music: Townhall -2/15/2004
This, of course, amounts to absolutely nothing in the larger picture but it’s worth saying now, especially because it’s not something that can be said a whole lot:
The Milwaukee Brewers have the best record in baseball right now! They have a 5 game lead on the second place Reds, and are 7.5 games up on the defending champion (and arch enemies) Cardinals.
And if that wasn’t enough: The Red Sox are close behind the Brew Crew in winning percentage, in first place in the AL East, while the Yankees are in last.
I haven’t been this psyched about baseball since the 80’s.
music: Phish- 9/12/2000, Mansfield, MA
This one came from duncan, by way of TiMO. It’s very much worth a look.
It is, of course, a shame that Brian’s home would be so forcefully torn down. I’d expect the Law to not give the man much wiggle room, especially after living on the fringes of society for so long, but to raze such a magnificient structure? At the very least they should preserve it, charge admission, and use the money to fund homeless shelters. As TiMO pointed out, there is very little that is different between Brian Joyce’s endeavours and that of Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s homestead at Walden Pond, some 15 miles to the West, is now a historical and recreational park. Brian Joyce’s homestead, perhaps more impressive in that he built it with supplies and materials scavenged and found for over 5 years, and did so literally under the noses of a couple million people, is now a patch of dirt.
What is striking to me here is that someone is able to live like this for five years, virtually unbothered and virtually undetected, in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. When I was in Boston I had absolutely no idea that Brian Joyce existed, but his tenure in his house was almost exactly the same as my own in JP, Allston, Cambridge, and Somerville. Think of all the rent money I could have saved…
This is not a normal picture of homelessness. Many homeless people are homeless not by choice, but by one circumstance or another. Homelessness is a terrible byproduct of a social system where the distribution of incredible amounts of wealth is so uneven, as well as an indicator of certain types of institutionalized prejudices. But in the case of Brian Joyce, a very sharp and strong and willful and lucid figure, I can’t help but romantacize homelessness a little bit. Brian has found a way to work his way between the big teathers of society and subsist on what everyone else has cast aside. This is, no doubt, not an easy way to do things, and is probably uncomfortable at times, perhaps somewhat dangerous at other times, but I support Brian’s efforts. He is a walking practice of what so many have just read about the so-called “Great American Novels.” How many of us have cast down the river like Huck and Jim? How many of us have jumped trains like Jack and Dean? How many of us have dropped everything, built a one-room cabin by a pond, and lived in it for two years like Henry? Damn near none of us. But Brian Joyce has. His homelessness can be construed as unfortunate, but I think in this particular case Brian’s homelessness is the reason for his extraordinary life.
music: none
In a few hours, once I’ve packed up my laptop, sleeping bag, and buttpack and thrown them into the front seat of my car, and after I haul what furniture of mine is left in the pumpkin-colored room at 12 Curtis into the basement, I’ll drive west on I-90. Away from Boston and the East Coast, into the sunset. Five years I’ve been in Boston, and nine years on the East Coast, and it’s time. It’s been time, I think. Since I got back from my road trip two years ago I’ve had my eyes on the Western horizon, waiting for the day when I could pack all my worldly possessions into my car and drive. That day is today.
I think I’ve spent so much time thinking about today that the actual event is a bit anticlimactic. At this point I’ve said my goodbyes-and-see-you-laters, I’ve tied up as many loose ends as life would allow, and I’ve distilled my material goods to that which can fit into my car. I’ve been feeling sort of dissociated from all of it this past week, in a fugue state of sorts, maybe to soften the blow of a major life transition. But even in my leaving some things comfort me; I’ll roll out of here much like I rolled in, with a little cold, a degree of exhaustion, and Peet waving me on from the porch. But this time is quite different; I’m headed into a big question mark for the first time in my life with no real plans or immediate goals. Should be interesting.
Connecticut today, the Midwest by Tuesday, Colorado by Friday, the Pacific ocean a week after that. Some stops in the Rockies and Utah to add some spice to the whole trip. Then some wandering through the Sierra Nevadas, and after that…who knows? The rear of my car is about 3-4 inches lower than it normally is, exhaust pipe clearance is less than comforting. But after 200-odd years of Americans pushing their wagons west to seek their fortunes, that isn’t going to stop much.
There is change in the air. My world in Boston is in a great deal of transition, and it’s not just me. I never did fully take to this city; a good deal of my energy was spent trying to work my way around Boston and it’s idiosyncracies. Staying any longer would have been counterproductive. Perhaps I stayed too long as it was, but nothing can be done about that now. There were some good things here…Chowdahaus, Live Live, Tuesday nights at Matt Murphy’s, grad school, 12 Curtis, the Biosphere, teaching….there will be things that I will miss, and people too. But it’s time. It’s been time. There’s much ahead to be excited about, and I am completely unencumbered and hold no obligations. I can do whatever I want. The freedom is intoxicating.
music: none
My roommate Jenn asked me what I would miss most about Boston a couple days ago. There’s a lot that’s happened in the past 5 years here, and a lot that I will miss, but the one thing that stood out in my mind was the biosphere, the music studio the basement of 12 Curtis. Every week (or almost every week) for the past year and a half I’ve descended to the basement and played my heart out. The biosphere has become a cruciible of artistic output, and has spurred me to push my music. What was accomplished down there isn’t groundbreaking or earth shattering on a consumable level, but the biosphere sessions hold a very significant place in my personal musical growth. Even looking back on the first biosphere sessions in February of 2005, it’s amazing how much has changed.
Two years ago the back of our basement was filled with tons of scrap, 30 years-worth of collected waste in a neglected triple-decker. The fall of 2004 saw a collective form here; 12 Curtis ceased to be three separate apartment units and became a house. With that, an opportunity: transform the basement into usable space. Ron and Tim cleared some space for workshop projects, and Peet started a modest bike repair center. Matt dreamt bigger than that; he singlehandedly designed and built a room in which music could be made. I initially thought he was thinking too big; just a cleared-out corner would be enough. But Matt persisted with minimal help and by November a room had in fact taken form. It was an incredible gift, although I did not know it at the time. Little by little the Biosphere flushed itself out, with gear and decor being added at a healthy rate until the room was packed with amplifiers, speakers, drums, microphones, posters, a mixer, guitar stands, and most importantly, people to use all the equipment on a regular basis. We had a fully-functioning music studio right in our basement, and roommates who not only tolerated the racket but encouraged it. The biosphere became my favorite room in the house; walking through the double doors was a transformation. You could leave the rest of the world out there. The biosphere was its own world, a haven.
We had a party at 12 Curtis this weekend, and a well-attended one at that. It was the final time I would play in the Biosphere. Because of this the night was bittersweet, a celebration with a tinge of nostalgia. One of my musical projects had ended almost a month previous, so it was left to Matt, Sebastian, Duncan, and me to close things out down there. I was glad to be able to do it with witnesses, to share what had been going on down there for the past year and a half. We had our last gig on our home turf, in the most comfortable setting to make music that I could hope for. We put up a good effort, at this point so locked in to each other that music came as second nature, and people responded positively. Never before had I seen people dancing (and dancing hard!) to music that I made, and I was floored because of it. We ended modestly, with a small sigh and without much fanfare, and that was that. Last Saturday my time in the biosphere came to an end.
I can’t say how much more my mental health would have suffered had i not been able to go down to the biosphere, plug in, and play whenever I felt like making music. I can’t say how thankful I am that there was a place to play (and play loud!) right in my own house. I’ve meticulously archived all the biosphere sessions, and can say that I’m very proud of the music I’ve made down there. I can’t see a music-making situation as perfect as the biosphere wherever I end up. Most likely I’ll have to rent space, travel with considerable effort to some place in order to play. I still don’t know how good I had it. But it is time to move on from my basement, I think. Says Anansi: The important thing about songs is that they’re like stories. They don’t mean a damn unless there’s people listening to them. I’ll continue to play music, probably for the rest of my life. I hope to get into some inspiring and challenging musical arrangements, but I doubt that anything will be as familiar, accessible, and comfortable as the biosphere.
I spent a couple hours this morning breaking down my gear and carrying it out of that room. Of all the uprooting that has to happen with a cross-country move, I think that moving out of the Biosphere will be the hardest.
music: Robert Johnson- King of the Delta Blues
It’s funny to hear someone with a Boston accent make fun of someone with a worse Boston accent.
music: Strangefolk- 9/1/2002 (Acoustic Set)
“I need to reclaim my identity this weekend,” says Reuben as I swung by his house in Bayside late-night on Wednesday. It was thanksgiving weekend and we were back in Milwaukee. And he was correct: the weekend was all about reclaiming an identity.
The past two or so weeks have been hazy and I have been in varying states of fugue. This is mostly due to my having dental surgery last week-a lovely affair that involved cutting a rectangle of flesh out of the roof of my mouth and sewing it onto my lower gums. I tried to plow through the ordeal and carry on with business-as-usual, but was stymied by pain and complications involving blood blisters. As a result I spent a lot of time convalescing, sucking down applesauce, carrot juice, and avocados almost exclusively. I was underfed and in a good amount of pain and got bent out of shape in a pretty nasty way. The trip home, on a very simple level, was about reintroducing solid food (and good food!) to my diet, and working myself out of invalid status.
Far be it from me to function on one simple level. Digging a little deeper on the flight home I flashed realization of being uprooted and disconnected from my immediate reality in Boston. Many of my people have cleared out this year, I have been spending the majority of my time hunkered down with red pens and lesson plans, I have been doing all I can to avoid the those attributes that draw most people to Boston in the first place. My jaw has been clenched and eyebrows have been furrowed more often than not. I have caught myself anticipating a change on the horizon, waiting for something, but of course there is nothing that will happen unless I make it happen. I landed in Milwaukee very glad to be there, and more than that, very glad to not be in Boston.
I found the place I’m from to be something other than a static entity for the first time since I left. There is a massive push for civic improvement and urban renewal in Milwaukee right now; things I remember being there from my childhood are being ripped out, redone, and fixed up. Even my house is undergoing amazing changes. Mom and Rich are working on an addition to the house that adds a ridiculous amount of space onto it, for the better I think, but it rocks the foundations of what I take to be my home. On a smaller scale the furniture that I remember from growing up is slowly being phased out. It’s just the next step in a series of changes that are transforming home into something more and more foreign. It’s not like I’ve had a room there for years. I never felt more like a visitor at 7630 than this year.
But identity has less to do with the physical plant of Brew City and more to do with the cast of characters that took me by storm this weekend. It happens every thanksgiving break, and I know it will, but I still can’t prepare for it. Seeing the family is a rollercoaster of action and emotion, a tug-of-war of needs, desires, obligations, emotions, and relationships. The extended family is much more simple in many ways, and visiting with family was spectacular this year. It seems to get better as I get older, and seems to be more potent the less I am in Milwaukee.
The nights in Milwaukee hardly end after family dinners, and many of the most honest moments concerning my rediscovering where I’m from happen later into the night at some of the fine midwestern drinking establishments that are strategically placed every block or two. There is an understanding among different social circles that certain places are designated meeting places, and I spent nights bouncing between these places, planning on meeting up with some key members of the inner sanctum but fully expecting to run into more peripheral friends and acquaintances from years past. The camp/high school balancing act was once again carefully staged and executed pretty well. Friends from high school continue to be able to pick up exactly where we left off last time without skipping a beat. And the camp gathering this year was brilliant. More often than not I ended up finding a camp gathering far too young, attended more by my campers than my peers. This year, though, a core group of my peers gathered and celebrated the fact that we somehow have managed to transcend the fact that we all met at camp, and that “camp friends” were now just friends. Through no planning on my own I ended up running into a couple of people that I haven’t seen for about 10 years, and was really glad I did. I was left beaming, proud to know such great people and feeling very lucky for it. My people are good people, no matter how long it has been since we last crossed paths. People have done amazing and not-so-amazing things with themselves, people have changed in some ways, people have moved all over the country and world, but given a couple days to catch up none of that mattered much. My friends and family-these people have a lot to do with my own identity because of the past that we’ve shared. Although that is a hard pill to swallow sometimes I really enjoy getting slapped across the face with it.
I arrived in Boston this afternoon completely exhausted, but feeling better than I have in weeks. And not because I was back in Boston. After a weekend in Milwaukee I felt once again connected to something, even though that something is nebulous and itself evolving. CJ, whose presence in the absence of his family stood testament to the power of all his friends, showed me an internet site this weekend. It’s based on this premise-a dynamic web of identities all connected to one another. A Venn Diagram of incalculable proportions. Taken in sum, the web of people and names and places could represent something like an identity.
One of my tragic flaws is the ability to focus almost exclusively on my immediate present and forget about people and places distant and far-flung, but I was reminded this weekend that who I am has everything to do with where I’m from. Perhaps some of the struggle and disconnection I’ve experienced in Boston has been because I’ve not fully grasped that point.
Back to it tomorrow, and I can’t say I’m excited about it. I can’t say I’m all that excited to be here right now. But as Reuben and I were driving back from the East Side of Milwaukee early this morning, we both agreed that to whatever extent possible identities were reclaimed. And that is reason to give thanks.
I can not have a future ‘till I embrace my past
I promise to pursue the challenge; time is going fast
music: Tea Leaf Green- 3/11/2005, Petaluma, CA
It was the first legitimately nice no-jacket day of the year today and people seemed to be in good spirits all around the city. I decided to conduct a mini-experiment as I was walking from the 1-2 to Davis: make eye contact with everyone that I walk past and smile. I passed 27 people. 11 didn’t look at me at all. The other 16 averted eye contact as soon as our eyes met. No discernable smiles, although some close call tight-lipped grimaces. There was, however, one biker who I made eye contact with, and he actually crossed the street and pulled over to say hi. It was Peet.
0 for 27. Must be because I don’t have a beard anymore. Although I’m tempted, I’ll withhold making conclusions from the gathered data because it’s just too discouraging. Perhaps more randomized trials will have to be implemented.
—
In better news, my travel guitar arrived today. I’ll give it a field test in Utah before bringing it along to parts unknown this summer. It’s good to know that I’ll have a guitar to pick while sitting around campfires deep in the outback…
music: Spearhead- Chocolate Supa Highway
March 1. Another snow day. I’m already dreading that last week in June.
I decided to make the best of it and headed out to the Someday for a day of lesson planning, dabbling in some school-wide initiatives, and attempting to finally finish the book I’ve been reading since September Rolled in, parked my stuff on the green couch, put on my chinatown slippers, and set myself up with a pot of tea. Did some planning, did some writing for a school handbook, did some thinking about what to do with the kids who are probably going to fail for the year, and pounded the last 80 pages of the Krakauer book. All the while, I became aware of people around me with similar binders and textbooks filled with content far too simple for adults. I slowly realized that the Someday was filled with teachers-about 3/4 of the people in there were teachers. Teachers of all sorts working on some stuff during the snow day. We all sort of picked up on it after a while and made some small talk about the snow day phenomenon. Then I finished up as quickly as I could and got the hell out of there. Teachers are generally good people, but I spend far too much of my time with them. I need to be around regular people every now and then.
No, teachers aren’t regular people. People who willfully choose to spend their day with dozens of teenagers that aren’t theirs are not regular people.
The Someday is a great little spot to lounge and work, although it’s almost too comfortable. I kick back with my slippers and a mug of tea, put my feet up on the furniture, the music in the background…it might as well be my living room. If I really have to get stuff done I should start going to Diesel. There’s a good productive vibe there, and you can find a corner way in the back and really get down to stuff. But can someone really walk into Diesel and order a pot of herbal tea?
music: Mozart- Requiem
I rode my bike to work today. It was the first time I had a chance to do this since the big blizzard. The snowbanks narrowed streets by at least a foot on each side and there were still big patches of ice so I had to behave myself, but it felt good to be pedaling again. My car is convienent, yes, and on some days actually takes close to the same amount of time as biking, but I realized just how sorely lacking my life is of exercise these days and just how isolated I am from the natural environment. Both, I think, are contributing to a slowing of personal functioning, and getting up and out on my bike today was a nice first step in pushing against that friction.
I have been feeling guilty about driving. I just can’t justify the selfishness of driving four or so miles in 20 or so minutes twice a day five days a week. It’s consumption and laziness, plain and simple. My car is great for days with bad weather and when I have to carry lots of supplies or bring home notebooks to grade but most days it’s just me, a backpack, and no rain. Even if I am not biking I should bring a book with me, budget in an extra 30 minutes to my commute and take the T. At least, then, I wouldn’t be as personally reliant on oil, wouldn’t be contributing to greenhouse gas build-up, and wouldn’t be making traffic worse. Sitting in a sealed box of steel, plastic, and glass for almost an hour a day can’t that great for my mental well-being either. My students are shocked that I ride my bike even though I have a car; I am shocked at their value systems. Shocked, but not all that surprised in the end. We grow up here assuming the primacy of the automobile and it takes a lot of unconditioning to think otherwise.
Still, some days something’s got to give in my world. I work hard, I operate on less sleep than I’d like, I probably don’t eat enough. It feels as though I am struggling against the current most waking minutes of the day. Biking in Boston is also quite a struggle. It’s a feat of physical exertion and intense concentration, yes, but to take on the worst traffic in the country as well as the New England winter weather on a fully-exposed two-wheeler is not really a soothing experience. Some days it’s exactly what I need at the end of work, but other days it’s the last thing I want to deal with. I needed to deal with it today. I needed the exercise, I needed to not sit inside the steel cage of my car. My bike (and my pants) collected a respectable amount of ice, grit, and dirt today and I inhaled enough exhaust fumes to give me a clobbering headache on the way home, but after almost a month of not biking it felt alright. Anything to put some energy behind my existence these days. Anything to get me back in the flow of traffic, weaving in and out of obstacles, slipping by danger, somehow finding a way to get to where I’m going. Conditions were not perfect today and I found myself moving much slower than I would like but I eventually got there. We’ll see how I choose to negotiate traffic tomorrow. Something’s got to give.
music: Professor Longhair- Anthology d.2
It is widely believed among the baseball nation that when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920, the Sox fell under a curse. Despite having some of the best teams in the game the Red Sox could not win a world series. Tonight, after 86 years, the curse was lifted. The Red Sox won game 4 of the World Series against the Cardinals and became world champions.
We were tuned in at Duncan and Amy’s house up in Arlington, but we still heard the roar. You could feel the entire metropolitan area of Boston rumble as the last out was made-a couple million fans screaming their heads off really does make things shake a little. Peet and I got on our bikes and shot down Mass Ave into Kenmore Square, Ground Zero for Red Sox celebrations. The only other thing I have seen like this celebration was New Year’s Eve 2000 at Big Cypress. There were fireworks. There were whistles and drums. There was lots and lots of horn honking. There were sirens, cops on bikes, cops in riot gear, choppers with huge spotlights. There were lots and lots of people. It’s now 2:00 AM. The city is still raging.
Three things struck me about this occasion. The first is that in the baseball world, this is truly historic. Never mind that the Sox staged one of the most impressive comebacks in sports history (winning the last four games against the Yankees after being down 3-0 and solidly sweeping the Cardinals), this victory goes much deeper than this single season. The Red Sox are the quintissential second best, and (until now) the most recognized underdogs in the game alongside the Chicago Cubs. That the Sox finally pulled out a World Series victory is a victory for the underdog. And don’t this city know it; the collection of fans here live and die by this baseball team, mostly die, and have suffered through four generations of disappointment. Although I grew up rooting for the Sox (behind the hometown Brewers, a real lost cause) I haven’t been invested in the team the way the locals and other fans have. Even this season-I was gone travelling for the bulk of the season. But given the history, given my experience (I remember watching Buckner’s imitation of a croquet wicket in 1986 and being near tears), and given this city’s relationship to their baseball team, this is a historic evening. I feel an entire city’s anger and frustration and disappointment evaporate, I honestly feel that a weight has been lifted from Boston, and albatross cut from our collective necks. The city is a little more buoyant. Not a lot, but noticably so.
The second is that sports are a powerful force in our society. Tonight I witnessed a very earnest and beautiful celebration, and it was one shared by people of all sorts. Sports is the great equilizer; it crosses age, class, and race lines. It is something two people from very different realities can share with one another, it is a common ground upon which to stand. Tonight people from all walks of life gathered in Boston’s streets to celebrate. Tonight I got high-5’s all the way from Arlington, through Somerville and Harvard, down to Kenmore. I’ve never seen as many Bostonites recognize and interact with each other as tonight. I am reminded that no matter how hard things may be, no matter where you are coming from and what you are doing with yourself, it is important to take time to share with your community and to be happy. That sports can provide this is very powerful.
The third is a sense of wonder, as in “what now?” Boston is a rough edged place, filled with people who are crass and brusque, people who seem to have a chip on their shoulder about something at any given time. It has been the norm here to bitch about things, and the Red Sox Curse has been the city symbol for how things just don’t seem to go our way. Now that the Sox have finally won a World Series, what will come of all the negativity? Will this city actually start being positive? Will people stop to acknowledge others’ existences on the street? Maybe I’m asking for too much. Probably. But I can’t imagine this will be bad for morale around here. There is a certain stoic nobility in the mentality of the underdog. Now that we are not the underdog any longer, I think things will change. I hope they will But now a new dilemma: are we that much different from our arch-rivals, the Yankees?
I suppose that none of that matters tonight. The Red Sox are World Series Champions, this city is celebrating in grand fashion, and the curse is lifted. This is great. This is enough. The real problem now is managing to get to work on time tomorrow.
Last night was also a lunar eclipse. Hey, whatever it takes.
music: Charles Mingus- Oh Yeah
Anyone who has navigated a bike through Boston has experienced a type of anger unknown to the rest of the human population. This city is easily the worst city in the country for driving, but luckily most of the people here are horrible drivers. things even out for motorists, but plug bikes into the equation and aggrivation ensues. I’ve been biking here for the better part of three years now, and while it remains the most efficient and fastest way to get around, I am still sometimes ready to swear off the whole business. This past week was one of those bad weeks for pedal pushers.
I don’t know what it was: the beginning of fall? the crush of college kids filling the streets again? Something was in the water this week that made people drive crazy. I’ve never been cut off or ignored on my bike as much as I had been this past week. Road construction seemed to be at an all-time high. I don’t think it was me either-i’ve been riding as I always have, aspiring to the likes of S.T.: defensive, but aggressive. And making like there’s a million dollar bounty on my head.
The usual obstacles were there, and bad. drivers turning right that pretend you are not there and cut you off, cars at a stoplight lined up too close to the curb, and of course the evil behemoth of the road, the witless, clumsy leviathan, a biker’s worst enemy-the MBTA bus. All this I had to deal with, yes, but my battle royale this week took things to biblical proportions. Literally. This week involved a near-miss with a moving van with the word “Goliath” printed on the side. The symbolism is almost too uncanny. But it is appropriate, that moving van pulled a horrible move, even by Boston standards, and nearly pushed me off the road and into a crowd of sidewalk pedestrians. I was livid.
Enough is enough. I see it’s a battle.
I’ve had the idea before, but now I’m really thinking about doing it: mounting a slingshot onto my bike and carrying around a bag of marshmallows. So when a car is doing something especially stupid or rediculous I could just peg them with a marshmallow. A shot across the bow, as it were. I don’t have a horn to lean on as every car in the city seems to do, so I figure this would at least start to even the odds. At the very least i’m thinking about getting a slingshot even if it doesn’t mount easily onto my bike and just pegging cars if they honk. I’m peeved with the traffic here. I’m more than peeved. It cuts to what I think is the root of all the problems that humans face these days: a false sense of self-entitlement. People drive like they are the most important person for miles around, and they by divine right are deserving of the quickest passage to their destination. They deserve nothing, thank you. They deserve a humbling dose of marshmallow-on-the-windshield.
I can’t wait for Critical Mass.
music: Allman Brothers Band- At the Fillmore East
It’s remarkable how brain processes are affected by the weather. In extreme you get things like SAD but in more normal ranges the weather still has a significant effect on affect. The neurologist I saw about migraines said that they could be triggered by weather changes. And other stuff too. Seasons signal differnt instincts. I find myself wanting to hunker down and close the hatches when winter comes. I find myself somewhat frantic to grab ahold of something during autumn. And when spring hits, I tend to get the wandering bug.
Today was the first reasonably nice day of the year. I walked home from school without a jacket today, a trip that carries me straight up Mass Ave all the way from Hynes/ICA to Harvard Square. There was sun, there were people, there was a stiff breeze from the West. (The walk took me 45 minutes, which is often as long as it takes to ride the subway from Harvard to Kenmore) It was the first time the city experienced a taste of things to come. Maybe a little to early to scream it from the rooftops, but spring is coming. We forget that the seasons change this deep into winter sometimes, but when the weather inevitably turns it boggles our minds how we could have gone so long without the warmth.
The thing that set off the spring instinct was not the warmth or the sun (although they did help), it was the smells. Car wax. Cigarettes and roasting meat. Coconut lotion. Hot tar. Thawed organic matter sweetly decaying.
Sense memory is quite strong. It’s true that these smells don’t really have anything to do with warmer weather except that they have been paired with my own construct of summer via pavlovian conditioning. And like the ringing bell, it did the trick. I began to salivate at the prospect of long, warm summer nights. Travelling. Barbecues. Music festivals. Frisbee. Indeed, there is more to this existence than 10 or more hours a day in urban high schools.
After I got home the wind brought in a brief yet very strong rain. Spring cleaning. The weather remained mild, and the water started to coax life back out of its wintertime hibernation. Spring. Spring. I know I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but the indicators are there. Spring is at hand, bringing warmth, longer days, and all the requisite summertime adventures. And restless teenagers. There’s stuff to do before Spring Proper hits, but today the weather set off my springtime instincts. Which was sweet.
music: N.E.R.D.: In Search Of…
Those bastards. They stole my idea. I’d be upset, but they are actually doing it. Not exactly as the 1ey and I had envisioned, but they are making that dream a reality. Good for them. Good for us, really.
music: Grateful Dead- 11/13/73, San Francisco, CA
Boston is notoriously bad for traffic. It’s just big enough to need a decent public transit system, just small enough to still have a lot of cars and drivers, and just old enough for the street layout to not make much sense. Non-Bostonians who have a map and a dream to end up at a given point on time are more or less guaranteed a headache. Multiplied by ten if they are travelling in a car.
On a good day, there is a sense of victory and accomplishment in travelling the half-mile to the grocery store or wherever else in 15 minutes. On a bad day, you are fully prepared to welcome the meltdown of MIT’s nuclear reactor and eliminate a good chunk of the traffic problems. Any way you slice it, getting around this city can be a real pain in the ass.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I move about Boston this week as I’ve been guilty of using my car a lot more than usual. I normally only get in the contraption to leave town or to go to Allston for my radio show once a week, and that only in the cold months. But this week I’ve been sick and didn’t have it in me to negotiate the other means of transportation available to me. Yesterday I left home, picked up tmo in Teele Square, and then drove to Murphy’s in Brookline Village. The trip took over an hour. It left me more frustrated than convienenced.
There are a lot of options available in this city as far as getting from here to there: walking, bicycle, bus, subway, car, taxi. As to why so many people choose to use their cars is infinitely frustrating to me. There literally is nowhere to put the things most of the time. Double parking is highly normal. Sitting at stoplights for three or more cycles is to be expected. Most of these cars only have one person in them, and nothing that really demands a vehicle of that size. A lot of these drivers seem able-bodied, young and healthy, and perfectly comfortable and self-assured behind the wheel of their oversized motor vehicle. Being guilty of exactly this over the past week, I began to think a little bit about the transportation situation in this city.
I think, first off, that Richard Powers has it right: People will do what they can to get from point A to point B sitting down. There is a biological principle at work: given the choice, people will take the path of least resistance. That is really what is behind all sorts of innovations and bastions of progress: remote controls, television, pizza delivery, microwaves, and of course motor vehicles: trains, airplanes, and cars. I’m not about to get into the deleterious effects of such choices on the environment here. I’m not really going to get into the political stuff either in terms of oil dependence. They are reasons enough to found the Greater Boston Chapter of Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang but for the time being I’ll let them be. This issue of transportation, I think, is more about personal challenge, about maintaining a certain edge or awareness, about not getting too soft by allowing yourself to sit in a comfortable chair while waiting for traffic to plod along.
The path of least resistance, ironically, causes more friction than it is worth when everyone who is able chooses to resist least. Anyone who has driven around this city during can attest to that. Car traffic is terrible. The streets are terrible to begin with. Considering that they were never intended for cars in the first place is good indication that when cars are brought into the mix, there will be trouble. It’s caused the city to resort to the most extreme measures imaginable. The sad fact is that cars aren’t going to go away any time soon, and people, given the choice, will sit in their cage of plastic, metal, and glass and wililngly endure the rush-hour traffic because after all the costs and benefits are weighed, it is the least stressful easiest means of getting from here to there.
There are alternatives. The bus is a little more abrasive, but a viable alternative to the physical act of driving. On the scale of resistance, buses suffer all the drawbacks of cars but none of the benefits. The subway is a step better: no traffic problems, but you lose almost as much time waiting for the thing to pull up to the platform. Plus you are packed into those cars like sardines. I can easily say that my worst part of the day is the transition from the red line to the green line at Park Street every morning: there is a terrific bottleneck in the station: a narrowing passage on the red line platform that leads to a set of ascending stairs. The throngs from Cambridge and Somerville push through this bottleneck as quickly as they can in order to catch the next green line trolley, and it makes for a really unpleasant experience. Never mind that the subway often times takes you far out of your way: it is absolutely terrible for getting from Cambridge and Allston to JP and Roxbury (they probably figure: who would make that trip in the first place?). Harvard to Kenmore, my daily commute, isn’t a whole lot better.
This city opened up to me and really became my own the minute I bought my bicycle. This is, I’ve found, the best way to get from here to there. And in addition to being the objectively fastest way to get around, it has some other perks. One: it puts you back into contact with your natural environment. You are forced to confront things like rain, snow, cold, and wind. Hardly the path of least resistance, but important. It’s something that technology and progress have tried to fight tooth and nail; things like air conditioning are considered to be necessities for so many people. Not so on a bicycle. Two: it’s good exercise. I’d rather incorporate my physical exertion into my life as is. It saves a good chunk of money that would be a gym membership, and saves time. I’ve always thought it was so funny that people would pay all that money to run like a lab rat on a treadmill in order to get exercise and then choose the escalator over the stairs. Three: you are small, quick, and mobile on the streets on a bike. You can skip to the front of the line of cars at a traffic signal. You can weave in and out as needed. You are not limited to the surfaces a car is. And perhaps best of all, you never have to worry about parking.
There is walking as well, a practice forsaken by so many people in this city. And it works pretty well. Last November, I walked all the way from Cleveland Circle to Harvard Square in just over an hour (about the time, remember, I spent in my car yesterday getting to Murphy’s). Walking is a good exercise at realizing things on a human scale, moving at the speed our bodies were designed to move. When there is a lot of snow on the ground, walking is often the most practical way to get around.
There are options. Some require a little more planning, a little more sweat. Others ask you to endure cramped spaces and crowds. Others will inevitably leave you trapped in a metal box, sitting and waiting. Choosing a path other than the path of least resistance in the middle of winter is sometimes a tough choice, but it is something that needs to be conidered. This is about transportation in Boston, yes, but it’s also about movement in general, getting from here to there in a broader sense. I sometimes think that I thrive on that part of me who is biking through this crazy city’s traffic and cold weather. Again, we return to our ongoing theme, printed clearly at the top of this here weblog for easy reference: to struggle is to progress. Speaking of, I need to head out for some groceries some time this afternoon…
music: Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here
It started snowing here in Boston last night around 10:00pm, and it’s still going, not to let up until late tomorrow night. We’ve gotten 17 or so inches thus far, and it seems that we are only half done. Cars are plowed in, stores are closed, civilization is slowed to a more reasonable level. And schoolchildren (and teachers!!) are screaming injustice everywhere that this didn’t happen on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Lots of people I talk to think snow is fun or pretty or something like that. Clearly they didn’t grow up in Wisconsin. Snow, to me, is pretty until I inevitably have to shovel it. Snow is fun as long as I don’t have anything to do or anywhere to be. But the minute I have something to do, snow gets in the way. Which is a funny way of looking at it, snow being a natural occurrence, indifferent to the fact that I am there, or that a whole city is there. And being in a city full of people who do not make plans according to the weather, snow has really thrown a wrench into things. People, in their infinite genius that progress and technology has brought them, wage war with the snow, investing millions in clearing the streets. People panic about how they don’t have enough food to last the storm when their pantries are full, and better yet, if they will have rented enough movies to last through the storm. People assume that they will be able to get from here to there just as easily, and are plain wrong. I don’t think it’s impatience, or even a sense of entitlement; I think it’s that most people, especially people who live in cities, place humanity at the top of the natural order of things, refusing to accept the fact that we are subordinate to the greater forces of nature at work on the planet. People that live outside of cities, generally, aren’t so disillusioned.
Personally speaking, snow sets off the hibernation instinct: don’t go anywhere, relax, curl up, be still. I had a great moment at about 2:00 AM last night sitting next to the window in my bedroom with a mug of tea watching the snow fall outside, all being stark and white. Somehow, because of this “setback,” things become a little more sane. Life slows down to human speed (walking, no cars), people aren’t as wasteful in their energies or actions, but if you’re really lucky, you can go sledding.
Two days of continuous snowing is one hell of a way to start the winter. Boston is not a city equipped to handle this sort of thing well, and it’s kind of nice to watch things try to work around almost two feet of thick white stuff covering everything and not really succeed. I think the secret is nowing the limits of possibility, trying not to do too much. Even the mighty metropolis must bend to the demands of all this snow. I’m inconvienced, I’m annoyed, I’m slowed down, and I’m glad for it. Now if only the power would go out, we could really get down to what this sort of thing is all about.
music: Mozart- Jupiter Symphony
I’ve been lucky duing my time in Boston: I haven’t had many problems with theft despite minimal security precautions. We rarely locked the door at Chowdahaus, or the Refugee Camp for that matter. I’ve gotten away with a bike lock and a car door lock and I’ve never had problems with either mode of transportation. I’ve even left my bike helmet hanging on the handlebars during shopping trips and it’s till been there. I’ve (perhaps naively) strayed from my stuff in parks, stashed my bag under a chair at concerts. It’s rarely been a problem. The only times I can remember things being stolen from me were when I got mugged and had my wallet taken, and when I came back from christmas break last year and found that my guitar case and Tim’s bike were missing from the Refugee Camp basement. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing. Unitl this week.
My apartment has gone lock crazy. All the locks in the building were changed last week. This was due to a break-in that happened the week before. The funny part is that whomever broke in didn’t give a damn about locks; the door was kicked in hard. wood splinters were everywhere. the lock was broken. Clearly this had nothing to do with keys in the wrong person’s hands. Yet, for some reason, the landlord felt the need to change the locks on everyone’s doors. Now my roommates have gone paranoid. They’ve insisted on locking the doors even while they are home and awake before. Now I’m getting yelled at for not locking the apartment door when I go down to the basement to do laundry. Never mind not bothering to lock the door when I am home, sitting at my desk, and in plain view of the apartment door.
If that weren’t bad enough, one of my roommates has taken things to the next level. I found today one metal screw eye screwed into her door frame, the other screwed into the door itself perpindicularly, holes congruent, and a three dollar luggage lock stuck through the whole setup. This is the same roommate with a deadbolt that engages from the inside. This is the same roommate who comes home and disappears into her room until the next morning, who only comes out of her room to use the bathroom, and doesn’t seem to do that all too often at that. My other roommate is whining about how he can’t lock his sliding doors. I’m insulted by this pattern of thought. My door is wide open.
It’s not about care of stuff. I care about my stuff, basically because I don’t really have that much stuff anymore, so the stuff I do have is precious. It’s about trust, faith in the next guy, taking stock in one’s neighbors. I think that instead of isntalling locks that could be broken with one swipe of a hammer, my roommates should be knocking on our neighbor’s doors and introducing themselves.
We had a Freshman Class Town Meeting today at high school. Someone has stolen some science equipment, and the staff is forced to consider locking things up in order for them to be able to provide these same things to the kids who may or may not have stolen the materials. Yes, yes…the logic red flag is raised here too. Quinn says that the entirety of human civilization’s woes began when someone decided to lock up the food. I am seeing the results of the example set by our enterprising ancestors this week.
I’m not a fan of this locking business. I spent summers in cabins with no locks, been through communities that do not have the need to lock the front doors of their homes, spent time in tent cities 100,000 strong where nobody worried about leaving things in tents with only a zipper and some fabric separating their stuff from total strangers. Yes, the system was not perfect, yes some things did get stolen, but for the most part, people got along together, respected each others’ space and property. The mentality of my roomates is insulting and embarrassing. They are afraid of something. I am disgusted with them.
It is said that in every prison there are two captives. Yes, by installing locks we may be succeeding in keeping people out. First of all, given the facts, it seems that we really aren’t succeeding that well. Secondly, is this really something we want to be doing? Shouldn’t we rather be hosting potlucks and making friends with the people with whom we share living space? Shouldn’t we, on a larger scale, be redistributing the resources of our society so nobody has the need to steal in the first place? But it’s more than that. When we lock our doors we are also locking ourselves in, making captives out of ourselves. And as someone who believes in and is working towards human liberation (as Freire would posit), I couldn’t detest anything more than this brand of xenophobia, agoraphobia, spinelessness. Call it what you will. This, I supopse is the inverse relationship between liberty and property. My inclination is to do the opposite as my roommates, seemingly scared shitless by society. My inclination is to open the cage and let the animals hiding inside in the dark experience the light of freedom.
music: Keith Jarrett- Live at the Blue Note d.5
This has been a long week for me as far as school goes: 3 papers, the regular internship, and more reading than could be finished. So it goes. But the hard work during the weekend and the front end of the week allowed me a free Thursday evening. I was to spend it in bar-style revelry with the townies as the Red Sox and Yankees were playing for the pennant, but I had bigger plans. Spearhead was in town, and I had tickets.
Timing couldn’t have been better for Spearhead to roll through. Work was getting that much harder, my internship was beginning to grind on me, and the anonymity and unfriendliness of the city was rubbing off on me in very bad ways. I was beginning to settle into the social and mental hibernation of Boston in the colder months: don’t smile at anyone, don’t talk to anyone, act as if you don’t care and have more important things to do. I get lost in my own thoughts enough as it is as I’m moving around this city. But Spearhead, as they do time and time again, renewed my faith in other people, in society, in myself and the work I’m doing. It’s more a spiritual revival posing as a concert than anything else. It’s as close to a non-demoninatinal place of worship and celebration of life and the sanctity of humanity as one can get in our postmodern urban experience. Truly a beacon of light.
Michael Franti himself said it at Berkfest 2002: “Be a light. Live as you think others should.” Truth. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to maintain that sort of existence in this day and age. It’s hard to hold to your noblest of ideals and live them out, because often it feels like you are operating solo in a sea of adversity. That a concert can reinforce all which is good in everyone in attendance is a powerful thing and nothing to be laughed at or taken for granted.
The Spearhead show went late, finally emptying out around 12:15. It was just about this time that the Yankees pulled off an 11th inning victory over the Red Sox in the ALCS. This year’s pennant run in Boston was as close as they’ve come to reversing The Curse of the Bambino since Buckner did his imitation of a croquet wicket back in the fall of 1986. Angry drunk Sox fans were emptying out of the bars at pretty much the same moment that Spearhead fans were floating out of the theater. We, of course, all aglow from a very affirming experience. Everyone else: drunk, pissed off, almost violent. It was some contrast.
Things never got really ugly, although I heard sirens blaring all night. I managed to bike home without incident (although I took my “GO SOX!” flag off my bike) and enjoy the denoument of the evening. This morning, things were pretty much back to normal. The citywide buzz that came from having the Sox in the playoffs was immediately gone; people were back to their grumbly old selves. Really amazing how something like baseball can make a difference in the morale of a city. I can’t help but think that things woudl have been worse if it weren’t for the overpowering force of positivity in Spearhead last night. In some cosmic algebra, the angry, violent Sox fans and the all-too idealistic Spearhead fans cancelled each other out last night and the net result was an indignant Boston population tending towards slightly unfriendly, preparing for the winter. Pretty much as things are normally.
I grew up rooting for the Red Sox, I think because my parents lived in Boston for a while and rooted for them. I remember watching the ‘86 series with Dad and being very close to tears at the end of game 6. I really do share the familiar pain that the city felt last night, but after Spearhead, it just didn’t get to me. Such is the way of things when you side with the underdog. The entity with whom we affiliate is the team that can’t seem to beat the Yankees, the band that flies in the face of the corporate-controlled music industry, he who has everything to prove, everything to gain, and nothing to lose.
But I think that there is something that the two experiences have in common, something that I find in myself more often than not. In each case, the underdog is celebrated. To follow the thread, it’s a lot like teaching urban minority youth, working with mentally retarded and autistic adults, volunteering at a community radio station. The Sox let us down, sure, but Spearhead reminds us all that there is joy in the struggle. And that, to me, does more than reverses the curse; it negates curses entirely.
music: Spearhead- Burlington, VT 10/22/02
I spent a good chunk of the weekend reading and working. Today was a beautiful day, so I took my reading out to the grass, and plowed through articles on cultural differences in discipline and the highlights of IEPs on Harvard Yard. I couldn’t help but look around and gawk at the buildings, the people walking by, the tour groups, the sheer Harvard-ness of the whole scene. Most of the time I’m very much wrapped up in the world of urban education, and while on campus, most of the time that’s all centered around The Gut. But sitting there, I realized that being a card-carrying member of this world-renound establishment has fringe perks that I’ve as of yet left unexploited. I decided that there was not time to waste; I needed a break from studying anyway. Some exploration was in order. I ventured to the building across the street
My ID card got me in for free. I was immediately swept back to the summer of 2000, where I had the good fortune to kick around Europe and stroll casually past some of the most famous works of art in the world. The Fogg is even set up with a courtyard in the Reniassance Italian style, complete with enormous marble balconies and an art collection that really does belong in a world-famous European museum. On my study break today, I strolled past paintings by Renior, Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne, Monet, Rembrandt, and even a self-portrait by Van Gogh. which was one of my most potent memories from my trip to Amsterdam. The Pollack and Rothko were not available for viewing because the 20th century modern wing was closed. Rest assured, though, they are there somewhere. But Amsterdam is an ocean away, as is the Louvre, the Tate, and the Uffizi. I had to kick myself to make haste through the galleries so I could get home to cook some dinner and study some more. It wasn’t like this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing either. The Fogg is literally down the street from my apartment. Five minutes walk. Because I am now one of the card-carrying privlidged, these treasures are available to me for free whenever I feel like seeing them.
Inherent in this whirlwind tour of High Art during my study break today is a sickening juxtaposition: Three blocks away from this treasure-chest of highbrow culture is a high school, which tomorrow will be full of urban youth struggling with classwork, trying as best they can to get a leg up in this very real world. I am free to flip flop back and forth between these two incredibly different worlds, and I do on a daily basis. Today I strolled through a room full of paintings worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Tomorrow I will be in a room full of urban teenagers, explaining that most of them failed a quiz last Friday. Three blocks. A five minute walk. Two entirely different worlds. This is the essence of “Harvard-ness.”
Is this just an American phenomenon? Maybe just in select places like Cambridge, Massachusetts? Where the Haves and the Have Nots live in such close proximity yet there really is no diffusion? Literally unbelievable. Unbelievable that I can pop into the Fogg any time I want for a quick peek at Picasso’s handiwork or a clay figurine fashioned some time in the Fourth century B.C., that this is what my school has collected for my benefit, that all this is included in the price of admission. And then, unbelievable that my students can come to class without having done their assignment or had breakfast, and leave school in the afternoon without anywhere important or inspiring to go, then to return to a home that makes school look like summer camp, that this is what every day looks like for them. The duality here is mindboggling considering this all takes place no more than five city blocks apart; a painting of good ol’ Vincent staring intently out from the canvas into Pablo’s cubist renderings of a vase , or a tribe of urban minority youth slowly but surely failing out of school and starting the long walk away from the American dream, back towards the inner city. And here I am, one leg in each of these worlds, wondering how on earth one has prevented the other from diffusing into the other.
Like a cell membrane, of course. Gradients are created, initially, by energy-requiring pumps. That is, it takes some effort to make and keep a difference in concentration. But once established, the gradient becomes the product of a passive equilibrium. A bilayer keeps things in their place, separates different concentrations and densities. Everyone knows that oil and water don’t mix. Even if you shake them up, after a while they will separate. It appears that’s just how it is.
music: Mad Dog Trio- 12/27/02
My world in Boston used to pivot around music. Live Live was at the center of a hub, which spun free cds, concert tickets, acquaintances, friends, and of course, lots and lots of music. It was towards this that I threw myself for the better part of two years. That all came to a screeching halt about a week and a half ago when I started grad school. Not because I no longer had interest in music; rather, that I no longer had time.
It was only a week and a half ago. Seems like months. But tonight, I departed from that new, strange social scene of grad students and aspiring teachers for the old, familiar turf of the concert. It was indeed a special event: Club d’Elf featuring John Medeski and Brahim Fribgane. And in a courtyard at the MFA, no less.
I was supposed to meet Duncan and tmo there. They were no-shows. the osha has been sidelined as of late so it was just me. But the community that I have come to know through music came through. I saw T., a guitarist for a band and my main man E., a very, very down cat that I met at Brown, again on Phish tour, and a third time at Hampton this past January. He’s in Watertown now, contemplating how to stay out of school and drinking quality italian red wine. Positive.
Said hello to Micro and Brahm before d’Elf did some fine work. Medeski pushed things stratospherically towards the end of the set. And yet, it was a sit-down affair, and nothing could be finer on a beautiful day than sitting in the grass and taking in some sonic oddities and wonders courtesy of d’Elf. It was my first concert in a while, the monstrosity that was MMW at FleetBoston notwithstanding. It feels like a while, at least. The crowd was priceless: a cross between Bonnaroo and Tanglewood. Everyone had a blast, including the musicians. Always a good sign.
Going home I watched some kids convince a busker to play a rhythm line while he freestyled over it. Gratuitous, awkward, but beautiful. Music was the theme of the evening, and I was happy to have taken it in on a very personal level.
So a night of music re-introduced me to all that was paramount in my life here in Boston up until last Monday. I had gotten my fill, felt lucky to hear such fine musicians in such close proximity, and only sorry that Duncan and tmo didn’t make it down. Must have been a late night at murphy’s.
if i only knew…
of course, there was an inkling. a distinct possibility. but my schedule being what it was, i wasn’t going to head out to murphy’s even so. I’d been to every single week for the better part of 16 months-two weeks in a row of missing it wouldn’t matter. right? right?
Catching up on tmo’s blog, I read the news.
Buh.
(shock abating…) Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. Of all the nights to miss…
…and as sad as I am that I missed it, Amy’s gonna shit a brick.
music: Norah Jones- Come Away With Me
Another late night. It’s like that when I have no obligations at 9 AM. Soon enough I’ll be on a regimented schedule, so while I have this sort of freedom to stay up until 4:00 AM without consequence I’ll do it and love it. It seems that I drift towards the wee hours; given the choice, I’d rather be up late into the night than up early in the morning. Occupational choices might force me into a sleep schedule that runs counter to my natural clock, but I’ll deal with that as it comes up.
For the past two nights I’ve done some bike riding through Boston between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 AM. It’s a wonderful time to be pedaling through the city. The streets are free of cars so I can dip in and out of my lane and take up the width of the street. Biking through Harvard Square at 3:00 AM is a worthy experience. For a location so bustling and hectic during the day, it’s eerily quiet. All that is heard are scattered homeless shuffling in their cardboard, distant cars out on Mass Ave, and the sprinklers that are wasting perfectly good drinking water on Harvard’s patchy-at-best lawns. The University itself is ancient and solemn at three in the morning, much more so than it could ever be during the day with all the tourists and shiny security cars. I really love rolling through with nobody else around, taking in the black iron gates and the red buildings built thick with history. Biking at three in the morning also makes me half-believe that I’m not so unlike Kaneda cruising through Neo Tokyo. Or better yet, S.T. biking through Boston.
Much of the evening was spent with Tim, Peet, and Volker. It was good to just be around them. Comfortable. Familiar. More and more, I fear, our interactions will be augmented by our new living arrangements. It makes me sad, because we all do get on very well and after having lived together for so many months have sort of taken it for granted. Now that I’m living in an apartment with relative strangers, now that there are four milk jugs in the fridge and closed bedroom doors, I can appreciate the home environment that we had with Chowdahaus and the Refugee Camp next door.
But since I spent so much time with my friends tonight, little headway was made towards locking down certain nagging items that really need to be checked off the list before I start up with school. Yes, i’m doing the preliminaries: gathering my pre-summer reading materials, collecting phone numbers to call regarding parking spaces, thinking about scheduling at TB test, thinking about what constitutes a high school teacher’s wardrobe. Lots of gathering, collecting, and thinking. Not much to show for my time, though. I know it will get done, but the list on my dry-erase is a hulking mass of building anxiety, staring back at me and growing heavier by the hour.
It’s tough, balancing this freedom that I surely won’t see much of in the coming year with the obligations that are beginning to pile up. There are some big decisions to make in all domains of my life here in Boston, and it’s best to have some solid groundwork laid before I start up with school. For my own sanity, but more importantly to ensure the best possible environment in which to teach and study, an environment in which everything is pretty much taken care of except for my school work. It’s time to get into that state of mind. It’s time to tie up all those loose ends. Rolling leisurely through Boston is all good and fine, but I have to be mindful about my direction.
