Love that dirty water

I'm writing this from the 16th floor of the Hilton Back Bay, and if I turn my head slightly I can gaze out over the snowcapped Boston skyline from our balcony. The Charles is an icy-gray streak a mile or two away, crowded on both sides with old brick and brownstone, and it's disappearing into fog as I type. Sleety snow is slowly coating everything I can see. The hotel is swank: fluffy bathrobes, elevators that make my ears pop, chocolates on the pillows, plenty o' towels (who was, I believe, a Bond girl).

We are here for the APA, the American Philological Association annual meeting, where K. has nine job interviews. (She's having one right now, in fact: #8.) One steps onto the elevator, which plummets toward the earth, and then one crosses the street to the convention hotel in the Prudential Center (and the shopping mall and T stop in same; I was able to travel from my room to the New England Aquarium yesterday afternoon with only two street-crossings under the open sky). K. is not yet at the point where she can't walk ten feet without seeing someone she knows; it's more like twenty, and then she sees someone from Swarthmore / Michigan / Oberlin / last year's APA and swirls into a conversation. The halls are thick with classicists, aged and professorial or young and crisp-edged.

I have a new favorite cnidarian: the sea walnut, which is a thumb-sized, nearly transparent jellyfish striped with lateral lines of flickering cilia-like fins. They are so thin that they refract light as they ripple, and tiny rainbow lights seems to run along their bodies. They and many other jellies (Japanese nettles, with six-foot threadlike tendrils trailing and knotting; upside-down jellies, which rest on the bottom and let their tentacles float upward) are available to be viewed at the New England Aquarium, and I spent a good chunk of my time there watching them drift. They're very soothing (when they're not attached to your leg).

I am off to meet K. for lunch. Further updates later, including a protected post describing K.'s job-seekings.

I'm falling behind in my journalling; I'll have to move backward in time to catch up. Try not to get dizzy.

Virgin porn

Many hotel rooms offer pay-on-demand movies, and most of them offer porn. While the prices are outrageous—I would never pay $15 to watch a porn movie when I could buy one for less—our TV offered a free ten-minute sample amongst the full-length offerings.

Only it wasn't porn. It was a ten-minute ad for Virgin Atlantic, cleverly disguised as porn. There was no actual sex or nudity, just a lot of parody innuendo: "Ooh, I see you have several more inches than the average man," in a sexy voice in close-up, and then they pull back to show us they're talking about the legroom in their airplanes.

It was sort of funny—at one point, a half-dressed plumber showed up on the airplane, and was told he was in the wrong movie, go one channel over—and I have to give them some credit for such a ballsy ad strategy. On the other hand, it was a rather frustrating bait-and-switch. But they got me, fair and square, and I have to wryly tip my hat to them.

Harrow, how are you?

Step back in time two days to Thursday, when my relief at fleeing my mom's house was tempered by nervousness about the blizzard-cum-ice storm that had blown out of the west, and into which we needed to drive. It was harrowing, however slowly we went, and the drive to Boston took twice as long as expected; there was skidding and sliding and the newfound experience of being trapped between two converging snowplows. And then, when we finally got to Boston, we could only approach our hotel, in an ever-tightening spiral, around and around four or five times before we reached it.

But then we were safe and warm, and we went to psocoptera's apartment near Davis Square for gaming and pizza, which was a pleasure; we saw her and Hannah and DVS and other lovely people, and we played Word-o-Rama and Fluxx, and I wished for Icehouse pieces so I could teach them Zendo. (I nearly bought some at the gaming store at Davis Square, on our way back to the APA, but figured I'd have other opportunities to buy before I had other opportunities to play.) Thank you, psocoptera, and feel better soon, please!

Art appreciation

Walk backwards through time again to Sunday, when I met Miriam at her sister's apartment in Philly for very tasty blueberry pancakes (thank you, Sarah!) and a trip to the art museum. It took, all in all, two buses and the el and a taxi and the R3 to move me and us where we needed to be; I listened to my iPod for the times when I was alone, and reflected yet again that the Star Wars soundtrack can make even a train ride seem like a daring adventure: every crumpling, rusted industrial site is a back street of Tatooine or a secret rebel base, and I am watching them hurtle past from the window of a Blockade Runner or Imperial Shuttle.

I actually convinced Miriam to spend some time looking at medieval art, and (I think) lent her a little appreciation for the wacky Christian imagery they employed; when Elizabeth has teleported baby Jesus out of Mary's womb and He hovers, glowing, over the straw and wood of the manger, you know you've got something there. We particularly liked the period rooms they have set up, and spent a bit of time imagining the lives that might have been lived there, amongst the elaborate dark wood carvings and beneath the painted ceilings. (We both marveled at the drummer-boy merman hanging from the ceiling of one, the flukes of his tail fashioned from elk antlers. If only I were an art thief, that would be my first score. I can only assume they would thank me.) Miriam oohed and aahed at the ancient manuscripts, bolting from my side whenever she scented one; we both drooled over the edged weapons and crossbows, and discovered we have similar taste in nudes.

It was a very nice afternoon, my heart buoyed having her beside me, and I kept glancing over to see her smiling back at me. My one regret is that we had no time to sit by ourselves and chat and cuddle; all our time was spent in public, in motion. Realizing this, and realizing that it would be five months or so before I saw her again, I became sad and withdrawn in the cab back to Sarah's, and it was an unfortunately bleak leavetaking when I stepped back onto the sleety streets alone. Then, once back at Swat, I was rushed off to dinner with K. and Larry and Megan and Justin and Kathy and flammifera and Tom P., where I sort of moped into my Thai iced tea and didn't say very much. flammifera was pleasantly snuggly with me afterward, though, which raised my spirits a bit; thanks, J!

The period between Sunday and Thursday was sort of a blur of grumping and technical assistance for my mom, so let us declare it Covered. On the other hand, "Christmas" morning with Kendra was lovely, and I did receive the extended RotK and a nifty set of cookware from my mom, and I did build several splendid fires; it was not all tribulations.