LaughAtlantis

Outside the T last Thursday I found one Mr. Joe Curtatone, mayoral candidate for the great city of Somerville. Joe was striding up to people with that purposeful walk that only politicians have, shaking hands. His campaign workers were handing out flyers which outlined his plan for improving our local school system. I don't have kids, but I thought to myself, what the hell, why not get my personal gripe out there.

I introduced myself and asked him if he had any thoughts about Somerville's recycling program. He told me he had been a part of getting the recycling program off the ground several years back as an alderman, and that he felt that the Somerville program was a good one. I have to admit, I really wasn't listening all that well, because I had pretty much made up my mind that no matter what he said, it wasn't going to be a good enough answer and that my issue was going to get heard.

Here's my problem. I don't have a recycle bin. The problem, though, is that when you put out things that should OBVIOUSLY be recycled (such as big ol' moving boxes that have been broken down, or a box full of cans, or the like) and they aren't actually IN a recycle bin, the garbagemen just trash them. So, even when I try to recycle, they don't let me. And it's tough to get a recycle bin. When I lived in Brighton, you could call a number and they'd deliver a recycle bin to you. Here in Somerville you have to go to the DPW and pick one up - which is not particularly convenient in that I don't have a car.

So I told all this to Mr. Curtatone. He explained that he wanted to institute a 311 line in Somerville whereby people could call city hall if they had non-emergency issues that needed to be attended to, as a sort of central clearing house for information. Seemed like a good idea to me. Better than that, he turned to one of his campaign workers and said, let's get this woman a recycle bin. He took my name and address and believe it or not, within three hours, I had a recycle bin. I like that. He followed through.

And WE followed through. Yesterday, I took out - er, ROD took out the trash and the recyclables proudly, knowing that we were doing our civic duty and making the world a better place. No more putting out boxes that would get thrown away by ignorant garbagemen. No more tossing out cans that I know could be and should be recycled. No more hoarding soda cans and sneaking them into other people's recycle bins! Life is good again!

Well, it WAS. But by the end of the day Tuesday, someone had stolen our recycle bin. We got to use it ONCE.

Think I can convince the other mayoral candidate to get me a new one?

So, I took two months off from blogging.

You may or may not have noticed this. I don't think many people actually read my blog that don't know me - though I keep finding out that random people read my blog that I didn't REALIZE read my blog. Like family members. (Hi Jenny! Hi Ann!)

But anyway, if you don't know me, and you've bothered to come back, you may or may not realize that I just got married. Here's proof:

That's right, it's me, all veiled up and dressed up and pretty. Woohoo! I'm a BRIDE!!

More to the point, I'm now a wife. And that's a little odd. I've spent nine months now planning this wedding and all of a sudden it's like, "Hmm, what do I do with my time now?"

I guess the answer is, I just come back to blogging.

Okay, so, I'm in the Borders at the mall yesterday waiting for Rod. We were supposed to meet up by Best Buy so that he could return his birthday present, which was not good enough for him (sob). He was late, so I was browsing.

I was in the Stephen King section, a place I have not been in some time. I used to jump on all things King as they came out, but I haven't been in a horror kind of mood, reading-wise, in an age. I realized that I had yet to actually look at the reissued Gunslinger, which came out months ago. King reissued it in preparation for the next volume in the Dark Tower series coming out, and it has thirty new pages and a new intro and all that good stuff. So I grabbed one of the two copies off the shelf and opened up to the foreward to have a little read.

And there I found the true horror.

Someone had begun reading the book. In the bookstore. And had dogeared a page.

WHO DOES THAT??? In a bookstore?? In all seriousness, who does that?

This was clearly not a mistake; it had been carefully folded over and creased so that there was no way it could have happened by accident. Now, I don't even dogear books in my home. I also try not to leave books lying upside-down, so as not to break the book bindings. I close books, whether I have a bookmark or not. If I don't have one and I forget the page number, well then I just muddle through and search to find where I left off.

But if you are the dogearing type, if that's what you do, fine. I don't judge. Just, do it in the privacy of your own home! Don't borrow my books and do it to them. And for the love of god, let someone else get them home and enjoy them before you dogear them. The books in the bookstore aren't even YOURS yet. Leave 'em alone.

Oh. And don't dogear library books either. Evil dogearers.

Not that I'm judging, mind you.