The Bus

I know, I know, I've come under some scrutiny for lighting up the facebook newsfeed this past week, but I'm trying to get a lot of stuff done in a new town while catching everyone from back home and around the country up to speed. Anyway, thought this anecdote from today might do ya some good.

I rode the bus through Roxbury yesterday and today. FYI, Roxbury is the low-income area to the east of where I have been and will be living. It's not the most exciting or scenic sort of a trip, unless like me you've been known to cruise down South Salina Street in Syracuse at all hours of the day and night. It's a bit like that.

It's good people watching, and good for a spatial and directional understanding of this crazy new city I've landed in. I hopped off the bus at the wrong point on the way to the South Bay shopping centre yesterday and had to hop back on at a different point. To get an understanding of this, it took me an hour and a half to go about 2 miles. On the way back, it only took 40 minutes. However, when I switched buses at Dudley Station, I wasn't familiar with the signs and didn't know where to pick up the 66-bus back home. I spoke with Frank while I was riding at one point, and when he asked me what I was doing I replied, "Riding a bus in the wrong direction in Boston." Having lived here himself, he acknowledged the commonality of that problem. Anyway, while I was at the bus station, THREE people asked me if I was lost and pointed me toward my bus. It was this bustling hive that might scare the crap out of a regular suburbanite, but it turned out to be kinda fun.

So I took the same route back today, having bought an airbed yesterday. Today was time to buy a computer. It was again a long trip there and back, but at least today I expected it and knew where I was going. So there I was, sitting at Dudley waiting for the 66 with three big boxes of computer stuff to haul onto the bus with me, when I met Jose. Maybe it was that I was the only white guy he'd seen all day, I don't know, but Jose and I went on for 5-1o minutes about how he's in a sober-house and how I knew people who had done AA and gotten really cleaned up. It was a good time. He was a really nice guy and I pray for him that he stays on the road.

Then, his bus came and the old Caribbean man right next to me started talking to me endlessly in an English that I could barely understand. I made out only a few sentences of what he saying, try as I did. He said, "Americans run their mouths too much." Amid 5 minutes of mouth-running that I didn't understand, I caught that. Oh, sweet and delicious irony! How I love you so.

My computer boxes and I made it back here just fine. We're going to enjoy a quiet evening. Hope you have a good one too!

More Amazing Happenings

Life in Boston is good. I just set up 2 interviews this morning and am itching to get a job. Also, I think we found the place we want to live and are just waiting to cross the i's and dot the t's. We had a funky little church service last night, I'm meeting people, and the public transportation has been friendly.

I'm working on a dietary plan by the numbers that will get me enough calories, protein, carbs, and fiber without too much fat, sodium, cholesterol, and money spent. So far, I've figured out that for 75c I can eat two PBJ sandwiches and a bowl of frosted mini-wheats with milk and get ALL THE PROTEIN I NEED for the day. Where does the meat fit in, then? I don't know. As I explained on the phone last night, I'm pretty much learning to roll over onto my stomach right now. Once I accomplish this phase of the plan, I can learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Being the math geek I am, by the numbers is the only way to go!

Last, what inspired this blog, is that I made another contact. Actually, an old contact. One of my best friends from Lake Champion in June of '99, Jake, has resurfaced on facebook. Jake and I used to sit up late reading theological books in the empty cabin in silence after everyone else went to bed. He was a similar soul, a thinker. He's currently in Saudi Arabia running a recreational program for international kids. WHAT? It's pretty exciting to run into an old friend halfway around the world.

I hope you are forcing your life to be full of this sort of stuff, too. Nothing has been delivered to me. I have learned to make things happen and how to press the advantage when I have it. 'Til next time!

Update from the world of Boo

I live in Boston now. It took a few days, but I think it finally sank in. Sunday night, I went to a potluck dinner with Osei. There were about 12 people there, we ate and played games, a general good time. However, I was still a visitor, laughing with another imported person that she'd been in town 48 hours longer than me, making her a veteran of the city. Tuesday night was a grand old time, hopping down to the corner to play dominoes with the Mission Hill Domino Authority. I had my first beer here, a Stone IPA, further working to cement me in my surroundings. Good people and good fun twice already.

Then came the sort of nonsense I've grown to expect from the sort of people I've met and stayed with along the way. Four phone calls and a couple of facebook messages into the night, I found myself meeting an old Young Lifer down at the grocery store. Five minutes later, we were out the door and zipping off to a house right down the street from an apartment I'd seen earlier in the day, where we cooked steaks and potatoes and corn before heading out. Out? To the Plough and Stars, a monumental dive bar in Cambridge that hosts Bad Art Ensemble, one of the most peculiar bands I've ever come across. It's a collection of professional musicians in a jazz band format that play loony music all night long without being paid. They bring the fun.

When I got dropped off at the door around 1:30am, with nothing left in my tank but to flop on the bed and meet the sandman, I knew that I'd arrived here. Thursday was a boisterous follow-up that included throwing a myriad of resumes out into the Craigslist stratosphere, as well as looking at 5 apartments, mostly on foot. I awoke this morning with nothing specifically scheduled to do and worried I might be sinking back into the earlier week doldrums that saw me read an entire book in three days. However, I've been up for 2 hours and haven't even gotten to breakfast yet, which is a good sign. Someone responded to one of my applications, too. Onward and upward, baby!

One would think...

I've now been in Boston for about 43 hours. I've slept two nights, eaten a few meals, met a handful of new people, found the library, and read some of a book. Inversely, I haven't got a computer or a car, a social network, my family, food in the refrigerator, a familiar bed, a desk, a dresser, a job, or much of anything else that makes life comfortable, easy, and routine. That's all stuff I have to build slowly.

Fortunately, I got pointed in the direction of the library, where I assume I'll head at 10:00am every morning to knuckle around on the internet and network with the world at large. While computing this morning (or this afternoon, I guess), I found that I finally had the chance to send out one more bite on the Facebook Zombies application and turn myself into a Zombie Mogul. I'd been waiting for this for a few days. I was pretty excited. Zombie Ninja was pretty awesome. Bishop of Church of Zombie was completely amazing, with a pope hat and a sickle. I couldn't imagine what would come when I reached the highest level of Zombie that existed.

Not much. It's a green guy in a black and gold robe. Dumb. I'd much rather go back to being a Ninja or Bishop. What a letdown. To top it off, there's a higher level that requires more than twice as many points as the exorbitant and shameless total I've already achieved. I can't conceivably ever achieve that unless I go back to school, meet every person on campus, deliver them all Zombie bites, and turn many of them. What a waste of a good reputation and a good time. Oh well.

So there's another feather to pull out of my cap. I'm swimming in the deep end without a lifejacket here in Boston. Good thing I know the Dead Man's Float. Until next time...

One Foot Out the Door

I've been hinting around in real life for the past month that I'm heading out of Syracuse. Nothing definitive until this week, though, when I told everyone I'd be leaving this weekend. Seems kind of sudden, unless you count that I quit my jobs and sold my car a few weeks ago. Now EVERYONE wants to hang out with The Boo Guy one last time before he hits the road.

Today, for instance, I'm shooting some pool with a buddy of mine at 3:00, then having dinner out with my parents at The Turtle (yeah, you know the place) at 5:30, and wrapping it up with una mezcla of people down at The Empire Brewery later in the evening. When am I supposed to pack? Right now? But when would I procrastinate?

What would I do without a blog?