bear

To say that the fall of 2004 was a transitional time for me is an understatement.

• I moved out of the Fenway, back to Porter Square


• noghri and I broke up


• I got my traditional breakup haircut (as much as people knock the concept, it has always come out AMAZING for me)


• I quit my awful job


• I fled to Hong Kong to visit my brother and recuperate from the trifecta of knockout punches


• I stopped checking the internet because every time I did the Yankees kept beating the Red Sox and I was convinced it was because I had abandoned my beloved studio in the Fenway, not even because I'd had the audacity to date a Yankees fan for the entire year previous!


• I checked the internet for the first time in a week on my way back from Hong Kong and the Sox had MADE A COMEBACK and a very nice Cubs fan ticket agent who understood got me on an earlier connection back to Boston


• The Sox REVERSED THE CURSE

And while all of this was going on, a new bookstore moved in, right next door to my grocery store, a five-minute walk from my new apartment.

Porter Square Books would be there for me over the next fifteen years, even as I moved incrementally further away from Porter Square as my life changed. So many random winter afternoons and summer mornings; always the first or second stop on Indie Bookstore Day because they opened so early. Heck, so many books I would buy from them on release day because with their 7 am opening time, I could pick them up on my way to the T in the morning! I've written often in these pages about how Harvard Square Books is where I'd end my nights, in the cozy basement as the snow fell outside; maybe when they closed at 11 pm, I'd scurry up the street and grab an ice cream cone before catching the T home. Porter Square Books is its early-bird complement, where I'd grab a book from them and tea and a pastry from Cafe Zing in-house. (Zing is still looking for their next partner; I harbor secret fantasies about a performance venue.)

When I made the biggest move of all, moving home to California just before the pandemic hit, they would endure through the early pandemic years. Living proof that local independent bookstores help stitch a community together, they continued to grow, and thrive. And eventually, outgrow their current space.

When I was in Cambridge last month, of course I stopped by 25 White Street one last time, picked up one last book from Porter Square Books, White St Edition. (Ali Hazelwood's Bride, for book club.) Gazed around the familiar warm, brightly-lit space filled with books and people, people reading their purchases in the seats by the windows while munching on summer rolls; soaked the nostalgia in amid the memories of so many hours browsing and buying books there. (And then hung out at noghri's house with him and his family and our friends later that evening. Growth and change and transformation I couldn't see in October 2004, but hoped for, long come to fruition.)

My first year in Boston, the fall of 2000, I lived near Porter Square then, too, and I frequented the Porter Exchange where Porter Square Books is moving. Affordable onigiri for dinner from Kotobukiya upstairs, and then I would wander into the infinitesimally tiny Barnes and Noble in the basement and browse for what few books they had (because it primarily functioned as a place to sell Lesley University merch), and think that, as much as I loved bookstores, the neighborhood deserved a much better one.

And now, there will once again be a bookstore in the Porter Ex, one I love, like there always should have been. They kicked things off with a chain of several hundred patrons helping to move the romance section 1000 feet across the square, and I wish I could have been there. I can't wait to see what they do with the place; hopefully I'll be back to visit in the spring!

Welcome home, Porter Square Books.

People, it is 87F outside right now. 87F. 87F!

I spent the weekend playing outside, first going on a ramble all over Camberville Saturday with hyounpark, picking up sandwiches at Hi-Rise, then picnicking and reading (Candide for me, in my quest to read the classics I haven't) in the sun at the park; Sunday, playing catch with noghri for almost an hour and a half and heading to dinner somewhat pinker from the sun than before.

Then dinner at John Harvard's with a vast and varied assortment of Amherstfolk, and the Sox game in the background, and Yankee fans may scoff about the validity of three games in April versus five games in August, and generally, I try to avoid bars with TVs and crowds when there's a game on, but hearing that first cheer, and then minutes later the second, more excited, and then by the hat trick half the bar is roaring, on their feet, and number four is just In. Freakin. Credible. Because three was already pretty unlikely, right? Add to that that all three games were pretty close, that in all three the Sox had to come from behind (where you don't dare to hope, you're just digging your heels in and praying it happens), Others may love pitchers' duels, shooting down the hopes of batters, but the sight of your batters smacking that ball, sending it sailing into the blue or streaming across the green into that hole between fielders, time after time after time, in your quirky little overpriced overstuffed history-laden home park? Makes my heart explode into confetti with the sheer hope and magic of spring.

Sure, there's fifteen more of those matchups remaining, and another 130 with other teams besides those. Sure, we were only playing .500 ball for the first half of April, if that. Sure, the Yankees weren't putting up their best against us this weekend (and I guess I could feel a little insulted or worried if I were minded to, but with the current weather I am IGNORING ALL STRIFE). But with taking two of three from Toronto, and sweeping the Yankees, the last week has been pret-ty fantastic.

Also, Orbitz Mint Mojito gum actually tastes more like lime than anything else.

Talk me out of buying a kiddie pool for the backyard. With a floating drink holder.

I AM HOME. i am hungry. but i am lazy. memerath, i'm charging my phone and will give you a call in about 5, unless you did end up going to the bar.

people i will be watching closely tonight:

mark bellhorn
bill mueller
bronson arroyo, should he get called as relief for whatever reason

kevin brown (well, duh, since he's tonight's starter)
(este)ban loaiza, if he comes in as relief
bubba crosby (my (other) bubba! but if he is the straw that makes the yankees go again, i will cry)
bernie williams