the man on the moon

The time has come. The offer has been made. And turtle is taking the opportunity. After four years of being the person who just doesn't quite fit in at the automotive book publisher, I'm finally being showed the door. It's really a relief. I should have left long ago, but didn't for so many reasons (one being a very, very cool coworker). But I've been offered a small severence package if I want to go, so I'm gonna take it and move on to something more appropriate for an environmentally aware, progressive, passionate, and artistic soul.

The man on the moon is smiling at me, so I'm taking that as a sign. Onward and upward!

mopey

Buffy sure has been depressing (and dramatic) lately. I was in a great mood after having just come home from the bike committee meeting, and getting inspired to actually get some projects done. And then I watched Buffy. Her ex, who deserted her, showed up after a year with a bubbly wife in tow. And then Buffy dumps Spike because she finally realizes that she was just using him. So, she's a bit of an emotional mess right now. The thing is, stuff like this really gets to me since I pretty much never have a love life of my own and I tend to live it vicariously through imaginary characters like Buffy. So I'm all mopey now, too. Grrrr Arrrgh.

Anyway, my own recent ex, Jason, is apparently giving up on Boston and moving back to his hometown. Doesn't really matter much to me as I had finally written him off as a friend after being stood up about five times in a row. (And a lot of bullshitting on his part about not being ready for a relationship.) But, his leaving town does have a small bonus for me. I can now feel free to hang out with one of his roommates, who I had started to be friends with back when Jason and I were together. This guy was really entertaining, and, despite a little problem with the alkeehall and a serious addiction to meat products, was quite sweet. He's not really long term kinda guy, but he'd be fun to pal around with, I think.

On the job search front, I checked back in with a place that has teaching fellowships available. This organization is perfect for me, because it's a very open ended teaching program that functions outside of the school system and uses professionals, from various fields, to expose kids to all kinds of jobs and experiences that they would never see in the typical classroom. My getting this job is a bit of a long shot, but I think I'm absolutely perfect for it.

recouperation

So, I'm home safe and sound, as my mother says. The whole NY trip wasn't as bad as I made it sound in my last post. I got used to the godawful pink Betty Boop room (or at least learned to tune it out). I did, in fact, end up getting a ticket to the Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged show, and a great seat at that. The show was funny, and I'd definitely reccommend it.

I eventually made it down to "Ground Zero" and took a bunch of pictures of the memorial walls and the construction. (By the way, it's not worth buying the ticket and waiting in the line to see the hole in the ground, you can just walk up to it without any waiting or monetary involvement.) The odd thing about the memorial wall, in front of the church, is that right behind the wall is a cemetary. At first, I thought that they had buried the people killed in the WTC right there, but then realized that it was just a cemetary which happened to be there at the church. There is also still a huge black glass building that is covered in a black veil (appropriate isn't it?) because most of the glass windows were blown out on the side facing the towers. This building (and the memorial wall stuff) is really the only thing left that indicates that the area isn't just under regular old construction.

I hate to say it, but, other than the obvious lives lost, the destruction of these monsterous corporate monoliths doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, the loss of the twin towers and their neighboring buildings opens up the dark and cramped area that was lower Manhattan. (It's now sunfilled and would be a beautiful place to put a garden and park.) Plus, I can't imagine that any of the business that was going on inside the demolished buildings was beneficial for humanity or the planet. If someone had held a gun to my (or my mother's) head an I HAD to pick a place in the US to be attacked, the WTC would have been near the top of my list. (I would, of course, insist that people and other living things be evacuated first...)

What's funny is that I didn't have the guts to put up my "peace is patriotic" sticker at the memorial wall. Usually I'm not at all afraid to speak my mind, but in this case, I just couldn't bring myself to make a statement, no matter how compassionate the intent was.

On my last day in NY, I took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The weather was extrordinarily warm for February, and it was a lovely ride. The statue herself is closed, but the island is open. So I walked around (I'd never been there) and checked stuff out. The original symbolism behind Lady Liberty is something I wholeheartedly believe in, though it is probably not the symbolism that the typical American attaches to her. It was a gift from France signifying the two countries' friendship, and the seven rays of her crown represent the seven continents, so it was an international symbol, not an imperial one. The statue came to stand for freedom and democracy (something that our country could use right about now), and under her robes, she is actually pulling her feet out of the "shackles of tyranny". (I'm not sure, but I think that the manufacturer's mark on the shackles reads "GWB".) After taking a ton of pictures of the Big Lady, I went off to Ellis Island. I checked to see if my surname, Cronburg, was anywhere in their databases, and found a bunch of similar names, but not the exact name. Clearly, my family must have changed the spelling at some point quite recently. I, personally, would love to revert back to the more likely correct Kronborg, or something.

I also managed to find my way to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (did I mention that the NYC subway system is astoundingly confusing?). The Garden was somewhat disappointing, but at least it was free, for some reason. The water garden room in the main greenhouse was pretty nice, though. Its too bad that they don't do more activities and programs in the wintertime. Right now is the perfect time to start planting seeds and they could so easily let visitors plant seeds and take them home to grow themselves. So many museum program planners are really uncreative, it's sad.

I got home just in time for the Critical Mass bike ride, and the rescheduled Janeane Garofalo show. Jason pulled his usual ditching act and I ended up getting the Jef to go with me, which worked out great. (Though Jason is still a jerk for ditching me yet again.) I love this woman. She has almost exactly my same brain chemistry and she's pro-Nader. Her show isn't so much stand-up comedy as it's spoken word storytelling. She had this fantastic bit about the boils our favorite King George keeps getting. She said that it was a manefestation of his unspoken fears of being responsible for a whole country, and that it really was a porthole through which the man was trying to escape out of his body. This left a great, yet disgusting image in my head, similar to something that Bill Plympton might draw. As we were leaving the theater, a woman in front of us said to her companion "I'm glad that you didn't like it either. I didn't understand anything she was talking about at all." Ummmmm...what? Maybe this woman found the tickets on the street or won them or something. Sure, Janeane is an acquired taste, and incredibly opinionated, but why would someone pay $45 to see a one-woman show, if she didn't already have some clue as to what to expect? Weirdo.

So, now that my NY adventure is behind me, I have to buckle down and do some Random Turtley stuff. Seed planting, zines, stickers, and bike volunteer work are all at the top of my list of things to do. And maybe find the floor of my bedroom, too. That would be nice.

PS. The St. Marks area, and the East Villiage, of NYC is very cool. The Angelica restaraunt, in particular, made the whole trip worth it. All vegan, all healthy, almost all organic and locally produced, and great food. Not the kind of stuff you usually find at health food places, but the kind of stuff you find in hoity toity expensive restaraunts in the city. Go there if you are ever hungry in NYC.

live from New York

It's me. Well, by the time anyone reads this I'll be back home, but right now I'm in the middle of Time Square. I just tried to get half price day of show tickets to, well, anything really, but the line was enormous, and there was only one show that they even had some tickets for (The Complete Abridged Shakespear). So I decided to forgo it, and wander around.

Speaking of wandering around, and NYC in general, I abhor it. I love Boston, but NYC is just plain cruddy and full of big, monolithic buildings. Blah. My "hotel" sucks too. The website made it look really cool, but they gave me the Betty Boop room and it's all pink and the whole room is about the size of a walk in closet.

Well, I'm going to check out St. Marks now. I'll see what that place is all about and let you know.

ow

It's taken three days to even begin to recover from my previously mentioned dancing/bowling/biking extravaganza. My thighs are still a bit stiff, particularly walking downstairs. And I tried to scratch my back this morning but couldn't quite get my "bowling" arm to extend far enough to reach. My body is such a wuss.

Well, it's less than 36 hours before I board that bus to NYC. And, yep, I'm starting to panic. As a kid, I used to be so outgoing. Then something happened (maybe moving to five different schools by age 13?) and I became almost panic attacky shy. After college I kind of outgrew it all. But I still feel really weird doing stuff that I've never done before by myself. Though I've been to New York a few times before, I've never been entirely responsible for entertaining myself there, or finding my way around. (Plus, I cut up my NYC subway map for an art project, so I have nothing to go on right now. Damn creativity!) But at least I have a plan. And a couple of backup ideas, too. Unfortunately, my grand idea of getting tickets to the Daily Show was thwarted when I called and found out that you need to get tickets two months in advance. My mom wants me to see the Rosie O'Donnel show. No thanks.

So, after about five months of writing this journal, not one person is reading it, as far as I can tell. My dad occasionally checks it, and a couple of my exes even more rarely come for a visit, but that's it. I do, however get a bunch of hits from people looking for some version of punk/diy crafts. Maybe at some point, when I finally get around to redoing my real Random Turtle Productions website, I'll put up some projects and definitely a link section. For now, you folks should check out GetCrafty.com, Not Martha, and of course, Gawth Craft, which has no pictures, but it is nifty nonetheless.

As for my zine idea that I had a month ago which I was plannig on doing for Beantown Zinetown, Boston's zine fest, I think I'm going to go with something else. I think I'm gonna do a city bicyclist's survival guide, since I think that it might be really useful, and easier for me to pull off in a month. Ooooh, and I want to make some more stickers. I'm think of getting "slower is sexier", "bike: the real SUV", and maybe one more. The only problem is that the place that I got my stickers at last time changed url's and I can't find them now...

little blue tyvek wristband

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I was dancing tonight, with a guy, at a bowling alley, to something that I can only imagine was jungle house music. How's that for unexpected? The bowling was pretty predictible as a concept, but the dancing (and the fact that there was a male of the species involved) came from completely out of left field. Actually, the fact that I didn't suck at bowling was also a nice surprise. So yeah, I was dancing, and it was fun. I haven't danced with a guy in a good four years. Tonight's dance partner wasn't the coolest dancer on the dancefloor (no offense, Tim), but I'm rarely one to take that sort of thing seriously anyway, so it was cool.

It took me nearly an hour and a half to ride home, and I don't think that my toes will ever recover from the cold. (Winter seems to have finally arrived in New England.) But the roads were nice and quiet and the stars were out in full force (inasmuch as they can be in the streetlight-filled city). Now I'm home, toasty, uncharacteristically happy, and very, very tired. Sleepies.

video games for mindless tools

In theory, I am a huge fan of computer/video games. The problem is that the vast majority are of the "wander around, pick things up, and shoot at stuff" ilk. I can't imagine why anyone would find this even remotely enjoyable for more than fifteen minutes. My roommate spent EIGHT HOURS yesterday doing just this. Every time I peeked into the living room it was like deja vu.

This is not to say that computer games can't be interesting, but good heavens, at least make them challenging. And for goddess's sake, make some real controllers. Steering a vehicle with your thumb is just plain dumb. (Heh, that rhymes.) With all of the emphasis on realism in gaming, you'd think that controllers would have gotten better, but they have just gotten sillier. A joystick, like the Atari had, bears at least a vague resemblance to something you might use if you really steering a spaceship or somesuch. And what's up with all of those damn buttons? It all started with Dragon's Lair and a couple of other arcade games from the mid-eighties. It's like having to learn to touch type. I want to challenge my brain, not my finger coordination.

The Civilization-type games are a little better, since they are more about strategy than anything else. But the graphics are too dull for my tastes.

Ah, well. Maybe someday I'll install my Starship Titanic game and actually play it. If anyone could do a game right it was Douglas Adams.

this one is for my ex

Nerd Porn.

(That would be the ex named Jason)

hope is in an open window

Had my usual encounter with an ignorant automobile driver on my way home from work. She was gunning her engine because she didn't have enough room to pass me on one of Cambridge's tiny side streets (which would be HUGE if it weren't for the two lanes of parked cars...). We both stopped at an intersection, with me in the middle of the lane and signalling a left turn. When the light turned green she bizarrely tried to make a left turn while PASSING me on the RIGHT!? When I caught up to her ten seconds later at the next intersection, she opened her window and shouted at me that I should be on the right when making a left turn. I told her, rather curtly, that she should learn how to drive. But, instead of the usual swearing and squealing of tires, she actually stopped, giving me the opportunity to tell her what the laws of the road really say about making left turns. I told her that I was on the bicycle committee and that, in the eyes of traffic law, a bicycle is essentially the same as a car. I even offered her a brocure on safe driving/riding. She declined, but to my surprise, she STILL didn't swear or threaten to kill me! Folks, there is indeed hope left.

And now for a random act of typical upper-management insanity: I work for a book publisher, and today the president of the company declared that, instead of getting more bookshelves, we should have fewer books. Is this his way of saying that we're all going to be out of a job soon?

homebody

I've been vegging again. All week. Doing a lot of cooking and baking to try and save some money. My plan for the rest of the weekend is to avoid footbal as much as possible. My roommate Seth is going to a pagan potluck tonight, and I'm thinking of going, or maybe I'll finally get out to see the Harry Potter movie which is playing at the cheap theater in Davis Square.

The trip to NYC seems like it's a go. I found the coolest hotel/hostel called the Chelsea Star which has very hip themed rooms for less than half the price of a normal Manhattan hotel. I've requested the Star Trek room, with the Orbit room (painted blue and completely covered in glow-in-the-dark starsfor) as a backup. And, Greyhound has conveniently chosen to drastically drop their fares for some of their Boston to NYC busses. So, the whole four day trip is going to cost me about $160, plus food. Now, I just need to find cheap and fun places to go that aren't clubs...