Out like a lamb. A fairly boring lamb.

Long week back on Maggie's Farm. Some good, some not. You know how it goes.

Monday Beck was on overnight for her first day of Large Animal Medicine, so i was on my lonesome, but played the abstract role of hero as I took Beck clothes, books, bedding and a Burger King Meal. I'm not sure about the relative karma of eating a cow while healing a horse; these are the kinds of situations that render Absolutism absurd. And actually, I retract all of that as Beck had fish and chicken instead of large animals. She is so respectful. And actually, so long as she didn't eat anything from the camelid category, she would've been fine - that night, she was tending to a baby camel and its mom who looked a lot cooler in real life than viewed through zoo cage bars or the occasional episode of Have Gun Will Travel.

So anyways, Monday alone with Jack Bauer, a girl could do worse (but I could do no better). And Tuesday was more of the same, though I got to see Beck and eat burritos. Stylin'. And then Wednesday rolled on, and then Thursday, and here we sit. COme to think of it, fairly uneventful week. I played a lot of guitar. Gave my students a test, they freaked out. Oh, and I have a secured position at the school next year, which is sweet. So yeah, rollin' on. Didn't get much done on the life improvement front. But coming up we have a four day weekend and:

Saturday Night Poker
Saturday Night Bball
Saturday Day Frisbee
Sunday Day Ultimate
Sunday Night Polaroid Dinner
Monday Night Bball Championship
Monday Day Opening Day

Plus Monday and Tuesday OFF, as the school is collectively headed to NYC for some performances. And yeah, if you don't know what a "Polaroid Dinner" is, well, you're just not in the know. And I am. You know, in the "no." Ha. Wokka, wok... oh, what's the point.

Other exciting things - I punched the bedroom wall while defending Beck in a dream; I saw dead people in my dreams (meaning living versions of people who have actually died, not, say, Al Gore) (and that actually started as a reference to his Jerry Garcia ties, not his exuberant Tipper-frenching personality, but turned out funny either way, or maybe would've been funny in 2000 or thereabouts, so in a way I'm the web's jay leno) (I probably should have gone with Bill Walton, eh?), and I had a nightmare that melded into reality, culminating in my thinking there was a large white Angel of Death type thing pointing at beck when, in actuality, it was her bedroom dresser, not pointing at all, being handless as it is. So yeah, those of you picked "psychosis" in your Nyet Jones office pool may be into some money by weekend's end.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - talked to Mike Gordon BFNB (best friend not bassist), the Tom Cruise to my John Cusask, yesterday. He was sipping champagne and watching a Caribbean sunset from a sailboat; I was driving on Route 122. Game, set, match, Gordon. He's (clearly) doing well on Spring Break. Also talked to Tufts Frisbee bud Zach Geller (no relation to Ross, or, quite unfortunately, Sarah Michelle) (let's all just take a moment and sigh... Buffy... thanks). Good week of staying in contact. Tires, you know.

Fun times in the neighborhood - hopefully I will come blazing back in the next few days with some life-altering but ultimately meaningless news. It's good to have goals. And I plan on starting The Posthumous Challenge this weekend and hopefully finishing it before April is over. We'll see.

Oh, and it's on, btw - gotta lose some weight, too much sitting around and Donut Dunkin' this winter. Ultimate time has come around, and hopefully my foot will wake up in time.

The Worcester Weekend ever.

Ma & Pa Searl, aka IPJ and IPMM, just headed back to Rochester after a fun weekend in the Worcester / Grafton vicinity. We had another great dinner with them and Meghan & Greg at Nancy Chang's Friday, though no one found a milk ring in their coffee afterwards so that was a bit of a letdown (speaking of, Ali-Dub has officially burned the traditional folk/bluegrass song "Pig in a Pen" into my cranium. So if I start dancing a jig mid-blog here, she is entirely to blame). On the plus side, IPJ gave me a miniature nun catapult thing called a "Nunchuck" and some authentic Texas Hold'em laying cards, complete with bullet holes AND leather carrying case. This combined with my battery-less crankable flashlight makes me near invincible in electricity-less environments. So my scheme to rule the world is still moving along nicely.

We also got the new album Slow Down from GPGDS, which on first pass is sweet. It is also Jamie-bass heavy in a groove-oriented way, so owners of old Jeep Cherokees may want to turn down the volume on their older stereo system a little bit lest their speakers burp. Seriously, sounds great, just excellent playing and production, crystal clean sound and rhythm sections. I dig very much, and the highly anitcipated album meets its high expectations. Plus, ya know, it's got a beat, the kids can dance to it, 93. Congrats on a very well done job, James.

Saturday, Beck and Margie went a-dress-shopping and then met Scott, Meghan and Greg in Boston for lunch at a Sushi-type place. I tutored and hung out in Grafton, rocking out the same Aerosmith song that I've been playing for the past month to the point that I felt compelled to list it under my played section as a song that I actually know (I can't play the solos yet and I'm probably around 110 bpm while the song is actually at 120 bpm, but that is, as they say, close enough for Tufts). I also bought a 3 dollar glass slide and goofed around with a little DADF#AD tuning, which for those of you not in the know, can make any upright white suburban sound like a semi authentic blues dude. In one key, anyways. So that's cool; I will try to incorporate some of my Mississippi Delta heritage on the first album. Margie and Beck stopped by the house to pick me up around 4 and we headed over to the Spaightwood Galleries in Upton. Beck got a nice early birthday present in an objet d'art by Jonna Rae Brinkman from Margie, and I think Margie also successfully laid the inroads for some Upton-MAG transactions. Brinkman's stuff, incidentally, is right up my alley and I think I could gaze at it indefinitely. And in other art news, Marjorie Searl became the first non-Nyet proud owner of a Nyet Jones original painting. She selected Yucca as a gift from NJ and promised to begin documenting its history immediamente. So congrats to Marjorie on an art-heavy weekend.

Saturday night we went to the Grafton Inn and had a great dinner (chicken parmesan, steak, fish & chips). We also got YET ANOTHER glimpse of the future, as Beck ordered "my" dessert "for me." Funniness ensued. We were so enamored with the ridiculous cuteness of Grafton Center that we just had to stop on the way back and look at the statue of Jerome Wheelock with a crankable flashlight on the way home.

APB: Jerome's new nickname is "The Pimp of Grafton." Grafton H.S.'s mascot is now, "Da Pimp." Local prostitution laws shall be adjusted accordingly.

Margie and Scott stopped by Sunday Morning for a walk in the woods with the pups. S & W were somewhat subdued, but W did put on a little Wrigley 500 display and got Sparkle riled up, too. More fun. Beck and I hit the gym later, and I've been watching UConn try to choke against George Mason ever since. And just to mention it, I have really missed the entire tournament this year, so just getting to see a hint of the intensity during this game has been cool.

Alright listeners. Stay tuned for more maligning of late 19th century engineers. Who can't defend themselves. Or all the pimping they did. Shameful, New England-style pimping.

Nyet Jones's Word of the Day:

Brocage (Pr. brah'-kij)
n.
1. A pimp's wages
2. Jerome Wheelock's wages

More dinner with Ben & Ali, Ill-advised UV commentary

Back in school, not terribly exciting. The students all went to their various sunny destinations over the two week break, and some came back very, very tan. In stark contrast to, say, the ones who went home to Minnesota. Which prompted the following excellence from one of my non-tan students:

"Damn, every one came back looking all Mexican."

Don't worry, investors in the future of America, racial sensitivity training is being ordered as we speak. One of my tanner students answered a question with, "Like, negative infinity" later on, so apparently there's no correlation between "spring break sun exposure" and "idiotic quips." Just kidding, Walnuts, you know I love you guys. Not that any of you are actually reading this. Somewhere, a felled tree is crying.

Tuesday night was excellent; Ben and Ali came over for a Beck-cooked dinner which was, by definition, excellent: pistachio encrusted chicken, baked baby carrots, potatoes and broccolini, spinach soup, and in the store-bought category, a fruity cake and some bread. Excellente. And Ali & Ben once again won my heart with a bottle of desert wine that was divine (I have sweet wine issues, so unless you want your Manishevitz drained, don't invite me over for seder). And it was an awesome time. Actually, let me wax on this a second - I had a moment of, well, not so much panic as introspective hilarity when I realized that this was the equivalent of a couples' second date. We had such a great time Friday, how could we follow that up? And we used all of our great go-to jokes, like Rebecca's ping pong ball head and my aversion to vegetables. So there was a lot of pressure here, arrrrrrrrggggggg... no, not really. I did have that funny thought, but then we just had another excellent evening, three hours shooting the breeze, talking Ultimate AND it turns out, as it usual does in our hilarious universe, that Ben and Beck like to cook whereas Ali and I listen to music with a passion. So thank (yes, they're Jewish, too) Hashem that things ended up the way they did - we were one cosmic coincidence from a well-fed but boring couple and a starving folk duo. Sometimes things work out for the best. Also, Ben told one of the best Ultimate-related jokes I have heard in quite some time involving veterinarians and snakes. I am 100% busting that out on the fields this summer.

Just a second on the music - between Emmy getting giddy over Bobby D. and Ali jamming to the Dead in the past few days - I don't know, it was just good to see some genuine love for music out there. In all, completely unironic honesty, it made me smile.

So yeah, a good Tuesday, a good Wednesday just me and Beck and leftover lasagna from the weekend, and a good Thursday - we just met the pathology rotation for a tanned, I mean Mexican dinner in Worcester. Good, hilarious times, and I think that the golden pathology group may get extended another couple of days with poker on Sunday.

And tomorrow, despite claims that this website fulfills all their Grafton news needs, Ma & Pa Searl (aka iPJ and iPMM) are paying us a visit for Weekend Medicine Veterinarian Parents Cummings de School Tufts of. FUn times are a LOCK. We will probably head back to the gallery in Upton, which will be awesome.

In other news - I did something to my ankle (when, I don't know), and it pinched a nerve posterior to the medial malleolus. So my 2nd and 3rd toe are numb and I've got this odd foot asleep sensation all along the ball and instep of my foot. Strange - and doc says to lay off it for a couple of weeks. So the sun rises, sets, and my ankles sprain. Get sprained. Whatever. Frustrating in that it will delay the start of Ultimate training a little bit. D'oh.

On the plus side, we played Math Frisbee today - kids stood in a circle and had to call out the angle in radians before they threw to the next person. It's no Bing, but it took advantage of the nice weather. And maybe they even learned a little bit.

Oh, no: No.

Two thousand zero zero: Party over, whoops, out of time

Stellar March 18th style party last night. Beck and I spent the day cooking and cleaning, respectively, and as usual she came through with what could only me termed "mad grub" - 4 different pans of lasagna, picture perfect dinner rolls, ridiculous salads, yummy jello (for the child / partyer in all of us), even some green leafy stuff for the veg-heads which I would know nothing about. I procured some spirits, including some high-class 7 dollar wines, 11 dollar vodka and mixers taboot. And because I had recently learned that Dave and Emmy were coming, friends from our old 'hood in Natick, I grabbed some tropical Pineapple Rum and Sierra Mist Free, a cocktail to die for. And then I jumped on la computadora, did my best DJ Windoze impersonation and made a hilariously eclectic music mix for the night, featuring such seamless transitions as 50 Cent to The Beatles to The Sex Pistols. It is indeed true, I cannot be stopped.

Med school friends Jack and Kate drove all the way out here from Boston to join in the "Survive the Vet Student Party" game, and we effectively secured the couches as an early party strategy, forming a corner of sanctity from the professor and classmate gossip. Lots of Beck's vet friends rolled in, either bleary eyed or wide awake depending whether they were on rotation or Steve, respectively. And people kinda traipsed in and out throughout the evening, but just to have an official attendance sheet (for posterity and crime alibis only): Kate E, Jack, Andrew, Val, Dan, E.B., Courtney, Lori, Suzanne, Sam, Dave, Kate B, Cindy, Steve, Shelly, Theresa, Jen, Emmy, Dave, Caralee, Ali-O, and Nateck, natch. Solid crowd, though Jill, Matt and Ben & Ali-Dub and Matt & Kursten couldn't make it.

Solid conversation, a lot of the typical vet-class gossip and bashing of, well, certain classmates. Par for the course. The non-vet highlights included Jack's story about telling a kid to turn & cough on his pediatric rotation, only the kid neglected to turn. It turns out that the reason you turn is so not to cough in the doctor's, or in this case, Jacks', face. He released and used the opposite hand to wipe his face, a solid move. Kate trumped his story later in the evening with something we'll just call "The Tale of the Well-Hung Gonorrhea Patient" and leave it at that. I'm sure somewhere a HIPAA officer is cringing. We had to bring Kate down a few notches, so we told the time that she misidentified a famous ophthalmologist as "Hitler" in class because she, HA!, was not wearing her glasses. She also raised her hand and yelled "Hitler," which just put a nice theater of the absurd touch on the entire situation. That was a while ago.

I was psyched to see Cindy; she made a big effort to get here after a long day at work. Jason didn't make it but may be in town later this weekend. Dave and Emmy were awesome as always, and I especially loved the way Emmy says "foooouuuummm," aka "foam." Dave (the world's only heart-of-gold lawyer, excluding Sandy Cohen of course) is currently in a civil dispute between a charity organization and some horses, which means either he loses the case and keeps Emmy happy and some children unclothed, or he wins, sleeps on the couch and gives Timmy something for Christmas. Sounds pretty lose lose from my perspective, and Dave sums up his position as "As a fine point, I'm actually for the horses," despite the fact that he is trying to take money away from them. Law remains very confusing; Dave remains awesome. His basketball team also made it to the finals and his Pittsburgh Steelers won the superbowl, so there's a hop in his step these days. Emmy was rock-solid in the comedy department all evening, accusing an entire roomful of people of talking about her cat Dr. Furr by sliding into the room and pointing fingers. Note that some of the people in the room had never even met her cat. Hi-larious. She also called out Dave's falsehood on the relative release dates of Pulp Fiction and the Usual Suspects and claimed that Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" is the saddest song EVER. Then I found out that Emmy likes Patti Smith, which rocks my face. Emmy / Dave: already a 10 out of 10 on the awesomeness level, and Emmy managed to take it up another notch! Incredible, though some think this may set an unrealistic precedent for the expectation of their greatness in the future. As usual, only time will tell.

Jack and Kate were supposed to stay for a late nite guitar jam session but wussed out, a decision for which I will forgive them at some future date, but not now. We got in some cards with Val and Dan before they left, and it turns out Val resembles a card shark in no way whatsoever. On a side note, Andrew and I spent the bulk of the evening defending the relative complexity of the male species (Beck's stance: "It's not that you're simple, it's that you're not complex.") and he also came out with the brilliant line, "If I say anything that makes me seem like a jerk, I'm only kidding," which sounds pretty much like GEICO for social situations to me.

Fun times, clearly. Big party. Highly enjoyed the last couple of nights. Wahoo. We will, of course, keep on keepin' on.

"You bringin' in the Wolf? S*** negro, that's all you had to say."

Man, we had a great St. Patty's Day, though it involved little to no green beer, good luck, Notre Dame, cursing, whiskey, racial slurs, Protestant v. Catholic debates, Daniel Day Lewis freedom movies, leprechauns or barroom brawls. Did I cover all the O'Stereotypes there?

Took Sparkle to Tufts, nay, Cummings Vet Hospital for her annual exam, and she checked out just fine. She got a prescription for *Prozac* to help curb her aggression towards the W.D. As I have said to more than one person, welcome to the 21st century, where even the dogs are on SSRIs. We are still two degrees removed from Soma, though, so we've got that to hold on to.

Came home and wrote Curtains, which was a nice cleansing experience. Sorry if it's too down and self-involved. That's just how I roll. Headed out and tutored, gave a couple of airplane rides to my tutee's brother and sister, and then came back to the ranch.

We went out to dinner with Ali Wolf and her husband Ben, of "The Searls met his family at Chautauqua" fame. I had such a good time, all laughs and hilariousness. Ben's a Project Manager at a Startup in Waltham, a solidly nice dude and plays a perfect Jerry Seinfeld to Ali's Elaine. He's also an Ultimate player, so i have a sneaking suspicion that this was an elaborate attempt at setting up playdates, a la Marjorie Searl in 1982. But that's cool, and he's 2 miles away as opposed to the 35 for all the other Ultimate players I know, so we can hang out and throw once the weather gets better. I have been known to throw a frisbee to myself when I have no one to play with (I also played football and baseball by myself in my childhood, Beck loves to ridicule me over this), so this is all in all a good thing, or will at least make me look like less of a loser to onlookers.

Ali absolutely cracks me up, really high energy gal who is completely unafraid to laugh at herself. I'm really glad Beck had this rotation with her and got to know her better; I think there's a fair amount of high-school (nay, middle school) level social ridiculousness that goes on in professional school, so it's hard to know what people are actually like unless you, guess what, actually talk to them. And that feels like a sentiment that we all should have learned in kindergarten, so there's probably some wicked "All the Plans of Mice and Men" style goofiness going on here. Then again, I refuse to talk to strangers and/or the Pizza Delivery guy, so I'm not exactly the get-to-know your neighbor poster-child.

So we went to Nancy Chang in Worcester for a great dinner and great times and then went to the Bean Counter where, despite the fact that someone found a hair in their cookie and Ali found the plastic milk ring in her latte, the laughter rolled on. My personal favorite was Ali's story about flatulence and cursing out a Roomba. A+ material. Ben and I, it turns out, also share the common experience of life under the iron fist, so many side comments were made to that effect, too. So, in case you can't tell, I just had a bang-up time last night. Mad props to our neighbors from Millbury street.

Came home around 11:30 or thereabouts and our upstairs neighbors Matt and Kursten were out on their porch enjoying the dying embers of St. Patty's Day, so we went up and had a Guiness or two with them. See, I can bow to ritual when the occasion calls. Hung out up the til 12:30 or so, good cap to the fun evening.

Tonight we're having any where from 3 to 400 people come over for a soiree. In case you can't tell, this is the last-breath gasp of our late 20's to become more social. I am sure we will revert to our Law & Order-watching ways before too long. Beck is in charge of food, I am in charge of music. We are the unstoppable team. A good time will be had by all.

My Brother, the 10,000 Foot Idiot

Aaron spent the Tuesday of his Spring Break skydiving in Dallas, TX. Yep, skydiving, plummeting from 10,000 feet and challenging the impact equations from Newtonian physics. This coming from the guy who has a sore back so often that he spends a lot of time popping his neck and shoulders, resembling something of a praying mantis in need of a fix. Apparently freefall is easier on the joints than sleeping, who knew? Ah, Aaron, I kid. He had a great time, and has a DVD to show us all at some point as video evidence substantiating the need for his institutionalization.

On a side note, I debated with my mom whether Aaron's "putting his life in some stranger's hands" was any riskier than the way we put our lives in strangers' hands on a daily basis - like your auto mechanic, other drivers, an airline pilot, the guy who designed the escalator so it doesn't eat hapless children. She insisted that "this was different" and I'm kidding to some extent here, obviously it's a lot more direct to strap yourself to some dude, jump out of a plane and implicitly say, "Um, please don't drop me." But it reminds me a lot of the Malcolm Gladwell points in The Tipping Point (Ed: note that iPJ himself pointed out that this was actually from Freakonomics by Steves Levitt and Dubner, not Malcom Gladwell - I read those books all around the same time and confused them; please don't sue me) how people freak out about gun laws and children, when really it's about 1000 times riskier to have a swimming pool in your backyard than a gun in your house. And we spend millions of dollars on Homeland Security when you stand a much greater chance of dying from, say, a leaky levee than a terrorist bombing. Even stranger - I remember the interviews with midwesterners before the 2004 election, and time and time again people said they felt their kids were "safer from terrorists" with Dubya in office. Leaving jokes about his particular military expertise aside - I mean, dude, you live in Kansas, you really think your suburban horse ranch is target A1A?

Alright, this is morphing into a musing. No good. Suffice it to say that hey bro, if you need your dopamine receptors stimulated by freefall, that's cool with me. I will enjoy the experience vicariously. Just don't buy a terrorist infested swimming pool anytime soon.

Fantasy Team has been drafted.

Came back from an excellent dinner at Moe's (a Mexican Restaurant on Route 9) and met Beck's fun pathology team. They are nice folks. Plus, Alli Wolf knows Bones, and therefore indirectly, Angel. Major bonus points.

I just drafted my team, and it went okay. Here's the starting lineup for the 2006 Fantasy Season:

C - Jason Varitek
1b - Lance Berkman
2b - Placido Polanco
3b - Aramis Ramirez
SS - Miguel Tejada
OF - Barroid Bonds
OF - Jim Edmonds
OF - Geoff Jenkins
Util - Lyle Overbay

SP - Jake Peavy
SP - John Smoltz
RP - Eddie Guardado
RP - Todd Jones
P - Andy Pettitte
P - Danny Turnbow
P - Zach Duke

So we'll see; could be good, could not. It all depends upon a red wheel barrow, as they say. Note that I also drafted Jay Gibbons, who I am told I look like (or who looks like me, depending on our relative fame). I did that as a joke.

And, incidentally, Fantasy baseball more than anything is an excuse to keep in touch with my buds from the Tufts Ultimate Frisbee team. Good guys, all. NEwho, I will keep you updated on how this season turns out (last year, I was the Tuftsmen champ!)

Ultimate is fun, Wrigley and Sparkle fight

I played Ultimate in the BUDA Winter Indoor Hat League last night and for the first time in a while had a really great time. Made some good plays (poach D and score, layout catch D, skyed a 6'5" guy) and all, but really it was just the good times feel - we even lost, but it was good to get out and run around, get exhausted. Plus I Texas-style hipchecked a guy and flipped him over, which was funnier than anything (he was okay) and actually not a foul on my part at all, as I had already gotten to the position and stopped completely next to the wall (I had nowhere to go) and he was running full speed and not looking - OUCH. I remain an Ultimate Frisbee Plus-sized model. Sorry dude. Anyways, a little sore today, but the knees are holding up, and I think it's high time I go into Ultimate training mode.

Also had a great lunch (Bollywood Grill) and coffee (Lala Java) with Meghan and Greg on Sunday, very fun times.

On a very down note - I feel terrible for the Bishops and want to extend all of our condolences to them. Carrie was a great, great dog and lived a great life; she will be sadly missed.

Our idiots got in a fight a couple of nights ago (over a wristband?!?!?) and Wrigley has a black eye and a gash under her jaw. She's being treated with Abx, NSAIDs and some ointment that makes her look like the guy from A Clockwork Orange. And the E-collar makes her sad. Sparkle has been in the proverbial doghouse and feels verry sorry.

That's about it. We're going out to Moe's tonight to eat with Beck's Pathology rotation. I will be the guy cracking "Homer, you fell on Aerosmith" jokes all night. And then I head home to draft my fantasy baseball team. These are the details that will keep your days going.