It is really nice to not be bogged down by the force to get married and have babies just because other people are doing it. I would love to someday, but not yet. One of my craziest, most free-spirited friends has troubled me of late with her veiled, but obvious to me, nervous chatter, almost worthy of any hand-wringing-with-a-tissue-til-she-bleeds 1950�s wife looking out the window, waiting for her husband to come home from work while 4 little kids run around and raise Hell in a Catholic home. That�s actually a pretty good description of my mom when my sisters and brother were small. Anyway, so this friend, as I said free-spirited� I mean, the lady offered me two choices of reading material one night I slept over after hours of drinking and dancing � Lady Cottington�s Book of Pressed Fairies or Screw the Roses and Send me the Thorns�The Romance and Sexual Sorcery of Sadomasochism because you know, you can�t just whip somebody anywhere, that would be impropah� so she�s a free spirit� that�s the point. And I�m horribly inarticulate. So anyway, she�s been bellyaching about the fact that her boyfriend�s brothers are married, and that his twin actually just got married (because his girlfriend got preg�antay) and they weren�t dating nearly as long as she and her chico had been. So I was like, �it�s not a race, right?� And she said, �no, just overwhelming and surreal, that they all have babies and talk to me about it and say maybe M. and I will get married and have babies soon.� And I was like, �so you want babies now.� And she was like, �What? No� it�s just overwhelming.� Because to me it sounds like being �overwhelmed� by it means either she feels pressured to do so because everyone�s talking to her about it or that she really wants to get married and is annoyed because he�s not asking her yet, but won�t admit it. I think the latter is the case. And she sees fathers with fannypacks and mothers with diaper bags and she says she never wants to be that, never wants that to happen. But I think that�s what she really wants (which is fine) and it scares her because she prided herself for so long on going to fetish nights at clubs where they have �potty-cam� and all of that fun stuff. (I was supposed to go to this fetish night with her, Click + Drag, and figured that at least exorbitant amounts of alcohol might make it entertaining but they were having potty-cam that night and I just wasn�t up for it. She was like, �I usually just go at home�because you don�t know which bathroom it�s in.� I was like, �You don�t drink. I drink. I�ll have to pee. I�m not into being/peeing on the potty-cam.� So we didn�t go. And it�s too bad because I did really want to break out the vinyl dress. Also sadly, they had to cancel their Plushies theme night in December because another group rented the space or something. Heh.) She�s thinking about giving up the whip for the poopie dipes and I think it�s scaring her that she wants that life. I say screw what everyone else thinks! Who cares if you want the roses instead of the thorns! Maybe she can have potty train cam or something. No, that�s gross and could lead to some real problems. I can only thank the Lordie that M. is such a nice guy. I worry about her.

I�m moving ahead with my �no shit on Jenn� (no Schei�e jokes, please) new attitude toward life and it is going to work for me.* I used to make too many concessions for people who really cause me more stress than help and I�m sick of them just expecting me to continuously be a crutch because they aren�t willing to do the work within themselves. I�m cutting down on that crap. Screw �em. Forget Oprah�s �light-bulb moment.� It�s a �Get Off My Teat� moment.

I just got back from Shay�s, I think my favorite bar in the Boston area, although I am nowhere in the mood for snockerdom this evening. I�m going to have some tea and hang out with Brent. I picked him up from work and we met his work peeps over at good �ole Shay�s as Terry, a waiter, had his last day today and is leaving to move onto bigger and better things (freelance filmmaking, although it looks like he�s going to be on the government dime for awhile as he somehow managed to lose $300 worth of footage and hence was quickly sacked before the story even began�but in his heart, it was so real).

He cleans up pretty good, huh?

So Brent is making us tea and listening to Lovage in the kitchen. Can I just tell you? This Lovage album is so frickin� good. In my eyes and ears Mike Patton can do no wrong. I�m thinking about doing a slow version of Faith No More�s �Falling to Pieces� because it�s such a damn good song. My friend Dan, one of my first bandmates, loved Mike Patton a load. Dan died several years ago of an apparent heroin overdose. He was a really good guy and always talked about the fact that he thought he would die young. He had a really tough life. I know he would love all of Mike Patton�s new projects. Check out Tomahawk while you�re at it. But if you�re already a Mikepattonphile you already know. It doesn�t hurt that Jesus Lizard�s Duane Denison, Helmet�s John Stanier and the Melvins� Kevin Rutmanis hit the decks on this one too. Don�t make me say �kudos.� Yuck. Although the peanut butter kudos were on the top of my list in seventh grade.

Strap this on for size: The word �Pornography� comes from the root Pornē which means female slave, while Erotica comes from Eros, which means sexual love or desire. Maybe this is a more articulate way to explain why women generally have a visceral problem with pornography.

* �Work for me� reminds me of a story my friend K. told me the other night out at Charlie�s. She had been at a friend�s apartment and was terribly drunk and somehow fell backwards in her chair, hit her head on the china cabinet and stayed on the floor for quite some time� she thinks she had a concussion. Anyway, she finally got up and said, �I�m making technology work for me!� Heh. I saw her last night at the B-Side and we talked about drumlins. She was thrilled I knew what drumlins were and promised to bring her Oceanography book next time. Yay! Drumlins!

Word of the Day for Sunday March 24, 2002:

farrago fuh-RAH-go; fuh-RAY-go, noun; plural farragoes: A confused mixture; an assortment; a medley.

Ivan Illich writes "a farrago of sub-Marxist cliches, false analogies, non sequiturs, false or bent facts and weird prophesies."

--"The Paul Johnson Enemies List," [1]New York Times, September 18, 1977

Roy Hattersley will upset much of Scotland by calling Walter Scott's lvanhoe "a farrago of historical nonsense combined with maudlin romance."

--"Literary classics panned by critics," [2]Independent, January 18, 1999

From the moment the story of the Countess of Wessex and the Sheikh of Wapping broke, there has been a farrago of rumour, speculation and fantasy of which virtually every newspaper should be ashamed.

--Roy Greenslade, "A sting in the tale," [3]The Guardian, April 9, 2001

Farrago comes from the Latin farrago, "a mixed fodder for cattle," hence "a medley, a hodgepodge," from far, a sort of grain.