| a distinction I'd like to keep in my mind so I'm putting it here |
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| 10:55pm 08/07/2008 |
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"It’s important –even kind of exhilarating – for women to embrace their inner bitch, but the point should be to expand our sense of human possibility, not to enshrine aggression as a virtue."
- Barbara Ehrenreich |
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| 10:07pm 06/07/2008 |
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What are your plans for this coming Labor Day weekend? Specifically, what are you doing Monday September 1st? Jake & I will be moving! Want to share this life transition with us as we move out to a place of our own, and get a serious workout at the same time? Information will be provided by the on-staff massage therapist about how to reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness and also how to lift with your knees not your back! We will be moving to a location that is dangerously close to the Wine & Cheese Cask and also Thai Hut* and moving help will be rewarded!
*The more observant among you may observe that this will also put us close to Dali, but that is largely academic to me given lifestyle/earning-type issues. |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| an announcement |
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| 12:25am 19/06/2008 |
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Please, unless you are MY FRIEND BUT NOT JAKE'S, please ask HIM how his job search is doing, even if you see me more often than you see him. I am officially retiring from all PR duties because I'm sick of talking and thinking about it. His email address is easy to find or maybe you already know it. Updates, as they pertain to my life and amuse me to make, may be posted here, but only if I feel like doing it. |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| HOUSE |
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| 01:08pm 17/06/2008 |
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Many of you may know that our communal living situation has decided to break up at the end of our lease cycle (Sept.) which is sad, but also nice, since Jake & I will get a chance to see how much truth there is to all the sentences that start with "When we get our own place...". I have confirmation that we ARE in fact a landlord's wet dream from the owner of our teeny tiny dream house, which we will be signing the lease on later this week. I have been crossing my fingers since Friday night. So excited!!! |
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Read 15 - Post |
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| 10:30am 09/06/2008 |
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Thank you to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elements and her housemate (whose lj username I have forgotten) for hosting a truly excellent clothing swap. I have so much new clothing! I have an insane 70s purple maxi-dress and nowhere to wear it! I have the option to dress up asdamselfrog for halloween if I want to! I tried on everything at home with a more critical eye and more time in front of the mirror and I think that there are only two things that I came home with but won't really ever wear. Now, who is going to host a dress-like-phyllis-diller party? My dress needs an event. |
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| Revolution Girl Style Then |
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| 11:34pm 12/05/2008 |
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I just started reading The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, and it's another of these why-did-I-wait-so-long moments. Her writing is full of beans, in the good way, quoting widely from Jackie Collins to Ibsen, full of freshness and jokes and revolutionary fervor. Admittedly, in 1970 in Australia and then in London, the revolution seems to have looked pretty middle-class and white and had some pretty full-of-shit ideas about homosexual and trans realities, but I don't like to throw the baby out with the bathwater, feminism-wise. Tiptoeing around the bullshit, this book is fun feminism (I don't mean fun-feminism tee emm, you know) and blunt truths about subjects and objects and sex and who wants what and questions about the crappy things we've all been taught. At 40-ish years old this book shows how some things have changed and some are exactly the same.
Short version: I dig it, you might too. |
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| Alice means truth. |
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| 04:43am 07/05/2008 |
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Reading Alice Munro: It gives me strength and hope to face the future. How could Dance of the Happy Shades have been published in 1968? How have I reached 29 years of age before reading it? Clearly the world currently holds an untold number of things that will fucking blow my mind just as soon as I discover them. Just think, these things are just out there waiting. Your friend says "what? you mean you don't know about ___ yet?" and everything changes. These stories are powerful stuff, stories about coming-of-age and girlhood and they encompass perfect timeless moments in prose that would make Hemingway shrug and decide to give up writing permanently in favor of alcoholism. I am on my second library renewal of Dance of the Happy Shades not because it is hard reading, but because I am savoring this book in small slivers like something expensive to eat. Some delicate understanding, hard to convey in nonfiction prose is captured in these stories. I read them and think "yes! that is what I mean!" as she writes about girlhood and womanhood and states in between in rural 50-years-ago Canada, so far from my experience with fox breeders and housedresses, death and cloakrooms.
Anyway, thanks Canada! That's two of my top-5 favorite all-time writers you've produced. Keep up the good work! |
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| Today I met John Kerry |
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| 11:41pm 29/03/2008 |
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And I didn't say "my friend works with your daughter and says she's really nice", nor did I say "if reelected, what would you do that you haven't done in the past 18 years?", which were the two things I came up with to say. There was a meet-the-candidate gathering at Mt. Vernon restaurant for delegates to the state convention, and it was fun, and I got some good time meeting the city committee's new chair, kate chang, and got to catch up with some folks. Adam Sweeting, who I just found out is a Humanities professor at BU, and who was very sympathetic about Jake's job search, and who is on Ward 3 school committee says that I should tell my friends who have concerns about Somerville Public Schools to call or email him. Contact information can be found here: http://www.somerville.k12.ma.us/education/dept/dept.php?sectiondetailid=6062
Denise Provost has her braces off (unimportant except to her) and is gathering signatures for reelection (important for many). If you're in the district and would like to sign, plan to run into me sometime, ok?
I have now personally met and all of my elected representatives except for George Bush. I'm happy to keep it like that.
Also, chenoameg, I have two ideas for ways that we could combine forces for the power of Good. Let's chat sometime. |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| The kids these days and their slang... |
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| 02:09am 18/01/2008 |
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Am I getting old or something? Who can tell me what ENOPANTS means? I really have no idea. |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| this week's weather |
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| 11:10pm 13/01/2008 |
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I just noticed that it is, in all likelihood, going to be a truly awesome cross-country ski week. Anybody want to head out with me sometime? |
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| To Good Homes |
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| 06:25pm 25/11/2007 |
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I culled my book collection and came up with a stack that while I enjoyed them or found them useful or hilarious, doesn't need to belong to me anymore. Any takers?
NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman
The BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS OF THE CENTURY ed. by Joyce Carol Oates
Mortal Companion by Patrick Califia
Best Women's Erotica
Best Women's Erotica 2002
BLIZZARD OF ONE by Mark Strand
The Successful Business Handbook (issued by the ABMP for bodyworkers/massage therapists with their own business. I accidentally have two copies)
(these next few are interesting from a socio-historical 70s cultural perspective on women in America)
COLOR ME BEAUTIFUL by Carole Jackson
SUPERWOMAN by Shirley Conran
YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
1976 "WOMEN ON WHEELS" distributed by the Service & Parts Sales Division of the Chrysler Corporation to explain to women how their cars work
Also, if I borrowed one of these from you a long time ago and have forgotten it isn't mine, now would be a great time to claim it. |
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| help me my friends! |
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| 11:49pm 07/11/2007 |
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If I needed a space to have a party with around 100 people in February, where do you think I could have it? I'd like to avoid super-expensive options, but I'm saving up for something cool. If the Dilboy VFW was half it's size, it'd be perfect. |
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| a slightly quaint need |
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| 07:06pm 17/10/2007 |
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maybe one of you can help me with this. I need someone who has darkroom access to make a contact sheet for me. Cameras Inc. in Davis Square can't just make me one because they don't print that way anymore, and I'm not a good negative-looker. If you can help me, some small culinary or massage-based reward could be in your future! |
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| 04:30pm 16/09/2007 |
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I've been doing the Couch-to-5k running plan, inspired by mangosteen's post about it. Today I finished run 3 of week 5, which means that I did my first run with no walking breaks in it, 20 minutes. I did it! It didn't feel horrible! You may have noticed that this is the first time I have posted or mentioned that I have been doing this program. I didn't want to jinx it and fail, and now I feel like I won't. |
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| 07:45pm 12/09/2007 |
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Before I take it to Goodwill for some lucky scavenger, does anybody want my "Not Free-Range Boobies" shirt? As pictured here: http://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SP1004BL and also across the chests of some of your more Something Positive-reading friends. It is a laughable "one-size" American Apparel baby-tee which I used to be able to wear, but isn't working out as well for me these days. And, not just because I think that the person who gave me this shirt is reading this, but I am not getting rid of this shirt because it is lame or stupid or wasn't a fabulous gift, it's just time for it to move on to someone else, and yes, it's in perfect shape, though wrinkly. Email me at my abi at abiharper dot com account to claim it. |
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| 10:58pm 16/08/2007 |
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Does anyone who reads my journal have particular favorites amongst the orthopedic doctors at MIT Medical? I await your recommendations! |
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| WANTED: cohorts! |
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| 12:41am 17/07/2007 |
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I want to go to the beach. Today (Tuesday). I will be leaving boston sometime around noon maybe? Drop me a line here in the morning, or call me on my phone if you are either free or want to play hooky with me. |
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| request for ideas/referral |
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| 02:03am 22/06/2007 |
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I know that amongst my friends are people with far more knowledge on these subjects than I have, and I was wondering if any of you had any advice for me as I solve these two problems:
1) I'd like to start actually backing up some of the stuff on my computer, as it has come to my attention that not doing so is asking for trouble. What do you do? What do you think I should do?
2) I'd like to find a lawyer who has experience in small business stuff and is preferrably human and approachable. Know anyone I should call? Know anyone I should NOT call? |
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| what my office looks like |
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| 02:13am 15/06/2007 |
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A lot of stuff going on, but I lately I can only motivate myself to do things if they are either a) on my to-do list, b) work related, c) involving of good friends around whom I can relax
So the reason for this post is to ask you, if you are interested, to look at the photos of my office, taken by estherruth, for the purpose of showing people how warm and appealing my office is. Which photo makes it look most like a room you would want to get massage in? Inquiring minds want to know! Anybody who helps me out on this will get some small token of my appreciation. I couldn't do this sort of thing without a little help from my friends...
http://picasaweb.google.com/abi.harper/WhatMyOfficeLooksLike |
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| seeking input |
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| 12:06am 22/05/2007 |
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Not this past weekend but the one before, I finally put a bunch of new written material up on my website: www.abiharper.com
Now is your chance to tell me what you think! Nobody be shy! email me privately (abi at abiharper.com) if you'd rather not publicly comment. |
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