laura is da bomb diggity. no diggity. no doubt.

So, to my chagrin, Laura's getting published already:
Watkins, L., et al. (in press) "Predictors of child behavior problems among children of female Vietnam veterans." Journal of Family Violence."
I wish I had an "et al." after my name.

Picture: Laura giving the reviewers the evil eye before she rips apart their unfounded criticisms. scary.

From BOS_webalbum

New Years 06-07, "First Night"

I'm going to attempt to do a Mike style post, with lots of pictures and all. To introduce, Boston puts on this "First Night" thing every New Year's. It lasts all New Year's Eve and New Year's day, with art openings, concerts, discounts all around, tourist attractions, etc. So here's what we did:

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we saw PENGUINS, fishies, seals, etc. at

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the New England Aquarium, which is a pretty tight building right next to the North End on the Harbor (pronounced, of course, Hah-buhr).

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We saw this building that was important for reasons other than looking cool and shaking whenever a train passed under it. I think the "Boston Massacre" occurred just outside of it, and the Dec. of Indep. was first read to Boston on its balcony.

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We saw awesome ice sculptures in progress in

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Copley square, which superimposes an old ass Episcopal church on a tight-ass glass skyscraper.
After

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Taking the T back to our place (New year's Eve still), we

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had a celebratory hookah and

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Played fuck the dealer.
We then proceeded to Berklee Performance Center where we saw a bad-ass

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old-school funk/soul band play some amazing music (that the crowd totally didn't get). I think they were called the Holmes Brothers.
Next, we attempted to find an open bar for about 52 seconds before deciding to just move on to the next concert at Hynes Convention Center, which happens to be our T stop.
The band was an amazing African band (Senegalese if I remember correctly)

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I can't remember the name of the band, but they were awesome, and all the aged hippies danced fervently.
Then we

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took the T downtown to

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see the finished ice sculptures, which also rocked.

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we then jumped again on the

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T and went to sleep.
We did a lot of stuff the next day too... But I don't feel like writing anymore. So, that's our New Year's eve!

braving the bitter cold à vélo

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The lengths I go to to continue riding my bike in the awful awful Boston cold. I can feel the wind coming through my windows and causing my electric bill to grow. I do enjoy the fact that, via absurd amounts of clothing, I can deny the cold access to my skin and vital organs. Excuse me, (Mike), I can deny the lack of heat to access me. "Cold" is just a word. That brings me to my other point. I had a logico-linguistic revelation today. "Melt-phace," "Melt-phacing," "Melt-phacingly" and all the other conjugations, diminutions, etc. will incorporate easily into English. Firstly, like any well-behaved word, it has an opposite: "Freeze-phace." This was proved to me today whilst attempting an almost-melt-phacingly entertaining activity: skidding around on ice patches on my bike. The acceleration and uncertainty of the activity brought liminal melt-phacing-ness, but this entertainment was contradicted by the freeze-phacing-ness of the -15F wind chill, which literally froze my face. I think we can all agree that freeze facing is an unmistakeably bad thing. However, typical of American logic, the exception proves the rule: cryogenic freezing for the purpose of longevity is a pretty pleasant application of face freezing. On the flip side, while melt-phacing is without exception a positive, face melting is pretty definitively negative. The exception, once again proves the rule: the Buddhist monks who poured gas on themselves and literally melted their own faces were clearly hardcore and awesome. This brings up one last point. If freeze-phacing is negative and melt-phacing is positive, phace-sublimating must be worthy of describing something like Nirvana. This is a moot point. Since none of us will ever live to be phace-sublimated, we can only aspire to such an apex. We can only hope we will one day come across that booze, food, sex, spiritual transformation, music, etc. that rocks so much that it kills us on the spot, causing us to evaporate in the most Star-Trekkian manner.
In conclusion, melt-phacing has a contradiction, it contradicts itself to some extent, it has an almost arbitrary superior (phace-sublime), its meaning is ambiguous and has little to do with its origin, and it is spelled in the most awkward manner possible. I think that it is a prime candidate for word-ship, and I will be forwarding this post to Merriam Webster in petition for addition to the 2007 English Dictionary.
I'm sorry for wasting a good 3 minutes of your life, but I felt like writing that, so there it is. Don't hate me.

I heart boston

so, forecast for tomorrow morning's trip to work:
5F with wind chill at -15.
great.
why do so many people still live up here?