Dreaming in iambic pentameter

Bert and I were late for class, and we started running.

We were already inside a building, which looked strangely like a fancy hotel lobby. We slammed open the gold-rimmed double doors and ran up some stairs. It soon became clear that all this building had were stairs and short hallways. Most sets of stairs looked like it was from Fallon Memorial School in Pawtucket. One set looked like it was from the Harvard T Station.

With Bert to my left, we kept running and running, and we looked like cartoon characters, our heads and bodies leaning forward, our legs converted into a circular blurred wheel of motion.

"214... 214..." one of us said. There were no sign of doors anywhere.

I looked back at Bert and was surprised to see him replaced by Jenny, the most beautiful girl from our high school class. Her face was looking forward, determined not to be late, with a half-smile, as the background of the staircases and hallways whirring by.

I did a double-take. "YOU'RE going to poetry class, TOO??" I said.

"Come ON!" she said, encouraging us to go faster.

I laughed and wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. Our feet were still going and going up the stairs. Soon our wheeling feet were sharing the same axis, as if she was riding a bike and I was riding the back wheel with my hands on her shoulders.

Finally we came across a sign at a T-intersection at the top of the stairs. It had two arrows pointing left and right, each corresponding to a range of room numbers. 214 fit the range on the right. We ran in that direction, where there were more stairs.

We realized we had lost Bert. "He must have gone the other way!" I said.

The stairs here weren't that wide, more for single-file use. Then I realized it felt like we were on a roller coaster, and we changed from the warp speed of our blurring feet to the clunking, inching forward up a spiral tunnel. We sat together in our car, her in front of me, facing forward. I held her close. I saw her neck, partially bare from her blonde hair, and I started to nibble. More playfully than anything else. In mid-nibble, I stopped and opened my eyes in shock. What was I doing? She's just a classmate!

Luckily, coincidentally, I noticed something outside the staircase window (the whole wall was glass). To distract her from the nibbling, I said, "Hey, look at that rainbow!" The sky was a sulfur, dark brown, and cloudy, and the rainbow could only be seen if you looked hard enough. It was fuzzy. A double rainbow started to appear next to it.

"Are you sure it's not us?" Jenny said. At first I wasn't sure what she meant, but when I looked back at the rainbow, I noticed our reflection superimposed, stretching across the curve in the window.

The roller coaster completed its turn around the spiral staircase and leveled out. Our car was suddenly floating in water. I was aware of other people also half submerged, in their own roller coaster tracks, in this dark cavern.

There was a way out on the other end. When it was our turn to exit the hole, I realized we were high above ground. I could see we were on the other end of the Orono campus, near Public Safety and Chadbourne Hall. We were high above ground. The water emptied us out into a parking lot. It was just after dusk and drizzling.

I found a parking spot far away from the building, from the one that was where Chadbourne Hall is located but it was an altogether different building. It was to the left of the spout we just came out of. We stepped out of the car and collapsed on the gravel ground. We were exhausted. I tied my shoe in the rain, with Jenny slumped over in a dead-tired pose.

I heard a rumble of an engine and looked up to see a black F-150 pickup truck pull up and park on the grass, on the edge of the parking lot near the building. Bert got out of his truck, and I could hear the "more power" grunt he liked to do. I don't think Bert actually grunted, it just happened. He looked over at us slumped in a pile near a puddle and laughed.

"Let's go!" he said. We were probably late.

We quickly walked up the stairs to the building, and when I arrived to class, Bert and Jenny were already seated and engrossed in the class's lesson.

Ramping for camping, and partying like a 2-year-old

On Labor Day weekend, I plan to go to a tango/camping weekend event, so this weekend I went up to my mom's house to grab some gear. I set up my tent this morning (Sunday), which I haven't used in a few (maybe four?) years. I also wanted to see if two people and a dog could fit in it. Luckily I had volunteers to help me see if I could.

"Wait. You want us to do what??"

"We need to figure out if two people and a dog really can fit in this thing."

"Uhh... you want me to go in there? I don't know -- it looks small!"

"Oh, all right! Here goes nothing!"

(She would only go in, if someone was already inside, when there was a treat waiting for her.)

Plenty of room for another person! Sweet. Good to go.

* * *

Later in the day, we all went to my nephew's birthday party. Met up with some from my brother-in-law's side of the family, whom I hadn't seen since my little sister got married. Anyway, the little tyke got a whole bunch of presents. It was almost like Christmas, except he was the only one with presents.

Busy month

I wish I could say I was on an actual vacation for most of this month. I haven't actually written a real post here for most of July, as I've been unusually busy. Not really with busy work here and there, but I feel I'm occupying my time, for the most part, more wisely. There is a better sense of purpose. So here, I will try to do a brief (haha) synopsis of my month, picking up where I last left off.

My weekend getaway.
On July 4, I saw my friend and his wife, and caught up on life over the past year. I have grown so much in the time since we had last met, at their wedding, and it was good to hang out. Then it was off to an undisclosed location, which, by a number of readers of my blog had figured out from my photos, was in Rockland, Maine. I had hoped for a beach to lay out and just vegetate, but I ended up getting a ripe red farmer's tan (burn) just walking from my motel to the Rockland Breakwater, and beach time lasted only nearly two hours, tops. I got a free four-day three-night stay at the motel for resisting buying one of their timeshares after taking a tour of one of their condos. I decided to drive back to Massachusetts via Route 1, but after four hours and STILL in Maine, I hopped onto I-95, which ended up having worse holiday traffic. Six hours later, I landed in my neck of the woods and went straight to the last hour of the Cambridge tango practica, before heading home. All in all, it was a good trip, but I realized I could really do with a two-week vacation, which I haven't done since my trip to the U.K. over eight years ago during spring break of 2000.

Staples | Corporate Express acquisition (I mean, integration) website
Just before going to Maine I started work on the integration website of Staples and Corporate Express. And when I came back, I was working full-throttle on getting it done. One week I actually got an hour of overtime. It took me and a number of people on my team (I'm currently a contract web developer at Staples headquarters, for those who don't know) the better part of three or so weeks to get done what normally would have been months of work, according to one higher-up who applauded our efforts once we were done. I did most of the HTML, CSS, javascript and a dash of ASP (someone else did the Flash and design). I had some help on the javascript part from one former contractor who has gone full time. The Staples Corporate Express site is now live, but you need to have login access.

Then it is on to a new, big project, which I am knee deep in now. And once that's done, my duties will completely change. Sounds like good job security for now.

Life is a one-man play on a stage
One evening earlier this month, a friend of mine from New Hampshire and I went to the New Rep Theatre in Watertown to see "According to Tip", a one-man play performed by Broadway and TV star Ken Howard. I don't know anything about Broadway, or Tip O'Neill, but my friend is a political junkie. And because the New Reperatory Theatre is in my neighborhood, and because I am interested in the arts (even though I haven't done much with it), I thought what the hell. Ken Howard was great. Because he sang a handful of Irish drinking songs, does it count as a musical?

Howard has been around for a long time, and apparently he is sometimes in the U.S. version of "The Office," and he was in the (fantastic) movie "Michael Clayton," which starred George Clooney. I'm the type of person who can't do movie quotes to save my life, and therefore I cannot remember who Howard was in the movie. I'd have to watch it again.

Life is a one-man play on a stage, Part 2
The same night as "According to Tip" there was an Argentine tango milonga in Brookline. The play was done at 10:30pm-ish, and the milonga still had at least two hours left, so I decided to go. That was the most interesting two hours at a milonga I've had in a long time, if not ever. And that's putting it lightly. I saw my ex arrive there with a guy friend of hers, and I (apparently?) jumped to conclusions and had to step outside for a while to clear my head (see more about meditation, below). I stepped back inside and ended up having incredible dances with some of my favorite dancers, and with those I haven't danced with before (they were added to my list of favorites).

There are the types of good dancers who are so pre-occupied with doing a particular move RIGHT, as in pointing the foot at the correct angle to floor and juxtaposed to the leg blah blah blah, and there are the types of good dancers who move with feeling -- it may not be 100% correct but it FEELS goooood. I lean toward the latter, and I love dancing with those types of dancers too. For a while, I lost sight of that, and I'm comfortable with where I am. (I do know that if you combine both of those types of good dancers, the precise with the feeling, then your eyes roll back into your head with bliss. Been there, done that. That happens when the stars are aligned just perfectly.)

Hosting practica
In other tango news, I had been asked to be host to the Sunday practica in Cambridge. I was host on July 13, and will be host this Sunday. Basically, all this means is that I'm responsible for bringing water for everyone, ensuring that the vibe of practica remains friendly, be welcoming and dancing with new faces on the scene. I have no control over how freaking hot and muggy it gets in there, even when all three air conditioners and industrial fans are on at full blast. Thankfully, I don't need to mop up the drops of sweat on the floor. But I am responsible for having enough money to cover the rent.

Creative writing update
I haven't done much writing this month, other than writing prolific late-night (into early morning) entries in my journal after a long day (see "Life is a one-man play," parts 1 and 2, above, for example). Other than that, I have submitted a very small slice-of-life story as an entry to Grub Street's new literary magazine, the Rag Mag, which will debut Sept. 1. The story is labeled as fiction, although it's definitely based on a true story. In fact, I wrote it during a Grub Street writing class in early June, and it became one of my early blog entries, The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster. I hope it will be published in the Mag in one way or another. So far, I know that two people in my life have read it and that they loved it. I hope the rest of you do, too.

Crowning achievement
I finally got my second crown put in. This time porcelain instead of gold. I waited awhile to get it done, and therefore there were slight complications. I was under nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for about three long hours, and coming out of that consious yet coma-like state was rough. I had to sit down and drink some water to let my convulsing body iron out the shakes. Really weird.

Think twice about asking me to fix your computer
I messed up my computer bad. It actually happened the end of last month, and I let my computer whiz-kid friend up in Maine make a diagnosis. Yup, I lost all my files. Had I actually looked for my Windows XP setup CD, instead of using the PC Recovery Disc, I would have been A-OK. But the PC Recovery Disc reverted my computer as if I had just bought it this morning, taking me through the tour of Windows. Bizarrely, all my programs were fine, even Firefox 3, which I had downloaded a week before my computer wouldn't load. All the files that were stored in the My Documents folder? GONE. All the free videos I got from Amazon Unbox that were stored in a separate shared folder, videos I downloaded but don't have time to watch, and probably never will, were SAVED. Family and friends' photos? Gone. Budget spreadsheet I painstakingly built over the last year? Gone. Website source files for my previous clients? Gone. It's high time I invest in an external hard drive to back all my shit up. Now I'm re-building my budget with Google Docs (read: online).

Meditation and mindfulness
In many ways this should be first on this list. This has been one of the most important things I have done in a long while. It has been occupying most of my free time, when it's not spent dancing Argentine tango, surfing the Web, or taking walks. So because this section deserves more attention, and rightly so has turned from a brief synopsis on the list to a lengthy description of where I am at, "meditation and mindfulness" has become its own blog post.

One more week
There's still one more week to go for July. What more could possibly be in store for me?

View from lighthouse

Lighthouse. No more hints! :-)

Lighthouse. No more hints! :-)

Need a hint?

Can you guess where I am?

On my way to getting away

The previous blog posts are proof that my phone has a shitty built-in camera. Where there were Canadian geese swimming and flapping their wings in the Charles River, all you saw was a murky midnight-bluish-gray. Those were taken just a few steps south of Watertown Square, on the bridge near the Galen and Watertown streets intersection.

I had surrendered my car to Sullivan Tire to fix a blown blower motor around 8:30am, sat on a park bench and wrote for a couple of hours, went to Napoli Pizza for a small one (the guy repeated my order, "Hamburg, and broccoli?" but in a tone that said, "Seriously?"), and then decided to take a walk. I could only eat half the pizza, so I carted around the take-out pizza box, my journal, my eyeglass case and water bottle around in my hands. As I crossed the bridge, I snapped those photos. (Actually the first photo is OF the bridge, taken from the vantage point near where I wrote on the park bench, on the deck where old men cast fishing lines and families feed the geese, even when the signs say to keep them wild.)

My goal was to check out a new set of walking/bike paths in that area. If you hang a right after the bridge, the trail is right there. Turns out that corner is the start (or end) of a particular section of the Charles River Reservation, where there lives many small wildlife in addition to the geese. These include a type of sparrow, dragonflies, and a variety of fish, among others. Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, in my view. However, it was really nice and somewhat calming to watch a family of geese float by and admire their legs paddling themselves around.

The particular portion of the reservation extended from Watertown Square through Newton, up into Waltham and back down to Newton. I'm not entirely sure how far I went. The trail meandered fairly close to old buildings and was at several points practically in the back yards of many homes. It's a fairly windy day today, which was great in the shade while writing in the park, but it also allowed many twigs and branches to fall on the trail, so it wasn't as clean as, say, the trails along Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Soon I came across an outdoor barbecue consisting mostly of young Asians who had set up white tables on the grounds. Then the trail stopped at an actual road, but blue and yellow heron tracks painted on the sidewalk showed me the way across the street to where the trail continued. Shortly thereafter, Sullivan Tire called to say my car would be ready in an hour, so after continuing for a little bit more, I back-tracked my way to the starting line, and I had my car by 2pm. (As a side note, walking in Birkenstocks today has been a much more pleasant experience than I had on the first day.)

This has pretty much been my first day of "getting away from it all" on this long holiday weekend. I have so much on my mind lately, and just when I've started to sort things out, more gets added to the plate. I know that I could travel all over the world, but I won't "find myself", as it were, until I look inside. Nevertheless, I am traveling to Maine, with a tentative plan to find a beach to just relax and reflect, maybe do some meditating and more writing. Along the way, I'm going to see a friend who has offered to try to fix my home computer. That's really an excuse, as if I needed one, to chill out with an old friend for the first time in almost a year. Then it's onward to the crash of the waves and the hot sandy beach.