Dried Plums

"Dried Plums" are the best thing to happen to prunes since prunes came about in the first place. The word "prune" has all of these negative connotations. We say "wrinkled like a prune" or "prune-y." Prunes mean old people, and they also mean pooping. Nobody wants to think about old people and pooping. So we don't talk about prunes. And nobody would buy a prune, let alone a whole box, because that would mean being associated with old people and/or pooping. Regardless of how well we would be pooping, we just don't care for that association.
Enter "dried plums." You may have noticed in shopping at your nearest food-conglomerate-convenience-utility store that the word "prune" is absent from the box. Advertisers have become savvy to the poop/prune complex, and have diverted a future generation from having to be subjected to the vagaries of old people, poop, and prunes by calling them what they actually are: dried plums.
Try it. It sounds a lot better. Mmm... I love dried plums.
Here's my new catch-phrase for Girl-Free 2006: "Ought Sex." Two months down and I haven't even broken a sweat.

**Update - 03/01/2006** - The local neighborhood store stopped selling dried plums. Boo.

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New Words (or, A Soapbox for a Soapbox)

I learned a new word today. Actually two words, but they're related: "yupster," and "yindie." Can you guess what this means? Let me quote from the article where I read it (The Dig, 2.22.06, p. 9):

"... the new 'yindie' or 'yupster' trend: young and hip, but professional. Too square for the tatoos and tight pants of the scenesters; too uptight for the relaxed fit of the b-boys and bedside DJs."

This in the context of an article about how a neighborhood (Allston!) is going downhill, because the punks that made it so sweet are leaving and the lame-o students and Young Urban Who-Gives-A-Fucks are moving in.
You can see where I'm headed with this. Tight pants aside, they're describing me here: ripe old age of 23, pro computer skillz, young, hip. No tattoos. More-or-less symmetrical hairdo. Fancy coat. No Technics on my desk. The implication is that if you're "professional," you're square, no matter how hip you look and act. No matter who you are, you're getting judged by your job.
Well, I'm sorry, Ean Frick, if mom doesn't pay my rent and finance my "homegrown" lifestyle. Hipsters are the same as the hippies were: hanging around and looking cool, talking big and living off your newfound morals is a lifestyle you can't support unless mommy and daddy are footing the bill. Sorry that I can't find an image that I'd want permanently etched into my forearm. Sorry that getting on my feet and learning how to pick up my beer bottles off the floor and put them into the recycling qualifies me as not fit to live in your down-to-earth rat-infested Allston Beat utopia. And it's a shame that you feel that way about me because I've got a job; we've probably got more in common than you think.
The first thing you get asked when you meet an American is "What do you do?" We should be more careful about defining ourselves by our employment (or identifying with our lack thereof). Real people don't always do what they want, and real people aren't defined by what they look like. They aren't definable at all.
I don't live in Allston, but gentrification is happening all around Boston. The same trend of homogenization and commodification is happening in Back Bay, Jamaica Plain, Cambridge, Brookline, everywhere. The real issue is that the city as a policital entity doesn't care about independent arts, affordable housing (rent control), public services (MBTA, looking at you here), etc., and that the people who live here are all too willing to replace JP O'Drinky's with Club Aqua, or to let somebody else do it for them without putting up a fight. Place the blame where the blame is due, and *do* something about it if it bothers you. For instance, the Brattle in Cambridge has been putting up a good fight to keep it's doors open and independent film happening. Send them a donation; we can turn this town around.

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Compensation

It's funny the ways in which we compensate for the world we've created. We know we're built for grass, but we make roads out of asphalt, and then we have to make special shoes for us to be able to run on those roads without hurting our knees. We create cities, big dense stressful polluting non-human-friendly environments, then cram ourselves into them. We drink a gallon of orange juice a week and take yoga classes and drink de-stress tea, we smoke and we drin, we plug our ears into headphones to dull our senses to the overload. It's funny how humans are so proficient at creating environments that we can't tolerate. But because we're so adaptable, we tolerate them anyway. Modern science allows us to survive everything, enjoy little.
The thing about compensation, though, is that it's just as easy to overcompensate as it is to simply compensate. Especially when it comes to self-medication. The point is to be sure that you're still experiencing the life that you're living. We're living in a time when we've got an option to ignore everything, and paying attention is simply a choice we have to make, not an inevitability. So, um, I ask you to please make the choice to pay attention, and experience your life. If we don't do that, collectively, then the hard times ahead will be made that much harder.

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Moved In

Well, I finally got a bookshelf yesterday, a big beautiful thing, six feet high with shelves over a foot deep. It allowed me to finally unpack the remaining five boxes full of books and CDs that comprise the rest of my life. It was cathartic to see my music, the novels I intended to read and forgot about, my old books on origami, my spanish-lanugage flamenco poetry, guitar parts, and to finally have a place to put them and refer to them daily. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel like yourself, but you don't know you're missing it until you get it back. I get that impression a lot lately, like there's a lot I've been missing, and it's just a matter of waiting before it comes back into my life. But after several months, I can take having a bookshelf (and a desk and a dresser) as finally being able consider myself moved-in to this place.
That said, i'm probably not going to stay in this particular apartment for more than this year. It's just not quite right, for the rent I pay. Not like you need to know why it's not right or how much rent I pay, it just sort of bears saying things like that if I'm to keep up any pretense of the "mass-email"-ness of this blog, and not go the way of a friend who just gave up on blogging in general. I'll probably stay in JP, but don't quote me on that. You can quote me on the girl-free 2006 thing, but not on staying in JP. I'm committed to the former but not the latter.
JP (eace on earth)
Donald

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Evolving

I hear that every seven years, your body has completely regenerated itself. That's to say that in seven years, every cell currently in your body will have been replaced with a similar one. This means that you're literally a new person every seven years. Which explains why I also hear that our lives go in seven-year cycles.
But think about this: say you've got a physical ailment, a bum leg, say. Theoretically, in seven years your leg could have healed itself. It's an entirely new leg, after all. What's to say that it can't be a good leg instead of your old beaten up version? A leg upgrade. So if we could just harness some ability to tell our cells to stop reproducing bad legs and start pumping out good ones, we would be on the road to getting better with time. We would be more like fine wines than nice cheeses. Or would we be like leather bags? I dunno, something that only gets better with age. Like, literally gets better with age. I love this idea. Everybody start telling your body to pick up the pace a little, let's see some real healing!

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