A plethora of updates

Ok, I'm tired, but I promised more updates.

Christmas - If anyone remembers my post from last year I was wondering about the conspiracy of my family to give me alcohol or alcohol related gifts. This year I got 4 bottles of wine, 2 wine glasses, a wine carrier for two bottles of wine, and a set of 8 retro Tom Collins glasses complete with the recipe for Tom Collins printed on the front along with a serving tray for it. Yes they truly must think I'm a lush. :-D I also got some money, some gift cards, a lovely set of stoneware bowls and some nice new dress shirts. All and all a good Christmas.

The Condo - So about two weeks ago I signed all the paperwork for the Purchase and Sales agreement and with the help of my father put down the deposit on the unit. I'm officially in the process of buying my condo now. WOOOHOOO!! I also drove by on Tuesday and they had started construction which is also cool.

Tea at 5 - Patrick and I went out and saw the one woman show about Katharine Hepburn performed by Katherine Mulgrew (Star Trek Voyager's Katherine Janeway). It was, in a word, spectacular. It was a great show and Kate Mulgrew's performance really showed that she's more than just a Trek actress.

Phantom of the Opera - That which I have been waiting years and years to occur has finally happened. The movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera is theaters. To this I'm of mixed emotions. On the one hand I love the show and can't wait to see it. On the other the critics are SLAMMING it. To counter that, when have the critics been right about movies? Moreso, when are they even understanding about musical movies? The only real trepedation I have on that is that I have bought the soundtrack for it and I really do NOT like Gerard Butler as Phantom. What WAS Webber thinking. *sigh* I guess nothing can be perfect.

Apartment water damage - The latest is that my landlord is getting ANOTHER contracter to come in and size up the place. Whatever. I just want it FIXED! I've managed to salvage my New Years party by converting my bedroom into the party area. I'm moving the tables upstairs and the couch and moving my bed downstairs. The show must go on!!

Oh what a headache - I woke up with a bit of a headache this morning. That's what happens when you have several rum and cokes and you polish off one and a half bottles of shiraz with a few friends. Tom and Judd were over last night and we had a fun time which got drunker and drunker. Ahhh such fun.

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Transition Complete

Okay I've fully completed moving my entire blog over to blogger.com from the old site. My friend Kyle, who's been so graciously hosting this system, has gotten laid off, and with that has lost his space to put the server. He's going to give me a redirect so that you can still go to http://mist.thepond.com. You can also go directly to http://criostal.blogspot.com/.

That's all for now. I'll update more later. I'll post about the Christmas, the condo, Tea at 5, and Phantom of the Opera.

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Don't Rain on my parade!

Ok so I got back from Direct Tire last tuesday at about 7 and was all set to get ready and go skiing. I walked into my apartment and the first thing I noticed was an acrid smell, then I noticed it sounded like it was raining inside my apartment. I turned on the light and then immediately turned it off again as I saw that water was streaming down the light fixture. I went around the dripping water and got my flashlight and found that water was leaking from the upstairs apartment into my bedroom. The next thing I did was go to check the rest of the house.

The hallway was also drenched. I then went downstairs and found that water was raining ALL OVER MY COUCHES. *sniff*

About an hour later my landlord and a plumber was at the apartment fixing things. They stopped the water running and repaired the pipe but apparently there was still another leak so the plumber came back the next day.

I stayed at Judd and Tom's apartment for the evening that night and the night after.

The next morning I called into work since I had to deal with ServiceMaster coming in to clean the place as well as the plumber finishing up the work. ServiceMaster took down a great deal of the tiles in the ceiling as well as the insulation. They also cut up most of the rug.

The plumber spent most of that day and the next fixing the pipes and pushing anti-freeze through the heating system.

The next day I had the adjusters over. Tuesday ServiceMaster came by to pick up the drying fans and the de-humidifiers they had left running since Wednesay to dry out the place.

I've had the contracter over and the adjuster is finished. Hopefully this will all be fixed within a few weeks. *sigh* so much for a perfect party. Oh well, the show must go on!

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Gotta Love Stupid People

So I'm waiting at Natick mall to get my tires fixed on my car and I sit down to rest a bit at the food court. Just for the hell of it I check out the wireless and low and behold there's an AP available that's named "default" with no password at all. I'm currently surfing the web with it right now. When will people learn that they need to secure their APs.

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Let it SNOW!!!

Ahhh the beauty of winter snowfall. The flakes glide slowly upon the ground and build and build until it begins to accumulate. It continues to do this until everything is covered by the white powder. The wind blows it around creating drifts that are crisp, clean and unspoiled by any disturbance of any kind. The beauty is just breathtaking.

That is until the mountain grooming cat's come slicing across it to create perfect groomed corduroy. Now that is true beauty!

Ski season, here I come!

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Bittersweet Irony

This was in the Boston Globe today.

The artcile is: Churches Oppose Bill on Disclosure
The URL is here

The line which is priceless is:

''Many churches have deep historical memories of an experience of undue influence by the state in the affairs of the church, and thus many churches are wary of giving the state unnecessarily intrusive powers over their internal workings," said the Rev. Diane C. Kessler, executive director of the [Massachusetts Council of Churches].

Ahh, irony.

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Bid Night

Well Bid night went well this year. Its still continuing at the moment I assume but I've heard of no problems thus far and things seemed to be very calm. We got 22 great guys so we'll have a good and manageable size class this year.

At this point posutlancy begins and the molding of the boys into men of Alpha Cho Rho begins. They will learn the landmarks (ideals or precepts) of the fraternity as well as its history. I wish the house and all the new postulants the best of luck through the next phase of their journey.

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Which came first? Drama or drama?

So was the term drama created as a comparitve term to describe situations that are as crazy, hectic and problematic as can be in drama productions or was it the other way around....

Whatever... either way they both exist in this situation.

Ok, so at the same time I auditioned for Death of a Salesman I had also auditioned and got accepted for the ensemble role of Tyler in Merrily We Roll Along over at Holy Cross. It's been going on for the past few months here and there, not too hard of a rehearsal schedule, then along comes last monday. That's when the shit hit the fan.

First thing was that the producer abruptly resigned, which is a nice way of saying she bailed and couldn't be bothered with the show any more. Cited in the resignation were comments about increased workload and the fact that there were more problems in the show than were known when she signed up. I can understand that but you work with the directors and other administrative people to replace you BEFORE you resign.

Her resignation was followed rather quickly with the resignations of the Marketing and Fundraising directors. They cited their own concerns and used the producer's resignation as the final nail in the coffin.

Following this the rehearsal pianist resigned citing his own concerns on the viability of the show based on the recent mass exodus. This was then followed by two ensemble actors resigning over the next few days.

Thankfully it seems that, as it should, the show will go on. We've replaced parts that needed replacing, cut out of the script entirely areas that weren't needed with the reduced ensemble, and have replaced the producer. Fundraising efforts have been restrategized and are moving forward to cover all the costs of the production. The initial concept of the stage design has been revealed to the company and it looks good. The remaining company is pumped about the production and looks to be fairly gung-ho about it all.

Life wouldn't be interesting without drama, right? Right....?

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Happy Thanksgiving

Well I had a great time visiting the families. Got to see my little cousins, Abigail and Aiden. Both are absoultely adorable. I think Abby is two and Aiden is almost a year now. Aiden is getting so big so fast. I got to hold him for a little while and then put him down for a nap.

After visiting Grammy and all of mom's side of the family I stopped at Dad's. I ended up having a small arguement with my brother because he was pushing my buttons about a bit of weight I've gained. He does this EVERY time we get together. Every time I think he's grown up a bit and matured he once again proves why I can't stand him.

After that I made my way into Boston to have dinner with Nick, his sister Joselyn, Gabe, Jen, Steve and his mother, and Keith. Dinner was wonderful and Nick made a wonderful Turkey. Richard and Patrick showed up a bit after we finished eating from visiting their respective families.

It was good to see Patrick again. We got a chance to catch up, dish some dirt, relate issues and generally do some of the active things best friends do, as opposed to the AIM conversations every few days when we are both on at the same time.

Later that evening Patrick, Richard and I went out to Campus at Man Ray in Cambridge. It was a blast and the guys were hot that night, especially one of the gogo boys. DAMN! *sigh* I really do need a man right now.

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What a show!

Well the last of the people at my post-performance party just left. Amazing, two nights in a row the party has gone past 6:00 AM.

It has been an incredible time all around and it was an incredible party with everyone here both last night and tonight. I can't wait for New Voices 23!!

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End of Salesman

Well tonight is the final night of Death of a Salesman and I'm sad to see it go. This has been an incredible, wonderful, heart-wrenching production. Hearing Linda (Spavis) scream "NOOOOOO" every night as Willy (Jake) gets into the car to crash it is just incredible, as well as seeing the relationships of Willy, Biff (Jim) and Happy (Dan) deteriorate over the course of the show. I've had so much fun becoming a part of this group of people and getting to do something that I didn't have an opportunity to do as an undergraduate.

After this I have continuing rehearsals for Merrily We Roll Along, which will actually be a larger undertaking now that I'm the understudy for one of the lead roles. After that I will be trying out for New Voices 23. I am completely enjoying getting involved with theater and fully exploring my "thespian tendancies". ;)

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Been a While - Update Part 2

Ok, so when I was last writing I was talking about work stuff. Now on to the rest of my life over the summer up until now.

Let's see, first off is that I moved from my apt. on Bowdoin Street to my new place on Dean Street. The new place is great and has 2 floors, one of which is a full finished basement. It has a built in bar, 2 refridgerators and a dishwasher. I'm sooo excited that it has a dishwasher. That has to be the all time best thing EVER!!!

The next thing is that i was involved in a musical revue. It was a collection of Sondheim songs with a few other composers thrown in for good measure. It was quite a quickly done show. We had one rehearsal in July and then nothing else until August and then from Sunday through the following Saturday when the production occured, my life belonged to the revue. Its funny, "hell week", as final production week is known as, is usually a lot of work and very stressful and this was no exception, but amazingly this worked very well to counteract the heavy dose of work related stress I was dealing with at the time. Without this production to escape to every night I think I would have had a hard time dealing with work.

I made a new friend over the summer as well. Donald, a Lamda Chi Alpha brother from RPI came up to work for John Minasian for the entire summer. Donald and I hit it off very well and became very good friends over the course of the summer. He's a pretty nice guy, for a Republican ;).

Since September started I've become involved with a new vocal group at WPI, theater at WPI and musical theater at Holy Cross. As you can tell, after the revue I got bit hard by the theater bug.

The vocal group is the Vocal Performance Lab. This is kind of a workshop group. It is audition only and I've been brought in, like one of the women, as a professional singer. *grin* I'm a professional.

Through that I got invited to try out for the February production over at Holy Cross. They are doing "Merrily We Roll Along" which is a musical by Stephen Sondheim. I'm playing "Tyler" as well as ensemble and I've recently been named understudy to Charley, one of the leads.

I also tried out for the B-Term show at WPI. We are doing (right now as I type actually) Death of a Salesman. Its a wonderful show. I play "Stanley" which is the waiter in the restaurant scene. I've had such a blast and its such an experience and a priviledge to work with such incredible people. I've forgotten how much fun this can be.

It was also fun to have Donald come and visit unexpectedly last week. It was good to catch up with him as to how things had been since he went back to RPI. It'll be fun to have him back up for a longer time in the winter.

So in the department of love life there's been absolutely nothing. nada. zilch. No crushes, no interests, no nothing. Honestly this is the first time in my life I haven't been crushing hard core on someone. I also really haven't had time for a relationship right now so I guess it's ok.

Finally I'm moving along in the quest for my condo. The purchase and sales agreement is in with the lawyers and I'm just waiting for them to resolve everything.

Well that finishes the update and brings most everything up to date. I'll try to start updating more often.

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Been a While - Update Part 1

Well it certainly has been a while. What a summer. This has to have been one of the most hectic summers I've had in a very very long time.

First off there is work. From about August until about mid-September I barely got home earlier than 7pm on any given night. I've been really burning the midnight oil trying to get all the upgrades done for the labs. The funny thing is, the OS conversion from Windows 2000 to Windows XP was actually the easiest part of the whole process. What really held me up was waiting for last minute updates to several key pieces of software that had to be installed on the images themselves. This made it very difficult to create the foundation image that I use to build all the lab images for all of the 14 labs on campus.

The other thing that was hellish was waiting for the STUDENT domain to be created and set up. This really wasn't anyone's fault, as its creation was vital to future progress of the Windows infrastructure at WPI, but it still made a lot of things come down to the last minute. Also there were several glitches that weren't able to be worked out due to the lack of time in production mode for the new domain prior to student arrivals.

When the students came we (the windows team) had thought that the account creation page was fully operational but unfortunately that wasn't entirely the case. It ended up that we sat in a room on the other side of Higgins Lab doing the account creations manually for a portion of the process. After about an hour Jon got the script operational again and things have been mostly smooth on that avenue ever since.

Add to everythign else the fact that we got hit with two different viruses when students got on campus. It took a better part of the first three weeks to erradicate the majority of the virus. It still pops up now and again but we're pretty much covered at this point. I won't even get into the fact that it was propogating from a vulnerablity that was patched MONTHS ago. Hmm.... this seems VERY similar to my rant from last year.

Well at this point things are finally calming down and I look forward to some time after B term when I can take some time off and relax. :-D That's all for now. More about the summer later....

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Happy 4th of July

Happy belated 4th of July to eveyone. Hope you all had a great time.

My 4th annual BYOBBQ went off very well this year. The numbers were a bit smaller but a good time was still had by all I think. I think I confused everyone by setting the start time at 4pm instead of the normal 6pm, but oh well. The important thing is that people came.

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Almost Summer

Well, only two more days until the official start of summer. of course it feels like its almost half over since WPI got out on May 1.

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Hiking

Well Max and I went hiking in the Blue Mountains today. It was incredible. I had an absolute blast. It was so nice to be back doing something with nature. I haven't really done anything much outdoorsy since last year when I went camping.

We hiked the red dot trail and the blue skyline trail (the north-south loop for anyone who knows it.) It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of great views. The only bad part is that I turned my foot on one of the rocks and now its sprained. I'm wrapped up with an ace bandage and on cruches. Isn't that the greatest way to end my vacation. :-P

Ahh well, better to have ended in a blaze of glory than to have spent another day inside cleaning my apartment.

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Farewell vacation, I hardly knew thee....

Well vacation is almost over but I can't really be too upset since I'm taking Mondays and Tuesdays off all month to burn up my vacation time. Rough life I live huh? *grin*

Tomorrow I go hiking in the Blue Hills with Max which I haven't done in AGES! It should be a lot of fun. I can't even remember the last time I went hiking. It'll be sunny and warm out tomorrow. Its finally gonna get to 85 degrees out. Wednesdays gonna be a scorcher at 95.

Also gonna play some Monopoly with Donald and Tim tonight, which I haven't played in a while either. Should be fun. All in all I've had a nice relaxing time off from work and the move in process is nearly complete. Should be all set until next summer when I move for hopefully the last time for a much longer while since I'm moving into the condo. I'm looking forward to owning my own place (well, mostly the bank owning it) and being able to do whatever I want to the place.

That's all for now. I'll update with information about how hiking went tomorrow.

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Me + Car = Happy

Well I got my car back today and it looks beautiful. I had a minor accident at the beginning of May. I was backing out of my driveway at my old apartment and between the car parked at the edge of the driveway entrance and one of the blindspots in my car (the rear passenger side structural beam) I didn't see the other car coming down the street and backed into it. Several insurance dealings and a deductable later my beautiful car never looked better.

Being without a car SUCKS let me tell you. I've been without it since Tuesday. I really have found out how dependent I am on that thing for transportation to anywhere. It's really like an extention of me. Not sure if that's just interesting or just sad. *shrug* Whatever, I don't have to worry any more cuz its back.

In other news, the developer of my condo contacted me to let me know that all permits are now in order and the pre-construction work has begun. Here's hoping it'll be done in time for next June.

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A cold in summer?

So craziness of all craziness I have a cold in the summer. This sucks. I had thought that it was just agravated sinuses due to the dust from moving but it lasted too long, came on too strong, and I've had the cough of a cold all day, in addition to the lack of strength and the lightheadedness that comes with it too.

Apparently this cold is going around to a lot of people right now. Must be something to do with the on-again off-again nice weather or the change in seasons or something.

*sigh* Hopefully I'm almost done with this cold and can enjoy the rest of my vacation. Here's hoping.

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Moving is DONE!!

Ok, so I'm officially horrible at keeping this thing up to date. *sigh* Oh well...

I have finally finished moving my life to its new location. I have fully moved into my new apartment. This place is incredible.

There are two seperate floors; the first floor has the bedrooms and the basement has the living area, the kitchen and the bar. We have two dish washers, two stoves (one electric range only at the bar and another in the kitchen with gas oven and range), two refidgerators (they are old so they both combined equal about cubic volume of one modern one) two bathrooms, and there's a garbage disposal in the sink in the kitchen as well as the one in the bar.

I definately plan to have some nice dinner parties here over the course of the year.

That's all for now. I'll try to update some more while I'm on vacation.

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Spring has sprung

God the weather is beautiful. I am absolutely loving, loving, loving this weather. My exceptionally good mood continues.

I went to New Voices last week and it was phenomenal. WPI has such incredible talent here, its really amazing. I went to all 4 nights of shows.

For those of you who don't know what New Voices is, let me tell you. New Voices is an annual original works festival that was founded by Prof. Susan Vick. It has 4 nights and during that time makes two full runs of all of the shows. Wednesday and Thursday are one full set of shows and Friday and Saturday are the second full set of shows. This is its 22nd year.

I also helped out my friends who were in NV with strike and then attended the cast party. It was fun. It got broken up by the police within 20 minutes of being there, but we later regrouped at a secondary location and I didn't end up back at my place until about 5am. Damn I haven't had that much fun in years! And body shots are a lot of fun to do. *looks innocent*

Yesterday was the start of Quadfest and my friend BJ won the chance to do a 30 minute set of her music to open for the main group that was performing on the quad. She's got a beautiful voice and her songs are amazing. She write's them herself. She also did an excellent cover of Dashboard Confessional's "The Best Deceptions".

Today was the Junior Closer Look Open House on campus. My friend Patrick's younger brother Adam with his mother came here since he's interested in Mechanical Engineering. I gave them a tour around campus and talked with them for a while. It was certainly nice to see MaryAnn (Patrick and Adam's mom) in a situation that wasn't resulted from insane drama. She's one of the only mother's of my friends that I've ever considered like a second mom.

Also cool today was that Quadfest had an old fashioned picture taking booth on the Quad and I got my picture taken with Max and Tom.

Well that's all for today but I'll leave you with the picture that was taken of us:

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Life is good

I don' t know what it is but I'm in an incredibly good mood lately. I'm not talking about the super cheery, "I'm having a great day" kind of good mood, more the "I really like my life and am happy with it and the people around me" kind of good mood.

I think it may be due in part to the fact that I'm getting into a routine of going to the gym on a regular basis (2 times a week, 4 times total thus far, but its a start).

I think it also has to due with the fact I'm making some new friends and hanging out with them. From my side of things, everything seems to have worked out for the best with Tim and we are really settling into being very good friends, which I think we always were, its just now there's no dating portion to it. I've also really started getting to know Max and he's turning out to be a really great friend. We seem to share a lot of similar as well as complimentary views on life and the general questions of morality.

Things just feel like they are on the upswing and that my life is starting to calm down and not be so incredibly hectic and stressful. It feels like I'm able to once again begin to control my life and reduce the chaos and restore order. It's often felt, in the last year, that my life was spinning out of control and away from my reach to make things right.

I'm also really looking forward to the spring. The perennial season of rebirth and beginnings. Its like I'm exiting a tunnel I didn't realize I was in, that I'd been there for so long that I felt that it was normal. Quite simply I feel great.

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Odd Dream

I had the weirdest dream last night.

In it I was back in high school. It was the final semester of classes. It was actually, I think, finals week. The problem was that I hadn't been going to classes more than once or twice the entire semester. I had to go to classes because of the finals and I was really, really worried that I wasn't going to be able to pass and then I wouldn't be able to go to college.

The scariest part is how real it felt. The dream blended a little with concious thought and I really and truly thought I was failing high school. It was quite unsettling.

I really wish dreaming came with a manual. :-P

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Still Friends

Well the good news folks is that the breakup went as well as any breakup can go, and everyone has been very supportive of me through all this.

Also good is the fact that Tim and I are still very good friends. After a little time to himself to deal with this, he said he would like to remain friends and I absolutely agreed. So no one has to worry about any kind of awkward situations because the two of us might be attending or anything.

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Well it's over....

As you all will soon find out, I broke up with Tim. I've been feeling lately that I've been going through the motions and that the level of feelings for him just weren't there. To continue with the relationship like that wouldn't have been fair to either of us, especially to him.

Friday would have been two months and I knew that every day I continued like this would be another day harder to break up. It wasn't something I did lightly, nor was it easy. Tim is a wondeful, sweet guy and I really had a great time with him. He definately made me happy when I was around him, but for whatever reason that just wasn't enough.

I'm hoping that he'll still be friends, but that's for him to decide. I know that some of you will think I'm crazy and/or an idiot for breaking things off with Tim but please understand that I did what I thought was the right thing to do.

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Strike 1

Well in a 105 to 92 vote, the Massachusetts legislature has decided to pass to the 2005 Constitutional Convention the Travaglini-Lees amendment. I've put the text of the amendment into the extended portion of the entry.

The thing to remember is that on May 17th full marriage will be legal. Also we have 2 years and 2 more votes to change people's minds. Strike 2 and 3 if you will.

Finally the important thing to remember is that at the very worst, this amendment provides for Civil Unions that are Civil Marriage minus the name and federal benefits. Thats a lot more than we had a year ago. And as they always say, reach for the moon and if you miss you'll at least be among the stars.

Overall I'm positive about the direction this is going and that in the end history has proved that progress always prevails.

Text of the Travaglini-Lees amendment:

"The unified purpose of this Article is both to define the institution of civil marriage and to establish civil unions to provide same-sex persons with entirely the same benefits, protections, rights, privileges and obligations as are afforded to married persons, while recognizing that under present federal law same-sex persons in civil unions will be denied federal benefits available to married persons.

"It being the public policy of this commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in the commonwealth. Two persons of the same sex shall have the right to form a civil union if they otherwise meet the requirements set forth by law for marriage. Civil unions for same sex persons are established by this Article and shall provide entirely the same benefits, protections, rights, privileges and obligations that are afforded to persons married under the law of the commonwealth. All laws applicable to marriage shall also apply to civil unions.

"This Article is self-executing, but the general court may enact laws not inconsistent with anything herein contained to carry out the purpose of this Article."

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I raise my glass...

First of all, sorry to everyone about the lack of updates. I've been really busy lately. I have had the unique privilege and pleasure to be on the planning committee for WPI Prof. Louis Curran's retirment Gala Weekend Concert. My responsibilities involved arranging the social events including an informal cocktail at O'Connor's Restaurant on Thursday, a formal cocktail on Friday and then a Cocktail/Dinner at Maxwell Silverman's on Saturday. On Sunday was the performance of the Mozart Requiem. It was incredible. We had over 300 voices singing the piece and from where I was singing it sounded phenomenal.

So many wonderful things were said about Louis. It was quite touching. The man is a WPI icon. He's is truly a character and an individual of incredible moral fiber and a consumate gentleman. He is also incredibley demanding. It was said of him that he demanded that those in his charge become men and it was very true. He would push you to become the person you had the potential to be.

He will be sorely missed.

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As requested...

As requested I have posted a picture of me and the boy. Enjoy. :)

Of course after looking at this picture I have decided I need to hit the gym and lose weight. Its pretty bad when I can see I've gained weight looking at my face. My goal is to be back in shape and to be back to 160-170 by summer time. Wish me luck.

**Image was lost when blog was migrated**

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Marriage, Valentine's Day and other matters

Before anyone goes having any ideas - the title of this entry relates to totally separate issues. :-P

Marriage
We have just made it through 2 days of marathon sessions of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. By very narrow margins we have held at bay 3 different "follow-on" amendments to the constitutional amendment. These amendments sought to change the wording of the proposed amendment to make it more palatable to voters. They have the gall to call some of the proposed amendments "compromises". I'm sorry but I don't appreciate my rights being "compromised." We now wait until March 11th when they reconvene to finish the convention and to finally decide if the amendment will be passed. Write your reps and tell them not to write discrimination into the constitution.

Valentine's Day
Valentine's day was lovely. I went out the night before with Elliot, Jen and Andrew and Tim met us a little bit later. We had a good time and the gang didn't interrogate Tim too badly. ;)

I then went over to Tim's and he gave me a beautiful silver pictureframe with a photo of us from the semi. I got him a box of Godiva chocolates... yummy.

I have to say it was nice this year. This is the first time I wasn't single on Valentine's Day and I definately enjoyed it.

Other matters
I didn't actually get to spend the evening with Tim on V-day since I had a pre-existing arragement with several friends at work to go to the Freedom To Marry Coalition's "Love is in the Air" Valentine's Day Gala dinner. There was a silent auction as well as a live auction and they made a lot of money for the cause. I was proud to be there supporting it all by purchasing a ticket to the event. I'm happy to say that when I talk to my kids sitting next to my husband I can say "I was there".

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Dancing the night away

Well, Tim took me to Clark's "2nd Annual Suitcase Semi-formal" last night. It was a great time. He had to work during it since he was on the planning board but I had him for at least most of the night. All in all I had a great time there.

We're going out tonight but its sort of a surprise. He won't tell me what we are doing or where we are going other than I'm driving and not to eat dinner. This should be fun. :)

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Hurrah!! Hurrah!!

The answer to the question is 'No.'

That was the short answer to the Legislature's question of whether or not Civil Unions would satisfy the courts decision in the Goodridge case.

A bit of back history for those who don't know. On Nov. 18th the SJC handed down its decision concerning whether it was constituional for the state to withhold marriage benefits from same-sex couples. The court ruled that nothing in the laws said that and the state made no compelling argument that would be acceptable to provide for the disparity of only allowing opposite-sex couples to marry.

The state obstensively said marriage was to encourage families and child-rearing. That could have been a compelling argument except that no one is denied marriage if one or both parties are infertile. Also, especially in MA, same-sex couples can adopt children so they have the option to raise children of their own, thus creating families.

When the SJC ruled they stayed their decsion for 180 days to allow the legislature to do "what it deems appropriate" with regard to their decision. That very day conservatives and those against gay marriage had a field day trying to stretch it to mean that this was an opportunity for the legislature to create a lesser system of joining two people together for same-sex couples such as civil unions or domestic partnership registries.

On December 12th, Massachusetts Senate President Robert Travaglini sent to the SJC, for evaluation, a bill that guaranteed just about all state benefits for marriage without calling it marriage;calling it Civil Unions instead.

The SJC came back and said that historically anything separate has inherently unequal and that nothing short of full marriage would satisfy their decision.

They said as long as their is disparity between the institution for opposite-sex vs same-sex couples there would be an inequality.

The only caveat that the court allowed would be to withdraw the use of "Civil Marriage" for all couples and call all governmentally approved unions "Civil Unions" instead.

I see either outcome (civil marriage or union) as a victory and look forward to May 18th.

The creating of a single union for all couples is important since separate institutions, even while conveying all rights and privileges, creates two classes of people. While these classes may start out equally, rules can then be further created that grant additional privileges or penalties on one and not the other. A single institution provides that all unions must be considered when deciding privileges or penalties. Same with inter-state recognition for such unions. I can guarantee that some states would use the mutliple classes to enact laws that accept one and not the other. As it is they will still try to accept unions that satisfy particular criteria, such as being of one man and one woman, but in the end they will have to accept the entire definition of the union.

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Happy Happy Happy

Well, the greatest thing has finally happened. I have a boyfriend!!!!!!!

If you want to know details you'll have to talk to me but I'll give a few tidbits here.

His name is Tim, he's 21, he's got spikey brown hair, blue eyes and is super cute. He's also a psych major.

I'm deleriously happy at the moment so you'll forgive me if I'm overly glowing for a while.

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Parting is such sweet sorrow

This has been a really terrible week. I had to say goodbye to several friends this week. Four people in my department have been layed off as of Tuesday. Another was layed off yesterday, although I didn't find out until today. Its one thing to wish someone well as they leave to move on to bigger and better things or simply something different, its another when you say goodbye because there's no other choice since they were told to leave. I have been thoroughly drained by this week. I have been nervous and jumpy, even though I was fairly confident that I wasn't going to be layed off... simply the atmosphere of the school was enough to put me on edge. You start seeing the worst around every corner. I swear my heart skipped a beat when my director came around the corner near my office. He was simply talking to someone in the office across from mine as he often does, but that didn't stop me from worrying.

Thankfully the president of the college came out and stated that the "reduction in force is completed." I don't think I quite knew my level of stress until I felt portions of it melt away as I read the e-mail. This has to be one of the most stressful things I have ever had the mispleasure of experiencing. I feel for those who in the past few years have had to deal with many rounds of layoffs with no end in sight. I don't even want to think about what those who did get laid off must have gone through. I certainly hope the economy gets better soon... this is not a fun place to be right now.

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Dreams.... Further discussion

I discussed it with several people I know and apparently "nom, supernom" is a bastardized translation of "nomen supernomen" which means "Name above all names" which is in reference to a passage of Philippians 2:9. The exact quote in Latin is "Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum: et donavit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen." which means "For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a Name which is above all names." I don't know what this means in relation to the dream but I am still very disturbed by the dream.

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Dreams...

I had a particularly disturbing dream tonight. In it there were religious people defending portions of their religion. This is all well and good, except they wanted to perform publicly two portions of their ceremonies, one was called a "creping" (pronounced crape-ing) and another ceremony for which I don't remember the name or the things associated with its ritual.

The "creping" seemed simply to be a unique form of a wake where the priest ran a long metal rod against the face of the person who had died. The person was on the alter rather than in a casket. This is the image that flashed through my head when "creping" was being discussed in my dream and at the end of the flash the priest figure turned and glared at me. He was old, thin and a bit malevolent looking with long stringy unwashed hair.

The other ceremony escapes me as to what it was, but it was what I was most offended by and afraid of. It had something to do with the refusal of an extreme orthodox group to recognize the blatant faults and inaccuracies in their ceremony which completely contradicted acceptable scientific arguments.
I believe it may have had something to do with "religious therapy" using religion and belief in the miracles of God at the complete echewment and abandonment of modern medicine.

I can only imagine that this dream partly stems from my existing issues with the Catholic Church and my inability to reconcile that which is believed by religions that is definitively refuted by science. Also factoring in to this was an episode of "Judging Amy" that dealt with a mother whose child was autistic and who stopped bringing her son to physical therapy. She brought her child to a church that said they would cure him of his affliction. Rather than accept he had a neurological disorder they felt he was possessed by a demon and that he could be cured by releasing the demon within. The episode ended with Maxine (who place a Dept. of Children and Families social worker) entering the ramshackle establishment of the "church" with police escort to take the boy into custody. It seems she got there just in time. The people were sitting in circle while the “pastor” had bound the child’s feet, laid him on his stomach and were whipping his back while reading bible passages. When Maxine arrived the child was either passed out or almost there and his back was raw and bleeding across its entire surface.

Obviously a very powerful image that may have contributed to this dream.

The other odd thing was that at the end I was told that it all had to do with "nom, supernom" which in my best efforts to translate is French meaning "name, super-name" or "name, greater-name". I have no idea the significance of this phrase but it was repeated to me several times and was important enough that I remembered it most of all as I woke up while tossing and turning. I was told that I just didn't understand and the key to it all was simply "nom supernom". It stayed with me enough while the fog of sleep was lifting that I went online and tried to find any definition of it. It also prompted me to write this entry to record my thoughts on this dream before it went away.

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Delays, delays, delays….

Senate President Travaglini is going to delay the vote on the MA Constitutional Amendment to allow the SJC to deliver their opinion on the proposed Civil Unions bill.
-Boston.com Article-

Conservative groups are pushing the SJC to extend the stay of judgement on the Marriage case possibly indefinately "until the legislature and the people democratically decide what course to take with respect to marriage." Also, "The Massachusetts Bar Association said in a brief of its own that the civil union bill violates the court's ruling because it relegates same-gender couples to "something less than marriage." "
-Advocate Article-

Is anyone else tired of holding their breath until May 17th?

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Cheney's Opinion Sucks

So Cheney has come out and said that he will support the Federal Marriage Amendment (designed to eliminate any and all forms of gay unions, including marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships). This is a reversal of his original statement that this is a matter for the states. Apperently the unsaid part of that was that its a matter for the states unless he didn't like the states decision.

The amazing part of this whole thing is his daughter is silent on it. Granted its only been a day but for someone as politically active as she is/was I'm surprised she didn't have a statement on it.

I don't know what I'd do if my parents wouldn't support me getting married (eventually - have to find Mr. Right first).

I just hope that the SJC comes back soon with a ruling that says that Civil Unions won't cut it. It would also be nice if they recinded the 180 day waiting period and told the legislature to begin immediately.

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QE on Southpark

I just watched the Southpark episode that lampooned the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy show. It was hilarious! All the men in the town became over the top "metro-sexuals" and were totally about shopping and using hair and skin products and the latest fashions. Of course I didn't like the fact that they also had them become super-wusses but hey - if you are gonna do satire, you have to do the extremes. Also hilarious was the crab people impersonating humans as the Fab 5. "Crab people! Crab people! Taste like crab, look like human, crab people".

Everytime I think I can't be surprised with what Southpark comes up with next I find I'm wrong.

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Taboos

I just read a really good article on "What You Can't Say"

Here's the line I think sums it up the best and is very true when considering the latest clash of the Religious Right vs. Gay America in the fight for rights and marriage.

"I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them." - Paul Graham

Yes, this implies that the Church's dominance is once again waning as the moral beacon for the world. They've already lost the ability to be the intellectual beacon. That was called the Renaissance which heralded the end of the dark ages where the church kept books and the written word strictly controlled in the confines of the monks who transcribed everything. The printing press was one of the harbringers of the end of the Church's dominance on the every day people's thinkings.

In time we will look back on this time of strife and conflict and say "What were people thinking? Its so obvious that any couple who loves each other should marry." Just like we currently can't fathom what's wrong with a black and a white person marrying, or a Christian and a Jew. In time taboos fade, I only hope that it doesnt' take too long in this instance.

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