I have a lot of important decisions on my mind. All I want is what works out best for anyone involved, I guess, not least of which is myself.

Like moving. I want more than anything for M. to feel settled and proud of what he’s doing. Right now, I feel impossibly unsettled myself, and would be just happy if we could settle somewhere together. I figure if at any time one of us felt stable, we would have a good thing going.

I keep mentally drawing up pro-West/con-West v. pro-East/con-East charts. The fucking frustration is in the end it’s apples and tomatoes. Similar looking, but not altogether the same. How do you weigh financial data against social structure. The reputed free and easy accepting attitudes of the West and the sunshine and possibilities versus the stoic pragmatism of the East and the Autumn and the comfort of what I already know (including my family).

I truly think I could go either way. Sometimes I like rain and sometimes I like snow.

Today’s debate is whether M. should pursue a job offer here in Cambridge or accept the new, improved deal out West. Might have to change the survey above to reflect these new (not altogether surprising developments).

I guess worst case scenario is: I move West, and he moves East. Perhaps we could have dinner in the middle.

I took a bunch of photos and some video around Boston yesterday.

The pics are here. Right now it’s an unorganized and unedited dump without context or comments. I hope to change that tomorrow.

For now, ignore the shit, but take a look toward the end (which is really the beginning) to see the much-bitched about “Free Speech Zone.” Quite tawdry and sad really.

So, why the hell not right? I hung out around Boston all day today, gawking at celebrities, watching people and seeing what was to be seen in a city pretty much dead apart from the convention.

Tomorrow I will likely post something coherent, but for tonight celebrities I have seen today:
Robert Smigel/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
Vermin Supreme
Christine Baransky
Matthew Broderick
Rob Reiner
Alec Baldwin (word on the street (literally) someone related to him is marrying someone related to someone in the Kerry camp)
Billy Baldwin
Ben Affleck
Leonardo DiCaprio
Charlie Rose (I was so close to him, I could have touched him inappropriately. I don’t think he even glanced down at me.)
Each of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Barry Nolan
Joyce Kulhawik

I said I was thinking of a couple of things. Here’s the other thing. You know what sucks? That a group of people ever made me feel like a reputation as a hard to get along with bitch was ever deserved.

Just like with any bad relationship, my most recent “break up” has reminded me of all the small ways you get ground down into believing shit about yourself that just ain’t fucking true. I’m actually pretty mellow and a good listener, even if I am direct and honest and intelligient and ethical and a host of other qualities that usually get tallied in the plus column, but seemed to creep into the negative in a certain time and place in my life.

I have a rocking sense of humor, enough sense to comprehend humility, enough self-esteem issues to actually curb my pride and, honest to fucking god, and I will punch in the dick anyone who quotes me on this next phrase, I really like people. Fuck you, really, I’m a people person.

Mostly, I thought of these things the other night. Another comic was having a bad night of worrying about her set and her shit and comedy and all the usual shit that whorls into a rocky night of trying to make other people laugh. I, on the other hand, felt good and centered and comfortable enough with myself to be able to listen to her and buck up the failing spirits a tad. She jokingly said I should go into counseling and whined about who would she talk to when/if I move.

We are not actually that close. We are co-workers in comedy. In this job, though, no one seems to want to convince me I’m a difficult bitch with whom no one can get along. (I would contrast this episode with another story in which I was teased endlessly about not having any skills to provide tech support or any other kind of customer support, but I fear misunderstandings from telling some stories of mine.)

If there were one thing I would change about myself for sure, it would be in any type of relationship not hanging out so long that folks start to grind you into misery or that the logic of others begins to warp my own decisions. Let’s fucking pray to the deity of your choice that I never make those kinds of mistakes again.

I am smart enough, good enough and goshdarnit people like me.

It’s pretty ghost-townish here in the big city, thanks to the DNC. Less traffic, and I hear the MBTA is pretty bearable (compared to full on, mid-summer, sardine-packed, sweat-soaked stench and discomfort typical of this season).

For me, I was thinking of a few non-political things. One is what this week would mean when I was a kid. The last week in July was full of portent and sadness. We shared a summer cottage in Scituate with our cousins; my family had July, they had August and that was an immutable cycle, like life and death. This would be the last week of free-roaming a beach community and it being perfectly OK to eat every meal with bare feet shifting on the always sandy linoleum.

Everything in Scituate was ritual. There were different dishes to use, a different schedule and pace, special towels, a working fireplace, where you could toast marshmallows or grill cheese sandwiches in a special vise contraption. Pat almost seemed relaxed there. Actually, with her beach chair, beach coat and bathing suit with a zipper sitting in a circle with the other mothers, not working for the summer, she probably was. None of my argumentative relationship with my mother seems to reside in Scituate in my memory.

One summer I got to stay a couple of weeks in August, when I was a young teenager. This break with ritual was, I think, unprecedented and it seemed huge at the time. I think by then all but one of my cousins had grown and left the house, so I hung out with the one sister remaining, who is about four years older than me. She wore tight carpenter’s pants and halter tops and probably smoked and talked to boys and seemed wildly worldly to my bookish, young self.

When I was all grown up, I discovered the reason for this special summer boon. My mother was shielding me from the onslaught of truly worldly wise, inner-city high school boys, who my brother worked with at a Boston program for outdoor adventures. Pretty fucking savvy even back then, my oldest bro. Not having the resources himself to afford skiing, he volunteered at a program getting poor kids out of the city to camp and ski and do all the stuff other suburban kids get sent to do. He was only slightly better off financially than the kids he was volunteering to help and teach and camp counsel, and on his own wouldn’t have been able to do any of those things.

So, when he had a party at the house with kids from exotic places like Charlestown and Eastie and D Street and Roxbury, my mother threw her baby daughter of 12 or 13 on the bus (figuratively) to keep her unsullied by city toughs. Fucking hell, I always miss the good parties.

All of which reminds me of another reason I was thinking of summer and what always seemed like the endless drive to Scituate to commence our month of fun in the sun. According to mapblast.com, the distance between our house and the family summer cottage was less than 20 miles (19.2 to be precise). But, you throw five mouthy, antagonistic kids and a fucking crazed from just ending a year of teaching special needs kids mom into one station wagon, that trip is going to be LOOOOONNNNGGG.

And, as in back when all five of us would do anything together, this website is making me feel the same way.

Whenever I check my web statistics, I want to let out a LOUD WHINE, “Stop LOOKING at me! MOM, he won’t quit looking at me, make him stop.”

Certain IP addresses are as irksome as any bored brother who has only my fucking imminent nervous breakdown in mind.

Goddamnit. I better have talent, because I sure don’t have the schmooze thing going for me.

Last night I performed in a fundraiser for John Kerry for President. It was a lot of fun. Anyway, I decided my wardrobe for the show would involve this T-shirt: (from which I have since cut the sleeves).

It being July and all, I walked to the show, through the streets of Cambridge without a jacket and my message clearly visible. One block from my house, a guy with a shopping cart asked me if I were a “Bush basher.” I said I was and he congratulated me and then muttered stuff under his breath about our Commander in Chief. I think the mutterings were negative, but who the fuck can tell. En route I got a couple of smiles and/or nods of, I assume, approval. I don’t actually know, since I was half happy to be marching around with “Fuck Bush” across my tits and half forgetting that I was wearing such a thing, tits or otherwise.

When I got to Mass. Ave., I crossed in Boston style–jaywalking diagonally as the cars stopped at red lights and got to the other side. A gray sedan of well-suited folks waved and rolled down their windows to shout their approvals. Right behind them, an SUV-ish mini-van kind of thing completely stopped. The rear door opened, and a man with red hair and a vaguely familiar look insisted on shaking the hand of the woman wearing that T-shirt. I crossed back into the street and gladly obliged. Then, an older gentleman in the front passenger seat also insisted on shaking my hand. He presented me with his baseball card It would seem, I shook the hand of the Speaker of the Tennessee House, because he ain’t voting for Bush.

Meanwhile, all night I was thinking the first guy looked a bit like Matthew Modine But, his age looked wrong, since I would have given him more than just a few years on me.

I also kept thinking about the character who commits suicide in An Officer and a Gentleman, who would be a few years older (50 to my 40).

Tonight, I flipped through boston.com’s DNC celebrity sightings. RIGHT THERE, there was THE MAN WHOSE HAND I HAD SHAKEN. WOO HOO.

A quick check of his bio on imdb.com and I learned he’s a native of Knoxville, TN. So, yeah, makes sense if he’s tooling around with the Tennessee pols.

Now, if I had an ounce of the self-promotion juice that fuels folks I see every week in comedy, I would have fucking jumped on that shit. I would have introduced myself, told them about the show I was about to enter, invited them in, guessed at David Keith’s fame and gotten myself a party invite leading to discovery as the fabulous raconteur I am. Connections, networking, fame.

Instead I chuckled to myself, turned around and entered the basement of a rundown bar to perform a little comedy. I guess the rub of celebrity brought a little luck, since the folks at the show seemed to be digging what I had to say and my set went smooth, like leather seats in a celeb-studded SUV.

I’m sitting here in East Cambridge, right next door to Democrat Central, good old Boston. I just heard extended rumbling and roaring explosively off in the short distance. I’m pretty sure it was fireworks, not the dreaded dirty bomb of fear. I’m guessing, though, only because I didn’t hear BOOM – SIREN. Just BOOM.

(I started this at about 10 p.m. It’s midnight now. I would be freaked if I heard distant explosions at midnight, and it’s not January 1.)

I did try searching for info on events to determine if fireworks were involved. I couldn’t find anything. My guess is the big shindig at Government Center. Although, given the demographics of anyone who would be digging Keith Lockhart presenting R&B fossils, surprise unannounced pyrotechnics in the middle of the hyperbole rocked state of security we got going on here seem kind of prankishly cruel.

I drove the length of Mass. Ave. today from Cambridge down through Boston and into Dorchester and back again. The South End seemed tight with security around the wide open area that normally would be the entry ramps to Route 93. I saw Sheriff’s, City, Special Forces vehicles and a whole lot of differently uniformed folks. I even got edged out of my lane by a tricked out, very shiney black, new looking behemoth Escalade with dark tinted windows and “U.S.” license plates. Don’t know who they were or what they were doing, but they smelled official.

Meanwhile, my town continues to amuse me. When you got to the Cambridge part of Mass. Ave. more streets were closed and barricades erected. But, not for securing the perimeter lock down. Nope, just a street fair and parade (featuring a spine as a nod to something Kerry should be growing stiffly and proudly. Glad the more popular metaphor isn’t “get a sac!” since I don’t think kids should see a giant pair of cajones being marched down the street.)

They are also totally hip to the “13 days of dissent” thang that the Zeitgeist gallery has going on around Inman.

The aging hippie slogan for Cambridge’s reaction to the convention? The Unconventional City.

By the way, for Boston, this whole ad campaign is fucking sad. How many ways can you insist on “diversity” until you just sound like a fuckhead at a pary talking about having a Black friend or two? If you keep having to tell people, who will be here and looking around, maybe it’s not exactly your strongest suit.

(Any delegate e who has actually been to a city that has hardcore minority populations (and would entertain a mayor of color or whatnote) is probably checking those adds and thinking “Fuckwads. Nice whitey whiteness, Beantown.”)

Man, what a long day of mostly having fun. Doing three weekends in a row with these guys looks like it’s going to be bone tiring but pretty kick ass fun. Today was mostly just getting to know you stuff and improv games. I generally fucking hate improv, because it’s so fucking pointless. But, I don’t know, maybe because there is a point–building the characters for the flick–or maybe I’m just relaxed enough to cope that I was cool with it.

Shit, I hope that doesn’t mean I turn into a closet improv weenie, like this guy. Maybe next time I see him instead of drinking and talking shit, I’ll suggest a rousing game of zip, zap, zup. Followed by my stabbing myself in the throat and drowning in my own blood.

Meanwhile, I think I finally have a finished version of the postcard I’m designing for some comedy fellas.

Damn, I’m actually being productive, and I haven’t looked at a spreadsheet once.

Cambridge is becoming more gentrified and more demographically polar because of real estate costs. A lot of people bemoan the number of chain stores in Harvard Square and now increasing in Central Square. I live in Inman Square, which is essentially the last outpost of the old-fashioned, peace, love and granola, anything goes, hippie liberal leftist past of the city.

Strolling through Inman today, I was charged by the poster series under the “YO! WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE?” exhibit eminating from the Zeitgeist Gallery. Throughout Inman, the bars and shops are hanging posters as a “dissent walking tour.”

Fucking AWESOME. These are fucking fucked up times, where every turn reminds you to watch what you say, while zoning free speech seems like a defensible idea. Ask me about watching what you say, mother fuckers, ‘cuz these be strange days indeed.

Anyway, seeing some grass roots shit tweaking the establishment raises endorphins almost as much as the big O or the little death, depending on your metaphor.

And, smack dab in the fringes of it all, I’ll be doing my thang, at a fund-raiser political thing — Democratic National Comedy at the Cantab Lounge Central Square, Cambridge, MA on Monday night, July 26, 2004 at 8 p.m. and working three weekends non-stop on rehearsals and filming of a comedy short “Bush Focus Group.”

I am almost psyched to not have to worry about the 9-5 daytime world while history is shifting and being made in my own backyard.