Year of Cotton

Happy 2nd Anniversary to Sween in the Bean. I can't believe it's been two years, and in another sense I can't believe it has only been two!

The changes a year will bring! You've been there for the ups, the downs and the many, many laughs!!! Personally, I've enjoyed the addition of Random Tuesdays since that's what the mission of my blog is: to share the randomness of my thoughts.

Since the blog has become an entity of its own, I asked a few of my friends to share their thoughts on Sween in the Bean's 2nd anniversary!

"I like feeling like I spend a lot more time in kate's kitchen than i really do. [I also like] seeing kate tell the entire world that i was right." -Andy (apparently the "Entire world" reads my blog!)

"The blog is creative, funny, and even educational. Thanks for entertaining me for the past 2 years--I know I'd miss not having Sween in the Bean around. " -Chrissy

"It provides a nice couple of minutes break from work, and I look forward to seeing what fun little tidbit you posted or what you did over the weekend. It provides the sort of daily connection with friends that I miss having when we were all roommates." - Liz

And now Kev's "Ten ways in which Sween in the Bean has changed my life since it’s inception in 2006, both the good and the bad"

1. Bad - Pressure. My jokes and my clothes have to be fresh. Knowing whatever I say or do can be published for the world to see stresses me out. The wrinkled (and let’s be honest, probably dirty) shirt that would be fine on any other day has to go back in the closet on days when I hang out with Kate. The pressure to try to be funny, but not appear to be trying to be funny for the blog is walking a fine line. I often wonder if when I tell Kate a joke that she thinks I’m just posturing for the blog… I am.

2. Good – Conversation starters. Sween in the Bean has a Facebook effect for people without Facebook. For instance, instead of asking Andy what he did this weekend, I often find myself saying things like, “Hey, I read in Sween in the Bean that you tailgated before the BC game with Kate. Good time?” It’s my social e-network, with far less stalking capabilities.

3. Bad – Reminders that I’m out of touch. I haven’t heard of half of the musicians that Kate references nowadays. Half is probably generous. To think we used to go back and forth on what was coming out back in our Kelton Street days.

4. Good – e-knowing people. I picked Kate up for a night of drinks with KB and Marc one night and she was talking to Jeremy on the way to my car. “Would it freak Jeremy out right now if some guy that knew him from the internet said ‘hey, Jeremy!’?” I asked.

5. Bad – drunken pictures. I hate pictures of myself regardless of the circumstance, never mind after I’ve had a few. Even in the sober ones I find myself saying “have I really put on that much weight?”

6. Good – drunken pictures. On the flip side, there’s nothing better than drunken pictures of others. Calling someone out for being drunk is probably the most annoying, yet natural, tendencies of men and women ages 18-60 years old. We can’t help ourselves, even if we know how grating it can be when someone does it to you. And the jokes are never, ever original, “nice picture, dude… looks like someone had a good time last night… how much did you drink?.”

7. Bad – Boston. I occasionally miss living in Boston and seeing everyone and reading the blog often makes me want to move back there. Great city.

8. Good - the timing. Every once in a while I read the blog and think “thank God Kate didn’t have this when we lived together.” I’m envisioning posts that went something along the lines of “Kevin woke me up playing playstation at 7:30am (editor’s note: my tv was so old I couldn’t adjust the volume, so it was LOUD -- to turn it off I had to unplug it… it was also leaning against Kate’s bedroom to boot), I can’t sleep anymore because he decided five hours of sleep was enough last night, so I might as well take the trash out because God knows he’ll never do it… okay, it’s now 10 and I think he just went back to bed. I won’t be seeing him until at least 11:30 now. If he talks about that stupid squirrel on our porch one more time I might wring his neck! Yes, it probably is rabid, can we move on? At least my mom likes him.” I might have single-handedly destroyed the blog if it started in 2004.

9. Bad – how it makes other blogs feel. I polled other Bostonian bloggers on what it’s like writing in the same realm as Sween in the Bean and I thought this line was the most telling, “I now know how Chris Quinn felt after having to share a shower with Shaq.”

10. Good – spinoff possibilities. While a devastating force for competing bloggers, Sween in the Bean has paved the way for a number of us to start blogs under the S.I.T.B. umbrella. Just the Ten of Us had no shot without Growing Pains. There’s no Eric Mangini with no Bill Belichick. Sween in the Bean could become a franchise, not just an individual blog. I’m envisioning “Marc in the ‘Ham”, “Elena on the Hill”, “Mitch on the Court” or “Niles in the Departed” springing up in ’09. In the end though there will only be one Sween in the Bean.