what is life if not a learning process?

edUcAtiNg juLiA. today i'm feeling reflective, so let me take a moment to share with you a few of the many lessons i have learned over this past year:

* when a friend of yours is trying to set you up with someone, this someone being a virtual stranger to you, and that someone's friend responds to the idea by saying to your friend, "that's great. i was just thinking how that's what ________ needs right now, to settle down & get a girlfriend who's not crazy and somewhat stable," you might want to take that as a warning sign.

* when you accompany a friend while she gets a tattoo and somehow at the end of the adventure you two are rewarded with a small mystery bottle of tequila from the kind of nice but predominantly just sketchy guy doing the estimates, sketches and appointment scheduling at the tattoo parlor, you deserve to end up passed out wherever you end up after drinking it.

* when you drink an amount of whiskey that might actually put a strain on certain distilleries in tennessee, on the 2nd floor of a bar, and you then attempt to descend the stairs to leave the bar, you are likely to end up with a sprained ankle.

* when you get too fixated on the composition of a text message, you may very well walk past the front door of your apartment building without noticing and end up at the entrance to the identical building next door, for which your vestibule key also works, and enter that building, climb the stairs, and find yourself in front of not your apartment 4 with a lock that looks unfamiliar and in which your key will not fit, thinking "how the hell did they have time to change the lock in the short time i was out? and why did they use one that looks so old? wouldn't you replace it with a new lock?" and knocking on a total stranger's door looking to be let in.

please note forwarding address.

'bUrG bOuNd. i am officially withdrawing myself from the competition for most addresses in a 12 month period and cutting myself off at 4, effective june 1. which is really soon. and really exciting. stressful, but exciting. my roommate, meg, and i are both going to be experiencing brooklyn for the first time. we are trying to get an understanding of and familiarity with the new neighborhood before we get there. some might call it "casing", i prefer "exploring". meg might actually be the cutest girl on the planet and emails me picture collages for decoration inspiration and maps showing our "home" and all the local art galleries that she has made using her graphic design skills.
i'm still not sure how i spent 4 months floating the way i have. i try to look back on it as an exercise in letting go and being flexible. and if after this little experiement i am not open and able to go with the flow, then i will never be.
so here i am, and with less than two weeks until june 1st, once again, it is time to break out boxes and newspaper and packing tape, to line up movers and make arrangements. time to lift, load and unload. and, this time, to settle into a place i can call home.

shady pines, ma.

bEa-LaTeD. friday was bea arthur's 82nd birthday. i hope you all marked the day with cheesecake, sarcastic one-liners, and sexual frustration.

of course, bea arthur will always be best known for her stint as dorothy zbornak on the golden girls, a show that i watched religiously as a child and which holds a special place in my heart. oh, those wild and crazy old ladies of miami, what made those senior citizens so appealing to a young girl? a lot of things. let's look at wise-cracking dorothy zbornak since this post is in belated celebration of bea arthur's birthday. dorothy had the freedom to do what every child dreams of - threaten and boss around her mother. and she did. constantly. and to great amusement. at least once an episode. dorothy held sophia's fate in her hands. she could easily send her straight back to the nursing home at any moment, a fact she often leveraged against sophia when she stepped out of line. oh, the power of that one simple sentence: "shady pines, ma" - didn't we all envy that? that totally reversed power system, daughter in charge? no "what's the magic word?" or "don't talk back", no "finish what's on your plate or you can't have dessert", no "who are you going with? and when will you be home?", no "clean your room", no "go to your room" no "you're grounded", no "don't hit your sister", no "it's time for bed" or "because i'm your mother and i say so", no "you aren't leaving this house dressed like that, you look like a slut." dorothy was a hero living out our wildest fantasy, offering us hope that there might come a day when the tables would turn, when the discipline, the nagging, the, god forbid, parenting would end and it would be our turn to dish it out. yeah, go ahead, mom, threaten me that santa isn't coming if i don't shape up because what goes around comes around and i've got "s h a d y p i n e s , m a" down pat and i won't be afraid to use it. even if the price i have to pay is turning into some sort of lonely, sexually frustrated she-beast with horrible taste in clothes and a vocal range in the basement. your days of telling me what to do are numbered. i know, i watch the golden girls.

is it just me?

boLtOn. whenever i read the headlines about bolton's nomination for ambassador to the u.n., i think first of michael bolton.

no periods, only commas

yAy AmY. on tuesday my sister received her masters in social work from nyu. at lincoln center. as the rolling stones played outside on the plaza. only in new york city.
it was a full day. full of events, full of plans, full of waiting, full of speeches, full of emotion, full of thought, full of inspiration, full of cameras, full of taxi rides and getting here & there, full of watch checks, full of blisters, full of pride, full of joy, full of missing people, like my dad, who are no longer with us but we wish had been there . . .
the speaker at the commencement touched quite candidly and engagingly on the need for social change resulting from our lack of a politicized society and the importance of changing the system to rid it of flaws rather than changing the individual to fit in a flawed system. i've always shared much of my sister's idealism and her drive to elicit change, no matter how big or small, and i've always supported her on the decision to use social work as her medium to achieve that end. her graduation reinforced all of that for me and made me believe in it, and her, even more. which i didn't think was possible. i am so proud of her and all the good she has done already, and i know an infinite amount lays ahead. the world is a better place because of her.
it's funny how unlike an ending her graduation seemed though . . . maybe because this program was 2 years and not 4 and so the end snuck up on me, catching me unprepared? or maybe because an undergraduate degree seems like the end of that long road of formal education we embark on as toddlers, really, when you consider the years spent in nursery school that lead directly into kindergarden, and, so, when that moment arrived for each of us it felt like, 'finally, we have finished, we can take a deep breath now and do whatever we want to do from now on!' (a big hahaha to the naivete of that thought, but, anyway) this masters degree, on the other hand, really is a stepping stone, a transition, a beginning for her, her career, her aspirations. this is not the end of something for amy, not a period, just a comma

julia goes digital.

fOtO fReNzY. yesterday, i finally bought myself a digital camera. today, i signed up for flickr. tomorrow, presumably, i'll actually learn how to take decent photos with it.
in the meantime, let the fun begin. you can check out all the photos i'm taking on my flickr photostream.
what are you waiting for? go check them out. now.

nobody puts baby in the corner.

unLeSs sHe'S ugLy. or so allege some canadian researchers. according to an article in today's new york times, there is a group of researchers from the university of alberta who, after rigorous and meticulous observation of parents and children in supermarkets, claim that pretty children are treated better than ugly ones. to which ugly children everywhere say, “i know!” and their beautiful siblings say, “no way!”
personally, i must admit, that upon reading the article, i wasn’t sure which i was supposed to find more disturbing – that parents would discriminate among their children based on appearance, placing a higher value on physical attractiveness, or that these researchers spent so much time observing children and rating their looks on a scale of 1 to 10, declaring each child either pretty or homely. i would like to “observe” these researchers and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 . . . somehow i don’t think the university of alberta behavioral research department is swimming with hotties.

may i?

mAy DaY. it's not just a cry for help, it's also a holiday (of sorts). though i'm 97% certain may day is only recognized because it rhymes. or maybe we really do need to designate a day to leave flowers by our doorways to ward off troublesome fairies.

yOu ArE wHaT yOu EaT. i saw a guy wearing a tee shirt bearing this assertion today and the answer is: whatever it was, it was quite large. and quite lumpy.

mOvE oVeR mEreDiTh BaXtEr bIrNeY. first there was kirstie alley's profoundly normal. and now with tonight's hallmark hall of fame presentation, riding the bus with my sister, starring rosie o'donnell, it is confirmed, there is a new leading lady in sunday night movies - the fat retarded woman. sorry unstable, vengeful woman scorned you are so yesterday.