how far is goodbye?

one year gone.

truth.

sometimes i really love my industry...

...to me this is advertising done right.

hit me with your best shot...

aloha!

yesterday i was inexplicably sad. in trying to figure out why i realized that i hadn't actually spoken to my friend erika before she and matt left yesterday morning to live in hawaii for a year.

very proud of them that they got out of boston, if only for a year, before getting married. really thought matty was one of those boston dudes who would never, ever leave. glad they are out adventuring before settling down and entering the next stage of life.

forcing myself to save $$$ to go visit them in hawaii. cause when will i have the chance to stay there for free again? probably never. plus i know a couple friends from home who live there on another island.

8:36.

the only thing that got me through a day of miserable allergies and feeling like i'd been run over by a train:
my "brotherhood" box set of dvds had arrived from amazon.

congrats.

today i am very, very proud of the most important person in my life.

Slán agus beannacht leat.

worse than the ordinary miserable childhood
is the miserable Irish childhood.

once upon a time i moved in with my father and my sister after my stepmom passed away. there was a sense of normalcy missing in the house, which i tried my best to provide. it's hard playing "mom" to a 16 year old when you are only 8 years older. but i did my best.

a teenager does not want to hang out with her dad instead of her friends. dads are not "cool" when you are in high school. parents just don't understand. when living with my dad and sister, i made forced family nights. usually tried to pick out a movie to watch that all three of us would be entertained by. since my dad only enjoys history, documentary and war genres, that left little common ground. my sister and i were heavily into the first season of "The O.C." at this time. our father would yell at us that it was rotting our brains, to watch something educational.

"angela's ashes" was my selection at blockbuster one night. i figured that it would make my dad nostalgic for the years he spent in ireland during elementary school.

you see, my grandfather was basically a stalker, from the stories i have heard. well, not really, but he did follow my grandmother across an ocean, even though they weren't even dating at the time. they met at a country dance in rural county clare, ireland. grandma already planned to move to the states, where her sister lived. she really didn't pay this guy jack any mind. then after she moved he started writing her letters and followed her over the ocean to upstate ny.

they dated, married, had my dad, my aunt and my uncle sean. grandpa always liked ireland better. he was typical stubborn old-school irish male. told her to pack up the kids, they were moving back to ireland.

my dad went to kindergarden at a catholic school, (there were no other kind.), in the southwest of ireland. he had already acquired an american accent, which gained the wrath of the irish schoolchildren who picked on him. called him "the yank". the nuns made an example out of him, beat him with rulers. dad told me that he remembers peeing his pants one day cause he was so nervous and scared.

grandma eventually decided enough was enough. she'd had a taste of a better life in america. packed up the kids, the house and announced they were moving back. jack, being the stubborn guy he was, thought he hadn't gotten a chance to make a go of it back in ireland. peggy moved back with the kids alone. a month later jack followed.

"the whole family would've starved if jack tried to keep going as a farmer back then!" was the official report i got from gram's brother-in-law during my first visit to ireland, after both my grandparents had died.

renting "angela's ashes" did not bring back fond memories for my father of part of a childhood spent in the motherland. instead, my dad cringed when remembering the cold, the damp, the fact he was always sick, the outhouse, the taunts of his classmates, the smell of the stove. he made it through the movie. barely. then at the end told me that mccourt's family claims he made most of it up.

the irish are notorious for telling tall tales. i'm sure that some of what i have just typed is incorrect due to time, flawed memories and the details getting skewed when stories are told over and over again through time and generations. i'm sure not all of what mccourt put down on paper was historically accurate, but he told a damn good story!

rest in peace mister mccourt. my world was better for having you in it.

i guess this is growing up...

welcome to the world l.m.j!!!


everything changes but change itself.-j.f.k

vampires! werewolves! shapshifters! oh my!

confession: i have read (and enjoyed) every book in the "twilight" series.

yes, i realize that as a 30 year old female living in nyc, working an "adult" job, i should be immune to such nonsense.
i liken it to still loving my favorite 80's movies from childhood.
"twilight" made me nostalgic for that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling that is the first flush of romance.

yesterday on the J train a girl reading one of the sookie stackhouse books sat down next to a girl reading "new moon".
chuckled to myself.
then realized that one of the two girls was my friend alexis!

dyslexia.

summer of '96.

domestic goddess:

one thing i never had the patience for was cooking.

my stepdad is a classically trained chef. my mom is an amazing baker. my irish grandma never used measurements, so even when i was a senior in high school and exhibited some interest in learning her recipes, she never used one.

once i became vegetarian i really had no incentive to learn from bob, (my stepdad), since his food is meat-centric. he learned to cook in the south and does a ton of soul food. which is modified when i am eating it. greens cooked without neckbones, etc.

yesterday, while actually using my kitchen for something more than heating stuff up, all the knife skills that my stepdad had forced me to watch started to come back to me. i may master this cooking thing yet...


thanks giada! (via food network)

1 pound frozen peas, thawed
8 ounces sun-dried tomatoes, drained (about 3/4 cup)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 heads endive, ends trimmed and leaves separated
Directions
Combine the peas, sun-dried tomatoes, and garlic in a food processor. Pulse the machine until the peas and tomatoes are finely chopped. Add the olive oil and pulse until the olive oil is incorporated and the mixture is minced but not yet pureed. Transfer to a small bowl and stir in the salt and pepper.

i found a way.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!-d.d.a.

you know you're PMSing when...

when a screening at work that includes the trailer for "where the wild things are" movie makes you tear up.

when you start fights with 5 people within a 12 hour timeframe. (luckily none at work...)

when you eat not one, but two, of your emergency chocolates stashed in your desk. (RIP box of maison du chocolat!)

i had the good sense to impose myself to exile last night. as much as i did want to see "reality bites" outdoors, i wanted to fight with my friends less!

dirty 30.

today is my roomie's 30th birthday.

a year ago we didn't even know each other. now i can't imagine not being friends with her.

i had to undergo a rigorous interview process. that basically consisted of me falling head over heels in love with her dog.

our other roommate i'd known for years, but didn't hang out with very much, sadly.

they didn't want a girl roommate. and they didn't want "a ginger". both qualities which i possess. i can be very convincing when i want to be...

sometimes people come into your life at just the right time. not to be trite or corny, but living in my apt has taught me how to be fun again.

post script...


A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.-e.e.d.

this one is for j.b.s.
happy dirty thirty girl!
love always,
xoxo mjm

"don't you know now is the perfect time..."

my first record (vinyl) was thriller.
at some point a relative bought me a michael jackson doll when i was little. it had one glove.

while i wasn't a huge fan of anything besides his early stuff, i can respect what he did for the african american community. despite everything that he was accused of later in life, he was an amazing musician. a consummate entertainer.

look at what happens to most child celebrities. everyone from drew barrymore to the kids from "different strokes". you become a breadwinner early in life, your parents see you as their meal ticket, childhood is lost. i feel really sorry for him. in watching that big documentary years back i just got the feeling that he was still so very much this little lost boy who needed a hug.

when i found out he had died i walked into my kitchen and announced to my roommate "this one's for my dead homie!" and poured out some of the corona i was drinking in the sink.

RIP MJ
xoxo mjm

"we can make it right hit the city lights..."

***just watch the fireworks***

boston 4th of july.
illegal fireworks from NH.
strawberry/blueberry/cool whip/funfetti american flag cake.
walking the yorkies down by the charles.
more dunkin donuts iced coffee than i have ever consumed in one weekend.
veggie sausages.
sing-a-longs with erika while driving around the city in her car.
bottlerockets on the roof of a practice space in allston.
charles river boston pops show.
punk rock basement show/DIY bbq, followed by west roxbury beerpong/marine homecoming/reg bbq.





here you can be anything
and I think that scares you

the purge.

reading through this blog of mine
i am struck by how much i put out there
when, for years, for self-preservation,
i kept it all in

saw the above artwork at my sister's friend's senior art show
SVA
another friend, of mine, of my sister's,
was looking at the exhibit with me
commented on how he thought this was
god
(GOD)
(God)
creation

that was the obvious interpretation
one that 90% of people probably would have had

but
of course
i didn't see it that way

reading through all this
that piece stuck out in my head
the purge
of everything that was held in
all of it
coming out

spoke to a writer i know
explained how i maybe wanted to go back to school
for writing
or english

things that i never majored in because...
because that was what i was good at
excelled at

science...
that was work!
a challenge
chem professor that laughed
when i told him my major would be environmental science

streams of consciousness
that scared me
was i having a breakdown?
or a breakthrough?

i'd write and write
then read it in a day
a week
a month

you could hand me a printout
i'd deny in a court of law
that i'd written it

writer i know said it's the same for him

was always jealous
of musician friends
of artist friends
of people who knew exactly what they wanted to do

mine was always a process of elimination
can't do that
don't want to do this
bored by that
shouldn't try this

it doesn't help being your own worst critic either

always proving myself
is tiring
i'm done







if you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too; . . .
if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same . . .
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it-j.r.k.