March 1
 

No picture for you!
 
 

Hello! Okay, first off, thank you for the two cool diarist.net awards.  Congratulations to all the other winners and nominees.  Some people voted for won, some didn't.  Life's like that.  Some day, Mike Reed will have to actually win something.   That would be fair.  Anyhow, thanks again.  Moving on.

You'll notice the redesign (uhh...I don't know, does that actually count as a redesign?) on the index page.  It was a major thing for me, because I am retarded in the Ways of The Computer.    Now I can't decide: should I have done more, less?  I don't know! I was going to (it was my original plan)  to have FOUR things on the monkeys, one leading all of you nice people to my most current entry, but then realized that that was about a million times more trouble than I'd be willing to commit to.  I'd have to move all my stuff, like, every day.  Pah.  Not likely. (please note:  I know I do not update every day.  Or nearly every day.  That was a joke, kids)  So, it's there, for better or for worse.   Though perhaps not an entire site overhaul, you have to understand that even changing my background color is a break out the champagne worthy event in my life.

So, last Thursday, Nick and I bounced out of work early and headed up to Boston to see Paolo Conte, who, as you may or may not remember, we went to see last year, the show turning out to be the best I'd ever seen, ever.   It came as a surprise to both of us at the time because I was familiar with his music, it was more in the "I am familiar with you because I have your Greatest Hits CD"  not because I was a diehard fan.  (though, to be fair to me, the Dana-Come-Lately, his greatest hits is about an hour an a half long, so it covers a lot and once prompted a funny conversation between my Grandmother and I:
Dana:  So this is Paolo Conte!
Gramma:  He's not speaking English, is he?
Dana:  No, no.  He's Italian.
Gramma:  But...what the hell is that?  He's not even singing WORDS...
Dana:  It's his interpretation of words...
Gramma:  Well, it sounds stupid!

I couldn't argue with her, and just turned it down.  In any event, she's wrong, it's not stupid, but I digress).  In the year plus since that last show, I've checked Ticketmaster like an obsessive compulsive freak for his name to pop up again, and whereas his show in Rome last month would probably have been a little more fun to get to, Boston was what was available, so Boston it was, which was cool because, as you all may or may not know, Boston (can I stick in a few more "Boston" mentions in the same sentence?  Boston! Boston!! BOSTON!) is my favorite city.  What city was that, Dana?  Why, Boston of course!.

My favorite city (Boston!), even though we arrived to find it about 20 degrees colder than it had been 2.5 hours south in Connecticut, with this screaming wind (and I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have a tear, no, it's too big to be a tear, it's an out and out collapse of the integrity of one of my sleeves) was beautiful, and I realized that the last time I was there I was actually RIDING through the city at 5:30 one cold and rainy morning.  What the fuck was I thinking?  Anyhow,  we parked in some underground lot in the Common (which I always want to call "the Green"  because all such parks here in CT are known as "The Green") and proceeded to walk around, very quickly (it was cold!).

Fast forward to the show.  We walked down the street and were minimally plagued (though, I was surprised it happened at all, given the show)  by scalpers, who, by the way, are white in Boston.  We showed up at the Orpheum sort of early because we'd already eaten and everything was closing and there's only so many times you can look around Filene's Basement (hereafter known for any future mentions as the Creepiest Department Store in the Universe), even if it does make you stop and exclaim, as Nick did: "This place is giving me.  the  STRANGEST.  Deja vu!"  repeatedly.  If you've never been there, the Creepiest Department Store in the Universe is, no shit, really strange.  The clothes are tossed into heaps with huge, handwritten signs "ALL FAT LADY CLOTHES*  IN THIS BIN, 75 PERCENT OFF!! FAMOUS NAME BRANDS LIKE  LANE BRYANT AND LERNERS!!"

*Not actual wording.

Okay, so anyway, we'd eaten dinner, and I was still so cold from walking in the wind that I felt an actual burn happening on my butt, and we were still  a half mile to walk to the theater that we decided to just go and be done with it.  Go and land.  Which we did.

So, years and years ago, when I spent a great deal of time in...uh...That City because Leon was there, we went to see a show (Cocteau  Twins, for contestants playing at home) and I remember the theater being really fancy seeming.  This was years and years ago.  2001, the Orpheum, in the strictest sense of the word, is a fucking dive.  I had somehow convinced myself that our seats were in row V V or something, and we steeled ourselves for a shitty view.  When I took the stubs out (by the way, one might think that the ushers would have pointed us in the right direction?  one would be wrong if that was the case)  to check the actual seats, we found ourselves in the 4th row.

I'm not going to go into the actual seating and how no one could figure out where any of the seats were or WHY or how the well dressed Italians (with screaming BO) were muttering ominously under their breath, cursing angrily at the layout, nor will I get into how absolutely ripped to shreds the place was, but I will say that in the 4th row, when Paolo Conte comes out, sings a song, and winks at you, you know you have been winked at.  No shit, he winked at me.

For the 2nd time, amazing show.  It wasn't at all disappointing.  I was worried that because the first time was so perfect, the second time would be a letdown, but it didn't feel that way, at all, to me.   ("There were things that were good AND bad about it, comparatively speaking!  I liked SOME things more the first time, and some better this time"  according to Nick).  And he winked at me, which is never bad.

The true excitement came when we left the show and walked outside.  It was snowing! Ahh..beautiful, sparkling snow!  It was lovely! Falling gently from the sky, all pretty and fluffy like fucking kittens or cotton balls or whatthefuck ever you want to say it was like.  We walked/ran to the car and jetted onto the highway, which was, in all of Massachusetts, plowed.  Heavy snow?  You bet!  Clean roads?  Totally.

Until the Connecticut border.  The moment the truck's front wheels hit Connecticut, it was unplowed.   And by unplowed I do not mean "Well, they didn't plow, but at least they salted!"  or "Well, they plowed an hour ago!"  We are talking a full on "HOLY SHIT! I CAN'T SEE THE LINES IN THE ROAD!! I CAN'T SEE WHERE THAT ENDS AND THE OTHER SIDE BEGINS!! IT'S SNOWING HARDER THAN THE WINDSHIELD WIPERS CAN DEAL WITH!"   The upper part of Route 84, for those not familiar, is the kind of 6 lane highway without any sort of light.  Imagine, if you will, riding in absolute darkness, with what I might classify as a metric shitload of snow coming down, alongside of 18 wheelers who do not seem to be concerned with the little issues, like, oh, I don't know, VISION or SAFETY or anything.   These fuckers whipped past me or crawled up my ass and flashed their brights no matter what I did.  And mind you, I was not creeping along.  No no! I was doing a good 50-60, despite the frequent accidents I was passing, because, well, I have 4 wheel drive and I am a fucking rebel.  Get out of my way, fucky!  I'm not slowing down!  My tires are hugging the road, and I have to go to work tomorrow! I'm tired and I got winked at!  They keep playing Guns and Roses (excuse me:  Guns n' Roses) on the radio!!  It's time to get the fuck home!

And finally, we were.
 
 

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I like big butts and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
hat when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung
Wanna pull up front
cause you notice that butt was stuffed
Deep in the jeans she's wearing
I'm hooked and I can't stop staring
Oh, baby I wanna get with ya
And take your picture
My homeboys tried to warn me
But with that butt you got
make me-me-me so horny