Marblehead Harbor

DSC00447, originally uploaded by RachelHyman.

July 4th was excellent. This is the view from the flare lit Fort Sewell, right before the fireworks began. Magical.

#thuglife

Generally, I don't care much about twitter trending topics. But then I clicked on #thuglife.

One might think of the things that are actual in a thug's life, like homework and taking out the trash.

Or better.

from the last three hours alone:

• majeeda I take out my own trash. #thuglife
• jrfinger Watching Ben Bernanke spit it on C-SPAN 3 #thuglife
• superandrewemt i Order a Cheese sandwich and leave a $20 dollar tip #thuglife
• briankl92 @Lydiaatthedisco AWESOME! Tonight I didn't eat all my veggies at dinner #thuglife
• jaylithemermaid'I exercise one muscle and that's my strap finger' #thuglife
• mandystadt I just sexted. Almost. #thuglife
• ocblkbarbie On the first date johnny depp told her he robbed banks ... #thuglife
• arodyo I went to my professional job in jeans and sneakers---#thuglife
• mandystadt In line at Duane Reade a strange little man begs me to buy him a $12 Classic Pen Set. "As a holiday gift." So I do. #thuglife
• iamMiCMurda I don't have a wintercoat I drink henny #thuglife
• jaehood2010 I'll put Super glue on the doorknob #thuglife
• Beetru2u i cook for me #thuglife
• DjChefSev eating a fuitcake #THUGLIFE
• MAYHEMM09 #ThugLife: Goin' to The Sharper Image and buyin' tha whole store.
• MAYHEMM09 #ThugLife: buyin ' a bootleg of Sherlock Holmes.
• jheller28 Showered, done with homework, and in bed by 9:00... watch out losers... #thuglife coming through
• ShowTimeRose this chicken is Great.. im eatin with no silverware #thuglife
• Natty_R We blow out matches instead of candles on bday cakes #thuglife lol
• MastinKipp Balanced mind, balanced diet, balanced exercise, balanced mindfulness practice, balanced #thugLife
• HypeBigelow She stands up to pee #thuglife
• iKicKrOcKz I eat my fries with honey mustard instead of ketchup !! #thuglife
• MPCowley Not updating my computer when it prompts me...#thuglife
• MSCarrieDee When I used to wash the dishes at my mama house, I only washed the pots. F**k the silverware #thuglife
• KenHaddad I just got a gym membership #thuglife
• iKicKrOcKz If ur WiFi dont got a password im gettin on it !! #thuglife
• theRealShabna_M eating a candycane after christmas....#thuglife
• FrankieMcGinty
  I've seen Dangerous Minds five or six times #thuglife
  

Notably, there are funnier ones. Go check it out. I don't know any of the above twitterers, but check them out too. Why not. :)
You can follow me on twitter too, I'm @rachelhyman

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On hiring contractors.

Sometimes even I get indecisive; or I buy property in small yachting towns that I love, but live five hours away from. In this case it was an apartment, well under market, that I bought in a Massachusetts sailing town.

First, a few notes:

• This was a damn solid financial decision. And I'm stoked about leverage for my financial future. Buying foreclosures in rich towns is not as scary as other places, like Detroit. No offense, but that city is not up and coming, this town is more of a blue chip.
• A punk rock past doesn't preclude the purchase of real estate, especially of real estate in a preppy sailing town. We all grow up eventually, or we should; we don't want to end up wards of the state. Take care of your finances, no one else will.
• If you love pirates so much, learn how to sail. They all knew.
• This town is nautically themed and early colonial. I like to think about all the tough ladies who lived here while their men-folk were basically out to sea all the time, and how bawdy and wild they were. I've heard stories, they were way awesomer broads than I am. I try not to out do them when I'm totally over served at trivia night. Instead I stumble home through the charming early colonial streets (never drive after drinking), and drunk dial boys. I like myself honest.
  

Aside, these things have nothing to do with the topic of hiring contractors.

Buying a place five hours from the city that I live in poses a few problems.

1. Obviously, I won't be able to enjoy it much, because I don't get up there much. So I should rent it out in the meantime to preserve the investment. Flipping it should only be considered after the tax implications are weighed.
   
2. Renovations. I've been spending all my vacation time working on gutting and renovating the bathroom and kitchen. Tonight, after another slow day of tiling, it's become clear that I will not finish before my train back to the city I live in, three days hence. Ok. But every weekend I return up here, I have to bail on my bartending shift. I hate taking the bus, so the train cuts a pretty penny. The costs of doing the labor need to be weighed against the opportunity costs of my traveling here to fix things.

In other words, I need to hire a contractor. Pronto.

I guess my uneasiness comes from realizing a few things:

• My time is worth more than my labor. This is odd to me, but has become true. Yay, Jobs!
  
• Work gives me vacation days so that I might relax, and be recharged for work. It's actually self serving to them, and not intended for me to do other labor-like tasks. Oh. Fail.
  
• What did I get myself into? *stress stress teeth grinding stress*

Now I have to find a contractor who can see the place before I leave in a few days, even though the next few days are holidays. Sigh.

A long long year.. starting over.

A year later, I haven't written a peep on this blog. It's been a tumultuous year: funerals, divorces, moves, jobs, trips, purchasing property, working six days a week, trouble, adventures, art shows, broken bones, last minute trains, destiny hitting like a bag of bricks and sometimes hitting like the light from the diner booth windows.

Really, I'm just not sure how much I should share.

I've decided this: just because I don't write the column and I only bartend one night a week, doesn't mean that people have stopped asking me for advice.. *all* the time. I should just give the advice here, so there's a record of good responses, and so people who might not be able to ask or aren't smooshed up in the already running adventure of my life might be able to find some answers.

Sound good to everyone? If you still have questions, you can email them to me and I'll answer them on the blog, but otherwise, I'm just going to give it.

I've been so damn remiss.

Update: I stopped writing my column when I moved to brooklyn, got a big huge great apartment, and a new job at a great big tech company. I'll upload the outstanding columns for posterity, but now that all the hubbub has truly died down, I'm taking my blog back for me for a while.

Be ready.

Meanwhile: There's a deep trench of sadness where my cousin A is perched in a hospital bed in shock trauma at the U of M in Baltimore. He got drunk at a bar, and made the last awful decision of his life- to drive himself home. They cut him out of my Aunt's car, wrapped around trees 30 feet from the edge of the road. Immediate brain surgeries and a helicopter ride aside, he was laid up for everyone to sit and wait and see. What we've seen is the twitching of flexing muscles, pupils dilated at different widths, no eye movement or rem sleep, no meaningful gestures or high level responses to neurological testing, a mri that revealed bleeding in his brain so widely spread that we can hope for very little. There is so much valid anger felt at A for his terrible decisions. He didn't just do this to himself, but to everyone who cares about him, everyone he knows.

It could have been worse. The accident was with the trees, not an innocent bystander. But this best case scenerio is grave and horrible. The anguish he's forced on his parents and brother, his family and friends, is immesurable.

Please, no matter what you drink or how much you drink, don't drive. One drink is really too much. Don't let your friends drive. Take a taxi, call a sober friend to get you, find another way home. The consequences are very real, and very dire.

My heart and thoughts are with my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins at this time. Please try to think of them if you can, and send whatever good feelings you can towards their recovery, and their peace.

Advice Column #29

Hey Bartender!
I live in a three bedroom apartment, and about four months ago we (my one roommate and I) got a new third roommate. We're all men in our early twenties, and my original roommate and I are straight. Our new roommate, a rather attractive man, spends most weekend nights hanging out with his "best friend", a really nice dude. His bf stays over often, and I'm fairly sure that they're dating, but his bf sleeps on the sofa. I think he does this so the other roommate and I won't notice that he's gay. My other roommate said he saw them kiss once, but they didn't know he was home. We don't care though. In fact, we really like his bf, and think it's strange that he hasn't come out to us, or that he would make his lover sleep on the sofa instead of in his bed. We also think the secrecy is causing tension between them. How do we tell our roommate that we're obviously not bothered by his gayness, and get him to feel comfortable enough to let his bf sleep in his room?

I wish I didn't know any gay men who felt like they had to live a charade, not just with the people who they didn't know, but for the people who were very close to the intimacies in their lives. I've been told that it's just not anyone else's business, and that no one ever had to tell anyone they were straight, then wait for the shocking gasp or the confused look, or worse. Your roommate might not care to tell you, or might not want to handle your reaction or questions. Sometimes breaking the good news to bad people makes the whole situation worse. You're not the bad kind of people to tell things to, so maybe you need to break the news. I think you need to skip the part where you expect your roommate to sit you down and tell you he's gay, waiting for you to tell him that's ok. He probably won't ever do that. You are right in wanting him to feel comfortable. Having anyone uncomfortable in a three bedroom apartment forces everyone to feel on edge, expecially when there's an elephant in the room.

Before you ask him to go clothes shopping with you, or what happened on the L-word this week, try to talk to him like you'd talk to any of your other friends about their relationships. Ask him how he met his bf. Respond like you would respond to any straight dudes talking about a lady in their lives, except don't ask about boobs (this will be good practice for your general ability to talk about feelings, not gear). Give aloof approval and talk about how bf is a cool dude and he looks really happy when they're hanging out. Hope for a look of agreement, but be ready to get the look he fears most when he tells people he's gay. He probably invented that look.

On another occasion, if he still hasn't started letting bf sleep in his room, address the real elephant in the room. Don't have a sit down talk, do it with a side glance. The most macho men I know have perfected this mention and drop strategy of talking about feelings. Generally I don't employ it, but it would work here. While playing a video game, ask him if he wants to take player two. (Or create some similar situation where you're both distracted with something else, but hanging out.) Ask him, nonchalantly, why his bf is always in the doghouse.

Advice Column #28

Hey Bartender!

I'm a woman in my mid-twenties, and one of my best girl friends from college lives in the same city where I've been living since college. At first, I was really excited that she had moved here, I mean, she's my girl. When she moved here, she quickly found a boyfriend and explored town with him, so I didn't feel like I had to be the tour guide. When they broke up months later, she hadn't made any new friends besides him and his friends, and was totally crushed. Obviously I was there for her.

Since the break up, she refuses to go to any of the fun parts of town because the places "reminded her of him" or she thinks she'll run into him. I put up with the lame places she wanted to hang out with almost without complaint, even though it's really far away from where I live, and a hassle for me to get there. Lately, my life has started to get more complicated and demanding, and my friend keeps getting mad at me. She never asks about what is going on with me, but insists I'm avoiding her by not wanting to trek over to the places she frequents. When I ask her to meet me mid-way, at places literally halfway between our respective domiciles, she gets angry protesting "you know he hangs out around there!" or "but we went there when we were together!". Even our phone conversations have become all about her.

I'm tired of giving all the time. Am I a bad friend because I don't want to cater to her every need even though she's still upset about her break up? How long does she get amnesty for her behavior? Oh, what do I do to stop this? Please, help me get my friend back.

You are not a bad friend because you have your own life and needs. It sounds like the two of you are in a really bad dynamic right now. Just because she's upset about some boy doesn't mean she gets to walk all over you, and certainly does not mean she gets to dictate how you spend your time. She's taking you for granted, big time, and you're letting her. Just because she acts like a big baby, doesn't mean you have to coddle her. As for her amnesty, I'd say she gets to be needy and upset for a month for every year the relationship lasted. Then you have to cut the cord.

Put your foot down. Tell her she's letting this break up affect her too much, that the time for wallowing in sadness and avoiding the fun part of town is over. She needs to be out in the world, and needs to re-associate those places with new fun memories. By standing up for yourself in this friendship, you're also going to force her to react to her actual relationships, not the ones that are finished. When people are reacting only to pain, they often retreat to their childhood reactions to similar pain. Her selfishness isn't about what she needs now, but about what she needed as a child. You gave her a reasonable response to this need to be nurtured, and now, as her real-life adult friend, you need to bring her back to reality. The reality is that she needs to live her life, and so do you. So she can either toast to happiness with you, or you'll toast alone.

With regards to the phone conversations being all about her, you need to interject. She's being careless about your feelings, and is overwhelming you with her own. When nothing constructive is being done by talking about the break-up, it really is great to help her think about something else, and let her forget things that are painful. Sometimes you have to lead her to the right behavior- like talking about you, and the many things going on in your life. If she's not asking, you just need to tell her what's going on, and ask her for opinions about your problems. If she turns it back to a conversation about her, you need to bring it back to you again. Insist she return to the present tense, and not drag you through these memories and her feelings about that boy. When you call her the next time, don't ask "how are you?" but ask "how was your day?". Make her focus on things that are happening now, not how she's handling her drawn-out sadness.

You need to be a little ruthless, and get her out of this broken record of violin tunes. Demand that she meet you at his favorite bar. The time has come. Say you're reclaiming territory. If he's there, give him the head nod then ignore him. Make her remember how fun she was before he stepped in and muddled her heart. If there's a jukebox, use it. Tell the bartender that you demand two whiskey smashes to refresh your fighting spirit. Tell your friend that her heart is the size of her fist, and her fist should be holding some whiskey. In the end, if you're anything like me, the whiskey smash will probably make you giggle more than fight, but it's worth ordering like you are a pirate in an enemy port. If nothing else, the charade will amuse your friend, and make her see that her fears were unfounded. That boy doesn't matter, and he can't keep you away from a good drink. A whiskey smash is made deliciously with Rye bourbon, some simple syrup, muddled lemon and mint, and served over crushed or cracked ice in a low glass. Also, if you're a hulkamaniac, well, you'll know what to do.