Well, sort of on topic: putting kids on antihistamines with the intent of making them sleepy is kind of a crapshoot. Some kids get really drowsy, but some kids -- and not an insignificant number, either -- go TOTALLY OFF THE RAILS. I mean they get crazy, bouncing-off-the-walls hyperactive with exactly the same drug that puts their agemates into La La Land.

So be very, very careful with the advice that traveling parents dope their kids up, lest you be the one who finds yourself sitting next to some Benadryl-dosed five year old who is standing on the arm of your seat trying to climb into the luggage bin above your head.

My hearing is down 70% since that!

Funny you should mention hearing loss...

I was on a JetBlue flight to Oakland once and in the row directly next to me a kid who was *way* too old to be behaving like that in public (probably 7 or so) was throwing the loudest tantrum I have ever heard. I mean just screaming, howling, wailing, absolutely roaring at the top of his lungs and ALL the flight attendants (poor things, they all had this wild-eyed frantic look about them) were trying to figure out how to stop him crying. They waved magic wands or something and conjured crayons, paper, animal crackers, drinks, everything out of thin air and finally managed to settle him down a little bit, about 20 minutes into the flight.

The punchline? Both of his parents were deaf. DEAF! I shit you not, they sat there sort of idly trying to get him to calm down but not making a huge fuss out of it why? BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T FUCKING HEAR HOW AWFUL IT WAS!!!

I'm as New Deal lefty as they come, but I thought the Al Gore thing was hilarious, especially his signature "Excelsior!" call as he pretends to fly away.

But more importantly, there was an episode are couple of months back where ManBearPig turned out to be real after all...

Are you at Harvard or Yale? New Haven is kind of a shithole, but the Cambridge/Boston area is a great place to live. There's so much to do around here, don't do what I did (I went to the big Catholic school just over the river) and squander your time feeling gloomy and angsty. It sounds really cliche, but you will look back on this year and think what a waste of time it was being depressed and sad and bluesy.

Look, it's your freshman year, and freshman year is one big long miserable adjustment period even without a West Coast/East Coast culture-shock thing (how'd you like that December 13th snowstorm?!). You're on your own for the first time, you have to negotiate friends and housing and school and life all on your own for the first time. It's tough, but it will all shake out. The one thing I realized about my freshman year is that the people I was friends with were only friends because we didn't know anyone else yet. Not all friendships are meant to last. Sometimes they fade out and its OK, sometimes it's really sad and hard and lonely when they end. That's the world. I was the one who got booted from the clique that I hung out with when it came time to pick roommates, and I was devastated, BUT! I will tell you that the girls I wound up living with sophomore year -- the ones that picked me up because they needed an eighth person and I was randomly selected from a book! -- became my fast friends through college and beyond. My immediate roommate is still my closest friend, 13 years later.

I guess this is a lesson that only comes with age and experience, but one thing you will discover is that pain passes. You just need to know that, and ride it out. While you're doing that -- to keep yourself from living completely inside your own head -- go outside (since the weather just turned!) Take yourself for a walk along the river and watch the cherry trees come into bloom. Pick some blossoms and put them in your hair. Go for a bike ride, there is a bike shop in Central, right on Mass Ave down towards MIT that rents bikes by the day ($25, I think, maybe a little more now). Get some exercise.

This, too, shall pass. The Dude abides. Que sera sera.

Words to live by.

And I'm with the previous poster--I, too, have been wondering lately why we don't keep chickens--they eat bugs and grass and can live under redwoods. They're not quite as entertaining as cats, but they do have some personality.

Because chicken shit smells awful? Not as bad as pig shit, but pretty freaking close. If I'm you're neighbor, you are going to make an enemy of me really fast if you start keeping chickens in a close-set neighborhood.

I grew cukes last year and two of them came up well. But my backyard has no sun (I can't even grow grass there) and my front yard had really sandy soil and is on the road and also has trash blowing into it from god knows where so I don't really want soot and trash and road schmutz all over my food.

I have a female relative who either is insane or just acts insane and she rides the train growling at people and talking to herself. The fact that she's a well dressed attorney is just more disconcerting.

One of my best friends from college grew up in the Bronx and she told me her strategy for keeping safe on the subway was to use body language to convince everyone around her that she was way, way crazier than them.