MICHAEL BOVA
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Fashion Wednesday.

My new life as a casually and incrementally employed person is in its third week. Each day is certainly a new adventure and today was no more or less different from the difference of the other days but for the fact that I busted out an electric green sport polo, my friend Michelle is here from Olympia, WA interviewing for a teaching fellowship with NYC schools (yes, yes, we all know it's brutal but so is her life in Oly). Oh, and its St. Patrick's day -- thank dog I busted out that green T.

Coffee, coffee, cig, cig, coffee and we're off to the bagel shop. One delicious smoked tuna-on-wheat bagel later, Mich and I hit The City. We go to 1st and 14th, buy the cheapest cigs in NYC at a store called, no shit, "LOVE." My head is freezing, as it continues to snow after weeks of Spring teasingly tonguing my butt so I head off to this outrageously priced used clothing store and proceed to find a shocking red Teletubies beanie that fits perfectly, $4. Then, said hat, wool coat, camo pants, 19' long psychedelic cashmere scarf, Mich and I go into Diesel at Union Sq. I proceed to pretend like I'm going to buy EVERYTHING although I have only $76 dollars in my pocket and no credit cards. I pretend someone has offended me and walk out in a huff. Michelle (country girl) is scandalized but laughing. Cig, more coffee, one more cig.

Walk M to her interview and head for the train. (Strangely, her interview is from 4p-10p). Those that know me know that I am a 'car person' and have been illegally driving a very illegal car for about 2 years now. Fortunately, my karma affords me this luxury. (Case in point: Victor/ia, my car, was broken into 2 nights ago and viciously ransacked. Did they find my $429 digital camera or steal the Alpine stereo? No. Did they make their way to the trunk and steal my $400 tent or my $200 stunt kite? No. Did they make off with a free scarf, a cum-soaked towel, the hat I bought on St. Mark's for $4? Yes. Did half of the trash in my car fall out into the parking lot? Yes. Less for me to clean up? Yes!) Unfortunately, I pay for my fairly brilliant 'carma' on the trains. They always fuck me over.

MEREDITH BRAGG
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

Yesterday I bought my wife flowers, nibbled on aged Gouda and discussed our company's plan to keep those of us going to the Republican and Democratic conventions safe from a terrorist attack. The current strategy can be summed up in two words. Don't go.

:: website ::

HEATHER RASLEY
SARASOTA, FLORIDA

There are babies everywhere.

For the past month or so the woman who I would usually pick up public records from at the courthouse has been out. This has been particularly inconvenient because apparently she's the only one there who does not fit into the category of either A) incompetent good-for-not-much or, B) total biznatch.

So today I go in and there she is, holding the teeniest most adorable baby boy in her arms and sporting a new hair color, blonde, for whatever reason.

"That explains it." I didn't even realize she was pregnant, I guess because I only ever saw her sitting down wearing a baggy turtleneck, and she's a little overweight to start with.

I'm standing there dealing with a woman who fits in category A, and I can't stop staring at this kid. I just wanted to hang out with it and play with those little feet and get to know its personality and, more intensely, to be seven years older and with Him (not the godly Him, but the marital one) and on my way to makin' one of my own, dammit.

I've expressed these feelings before, but that little sucker just solidified it for me. Last night I picked out a name for my future fictitious daughter: Emme, pronounced "Em." It's pretty and a palindrome...Perhaps this is all very unhealthy.

ANDY DARLEY
LONDON, ENGLAND

Today I:

-- Spent the first hours paying my nightly homage to insomnia by doodling through an endless chain of self-obsessed blogs until 4 a.m.

-- Went to bed, finding that the lava lamp had been left on in the bedroom, bathing the walls in an ever-shifting red glow like being inside a bottle of Cherry-ade, except with blobby bits not bubbles.

-- Woke up at noon feeling crap, ate copious amounts of breakfast cereal, but didn't achieve any sort of fragile equilibrium until I'd been in the bath for half an hour.

-- Went out at 3pm to a specialist car parts dealer to buy a pair of air filters for my Triumph Spitfire: was made to feel a complete idiot by the staff and walked out empty-handed, feeling crushed.

-- Played an hour of Civilization III, enjoying once again the rich irony that is currently allowing me, playing as the Arabs, to 'build' King Richard's Crusade and field an army of crusaders. Wished I could set them on a seek-and-destroy mission against the car parts salesman.

-- Watched a strangely compelling documentary about a smug middle class couple in Cumbria who had an underground house built for them on (in?) a gorse-covered hillside.

-- Developed (but failed to enjoy) a truly stinking migraine.

-- Drove off in search of ibuprofen at 11:45 p.m., finding that fog had rolled in and everywhere was blanketed in grey navel-fluff. Two foxes ran through the pool of yellow from my headlights within the first hundred yards. At the 24-hour supermarket I also stocked up on ginger beer and lemonade shandy (six packs) and English muffins (eight pack) to go with the headache tables (16 packs).

And that's really about it. The cure for cancer, world peace and the secret of truly edible low-fat ice cream will have to wait for a day that's not quite so grim.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS
CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS

I woke up late this morning -- I always say that, but I wake at about the same time every day -- and stared for a while at the new configuration of my room. Yesterday I became single for the first time in 18 months, and I celebrated by reorganizing my room. I cut my hand badly on the bed. It seemed appropriate.

For breakfast I had a bagel (toasted with honey nut cream cheese) and coffee (with milk), both consumed in the car. Realized after I left for work that I was wearing the skirt with the buttons that like to spontaneously unbutton -- thought that might be an issue.

The new girl started today -- Diana with the same last name as Ylda from the last job, also Hispanic, also small and vivacious. I think she'll be fun, even if she clips her singles in a weird way and likes Britney Spears. I slouched and tried to do my work while showing her how to do hers -- at least there weren't any major fuck-ups on my part today, though someone did sell $700 worth of travellers' checks for $7.00. No good.

I had a few minutes of panic this afternoon when I was sure I had lost my fabulous spinny ring in the chicken that I had prepped for dinner on my lunch break. I bought the ring my first full day here, the first day in the new town, the first day of my new life. It also seemed appropriate, though a little grotesque.

Dinner was fabulous -- roast chicken, Grandma's mashed potatoes, a green salad. I made a sweet potato pie, which wasn't as good as the last one. Shawn was here, as was Hannah and the Right Honorable Senor CandyPants. Mark and Melissa brought green salad, green dressing, green beer, and green Kool-Aid. We tempted the cats with chicken, and talked to my grandparents.

And at the end of the night my back is aching from too much time leaning over the counters -- both at work and at home. I'm drinking tea with honey and milk in bed with my boy and my bear. I had two small Milano cookies earlier.

My dad has to have eye surgery this weekend, and knee surgery next month. I want to make these things mean something, but I'm not that abstract right now. I love my Pop and am worried, but I know he'll be OK. We're survivors, we brown-eyes. We've been through worse together -- and alone.

ZACHARY WYATT
MADISON, WISCONSIN

I awoke at 7 a.m. with intense pain in my upper back. The pain had been there in a dull form earlier in the week but I assumed it was soreness in the trapezius muscle from an awkward sleeping position. This morning however, the pain was acute and much deeper in the muscle tissue. I now suspect a strain or tear deep in the teres major.

I spent the day alternately trying to stretch the muscles in the upper right quadrant of my back and laying in various positions in an effort to ease the pain. I found one position, with my head sort of dangling over the edge of the bed, that seemed to accomplish both goals with relative success. While staring at the upside down wall, I pondered whether this sort of injury is common for rock climbers. I was climbing at an indoor gym Monday night, on a route rated 5.11b/c. It involved a fairly uncomfortable series of movements which, when I replicated while laying on the bed, did in fact cause minor bursts of pain within the larger affected area of my back.

By the end of the day, my thoughts had moved to wondering if all the recreational activities I am involved in now will cause me an abnormally high level of problems when I am 60, 75, 90. I think I decided, right around midnight, that I don't really care.

CONSTANCE CHANG
ASTORIA, NEW YORK

I am pretty sure that I was asleep at the start of Day 17, or really close to it. Possibly I was in the sleep/not sleep netherworld still around midnight, restless with anxiety, delirious, uncomfortable because I drank too much seltzer.

Nothing of note happened in my usual morning routine, except that on the very crowded downtown 6 train, which I ride for one miserable stop each morning, someone actually spoke to me. This sort of behavior is generally frowned upon in New York, but he sort of pointed downward, so I assumed that I had dropped something valuable, like my ipod, which I was holding with my usual vise-like grip (no, I'm not paranoid -- it's New York, okay, and my apartment has been burglarized twice).

So I removed one of my earphone heads to hear him. "I think your skirt is falling out of your coat." I'm not sure if he was saying this smugly, flirtatiously, or with Christian concern, but I was uncharacteristically casual in my response, which was, "Oh, it's designed that way." Then I smiled tightly and thought about putting my earplug back in.

Instead, since I was nearing my stop and because it's wet and snowy outside, and because I couldn't remember if the parade route was running outside my office, and because I was secretly concerned that my skirt was about to fall off, I turned the ipod off and started wrapping my headphones around my ipod calmly and somewhat fastidiously, in a manner that I thought would cultivate the image of a kind of with-it city gal who would never lose her skirt on the filthy subway floor. He was not done. "Oh, sorry. So that's like a...extra thing...what is it?" "Just a flap, like an extra flappy thing. It kind of sticks out of the front of my coat," I reply. Feeling defensive, I actually use my ipod-holding hand to swish it around a bit. "Oh, I see. That's cool." He smiles nervously. I think to myself, "Oh shit, I was just rude to this good Samaritan. For karmic reasons, my skirt is probably really falling off." Then I think, "Actually, he looks a bit like Brian Minter, but his glasses suck." Luckily, I did not say this aloud -- nor did I thank him -- and I ran off the train.

CHERYL HUBER
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

I woke up this morning in my apartment in Brooklyn, NY, where it was snowing; spent mid-day in Atlanta, mostly asleep after a way salty bowl of clam chowder and an Amstel Light; and went to bed slightly drunk with the windows open in my very own room in New Orleans, LA.

I got into town around dinnertime. I'm blown away by several things since I arrived.

Things I'm Blown Away By In New Orleans:

1. So warm and beautiful. It's gonna do wonders for my TB cough.

2. Jaime and Jacob live in this ridiculous apartment with the highest ceilings I've ever seen, and Jaime has made adorable curtains, covered all the chairs, and bought tons of cute, hip furniture, the sum total of which would be THOUSANDS of dollars in New York, but since she bought it all here, in the deep south, she spent a total of probably $50. Oh, and let's not discuss the rent. Too depressing.

3. We went to a bar last night and ordered a vodka tonic and 2 crown royals & 7s. The total cost -- TOTAL -- was six dollars.

4. New Orleans is this city that seems sorta forgotten. The most amazing architecture and it's all just collapsing... For some reason there is a disproportionate number of burnt-down buildings, and I'm not sure why. It feels like no one cared enough to rebuild them or something. New Orleans has the same elements that New York has -- a warehouse district, parts of the city that sit directly under bridges, hip areas, run-down ones, and the skyline of a busy downtown.

Sometimes cities are insecure. People flock to New York, Boston, San Francisco, Portland... I think I could be happy anywhere.

JAIME SHAFFER
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Cheryl came to town on day 17! Highlights include:

• Eating at Juan's Flying Burrito, where we spent $7.50 on 5 beers and ate yummy mexican while listening to heavy metal
• Going home after and making fancy drinks and listening to the new Teenbeat comp.
• Thereafter walking to the warehouse district and finding a sucker bartender who sold us two crown royals 'n 7 up and a vodka tonic for 6 bucks.
• Ordering a second round and taking them "to go"
• Ending up at the Saint, 4 blocks from our house, sipping on buck Miller-Lites

I am so lame! I want to write cute things. Is my life not cute?
I feel like it is!

JOE JANDA
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

Woke up late.

I tend to do this when it's gray and ugly outside. When it's snowing in late March, I don't even feel guilty about it. It was nearly 11 before I got myself coffee and started to regain sentience. I think I might have actually growled at the Dunkin Donuts guy.

At 11:30 I arrived at the lab. Now, the everyday nonsense I do as a struggling molecular biologist doesn't exactly win me points as a conversationalist at parties, so I'll give it a miss for Day 17. I can say that I discovered right away that I was missing an orange folder labeled 'hypermutation', and that this jerked me right out of morning malaise and into a sort of pre-noon panic. I might equate it to loosing one's car keys just before a needed hospital visit or something. Ick.

At noon I attended a student seminar. I'm not sure if it was planned or not, but the speaker of the week just happened to be a woman who could not look more Irish. Red hair. Pale skin. Freckles. Shamrocks plastered all over her Power Point presentation. Near the end of the presentation, near 1:00, I realized that it was St. Patrick's Day. Slow perception day. More so because I came back to the office to find that orange folder on my chair.

In the afternoon I told some molecules how to arrange themselves, but I won't know if they obeyed for a few days yet.

SARAH LOFFMAN
WASHINGTON DC

My girlfriend is not a planner -- so when she suggested we attend a panel featuring "dishy" Ana Marie Cox of wonkette.com, I was into it.

Sponsored by America's Future Foundation, the panel set out to explore the alleged phenomenon of 'Hipublicans' and how political parties are accommodating the younger generation. Normally, I'm skeptical of any organization that uses "America" in its title, but their tagline is "a network of America's next generation of classic liberal leaders." Seems pretty safe, right? Wrong. These people are terrible.

The panel was held at the Fund for American Studies - a classic DC club. Thick draperies, crystal chandeliers, and more portraits of dead white men than you could shake a stick at in the British National Portrait Gallery. We were greeted by a bunch of young professionals milling about in navy blue blazers. "Baby," I whispered, "all these people are Republicans!" I was actually scared. It was like taking a wrong turn, and finding yourself in a room full of brain eating zombies. My first instinct was to leave, but the open bar and free food made the event seem "interesting" to both of us.

For an hour and half we listened to recent Ivy League graduates prattle on about "millenials," the internet, marketing, passé liberals, "partial birth abortion," and other hooey. With the exception of Ms. Cox, all the panelists were annoying, even the other liberal. These young, cocky folks spoke in tones that implied they had never experienced one moment of personal or professional discomfort. My favorite comment came from the moderator who drunkenly proclaimed, "Republicans are cool, man. I mean, look at us! We're all wearing navy blue blazers and drinking for free." Wrong. You suck.

KELLY JOHNSON
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

Sick, sick.

Very sick. Slept all day yesterday. Literally. I was awake for, maybe, 8 hours total. And I'm still tired this morning. I will survive though. I did go to work today (hence the blogging, since we have no internet at home). Being sick makes me grumpy, and weak, and unable to control my tongue. Bad for work. Bad for junior high youth group tonight. Perhaps they will have mercy on me (and consequently themselves) and be kind tonight. Maybe it will be a "hug bug" night.

I did watch "The Ten Commandments," all 3 hours and 40 minutes of it, yesterday, and parts of "Prince of Egypt" and "The Wizard of Oz." Can you tell what tonight's youth group lesson is about?

Alas, we learned over the weekend that the boy I could have had a crush on is, still, in fact dating his girlfriend, and while he has not yet proposed, apparently still plans to do so. No more crush. The death of a crush is always such a sad thing. Especially since crushes are, in their most pure and innocent form, simply happy thoughts about another, and while a rather frivolous way to spend one's time, much better than, say, planning genocide or vacuuming.

:: website ::

HEMAL JHAVERI
WASHINGTON DC

There was a break-in at work! Technically, the attempted looting of our trash happened on the night of the 16th, but we didn't make the discovery until this morning.

I work in a small lobbying firm on Capitol Hill. The owner moved their offices from the Watergate building to this neighborhood about a year ago, when they sold their home in McLean and bought a double townhouse here. My boss lives on one side of the house, and the other side has been converted into office space.

Whoever it was ripped open a poorly patched hole in their fence, managed to get into the garage and tore open all the trash bags, presumably to look for food. I think we would've angrier if anything valuable had been taken, but sadly enough, it just looked like someone was hungry.

Around 8:45 a.m. DC's finest showed up and my boss's wife, being the delightful human being that she is, offered them coffee. This is how at 9 a.m. I ended up having breakfast with two cops, my boss, my boss's wife, their daughter, her boyfriend and the cat.

JENNY MILLER
WASHINGTON DC

Twelve things the People were searching for on March 17 (a sampling as revealed by my website stats):

1. 11 qt. enema
2. blowjobs for crack in washington dc area
3. self tanning mishaps and solutions
4. converting a penis to a virginia
5. gynophagia or dolcett or snuff or cannibalism cannibal story
6. can bananas grow in maryland?
7. your functions are being handled by a hideous piece of public art
8. douche recipe gender selection
9. how to stock a kitchen pantry when money is tight
10. could martha stewart face being required to be naked in a strip search in a federal prison for women during entrance to the prison?
11. get rich or die tryin
12. catholic placenta sauce

:: website ::

TIM HARTMAN
WASHINGTON DC

I didn’t wear green. I acted like it was an accident and that I’d forgotten about St. Patrick’s Day, but I hadn’t. I’m Irish, and was raised Catholic. When I went to my closet to get dressed, all I could think about was the Irish flag and how the orange represents Protestants and the green represents the Catholics, and how many people have died from what amounts to Catholic-sponsored terrorism in Great Britain. Then it occurred to me: That’s what got us into this mess. So I wore a blue shirt instead.

At 10:30 p.m., I watched the Tavis Smiley show on PBS, and he interviewed Lawrence O’Donnell, a political consultant for the West Wing. He described how he was in Northern Ireland 30 years ago and saw eight-year-olds wearing Irish Republican Army uniforms. For some reason, thirty years later, the terrorism has subsided. His point was that terrorism is a generational thing and we’ll have to deal with it for at least another thirty years. Why thirty years? He didn’t say. But I’m guessing its one of these two reasons: a) Those eight-year olds are now dead because of their “revolution” losing some momentum in the cause; or, B) those eight-year olds saw so much violence in thirty years, they now appreciate life more than they hate Great Britain.