Boston Bucket List; The Summer Installment 2

George's Island!

When Jodi contacted me about joining her and my brother Christopher to George's Island last Saturday, my first thought was "We have islands?" followed by "Sure! I'll come!"

It turns out we have a few very nice islands; George's, Spectacle, and The Other One I Can't Remember The Name Of.  We all packed snacks to share and made our way down to the Boston Harbor Saturday morning and took a 40 minute ferry ride to George's Island. We were going for a music festival hosted by Berklee, which turned out to be one small tent with a musician under it but we didn't mind at all. 

The island was small enough to explore but big enough that it didn't feel at all crowded. It also had a rather impressive visitors center/museum with lots of info. None of which I read aside from some mumbo-jumbo about two dudes way back in olden times who would join the army to collect a stipend, disappear and join another battalion elsewhere, get a stipend, disappear...

You get the idea.

They were brought to justice and shot to death on the island.

We were surprised at how not rustic the place was with it's clean bathrooms, food (if we hadn't already brought some). There was even a beer tent. There was lots of space to explore, open fields, rocky beachy areas, picnic benches, little grills, and trees for shade if you preferred.

The weather was beautiful and sunny and we found some perfect shade to sit under, listen to music,  people watch and chat and sort of nap.

After a few hours of eating and lounging and one walkabout, we joined a very long line to take the next ferry off the island. We struck up a conversation your a nice couple standing behind us and that helped to pass the time, which we ended up having a lot of on account of one of the ferries not showing up for some reason or another.

In the end, a whale watching boat was sent as a stand in. It would get us home in fifteen minutes which I was most certainly in favor of over a 45 minute ferry ride. I offered Christopher a dollar if he'd ask the rangers "Are we gonna see whales on the way home?! You know, because it's a whale watching ferry?!" as we boarded the ferry but he didn't take the bait.

Loser.

It was a great day and a perfect addition to my summer bucket list!

The ride to the island was actually REALLY hot, so it was a relief to find the weather on the island really comfortable

snacks!

Apparently the island hosts a kite-flying festival. This is not that though.

sibling selfie

Harlow Found The Swamp

Boston Bucket List; The Summer Installment 1

I'm struggling lately. That may or may not be obvious from reading my blog. I have no idea, and I suppose that doesn't matter much.

I've started a Boston Bucket List for myself. I basically feel that I get to start of fall year after year and feel really disappointed in the summer that just flew by. Not this year. I'm going to go to outdoor concerts and movies, art shows, museums, etc.

My friend Ben joined me last night to the ICA in Boston, which is free on Thursdays, open later and has a band playing outside too.   As we approached the building, it looked unimpressive. And quiet. And empty. Hm. Then we walked around back where the building faces the water and the band was hopping and the crowd was full. Ben and I looked at each other, minds sort of blown.

Inside, we both especially liked this one installation. A room of videos playing simultaneously. Each video was of a different musician and they were all playing music together, being recorded at the same time, in different rooms in a large home. As you approached each screen, a speaker brought you closer to that particular musician and you could hear them more than the others. Switch screens and you heard that musician more clearly.
There was the guitarist sitting on a bed which had a woman laying in it, the guy in the tub, a group on a porch (listening to the process being recorded inside), the accordion playing who sort-or writhed her way through the song, the tall creepy many on all black who appeared to have no eyebrows.

The lullaby jam session, which went on for about an hour, was slow and lonely and pretty.

As for the rest of the museum, Ben said it best when he looked at one piece "It's cool! Is it art? I'm not so sure."

 

 

I feel bad for Ben, really. I have few single friends. One has a young son, and one has a boyfriend now (so single...but not really). So Ben is my go-to for my fun summer adventures both because he's great company and because, at the moment, he's available more often than other friends are.

The reason I feel bad for Ben is that I struggle to edit my thoughts and my thoughts lately have been fairly intense, if not downright Debby Downerish. I realized last night when I got home that this is, to be perfectly honest, because I am really lonely. So he's stuck listening to my wet-mop moping (must work on that)

Single like me, Ben is looking to find someone. His advantages in this arena are A) He's optimistic about the process, not beaten down by years and years of trying and failing. and B) His prospects are good. It's just fact; there are far more women out there looking for love than men and as such his odds are better than mine. Think about it, how many men in their 40s do you know who are single and unhappy about it? None. Because they can find someone with ease. Women? There's a sea of us trying to find our person and failing.

Much like the dying off of honey bees, this is a mystery to all.  Just the other day Lauren was telling me that she knows five women who are all catches and still involuntarily single.

So last night I arrived home feeling really sad. I spent my evening with an romantically optimistic person, which is great, but it also amplified my hopelessness somehow and it made me feel like I was super-shitty company.  I just spent the night watching either lots of other people in relationships, or tons of women all younger and skinnier and prettier than I am looking around and trying to find someone themselves.

I haven't shaken off the feeling today. I can tell because, well, I can feel feelings for a start, but also because I'm being really friendly to others, which is what I do when I'm sad because I think to myself, maybe they're sad too, and someone smiling at them and being friendly will help them feel better.

I loathe this feeling. It's so self-deprecating. So whiny. I want so much to feel worthy of something great and open to it's possibility. And not so lonely all the time even when I'm surrounded by people and good company.

I want more little magical things to happen and I want to be more open to witness them. Like this little snippet. Everyday stuff that makes me smile.

Sara Bareilles

Last night I went with Tori to see Sara Bareilles in concert at Blue Hill Tent on the seaport here in Boston. 

I can to know of her work when I was watching So You Think You Can Dance and fell in love with this piece along with the song that played with it...

http://youtu.be/dQumAKlCJUY

Bareilles was great in concert. She has an amazing range and sang her ass off the entire night. She was really entertaining and the audience was too. In the video below, you can see a couple a good distance in front of us (and a very good distance from the stage) waving. They waved on and off through the entire show. In this video, it really just shows them concert waving with the music. It doesn't appropriately show their geniune waving to Sara all night long like she was a neighbor down the street (with the exception of an occassional raising of a glass by the guy when Sara said something worthy of a cheers!) They would stop when it got dark, and start up again once it got bright out, as if they thought Who knows, maybe Sara will see us and ask us to come on stage with her. Or at least maybe wave back?

Hats off to them for their tenacity!

This video is a clip of a very cool call and response she did after splitting the audience.

Sara Bareilles concert at Blue Hill Tent. 7/15/14 from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.

When the show started everyone stood, but as it went on and the music calmed a bit, most people sat back down for a time. The section I was in was trying to sit, but two seats in front of us were two couples still standing. One young couple, all snuggly wuggly, and another older couple, the man wearing a western-type shirt. After a while, the woman next to me said "Mr. Austin Texas t-shirt needs to sit down" and then she stood up and leeeeeeaned over and tapped him on the shoulder, "We can't see her and everyone behind you is sitting".

As he sat (and the snuggy wuggly couple next to him did too) my neighbor said to me "What can I say, I'm almost forty and I've lost my filter".

Oh, how I do know what you mean, neighbor. 

She later offered Tori and I some wine because she and her friend wanted another carafe but knew they wouldn't drink it all themselves. As she got up to go get their second round, she said "I'll get four cups!" She returned disappointed that the stalls had closed but I though it was so nice that she offered.

It helped me feel better about people and the world. 

Bareilles talked about her music and what the inspiration was behind some of her songs. One some, Brave, was written when she had a friend who was struggling to come out as an adult. But last night, she held a piece of paper in her hand and talked about how a woman named Nicole was in the audience and wanted Sara to know that her young son died in a car crash recently and that Brave had become an anthem for her to keep moving forward. "So, this is for Liam and Nicole" Bareilles said as she began to sing, and projected on the wall behind her was a video of people dancing and singing along to Brave in various states of joy and illness, clearly showing it's uplifting abilities to some.

It was really moving.

Before Brave though, she sang King of Anything, which is another favorite of mine. Below, she split the audience in two and created a call-and-response situation. Pretty neat. 

On The Mend

Harlow is all better for the most part after he long recovery from what seemed to be a simple lump removal on her paw.

She shows her joy in this by being busy busy busy! Running outside and then in again, grabbing a toy and shredding it up (how is there possibly any stuffing left in that mouse?!), grabbing the sock with the tennis ball in it and whipping it back and forth, hitting herself in the head with the tennis ball in the process.  I think a lot fo her energy also comes form the fact that I now have an AC on the first floor. While I worry about the cost of my electric bill, I'm happy to have it. She has more energy, which has it's disadvantages, but for sure we are both more comfortable!

The other night I was driving home and as I parked the car, Billy Joel's She's Got A Way was on the radio. I sang the song to myself (because, you know, I've got a way) and as I walked into the door, Harlow joined in from her crate with a "wooooooWOOOO!".

It was pretty awesome.

Last weekend Harlow and I went to the SoWa Market, which I hoped would be an opportunity to meet someone in real life. I forgot that it's mostly cute couples and gay men, but no matter. Harlow was a great conversational piece and all the little kids beaming at the site of her and exclaiming "doggie!" made it worth the visit. It's so nice to have a pup I can trust around kids. Not that Oliver wasn't great. He was the best. Just not with kids. Or UPS guys. 

I know I've mentioned in past entries how the whole don't-bother-freezing-your-eggs situation has effected me. For the most part, it's not on my radar, then suddenly it is, and I'm just feeling sad.

It's left me feeling like less of a person. Definitely less desirable. This is hard, because I haven't been told I can't have kids AT ALL. And yet, it's left me feeling that way, and all the more hopeless for the future I hoped for myself.  This ties into my dating life and has left me with no interest in trying anymore. I don't quite feel like "who would want me now", but in a way I do feel that. And I wonder.

I've gone through phases of giving up on finding my person in the past but they don't last more than a few weeks. It's been about six weeks now and I still have no desire to put myself out there. Someone will message me on a the dating site and I'll go to their profile and start reading-

"Hi! Thanks for visiting my profile! I like monkeys and I make lots of money and..."

Nope, no interest in attempting to read anymore. Even with your appreciation for monkeys, which I also have.

I've just completely shut off. How do I open myself to finding my person if I basically feel done and hopeless about it? I'm lonely and I want to find that person, but in my years and years of dating and relationships and looking, I haven't figured it out, so perhaps I'm just not going to.My brother is happily married and my parents have been together for 48 years.  I wonder what went wrong for me.

There's a lot going around on social media these days about the pressure society puts on women and girls to look a certain way and be a certain way. I am comfortable in my skin. I like who I am, but I have lost faith that I will find someone else who will love who I am, as I am.

This Colby Caillat video is great, but I will always feel as though I have to try. Furthermore, I always feel that I try in vain. Every time.

http://youtu.be/GXoZLPSw8U8?list=RDGXoZLPSw8U8

Fourth of July

As always, our fourth of July weekend celabration was a great success. So much good food and lots of baby passing. I had a great time even with poor Harlow not at full functioning capacity (although she would disagree, I think).

I basically had to keep the poor girl chained to the house to prevent her from running around like crazy and further hurting her paw. She did really well I think.

Ring around the puppy from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.
Fin enjoys a good round of Ring Around the Puppy.

Fin was a fan of my Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies!

part of Vivian's 6th month photo shoot

part of Vivian's 6th month photo shoot

part of Vivian's 6th month photo shoot

part of Vivian's 6th month photo shoot

part of Vivian's 6th month photo shoot

CJ and Fin work on "take it" with Harlow. She's out of practice!

Tori's amazing flag cake!

Christopher with Vivian

baked apples with dinner

with Donna

baby selfie! Vivian was teething and loved chewing on fabric!

May The Fourth Be With Me

Leading up to the holiday weekend I've been stressed out. My travels back from OH were a bit harrowing with lots of turbulence, a nearly missed connection flight and luggage that didn't get to me til a day after I returned home.

I was excited to see Harlow again, and when I came through the door Tuesday night she seemed excited too, bouncing around in her crate. I opened the crate door and out she bounded right by me and to the outside of the crate where a milk bone had gotten away from her.

I missed you too, you brat.

This weekend is the 4th of July celebration with family and friends in the cape. The weather is not looking good, with a hurricane making it's way up the coast. I was assigned a breakfast and lunch which is fine with me but really stressful for me.

I can bake til the cows come home, but doing meals is harder for me. I don't mind doing it from the fairness/sharing responsibility standpoint, but aside from that I hate it. Even when I'm only cooking for four I struggle to time everything right, and now it will be for ten. Yikes.

I decided to make quiches ahead of time and freeze them for the breakfast. Last night, in the thick heat I made a ham and cheese quiche. Ben came by to hang out and tolerate my intolerably hot house for a while, and we were chatting just as he was about to leave when we heard a weird rattle coming from the kitchen followed by an epic crash.

Harlow had pulled the quiche from the counter and onto the floor.