{Boston ramblings}

so here I am in Boston, city of my birth, the night before the big official Democratic National Convention starts. when we arrived at 1 a.m. Friday night I couldn't figure out why the airport was so dripping with flags. blame it on the fact that they ran out of pasta by the time they got to my part of the plane, and I refuse to eat the scary chicken.

anyway, we performed for the College Democrats last night, at their opening ceremonies. in case you didn't realize this, politicians can really talk. like for a long time. and say say say the same thing over and over. it was a long night, and we were on last, after a videotaped message from John Kerry himself.

high points of the night:
- Al Sharpton's speech
- Ariana Huffington in her hip green shirt talking about the shadow convention of 2000
- sitting in the green room with Al Sharpton, watching the simulcast as some Congressman said in an effort to amp up the crowd, "are you jacked up? I am SO JACKED UP right now!" in a tone that implied that he believes "jacked up" to mean "excited." I thought Rev. Al was going to fall off his chair laughing. it was a moment.
- having to stop every few minutes in our performance because of the rampant applause

then Beau and Mayda and I found a bar, Beau received a marriage proposal from a homeless woman, and we went home to the JANKIEST DAYS INN EVER. this place is a step above a Motel 6, I swear, and I know I'm spoiled but that's the trade-off when you don't get to live at home, you get very picky about where you sleep and right now I'm sleeping across the street from a McDonald's and a Super K-Mart and what we thought was an abandoned factory but as it turns out is an ice skating rink. sigh.

the walls are so thin that a phone conversation by the woman in the next room woke me up out of a sound sleep at 7 a.m. exactly to WHOM she needed to speak so loudly at that hour is beyond me, but she also got room service (I don't think they actually HAVE room service in this hotel, but there is a restaurant that will deliver) at 7:13 a.m. sigh.

oh, and Robin reports that through her, her friends in Canada have picked up on my habit of saying the word "sigh" out loud. how random is that. and internationally so.