patriot's Day. 

All I have at this point is speculation and some eyewitness testimony.  People I know were there when it happened, one of whom called me on her way home from the city.  She will never be the same.  None of us will ever be the same.  My eldest child works blocks from where the bombings happened, and I worried about him getting home to Charlestown from his office.  I was relieved he was working because it meant he wasn't watching the end of the race.  But to get home … Underground wasn't safe; sidewalks weren't safe.  Nowhere seemed safe in the city.  Nowhere.

One of my son's friends kept his ear attached to the Boston Police Department scanner.  More devices located, bomb-sniffing dogs requested, person of interest being held at Mass General Hospital, a fire or possible bomb at the JFK Library (then it wasn't a bomb, then it was, then it wasn't, then it was…).  Too much information; not enough information; false information, and --

True information.

How dare you.  How dare you come to my city and wreak your psychotic war.  I hope you are not a home-grown terrorist.  I am sick of Americans turning on Americans.  It's bad enough our government is full of terrorists like you who would lie and steal and take out their special interest political rage on its country's citizens, but at least they show their faces.  At least we know who they are.

I hope when they find you that you go through a special kind of torture before you make it to the station, if you make it to the station.  We can all pretend that you were "injured in the explosions" when asked what happened to your face or your eyes or your limbs or your neck.

Sick fucking bastard.  Sick, sick motherfucking bastard.

TO ALBANY ... AND BEYOND

Albany.  Oh, where to begin?

Regular readers know a lot about me, probably too much.  What the heck - I'm only going around once, right?  Here's one thing you know about me:  Yesterday I drove to Albany by myself to join the SNHU cheering section to watch my son and his lacrosse team crush division II conference rivals the College of St. Rose.  They're not my son's team's most ardent enemy (that would probably be Merrimack College after SNHU knocked them from the NCAA playoffs last season with an unexpected victory), but it was an important conference game for both teams.  Besides, I like taking game photographs and posting them to the Laxpower website.  The team can live on in Cyberspace for all of eternity if it were solely up to me.

Let me walk you through my day because reliving it over and over and over surely must be some kind of Hell for me, and lord knows I don't want to be there alone.  From the beginning (and not in an Emerson Lake and Palmer kind of way)…

I have already printed out my route via MapQuest, packed food and drinks enough to keep me awake and alert on the trip home, programmed the GPS with the comedian who tells me such things as "Turn around when possible -- It is advisable to turn the whole car around, not just yourself in the front seat," gassed up the tank, gotten lots of $1 bills for tolls, packed extra coats and gloves and socks in case of weather changes, juiced up the cell phone battery, and cleaned the car windshield. 

In short, I am ready; just me and Billy C, my GPS. 

Oh, and Floyd.

Yup, here's the second thing my regular readers know (way too much) about me:  I have a softball-sized uterine fibroid named Floyd.   Floyd the Fibroid.  And every so often, Floyd wreaks havoc on my body, my clothing, and my pain levels.  After eight weeks of being a good little fibroid, Floyd has decided that today is the best day to visit.  Joy!  So in addition to everything else I have packed, I now must add medication, a huge bag of industrial-strength feminine products normally only talked about on television during daytime talk shows, extra clothing in case of an arterial bleed, and the directions to every possible rest stop along the way there and home.  In addition to worrying about finding the lacrosse field, I now must also worry about whether or not I will need emergency medical attention over the next twelve hours.

Just so you know, if anyone starts singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from Flower Drum Song, I will hunt you down like a wild dog and put you on a spit over a raging campfire.  Just so you know, I mean.

I decide to skip route 290 through Worcester, figuring Saturday traffic plus the start of a long holiday weekend in Massachusetts (and Maine) along with the state's April vacation, probably means clogged lanes. 

I get on the Mass Pike, I-90, in Westborough, which is only an additional six miles (remember that magic number, six miles) and maybe sixty extra cents, and get a very nice toll person.  No, I do not have a FastPass because I used to have one, but the transponder kept double-charging me if there were a line of traffic at the tolls, so I yanked it off my dashboard and sent it back to the state with a very nasty note.  I'm sure I'm on the DOT watch list.  While grabbing my toll ticket, a gorgeously restored red and white Mustang Fastback comes trolling through in the next lane, and the driver taps the gas out of the gate.  The noise its engine makes is nothing short of magnificent.  The toll taker and I both drool and say the same thing at the same time:  "Niiiiiiice car."  With a laugh, I'm on my way.  So far, so good.

Floyd reminds me that he's still in control of my plans, so I stop at the Charlton service area and make a pit stop.  No EMT's needed yet.  I debate buying something salty to eat  and decide that I really have packed enough food to survive a month on the road, so I'm back out on I-90, which is surprisingly empty. 

I realize that I've forgotten my MP3 player (don't judge me!  I'm not an Apple supporter), so I start flicking around the radio stations.  Eventually I find the Red Sox game broadcast via some station I've never heard of before.  I must admit that much as I like Joe Castiglione, he doesn't add much drama to the game.  Half the time I don't even realize the inning has started because his voice is as monotonous when he's just chatting as it is when he's calling the game.  As I climb into the mountains, I lose the station several times and resort to skimming channels like I'm surfing the television.  Mostly I get a lot of static.  The hills apparently are not alive with the sound of music out here.

I skip the Ludlow and Blandford rest stops, but I pass by the area of I-90 where years ago coming back from the Am-Can Junior Judo Tournament we passed a very old man on a motorcycle wearing a v-neck white men's t-shirt and riding through the rain.  The one thing we noticed then was that his flabby arms were flying backward from the bones, creating a soaring effect, and we nicknamed him Bat-Wing Man.  I smile as I drive through, westbound and away from the rocky cliffs that line the eastbound lane.  Aha, I smile to myself, Bat Wing Pass. Good times, good times.  I realize as I near Lee that I should probably give Floyd another check, maybe gas up the car before I cross the border to pay god-knows-what for New York prices.

While I'm at the Lee stop, I realize that I'll be way too early to Albany if I keep this pace, which would be fine normally, but now I'm on Potty Alert because of Floyd.  My whole day is now revolving around toilet facilities.  I decide to indulge my inner child and get myself a small sundae from Mickey D's.  While sitting there, the Billerica contingency (well, half of it) arrives, and the two women and I all join each other in the bathrooms and have a good laugh about being ahead of time for the game.  I refuel my car, but the receipt refuses to print.  I leave the station wondering if maybe my debit card is now refueling everyone after me.  Oh well.  Sue them later, if necessary.  And I'm off again, just me, Billy C my GPS, and Floyd. 

I pay the $2.10 toll to leave my home state, and I enter into the No-Man's land that is the brief part of Mass-a-York, that un-tolled area that combines the two states,  No sooner do I cross into New York that I am passed by a Rhode Island car doing about ninety.  I look down and realize that I am traveling seventy-five in a sixty-five mph zone, and I have no idea what the limit is with the New York state police.  I know in New Hampshire you can pretty much get away with seventy-five, but anything above that is a guaranteed ticket if you have out-of-state plates.   No sooner do I slow myself down to about seventy-one when I see the NY statie.  He is in the best hiding spot of all time; never have I seen a better spot nor a better position.  He is around a blind turn, hiding under a rock cliff, in the center, facing parallel to both directions so he can bag anyone on either side who comes along.  By this time, I am again alone on I-90, so when he pulls out directly behind me, I am deflated.  He travels behind me for about eight seconds then hits turbo, and I do mean turbo.  I hear a noise behind me like an airplane jet engine on the funny cars at the speedway, and the cruiser, lights flashing, shoots by me at mach speed as if I am completely stagnant and he is on the Autobahn.  As I creep around the next corner, I see he has bagged the Rhode Island driver who left me in the dust moments before.  Too bad, so sad. 

Albany is reasonably close to Massachusetts, maybe forty-five miles from the border, so I weave around I-90 and onto I-87.  The exit I am supposed to take, though, appears closed.  There are Jersey barriers seemingly blocking it, nothing is tarred, and there are signs posted everywhere screaming, "DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!"  So I miss the exit, which apparently was passable (who knew?) and go north six miles.  SIX MILES.  Remember how six miles got me on I-90 without any problems?  Well, six miles will now be revisited.  The six miles I gained in the beginning are about to be seriously lost.  As I leave the toll both, there are three possible routes I can take, and the GPS appears to be directing me to all of them.  They are all connected at the beginning like a series of veins, and I have to guess.  Damnit.  Um … I-87?  Okay, I-87.

Turns out I-87 is correct, and I can see my exit is Arbor Hill Street, or some such malarcky.  Before you read further, I DARE YOU TO GOOGLE ARBOR HILL ALBANY NY.   Go ahead.  Do it.  Just do it!!!!!  Yup, I end up in The 'Hood.  I didn't say that; people who live in Albany say that.  All I know is that there are multiple boarded up houses, and I don't make eye contact with anyone.  I'm glad that my windshield is now littered with dead bugs and that I haven't cleaned off any of the school construction mud from my car and that I have a nice scratch on the front bumper.  I've lived in Lawrence, driven many times through Jamaica Plain, and spent a lost afternoon stuck in the bombed-out area of Philadelphia.  Arbor Hill, Albany rates second only to Philly in "WTF" on the "I Think I Might Shit My Drawers" scale.  I do pass by some spectacular churches (with bars on the windows) and wish I could take some pictures, but there is no way I am stopping lest I cry, get murdered, or am forced to shop at Price Chopper.  None of these options seems acceptable.

Thankfully I have Billy C the GPS maniac with me, and he manages to direct me through the one-way roads of the city until I come in the back way to Plumeri Sports Complex on Frisbie Avenue.  I am early, about seventy-five minutes, and the boys are just getting off the bus as I arrive.  I figure this would be a safe place to park, near the bus, so I back in and shut off my car.  Then I start looking for bathrooms because Floyd is a dink-shit, and I am cramping up like I'm delivering something other than perpetual blood clots (sorry, gents).  I would accept anything, a port-a-potty, bushes, whatever is available, because there is no way I am driving back down the street to the KFC or McDonalds or the Sunoco station.  As a matter of fact, I am not going back THAT way no matter what.  I don't care if I have to go home through Vermont; I'm not driving through Arbor Hill in the dark.

There are bathrooms at Pluermi with real flush toilets, and I also spot two port-a-potties about thirty feet from my car on another field.   If the bathrooms are locked when we leave, at least I can maneuver in the dark potty if needed.  (It is not needed.)  We are all constantly entertained by the roadside speed trap right outside of the field, and no less than six cars get pulled over and ticketed in the two hours that we are there.  Floyd and I make it through the game with very little theatrics, SNHU wins, and we give the boys a small tailgate of pizza and drinks and snacks (I baked Toll House cookies and brought apples).  I refuse to leave until I see someone from our team heading home, and I jump immediately into line behind them.  We get onto I-87 right next to the sports complex, SIX MILES from where I ended up, and $1.50 later I am off the New York Thruway, over the bridge, and I roll back into Massachusetts. 

I pass by the Lee rest area, and this time I decide to randomly stop in Blandford.  I keep reminding myself to clean the bugs off the windshield.  Maybe I'll remember.  By the time I park the car, I've already forgotten.  All I can think about is the severe cramping and the fact that Floyd may have beaten me this time.  I admit I check the car seat expecting to see a CSI crime scene beneath me.  I run in to the ladies room, saying a brief prayer and hoping for the best.  I really should've taken some meds before I left New York, but I forgot.  I am, thankfully, just in under the gun.  No arterial bleed this time, but I really need to get home.  I probably shouldn't have left the couch today.  Oh well -- Far be it for me to let a stupid thing like menopause ruin my day. 

As I exit the bathroom stall, I see the Billerica contingency again, the same ones I saw in the bathroom at Lee going westbound, and we burst into laughter.  Our timing is impeccable.  By the time I reach my car, I am still chuckling.  I open my cooler, get out a soda, open a sandwich to have ready for the ride home, stop and fuel up, and head back onto the highway.  I have, yet again, forgotten to take my anti-Floyd meds and clean the windshield.  

I few minutes on I-90 later, I realize that I do not have my debit card.  Damnit.  Did I leave it in the gas pump?  No way, I know I took it out and had it in my hand.  Did I drop it?  I reach for the pocket where I always put it when I am done with it if I don't have my wallet out.  It's not there.  I search the nooks and crannies of the car while I'm driving.  Not with my phone, not with the toll ticket, and not with the food.  I pull over to the breakdown lane, not an easy trick with the divots they added to the side, and I start searching the car.  After panicking for about a minute, I realize that the card is in my other back pocket.  Idiot.  Idiot, idiot, idiot.  I get the car up to speed and pull back onto the nearly deserted highway.

I finally locate the Bruins game on the radio after suffering through the smooth jazz and soft-porn sounds of the Berkshires, and discover it is 2-2 after the second, and I realize that I never found out the score of the Red Sox game that disappeared when I entered New York earlier.   I listen to the game as I cut through 290 in Worcester to get home.  I am expecting traffic there, I mean it is Worcester, and it is 9:30 on a Saturday night, but I find myself alone on the road except for the SUV that is suspiciously on my ass.  I am the only other car on the road, in the middle lane, and this dick-head is riding my bumper like he really, really wants my phone number.  When we get to a deserted part of the highway, I suddenly wonder if he's going to shoot me or run me off the road.  Why does 290 suddenly feel more dangerous than Albnay's Arbor Hill?

I make it home by 10:35 pm, three hours from start to finish including stop-over time, and I start downloading the pictures from the game.  At 11:30, I realize that I am asleep at the computer and decide to go to bed.  I remember to medicate Floyd, empty the cooler, and manage to crawl into bed.  Long day; long trip; successful and eventful, as usual. 

My life may not be standard fare, but it sure does make for an interesting tale.

Besides, if I make it sound strange enough, maybe I can convince a few of you to join me next time I decide to visit my new pals in Arbor Hill.  I'll be heading back there in 2015 if all goes well.  You guys bring the munchies; I'll bring Billy C and Floyd.  It'll be a great time!