OK, I haven't weighed in on this yet, but March needs to back the hell off of my friends. March, you are so on notice, it's not even funny. You better lay off here at the end, or so help me I WILL turn this year around.

Congratulations to Kat and lori, and Noah and Grace, listen up. You've got a lot of love floating around out here, so cut out the wrasslin' and get to growing! (Excellent names, btw.)

Sorry about the job stupidity, Theo and Nutty. I hope that new and better offers come your way soon.

~ma and {{}} and other punctuation for them that need and deserve it that I've memfaulted on.

Is there a corollary for men, Rick?

I wore fuckall hats during my unemployment, other than jobseeker, napper, migraineuse and martial arts instructor.

But I wouldn't recommend my way of doing it, not at all.

I slept like crap last night. I was totally blaming it on the cats until I bolted wide awake after dreaming someone was breaking in and realized.....my windows were open. It was quite breezy. What kept waking me up was the blinds banging around.

Did I close the windows? Of course not. Because that would make sense.

Sense doesn't play with sleepy sara.

You got an email from my mom?

Or my uncle. But I expect coworkers to know. better.

Is there a corollary for men, Rick?

The talk was about women, but someone asked your question at the end. It's probably not the same for men. Job and marriage are both very important for men, and you can't substitute other kinds of social connections in the same way that you can for women. Or something like that. Men are confusing, she said, and most of the women in the audience agreed with her.

Men are confusing, she said, and most of the women in the audience agreed with her.

One of my favorite hobbies is confusing people.

ION, today I took a bus from the Howard L stop to work in Evanston. There was a big delay because a a big intersection was blocked off because of a bad accident. Turns out the previous bus (one I often take, and would have taken if my train had been five minutes earlier) had a head-on collision with a car.

Well, the bus was much bigger than the car, so probably the bus passengers had minor injuries, if that. But still... there but for the grace of Beelzebub went I... or something....

Glad you're safe, Tom! I've had a lot of those close calls since I moved to Chicago, although mostly I don't know how close it was until I read the news. And realize, oh, hey, if I'd left work on time, I probably would have been crushed by a slab of concrete!

And realize, oh, hey, if I'd left work on time, I probably would have been crushed by a slab of concrete!

So the Fates are sending you the message that you should work more? That sucks.

I think the Fates are just telling me that it's okay to get distracted by the internets. Reading porn saved my life!

Those close call stories always give me the chills.

I really only have one of which I'm aware:

What occurred at the 99 in Charlestown on Nov. 6, 1995 must have looked like a scene from a movie: As the crowd of lunchtime diners watched in horror, a father and son opened fire, killing four North End men in the restaurant in broad daylight, and wounding a fifth. Richard C. Sarro Jr., then 27, survived the attack. But his uncle Robert C. Luisi Sr., his cousin Luisi, his brother Antonio Sarro, and friend Anthony Pelosi Jr. were killed.

How did this unfold? Damien Clemente and Vincent Perez, who had been sitting in another booth, were allegedly threatened by the Luisi. Damien called his father from his cell phone. His father arrived, an argument turned into a bloodbath.

Anthony P. Clemente Sr. and his son, Damien, were later convicted of first-degree murder. Perez was aquitted on murder charges. The elder Clemente, who turns 54 on Sept. 14, is in custody at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, while his son is doing time at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater.

[link]

Scott and I ate lunch there that day. I was pregnant with Ben (who was born in January, '96). We left, got in the car, saw these guys walking into the 99 who just looked so out of place for Charlestown. They looked like Italian mobsters out of Central Casting.

Scott and I traded cracks about them being in the wrong neighborhood (Charlestown, like Southie, is one of the traditionally Irish neighborhoods in Boston; the traditionally Italian neighborhoods include East Boston and the North End) and looking like walking stereotypes and we started imagining scenes from a mobster movie.

We got back to work, and the radio in my office was playing and story of the shooting broke. I spent the next hour frantically trying to track down my mother. Her secretary only knew she went out for lunch, and I knew she often ate at the 99, too.