Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Jessica is a friend of mine from high school. She kicked my ass into being more liberal - thanks, Jess. Then she and I were labelled as the two biggest bitches in several of our classes because we always yelled at the moron conservative assholes that never shut their f-ing mouths. See? There I go again.

Anyway, I have known Jess for over 13 years, which is hard to believe. We like to do sweet things like call each other "whore" and "slut" and "tramp" and much more creative names that mean the same thing. I'm not sure why, it's just a special bond that we have. (Well, in her case she really is a slut.)

Jess is awesome. She is always fun to hang out with, always fun to make fun of people with, and she is also the whore with the heart of gold. When I had my wisdom teeth (all four at once) taken out after my freshman year at college, she stole dogwood from her neighbor's tree and made me a pretty bouquet and also brought me a half gallon of my very favorite ice cream, Breyer's strawberry.

Rebecca is a friend of mine from Shawmut. A large part of our friendship is based on the fact that we are both big huge dorks. Seriously. You should see our high school pictures. We also really really hate it when people say "irregardless". It's just wrong.

Anyway, we both love animals just a little bit too much, and we always leave the house with too much pet hair on our clothes. Rebecca is a lot of fun and she is also a very nice person. Those aren't that easy to find believe it or not. She's also a mom to Crazy Amelie (I capitalized it for a reason, trust me), who is just over a year old.

I also got Rebecca addicted to crocheting, and I am quite proud of this fact. Seeing as how she has all sorts of extra time, what with having a baby and everything, it's good that I can fill it up for her with crochet projects.

Annette, aka "Annie Plean" (because of badly misspelled versions of her name on mail - her real last name is Pleau), is Amy's wife. They met through gay band (yes, it's true... they were both in a gay marching band) and the rest is history. Annette is very sweet and thoughtful and kind. I think she's grrrrrrrr-eat!

Annette and [[bio-AmyW Amy]] are two of the very few people in the world who are allowed to call me "Jenny". That means they are very very special. Other people might get punched if they opt to call me Jenny.

Annette was very scared of all of us roommates of Amy when she first met us because we were very protective of Amy and kept a watchful eye on them like crazy parents of a teenage daughter. Sorry, Annette! It's just because we love Amy so much! Now we would be just as protective of you.

[[bio-AmyW Amy]] and Annette bought their first house in August... well, they moved in August I guess they bought it in July... of 2004. It is very cute and they have moved into it so nicely and really made it a home. Hooray for A+A!

My dad gave himself the nickname "Keyrock" based on the character that Phil Hartman used to play on SNL, a really dumb one, where "Keyrock" was an "unfrozen caveman laywer". The setup was that he was a caveman that they found somewhere, unfroze, and he came back to life and then somehow became a lawyer. His defense in every case was that he was just a caveman and our world frightened and confused him, but that he did know one thing - his client was innocent. Or whatever was appropriate in the particular case.

Anyway, poor Dad has a hard time doing more than one thing at once. If he's on the phone ordering pizza, you can't have a conversation about anything at all within earshot or he'll be too distracted to order. I'm pretty sure he can't walk and chew gum very well. So somehow this translated into him quoting that line from SNL about how he's just a caveman and the world frighens and confuses him. Now along with that go all kinds of jokes about how back in caveman days they just counted by piling rocks up in a corner, etc. He uses the caveman excuse a lot.

My dad is from a big crazy Italian family, most of whom still live in or near their hometown of Waterbury, CT. He is a big fan of food and when we were growing up and he went on business trips, he would always be sure to regale us with tales of what meals he ate on the trip.

Dad is an engineer so he's a nerd, but he likes to tell you that he wanted to build bridges or that he wanted to go to MIT and be an architect. Come on, Dad, we all know you're too much of an engineer to be an architect. I think you did the right thing.

My parents met in college. For more about that, read about my [[bio-mom mom]].

Brian Andrew is my baby brother. He's eight years younger than me. [[bio-dan Dan]] and I screwed him up pretty good, along with my parents. We spent too much time when he was a baby telling him how cute and wonderful he was. I remember still when he was just learning to talk and one day my dad was carrying him and I said to him, "Brian, you're so cute," and he responded with, "I know." Oops.

Brian has most of the good attributes of me and Dan and fewer of the bad ones, except he is a lot like [[bio-keyrock Dad]]. Sorry, but it's true. Don't worry, Bri, we all are in one way or another. SIGH.

Anyway, Brian is very smart and also cares enough about school to want good grades (something [[bio-dan Dan]] and I lacked a little), which means he's better off than us. He also figured out a real profession to pursue and is in the very trying Architecture program at Auburn University.

Brian also has a good sense of humor (as all of us do of course) and a very pronounced sensitivity to injustice in every form, especially petty forms - this might be rivalled only by me. For instance, I think that if you drive in the left hand lane of the highway going less than the speed limit, you should have your license revoked. But I digress.

Brian used to spend all his time sitting in front of the TV eating chips and drinking Pepsi. Then he stopped drinking Pepsi and got really tall and skinny. Now I'm not saying drinking Pepsi stunts your growth or makes you overweight, but you can draw your own conclusions. I don't drink Pepsi anymore.

Dan is my little brother. Not my littlest brother, that's Brian. Although I think Brian is taller than Dan.

Anyway, Dan is four years younger than me. When he was little he had bad eyesight pretty young and was always wearing half-broken (because he'd constantly break them) glasses with tape on them. We called him "our little nerd". He also had crazy curly hair his whole life unlike me - mine only got really wacky around puberty. So he had crazy nerd glasses and crazy nerd hair. Poor Dan, he didn't stand a chance.

So now Dan lives in Hopkinton and is a computer scientist. Ha ha. I think he'd rather be sitting on a beach playing his guitar or something. He taught himself to play when he first got a guitar around age 15 or so. He got really good really fast. Also around this time he spontaneously re-took up playing the piano. I think he took lessons for about five minutes when he was really young. Now he's some kind of musical genius. Dan is very smart, as all of those in my immediate family are, of course.

Dan and I are branded as "hippies" by Brian, but the truth is, Dan is the only real hippie. I'm only a tiny bit more of a hippie than Brian but I don't think I can really qualify. I like pretty shoes too much. Meanwhile, as he once described during a visit, one of Dan's most closely held ideals is his "disdain of fancy clothes".

Rob Reed is my boyfriend. We have been together for over six years. Ewww, gross. We might as well be an old married couple because we hate each other so much. ;)

I call Rob Reed his full name like that, "Rob Reed" for some reason, I guess I blame Heather. Somehow it just sounds right.

Anyway, Rob Reed is some kind of IT genius but the world hasn't given him credit yet. He's in grad school at Tufts right now and generally being underappreciated by everyone around him, including our pets Billy, Emily and Bridget. If you need an IT guy you should hire Rob Reed and pay him twice what you were planning to pay because you'll get at least twice the work from him that you would from anyone else. When he was an IT director he worked like 80 hours a week and was being paid less than half what he should have been.

Rob Reed likes to play video games, read magazines, and watch movies and TV. However, there's not much on TV that's worthwhile right now, so mostly he likes to watch movies on our TV.

Rob Reed is pretty funny but you might not like to be around him if he thinks you are stupid because he'll tell you so. That's the beauty of Rob Reed. See the Quotes category on my weblog.

Bridget is a turtle. A red-eared snapper. I believe she was a 20th birthday present for Heather. Why she's not living in Kansas I don't really know. I keep telling Heather I'm going to ship her out there.

We need to build Bridget a better habitat but her tank did just get cleaned so she should be pretty happy. Of course she's not, and she makes frequent escapes, which involve her plunging 4+ feet to the hardwood floor. Luckily she has that whole hard-shell turtle thing going for her.

Emily is 12 years old. She is a very sweet cat but she is also very needy and crazy. She can never seem to calm down. When you're not giving her attention she desperately wants it. When you give her attention she wants you to give her less attention. She can't wait to climb in your lap but doesn't want you to pick her up. She's very crazy.

She also doesn't get along with [[bio-billy Billy]] very well. She likes to provoke him and he likes to snarl and bark at her. It's very annoying. Stop it you two!

But she did copy [[bio-billy Billy]] as she recently took up sleeping under the covers in bed with us, which Billy has always done. She's been less insistent lately, but I often wake up to her climbing all over me trying to get under the covers.

Billy the dog is our puppy. He's not a puppy at all, he's over nine and a half years old, but we call him our puppy. When I say "our" I mean the [[bio-badboy badboy family]].

Billy has attitude and battitude. He is a grump and a bully and a bit anti-social. But he is also very sweet and cute. He is clearly the best-looking dalmation I have seen around, though he's not a showdog by the AKC's standards. Of course, if he met someone from the AKC he would bite them so who cares?

Billy has a serious drooling problem and is a crazy creature of habit. If you don't immediately give him a biscuit or his dinner when he comes in from outside he stands in the kitchen loudly demanding it. If you dare to eat anything ever he drools about a tablespoon of drool per second. The smartest thing we've ever done is to get a bar-height table in our new apartment so he can't get his drool on us, or steal food off the table.

Rumor has it that Billy went through obedience training but I'm still doubtful.