Random thoughts (while STILL waiting for someone to tape the Pats/Raiders playoff gm for me...:)...I've always been jealous of folks who can dance! I like to think I'm relatively athletic, if not graceful, but, 'cept for something VERY slow, I'm a complete klutz on a dancefloor, I look like a total spazz!...A couple of actresses I'll watch in just about anything: Elisabeth Shue (she is SUCH a woman!), and Jill Hennessy...and a few actors: Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, and Brian Dennehy...Is it just me, or are the 70's perhaps the most under-rated decade around? Granted, I was just a kid back then, but they seemed to be a fun time, a time when folks took a break from the excesses of hippie idealism and "revolution" and before folks got back to the business of being about business...they just had FUN, didn't take a whole lot of stuff seriously...drugs weren't bad, sex didn't kill, and whether it was mellow pop, rock, disco, or punk, it was a party...guess I was born too late!...Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" was a great read, a departure from anything he's done previously, with an unusual ending...I hope to also find some time to make a trip up to Cape Ann this summer...And just what IS going to happen to Big East football? And does ANYONE (save for a certain sportsfanette down in Medfield, hee!) care?...Pats open camp Wednesday :)

"Wendy let me in, I wanna be your friend/I wanna guard your dreams and visions..."

Been gettin' a lil too introspective, a lil too melancholy, a lil too SERIOUS here lately- snap out of it, girl! (I'm not sure why, but it does become old and tedious pretty quickly, huh?!)

Less than one week til the Pats open camp! Looking forward to good things from them this year...and I've been formulating my "All-Time All-Patriots Team!" (actually, it will only go back to the mid/late 70's- to be eligible, I actually had to have seen them play...my rule! lol!) So stay tuned!...Have started doing a little writing again, first thing in a long time, a short story idea I'd had kicking around in my head for a lil while...it's still a l-o-n-g way from being near complete, but...And I'm feelin' the need to do a lil shopping soon, it's been a long time; if nuthin' else, I should be able to get a deal on some summer close-outs ;)...Hoping to make a trip down to the Cape sometime this summer as well, haven't been there in quite awhile...not once last year, haven't been this year, either...A nice, sunny late afternoon/evening, gonna git!

"Whose bed have your boots been under?/And whose heart did you steal I wonder, baby..."

A drizzly Friday evening...I know where'd I'd rather be tonight (well, ANYwhere! But...:)...down at the South Shore Music Circus, where tonight...The Righteous Brothers! "Unchained Melody," anyone? Mmmmmm...:)

I was looking back at one of my entires from the very end of last year, where I sorta outlined what I hoped to accomplsih this year...to date, the results are, well, mixed...certain things I've done about as I hoped, mostly related to diet & exercise (the easy things, I know! But my #$%! abs still can use more work- waaaaahhhhh!)...also, I did a bit of re-design work on my website, which I wanted to do...and have tried to add some new and fresher material as possible...and I've also tried to be a bit more out-going, tried to break out of my tendencyt to be too reserved and/or introverted...but in other ways, so far, I haven't made quite the progress I wanted...too often, I still don't push myself much beyond my comfort zone...employment-wise, it's also been status quo (this economy HAS to kick and improve soon; it'd better)...but I suppose I need to be more pro-active, more risk-willing as well (story of my life, right?!)...TG-wise...I have some fairly strong ideas of where I'd like to go (and have a few people who have been VERY actively pushing me- in a positive way!- to move forward w/ that as well)...some of it is dollar-dependent, but more of it is still, I dunno, "other-people-in-my-life" dependent...and there are a few people who I feel I've failed, and I don't know how to change that...but overall, while I would like to be doing FAR more of the things I want and need to do for fulfillment, I can't complain, either...overall, I tend to like myself, who I am, even if I'm not quite the person I eventually hope to be- yet (and I still have another six months or so to fulfill the remainder of what I hope to accomplish in '03! :) Again, if I could pick just one thing, it would be to be MUCH more pro-active in everything I do!

"I know you find it hard, to reason with me/But this time it's different, darlin' you'll see..."

Good run this morning, so-so workout this afternoon...it's been HOT! But I'll take it, beats the alternative...been able to get my mileage back up there consistently, last several mornings now I've been doing between 5 1/2 to 6 miles...about time! Just have to get a little more motivated for my afternoon gym workouts...one good thing about this weather is that, for whatever reason, it kills my appetite, makes me want to eat less, just not too hungry (can always stand to lose a few more pounds...might even make that welterweight goal...maybe! :) Workin' on my tan when I can, too!

The July 4th weekend was good, not too taxing...ran a roadrace that morning, went to a cookout later in the day, nice time, relaxing for a change...anticipating a bit of extended time free later this month (she types w/ fingers crossed)...Red Sox' bats came alive vs. the Yankees this past weekend, still waiting to see the final score of today's game...And the Pats open up camp later this month, the 23rd, yay! Camp is at Gillette Stadium this year, no longer down at Bryant College; maybe I'll make it down this year, haven't been for a few years now...they're rumored to be switching to a 3-4 defense this season...it can't come soon enuf for me- go Pats!...Sports Illustrated had a piece recently about Bo Jackson...you almost forget just how good Bo was; here was a guy who could TRULY do it all, at a high level, and by all accounts was a genuinely good guy...with so many of the stories about sports stars (and others) getting into trouble, or being horrible egomaniacs, or having their accomplishments over-rated, it's a shame that someone who would have been one of the all-time greats in both football and baseball had his career cut down so soon due to injury...Bo knows...:)

RIP- Buddy Ebsen

"Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed/Poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed/Then one day he was shootin' for some food/When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude (Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea...)" (You KNEW this was coming! :)