... as i slip into my best suit

McGreevey has a lawsuit on his hands and we're to blame. nyah, nyah!
So far we have about 350 participants since Monday and the fax machine is still ringing...

I am pro-active (sometimes)
I love my job (most of the time)
I was late this morning (as always)

fair fare is fairly rough fare to find

I'm flying to Minneapolis in a few weeks (woohoo! minnesota! land of 10,000 lakes and 20,000 mosquitos!) for manny and megh's wedding. I've been eyeing airfare like the nasty little air-fare eye-er that I am and happened to notice when the price had dropped by sixty (60!) dollars the other week. I was all over that fare like a fat kid on a donut, like scott on a cute intern, like the GOP on propaganda... I was on it.

exactly one week later that same fare dropped an additional $114. Can you believe that?! So I'm flying to Minnesota for $114 more than I really ought to be. At least I'm going to be in good company.
Manny will sport a monacle with his tux, the Grey Goose Society will be out in full force, everyone will be faded like bourbon street, and the [mariachi] band will play on like the good, wholesome patriots that they are. Cha cha cha... it's going to be a good time and well worth the superfluous $114. I've been busying myself with their website, their save-the-dates, yes folks - even their campaign-like wedding favor buttons that proudly announce the "candidacy" of Thein/Espinoza 2004 (you like that idea? yeah, I thought that was just nifty).

Anyways... NeWaYz...haha

Alright, seriously. For real now. Let's get down to brass tax and talk about the $6.31 tuna sandwich I just purchased across the street at Lombardi's. Where do we live? Beverly Hills?! Nay, this is Jersey City folks. JERSEY CITY. Most people have no busines in line at McDonald's ordering off the dollar menu, let alone spending a whole $6 and 30/100 of another dollar on a tuna sandwich. Oh. they threw in some lays chips as well. so I guess that covers most of it, right? heh.
Y'well the sandwich was mediocre at best. It tasted like tuna (amazingly), nothing else. Just plain old tuna. I was expecting something really special - perhaps some dill - but, not so much. Oh well. I know now why I stopped going to lombardi's.

I'm picking up Alejandra from the PATH station in approximately 10 minutes and I'm itching to fly free from this office. It's been a good day, but it's been a day just the same and I want to head over to Nanda's house and make brownies. Enough of this work business.

I love to hate it.

This is stupid. I'm leaving.

A carefully sorted assortment of sorts

a car has been named after me. i feel so honored! my buddy just finished up with round 1 at police academy (is there a round two? not sure) and has just informed me that once he gets his police cruiser, he's going to name it "monica". impressive, eh??

I'll finish this later. I'm out the door for a huge ass meeting.

work. blech.

my (musical) theory (on life)

nearly two years later, i rummage through her things as though she's just in the next room. Garage sale price tags all over everything, it felt normal. this felt like the day-to-day mundane.
the kids wanted everything gone. all of her furniture, her cd collection, her kitchen appliances, her music. boxes and boxes and BOXES of music. there was tons of it. Cristina told dan that we would take all of it home with us, sort it out later.

walking up the front walk to the house felt strange. i had not been there in 5 years or more. dr. K was happy, pleasant, jovial even. he smiled and waved, let us into the house, showed us where everything was being stored. "it all has to go girls. take what you want."
i felt dazed; and so strongly so that i thought i would pass-out. emotionally, i was already dealing with my own issues and this was overload, just a bit.
seeing some of jan's things that i had completely forgotten about - it brought her back to life for a minute. everything was out of place though. that table was supposed to be in the front hall, with those photographs on top. that figurine was on the end of the piano, along with her coffee mug of diet coke. that couch was in the piano room, that other couch in her bedroom. it was like a virtual tour of jan's home in helter skelter disarray.
after cristina decided it would just be easier to pack up ALL the music and take it home rather than sorting through it all in their living room, dr. k brought us a collander and told us that the blueberries needed to be picked (this was not a metaphor). he is moving in about two weeks down to florida and apparently hasn't had time to pick the blueberries off all the bushes out back and offered us as many blueberries as we could carry home with us.
cristina and i stomped through the high grass to the blueberry bushes and began picking. the sun was perfect today. i could feel it soaking into my skin and for a brief moment today it actually felt good to be alive. jan is dead. we are alive picking blueberries in her back yard.
i haven't had really any time alone with my sister since she came into town. alex, for once, was with someone else. we picked in silence and even the silence felt good. i felt like passing out for a moment, but pushed past it. i was wearing my black skirt. she was wearing her perfect white trousers. gosh, she's gotten skinny. she looks good though.
we began to talk. we talked about jan and the kids. they look good. beth has lost some weight. boo looks so much like her mom now. where's brooke? why is she not here on father's day?
i asked her a series of really personal questions for no reason at all. they came out of nowhere. i had just been curious. she averted her eyes, but surprisingly answered. short, one syllable answers.
the blueberries were so perfect! perriwinkle and beautiful. they don't look like this when you buy them in the store. i wanted to take pictures of them they were so perfect. i couldn't shut up about the blueberries. for reasons unclear, it was so amazing to me. cristina thought so too.
we picked again in silence and it was nearly therapeutic. therapeutic berry picking.
for some reason, i felt the overwhelming urge to cry. i didn't.
the baby laughed inside and from somewhere, debussy was playing; wafting out the window, through the air, and to our ears over by the blueberry patch. i missed jan immensely right at that moment. i wanted her to know that cristina was married, and had a son. i wanted her to know that i had lived in washington and moved back. i wanted her to know that her daughters were doing well. i wanted her to know that dan hadn't given up on writing.

i took two things from the house today. cecilia took several things. tons of stuff that i have no idea what she's going to do with. lenox pieces that i'm sure were originally very expensive, mirrors, figurines, anything that reminded her of jan, for they wanted it all gone.
cristina, of course, took all the music, several cd's and books, a table.
i took her bible. i poked around quite a bit and saw several things that reminded me of jan, but for some reason this was HER. her notes, her outlines and highlights. the thought of reading the bible accompanied by her insight was great. it wasn't so much of a nostalgic selection as it was a... i'm not sure what kind of selection it was. i'm just trying to avoid making this sound overly nostalgic and cliche. i just really wanted her bible, simple as that.
i also took the wooden magazine rack that she used to keep by the piano for extra piano music. it looked so well used and broken in. it's heavier than it looks.

i came home and lied down. i was absolutely exhausted, not having gotten much sleep the two previous nights. i (finally) took out my contact lenses. they've been in for three days straight.
i felt like i should cry. it felt appropriate. i contemplated forcing tears. i was sick of being emotionally void. with the collaboration of everything this weekend, i ought to feel SOMETHING, but i sort of felt like i felt nothing, which made me sad, which made me cry. i fell asleep that way: feeling nothing and crying about it.

it's interesting. sometimes it's good to be a crying girl.

and i'll use punctuation when i feel like it, dammit.

I'm gonna sex you up(state)

The city is dirty today. The humidity is seeping from the cracks in the concrete. I don't want to touch anything because everything seems moist (shiver. I hate that word. its sound is incredibly grotesque) with something unpleasant. Moist with hot dog water perhaps (something equally gross, if you could think of it, would also suffice).

I walked to the bank earlier and had a hard time breathing. It wasn't the "I'm out of breath because I've been sweatin' to the oldies" type can't breathe. It was the asthmatic type can't breathe. Strange.

No, moe, you don't have asthma.
And quit talking to yourself for pete's sake.

truth (half truth)

I once had lunch with Dan Quayle (and taught him how to spell potato)

I've been in the West Wing of the White House on numberous occasions (and caught Prez Bush reading UN delegate flashcards in the Oval Office)

I once witnessed a state arrival by the President of Poland 30 feet away from the President of the United States (and crossed the velvet rope)

My recently former roommate is a special agent for the State Department (and she's a he)

I've been on CNN, MTV, and various web based news sites (and had something intelligent to say on all of them)

I have interviewed the FBI and been interviewed by the FBI (I didn't inhale)

I turned down a date with the heir to the Nordstrom throne, Adam Nordstrom (and did it again three months later)

I bumped into Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins at a hip NYC restaurant a few months ago (and made them weep with my "Shawshank Redemption" monologue)

My boss will be Governor of NJ next year (if I have anything to do with it)

My brother has had beers with Willie Nelson and the boys in their trailer, watched Beyonce and her dancers change out of their stage clothing while watching 'The Simpsons' on their dressing room television, told Ricky Martin to "Fuck off", and discussed stock values with Martha Stewart (and knew who every single one of those people were when he did it)

I wear a size 10 shoe and my natural hair color is dark blonde (I wish this weren't true)

apparently my blog titles are misleading

I live with air conditioning. This may not sound like much, but it really really is. The house I grew up in - this groovy little place in this funky little town in... new jersey - has never been air conditioned. Having no basement and little attic space to speak of, it never seemed very conducive to conditioned air.
Somehow
Miraculously
amazingly
spectacularly
wonderfully
my father managed to pull it off. The Cool Air Boys (moniker by moe) showed up last week and crawled about our upper regions for three days in the boiling heat in order to install a state of the art central air system.
It was stuffy, the temperatures soaring to 90* (I think) and one of the dudes flat out fainted up in our attic. His foot went through the ceiling and we now have a nice sized hole in the dining room. They're patching it up for us.
As fate would have it, at the height of my father's excitement and bliss over an actual (gasp) air conditioning system, the temperatures dropped to about 70* the day the installation was finished. Bah!
He was so antsy to use the damn thing, that he used it anyway. I slept in my ski parka that night. The ice-blue one with the faux fir around the hood and a Molson's Canadian patch covering a rip on the left pocket. I wore my socks with toes (all twelve of them).

It was warm-ish last night. I got home from work around half past nine. The air was dripping with the remnants of... something wet and gross. It was muggy enough to make my glasses fog up anyhow.
I walked in the front door and... and... AND - it was cool. Wow. Pretty groovy. Something I've never experienced before. Quite literally.
I slept comfortably last night, without any ice packs to keep me company in my large, lonely bed. It was nice. I like air conditioning just fine.

Professor Coldheart was a fascist pig

I seldom remember my dreams these days. I don’t know if it’s that I have so many other things on my mind that I simply don’t care to remember or if it’s that I never quite get the proper combination of sleep and rest (there IS a difference, see), causing me to wake abruptly every morning. This is the case most of the time and my first thoughts are not typically about whatever I had been dreaming throughout my (minimal) hours of dormancy; my first thoughts are to curse the day from the very start.
Involuntary exclamations usually occur. Among them, “shit!”, “dammit!” and “good grief!” are most popular (and yes, I’m aware that the latter most does not necessarily fit in with the two former, thank you very much).

At any rate, I happened to remember my dream this morning, even though I was waking with an abrupt start. It was strange. Weird. Different. Again, weird.

I wanted a tattoo (I’ve wanted one for years and years), so I went on a quest to acquire one. I found this tattoo artist who ran his five-star operation out of a trailer or mobile home. The “front” door of the mobile home was rusty and protested angrily when I pulled it open to walk inside. The racket of the door caught the ear of a snoozing boxer nearby. Luckily, I didn’t seem to spark his interest quite enough to abandon his mid-day snooze. The pooch twitched his ear back and then forth and then returned his eyes to the closed position.

The artist was found inside, in the back, near the over-glorified port-a-potty. The lighting was dark, yellow-ish, reminiscent of Fight Club. The tattoo guy was big, but not scary. Almost laughable actually.
I blinked and he was finished. I don’t even remember telling him what I wanted on my arm. In fact, I don’t remember telling him that I wanted it on my arm. But that’s where he put it. And before I knew it, there was a band-aid (yes, I know) on my arm and he was finished.
I woke the next morning (still in the dream) and found that I had a stained glass (ish) design of a tiger on my arm. The tiger was lashing out at… at, well… not sure. I guess whatever unsuspecting victim happened to be looking at the tattoo. It was huge. It covered my entire upper arm. Underneath the tiger the words “Made in the Philippines” had been etched into my skin. This part is interesting because Firstly, I was not made in the Philippines. Secondly... well, there is no secondly. That's it. I was not made in the Philippines.
It was so hideously ugly but so incredibly fascinating. I felt regret immediately though. A tiger?! MADE IN THE PHILLIPINES?! WTF?!!
So yeah, this is what I woke up remembering this morning.

I know that dreams are connected to whatever experiences we have during the day, but as I thought about it this morning on my drive into work (yes, it mystified me THAT much. I thought of it on my drive into work. I analyzed it even! Ha!), I realized that I had never made such strong connections to previous day’s activities. Let’s see the comparisons, shall we? Oh yes, I know you want me to list them here. Hoo-rah.

1. The Tattoo: A friend was over last night and we all discussed our long-felt desires to get tattoos. In an effort to be oh-so-pious and non-defiant (for my parents’ sake) I stated that I would not get a tattoo until I was married and away from their rule. I'm so clever, eh?

2. The Mobile Home: I was discussing yesterday morning with a friend my father's latest and greatest idea to sell his house and travel the country in a mobile home, spending his final days roaming about with my mother and a schnauzer. I do not support this idea.

3. The Tiger: I happened to be messaging a friend last night and called him "Tiger" and then I roared (as best one can roar on instant messenger. I believe it goes something like this: "ROWR!") *ahem*

4. Made in the Philippines: I was noticing yesterday and was quite mystified by the fact that there are so many people from the philippines on both Myspace and Friendster. The contrast really is quite stark (philippines dwellers vs. non-philippines dwellers). This might call for a chart of some sort, be it pie, bar, line, or otherwise.

Anything else mentioned in my dream synopsis has no bearing whatsoever on any other activity that I took part in throughout the course of my day. In fact, much of it was fabricated right here and right now (go jesus jones, go!).

This is far more fun than work, but really lends no assistance in accomplishing my professional goals. Hence, I should get back to the proverbial grind.

Haha. Who am I kidding?

stop government regulation in cyberspace

I really have a lot to say, but I'm not quite sure how to say it.
Moe is at a loss for words. Unbelievable.
Moe is referring to herself in the third person.
Moe is clearly an ass.

I hate when things just plain suck. But does anyone really like it all that much?
Life is good (grand, in fact).
I am happy (bordering ecstatic).
Work is fine (doing pretty well these days).
I've met some really cool people (the coolest, in fact).
This particular thing sucks though (I don't like not having what I want).

That is all.

Sar-chasm

Today my skin doesn't fit. I don't fit. I'm stretching, nay, pouring out of my skin. I'm too big for this frame. My mind is reaching out beyond my physical existence and touching everything outside of the self that I have known for quite some time.

And it feels great to stretch.

When I do not fit in my own skin, it can feel terribly awkward. A spotlight shines brightly and shouts my deepest secrets to the whole world. The light uncovers me and exposes every crevice, every mark, every blemish. My body shakes and quivers with a nervousness resembling 3rd grade humiliation. Times ten.

Vulnerability unmasks my egotistical motivations. It forces me through a process that I would otherwise never force myself through. Shockingly, amazingly, fantastically I come out clean, unfettered, whole.

This past weekend was good for me. Awkward. Vulnerable. Terribly humiliating even, but good. Sargeant Pepper good. Tootsie Roll good. Various 90's pop culture trends good. I'm glad that I went. I'm glad that I evolved into this new thing that I am.

Who am I kidding? I'm just a kid, who watches cartoons and eats too much ice-cream in one sitting (enough to give me a belly-ache even). I will resort to biting if I am losing a wrestling match. I will wear two unmatching socks if the washer ate one. I will eat pudding with a fork if there are no clean dishes. I will give the camera my middle finger if I think it will be funny. I will flip my eyelids inside out if provoked.

I am not deep.
But I'm really not shallow either.

opalescence

If I can't live, I can at least dream, right?

I love people watching. This office of mine, on the corner of 2nd and Monmouth is so incredibly conducive to people watching and this makes me glad. Happy even.There's a very large picture window in front, and just beside that a heavy glass door. I sit inside, not such a long distance from either the window or the door, but almost completely clear from eye-shot for anyone walking past. It's not the direction they would think to look. It is one among many picture windows. One of several heavy glass doors entering dozens of poorly-lit offices.

This office is poorly lit, but is redeemed by the ever so jovial spirits that work inside.

There is a woman who walks by several times every day. Her short, spikey hair is chartreuse. It is brilliant. She is always wearing funky tights under a short skirt or dress. Black and white Dr. Seuss stripes are a popular choice as are fishnets. She has a dog. I don't know what kind. A cute little mix. She sometimes stops next door at the Pet Shop Boys (not their actual name, just a moniker that Amanda and I bestowed on them) to pick up tasty comestibles for her precious little pooch. She's fun to watch though. I want to bump into her one of these days. I don't think she smokes. Smoking is always a good way to meet strangers.

There is also a picture window directly behind me. In fact, it is so close behind me that if I, mid-day, decide to perform a full-body stretch (the double arch back in your seat, arms completely behind you type of stretch) I will hit the shades with my arms and make a big ruckus. haha. ruckus... anyway,there is this picture window behind me and it is at street level. There is a traffic light. So if I so choose, I can look at all the cars all day that stop at the traffic light, or at the very least, listen to whatever tunes they have selected on the hifi.
Just now, there was a large, red SUV parked at the light. Two gentlemen controlled the vehicle as (I'm assuming) pilot and co-pilot. They had those nifty spinning rims on tires that were roughly the size of a fourth grader. Their music was loud. L-O-U-D. The window was rattling it was so loud. This garnered the attention of Amanda, who came to survey the obtrusive vehicle and its obnoxiously loud sound system. We beat our heads back and forth to the rhythm of whatever indecipherable hip-hop track was playing. And then we laughed as a police cruiser pulled up behind the truck at the light and the driver promptly turned down his music.

"What music, officer?"

Sometimes I really like Jersey City. Other times it is just a city, that is in Jersey.

cultivating seeds of lightning

I'm ready. I'm ready for it. Waiting even. HA!Not quite waiting, but I think I'm at least ready.

This weekend I will drive up to Saratoga Springs, New York for Parker's wedding. I went to the dinner party five weeks ago celebrating her and Todd's pending nuptials, and it turned out great. Much merriment. Many much fun and merriment indeed. Is that how you spell merriment? I have no idea. At any rate, I will drive up to Saratoga Springs and attend Parker's wedding. The entire weekend is going to be like one, big College Republican (old school) reunion. I don't know if I can deal with all the politics. I'm carpooling with HPG and his girlfriend Karen. Now, see, THIS should be interesting. As I stated earlier, however, I feel ready. HPG and Karen are staying at my house in NJ Sunday night. I don't even know where yet. We're pretty much at full capacity right now and HPG is a big guy. He's somewhat likened to the stay-puff marshmallow man, I'd say.

Amanda and I have been working hard, trying to empower as many people as possible lately. Sometimes though, we feel like sticking up a big, middle finger and saying "EMPOWER THIS!"The B-Dawg went and spoke to a group of young home-school students yesterday afternoon. Damn, those kids are so well behaved. My sibs and I didn't fall under the 'well-behaved, quiet, meek and obedient home schooled type children', if there is such a category. We were more the 'obnoxiously loud, annoying, ADHD, disobedient home schooled type children'. A stark contrast, I believe. We turned out pretty OK though, I think. There's always room for improvement, mind you, but we're OK as far as home schooled rejects go. We don't collapse under the pressure of relatively new social scenarios, none of us are terribly unattractive (at least, I'd like to hope so), we're familiar with a plethora of pop-culture references that most fundamentalist, home schooled children would never absorb. I'm incredibly impressed with our ability to function outside of our homestead bubble and interact with society and culture as a whole. Oh, and we're not all that bright. A lot of home schooled children are really smart. We're not. So you see, we've really beat every angle there is. I'm pretty proud. I DID graduate valedictorian. I really abuse my whole "I was home-schooled" crutch. I abuse it entirely. I use it for everything.

Cut someone off on the interstate? "Sorry! I was home-schooled!"
Misspell a word? "Oh! My bad. Yeah, I was home-schooled."
Jab someone in the gut with my cue stick while playing a round of pool? "Oh man. Dude, sorry 'bout that. I was, you know, home-schooled."
Pulled over for doing 85 in a 65? "Officer, I didn't know any better... I was home-schooled."

This blog is really amounting to nothing much. I apologize, you know, I was home-schooled.

***Lying, smiling in the darkshooting stars around your heartdreams are bouncing in your headPure and simple all the timeNow you're crying in your sleepI wish you'd never learned to weepselling dreams you should be keepingPure and simple all the time***

statistics show, overwhelmingly, that you SUCK

I'm a brunette! Yes, that's right folks - Moe has altered science and nature yet again and has come out a brunette (with blonde skunky stripes in front). It's very fun, I must say.

Happy memorial day.

The district was fine, fine, fine this past weekend. It was nice to see familiar faces again and trip about my old stomping grounds. Part of this included turning my hair a new color.

I had brunch with Jeremy on Saturday morning at Eastern Market. I feel like everyone in DC is perpetually having brunch (dahling). It's crazy, but that's just what you do in DC on the weekends. You have brunch. And if you can't seem to beat off all the brunch invitations even with a rather large and obtrusive stick, you might end up eating brunch numerous times both Saturday and Sunday. This is fine, just be certain to order the never-ending mimosa at each stop and you won't even remember if you had pleasant or unpleasant interactions with each of your brunch dates. In fact, you might not recall brunch at all. Depending how long or arduous your Friday night out was, this might be best.

I'm scraping wallpaper glue off of my walls right now and the chemicals are making me slightly retarded. It's sort of good, but not quite. I mean, the buzz could be phenomenal if not for the fact that I can no longer breathe and feel as though I might asphyxiate myself in the process. I did make a rather groovy discovery in the meantime, however, and that is that these walls, many moons ago (probably 25 years or more) were painted yellow. Still are, I suppose - just under all the layers of spackle and wallpaper. I've only gotten one wall scraped and i've been doing it all day. And that wall is the one featuring the doorway and the closet - so I can see how long it's going to take me to do the rest of this bedroom. Approximately 728 years or so. How many dog years is that?

Speaking of designer shoes: I got a killer pair of heels for the wedding this weekend. Hoo-Rah. I'll be that girl with a short skirt and a looooooong jacket.

I wish I had an MG to trade for a white Chrysler LeBaron.

I'm back to glue-scraping and asphyxiation. I know it seems like the stereo-typical Memorial Day activity, but I thrive on being terribly cliche, what can I say?

Loverly

Sunday morning, rain is falling
Steal some covers, share some skin
Clouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettable
As you twist to fit the mold that I am in.
Fingers trace your every outline
I paint a picture with my hands
Back and forth we sway like branches in a storm
A change in weather, still together when it ends.