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What belongs on a Boston bucket list? Like, despite having lived here for nearly two decades, I have still never walked the Freedom Trail, even though living in Boston is what’s turned me into a walker, and a biker. But I’ve walked out to Castle Island, around Jamaica Pond, through the Middlesex Fells and the Blue Hills, down Comm Ave and up the Greenway, Mass Ave nearly end to end, through the Harvard campus more times than I can count (though I can still get lost at MIT), from downtown to Fenway Park on multiple game nights where I didn't feel like cramming myself into the sardine can known as the Green Line. I’ve navigated Somerville by specific Bathtub Marys, and greater Boston by specific Dunks. I've biked on Storrow Drive and out to Bedford on the Minuteman and pretty much most places in between; kayaked along the Charles, and swum in Walden Pond and the Mystic Lakes and the Res; ice skated on Frog Pond and under the lights of Kendall Square. And, well, fallen on my ass multiple times because black ice and long New England winters. Heh.

( a love letter to Boston because I'm a creature of nostalgia )

I've made my home in triple-decker Victorians, Federalist brick and brownstone, the top floor of a Queen Anne where H and I learned to dub birds "those CHIRP CHIRP MOTHERFUCKERS" because they would wake us up at 3 am in the summer, a duplex close enough to the Minuteman I could constantly watch our neighbors stream by on bikes, even on the couch of the Cambridgeport Commune for a couple of months. And now, after two decades in Boston, two dozen years in New England, and too many cubic yards of snow shoveled, our time here is drawing to a close; in August, we are moving to the Bay Area.



We'll still be (long) walking distance to the train; I'll still bike to local farmers' markets. I'll add more swimming to the mix; H will add more hills to his half-marathon training, but still be able to run on a bike path near our new place. I already have a spreadsheet entitled "Bay Area Farmers Markets and Independent Bookstores," and we have a plan to identify the best pizza places nearby so we can find our go-to as quickly as possible. We will miss all you locals dearly, but we will be back. Just not in, say, January. ;)

Bay Area friends, I'm sure I'll have questions for you about the practicalities of this new life we're trying out. For now, I'm looking forward to seeing more of you all starting in August!

And yep, we're driving across. 90 most of the way, then detouring a bit to avoid the worst heat of Nevada in summer the best we can. (Neither of us are Burning Man candidates, I'm afraid. :) ) Highlights we hope to hit: Cedar Point, the Dane County Farmers' Market, Yellowstone; other things TBD, hopefully many of them kitschy, delicious, and/or beautiful. Any recs from those of you who've done this before? We'll have most of two weeks to do this.

post-tags: instagram, crosspost Tonight is #Manhattanhenge; I'm observing #Kayakhenge. #sunset #summer

today's fantasy baseball grumble: it would've been nice to know that cabrera was getting the night off. because i would've moved burrell over from utility into OF, benched cabrera for the night, and pulled eckstein off the bench into util. which means i missed eck having a good night and going 4/5. grumble.

today is may 12th. tomorrow i fly to philly for midnight baseball with memerath, oh, right, and wedding #1. the next weekend is my last weekend to get anything remotely relaxing/productive done. the weekend after that is five year reunion. then tech week. then opera weekend (plus irchurch, and we're discussing sex and the sacred; i am so not missing that one). then wedding #2. and then i have to get serious about the housing hunt.

plus hopefully impending visits from rustnroses, ladysisyphus, and geebee_x. hooray!

and to think that this summer, i wanted to do things like go kayaking! (it has been way, way the hell too long since i've been on the water.) and start up those musical sundays i keep discussing with fes42 and hyounpark. and spend as much time as is humanly possible in bodies of water not enclosed in buildings. and spend time with the lj-less mel and mrieser before they move away. and road trip with hyounpark! and cape league games with fes42!

the good: getting to see memerath, theconvictor, slwands, geebee_x, elemmire7, and fractalspackle many times over the coming weekends. oh, right, and getting a well-deserved in-person apology on bended knee. *beams* (er, not from any of the above-mentioned.)

the bad: what's sleep?

also, i dug my tevas out last night to go to the brahms quintets with ben, and MY TOES ARE FREE. this makes me blissfully happy.

also, to those who called me last night: got your calls, but was in the aforementioned concert. trying again tonight?

8/12/23: I assume the cryptic was for whomever apologized to me? I guess I forgave them; I've forgotten why an apology was needed in the interim! LOL.

best description of how cold it's been out here the past two days? by this guy.

*packs stuff up and moves to san diego, stat. when it warms up in late february/early march, then i'll head back to the bay area, but i think i need a winter where i can go to the beach every day. when it's warm out, i don't get sick. :P*

yes, i know arnie is fucking up my home state. but i still love it more than just about any other place on earth. i miss cool foggy mornings in the forest. i miss the insane variety of authentic food from all over the globe available there, and especially for how cheap i could get it. i miss acwlpfb. i want adobo, lumpia, pancit, and ensemadas. i miss my sea otters, and dungeness crab. i miss kayaking down the gualala river, and hiking in yosemite. i want to road trip california again, maybe as soon again as next year, so that i can keep it from slipping away into mere memory. i miss fresh fruit and vegetables available year-round - every time i go to star market here, i pick through the fruit/veggie baskets and i mourn. (and then i scurry the other direction over to bread and circus and bring home all the point reyes cheeses.) at stop-n-shop the other night, i was trying to find a couple of pears. they had three kinds there, and i picked up every single pear to test to see how ripe it was. and every. single. pear. was hard as a rock.

(and dammit, i want an in-n-out burger for christmas. i'd settle for one from dick's, though.)