lady t

let's face it, no one offers up a close encounter with humanity's more colorful quite like the T. they really should work that angle in their advertising. 'ride the T & see some messed up shit'

this 'little' gem happend to be dancing up and down the aisle of the redline train i was on wednesday after class, stopping every so often to thrust and gyrate in a way that made me reach for my purell hand sanitizer just in case an unfortunate lurch in the T led to an unexpected lap dance. she was decked out in a 4sizestoosmallflashdancenumbah gone way wrong circa '82, complete with giant potbelly featuring a large horizontal scar. i'm sure she would have also had on matching legwarmers if they made them in size elephantankle.



you can understand why i wasn't bold enough to attempt a frontal photo. no need to take a chance on catching this one's attention.

(i think the guy on the left says it all.)

leg transplant, please

so i left the house this morning hoping to top my 7-mile longest distance for running... i tried the other day, but couldn't bring myself to do another lap past sullivan's snack shack where 300lb americana grazes on soft-serve and fries. there's a reason i don't bring my wallet with me when i run ;) today i thought maybe, just maybe i could hit ten miles without falling apart somewhere between here and castle island.

well, champagne flavored gatorade for everyone :) 10 miles it was.

sanity day

so after 10 straight days of work, or school, or on extra special days both work and school i finally started to crack yesterday. so i decided to treat myself to a mental health day before things got ugly and for the first time in forevuh did basically whatever i wanted. well, i did still get up in the am with j.mo and made a pot of coffee and as soon as i had a pulse cleaned the house. thank you caffeine. and after that was done i wrote a paper. again, thank you caffeine. so i got a lot done in addition to it being a day of whatever. after lunch i had a lovely walk in the sunshine on my way to the T so i could hit up the o.b.g.y.m and then feeling extra motivated when i was done with the gym i went for a seven mile run.

we've both been little running machines since we bought these:


and these:


i've run 23.8 miles in the past 11 days. according to the little man that lives inside my nano i'm on track to hit my goal of 60 mile in 4 weeks. here i am crawling across the finish line after my seven mile leg-punishing trek today:


i think before the weekend is over i might be able to do a ten mile run- we'll see what happens. i say that now, but i probably won't be able to walk to the train in the morning. whatever- it's been good motivation and there's something very zen about running. and running. and running some more. so as long as i have this crap job and crazy schedule with school i've got to try and stick with it.

it's amazing what a difference a day makes.

tickled pink (alternate title: signs of life)

tomorrow would have marked two entire months since my last post... i wonder if anyone even checks in for updates anymore?!?

i'm on vacation from work right now (which means waking up at o'dark hundred every morning to answer my bottomless emails and shovel around passengers as if i care) so i can take 3 summer courses to make up for time lost last summer- immigration law (handy, though noitceably unthrilling), intercultural management (pretty good overall) and another on racism. the racism course was the last one i picked for this summer, and admittedly, it was ultimately chosen because it required the least number of days off from work. i would have never imagined it would turn into the experience it was. everything i thought i knew about the topic got spattered around the microwave like a certain ex-roomate's penchant for annihilating sticks of margarine in the name of baking. every once in a while you run into someone that's a true teacher- someone inspired and passionate... someone that teaches from lived experience and doesn't insist on an all you can eat buffet of half-cooked wordymumbojumbotheorypie. i feel incredibly grateful for all of this and have had so much to think about and question. at the risk of taking us all down hallmark boulevard, i'll stop crapping on and just say it was a moving experience on every level imaginable... one that is gonna be with me for the long-haul.

speaking of long-hauls... j.mo and i are about to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary on monday. it sounds kinda funny to say it's our first wedding anniversary since we've been together for seven years now, but it will soon indeed be one year ago that we were sticking two plastic grooms in a cake and getting all teary-eyed.

and what a lovely way to celebrate:

'A proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was swiftly defeated today by a joint session of the Legislature by a vote of 45 to 151, eliminating any chance of getting it on the ballot in November 2008. The measure needed at least 50 votes to advance.... "We’re proud of our state today, and we applaud the legislature for showing that Massachusetts is strongly behind fairness," said Lee Swislow, executive director Advocates & Defenders. "The vote today was the triumph of time, experience, and understanding over fear and prejudice."

I too am proud of my state today. After a difficult and uncomfortable week of questioning so much about what I thought I knew about racism, identity and living in the US... And seriously wondering what (if any) impact I can have after all this time and energy spent learning about intercultural relations, I'm feeling a little bit better that maybe things can change. That maybe we really will have a chance to be parents and raise kids in a place that respects our family.

As I heard all week long-

learn, unlearn, relearn