June 19th 2008
I went to Boston recently, and I even have stories to tell about it. It’s totally unlike me to do anything as interesting as leaving Illinois, so everyone’s surprise that I was taking a trip was really heartening, in that I never knew I had the capacity to surprise people. Bizarre! Here’s some of the story:
Let’s begin at the beginning, for that seems logical and swell. What wasn’t so swell was, upon my arrival at the self check-in at O’Hare, the discovery that my flight was canceled. I was not departing at 9:05. I was not arriving at Logan at 12:20. I was not Sam, Diane, or the Cat in the Hat. Also, I lacked green eggs and ham.
Thankfully, I both continued existence and had options. The options were: pretending to be a homeless man and ride the El all night begging for change, pretending that I had lots of money and shacking up at a ritzy hotel, pretending that I was outraged, Outraged! by the change of plans and seeing what being a total dick could do for me, being slightly sensible and just heading back home and figuring out what to do the next morning, or being entirely sensible and seeing what Ryan had going on that night.
Happily, Ryan was home, had nothing important on his evening agenda and was totally up for the terrible task of picking me up from the Harlem Blue line stop. We watched some Strangers With Candy (Brilliant!), an air mattress got inflated and sleep occurred. I woke up, deflated the mattress, cleaned up the bedding as best I could and grabbed my camera and a toothbrush from my bag. I took some pictures of Ryan’s cd stacks (I’m a nerd and people at work don’t quite believe me when I say that it’s an amazing, awe-inspiring and jealousy-inducing sight) and brushed my teeth. I grabbed my stuff, and as per Ryan’s instructions the night before, made sure the cats were no longer on the porch and locked the appropriate things and left. 20 steps outside the door, I realized that I’d never grabbed my camera from the top of the TV in Ryan’s cd room.
[Redacted story of getting my camera back, except for this self deprecating description]
It has been a constant source of body issue with me that I have really, really tiny wrists. You know the Test Your Own Bone Size test? The one where you try and get your middle finger and thumb to make a bracelet around your wrist? The one that, for people (maybe males only, I don’t really recall) with normal hand/wrist proportions the very tip of the middle finger just kind of reaches to the very tip of the thumb? I, without even trying, get slightly more than a knuckle’s worth of depth. I have the world’s tiniest wrists, I swear to god. Saturday morning, though, this fact did me a solid.
My untimely death at the hands of Mireya for not taking pictures was thus averted. I did, however, forget to grab my toothbrush (I think. I haven’t seen it since Saturday morning). I wouldn’t find out about this until Sunday morning. Sadly, and I know I’m ruining the suspense, this posed no difficulties in the Stoppage Of Random Making Out because I’m me, a person not known anywhere for being someone that has Random Make Out Sessions. **ed note: this was originally written to a coworker, so some parentheticals might make no sense. the following one would make more sense if the full context were available. It won’t be. Deal.** (I’m highly amused that I was done with this section before I just got your response of the Short Play. Also, it’s a lot more entertaining than the “See any good colleges?” I’ve gotten from my mom and my stepmother.)
Anyway, back to the story.
Flash forward through dull and uneventful trip back to O’Hare, briefly noting for the purposes of building a theme, that I sent a picture to my friend Nick of a White Castle (the nearest White Castle to him is three hours away, in St Louis. When I visited him a few years ago, part of my journey was to stop and pick him up some burgers. It was 8:30 am when I bought the food), a picture to which he never responded. Blah blah blah flight, take off, feeling like I’m on the world’s slowest roller coaster, “Oooh! Neat! Golf course from above!”, “Another one!” clouds, blah blah blah, land in DC, catch connecting flight to Logan, blah blah blah, land in Logan, buy a Charlie card (just like a CTA card, but, you know, different.), wait for the bus. Get on the bus, toss luggage around. Ride the bus. Field a call from Ryan making sure I’ve landed safely (yes!), proceed to freak him out with the [Redacted] story. Freak out myself when the floor under my feet starts moving. Freak out more. Actually look at the bus and realized that it’s designed to have a pivot point in the middle. Think this is pretty awesome. Get off the bus to have a member of the BPD tell me that there are no red line trains running. Become slightly bitter. Go to the outside world pick a direction and hope. Decide that I’m far too awesome for my own good when my random stab at the dark gets me on the street and in the proper direction to get to the green line stop. Decide I’m far less awesome after I wander around Fenway Park for almost an hour looking for the hostel. I end up buying a Fodor’s Guide to Boston (good idea, Holmes!) that has a map inside and find the place. I’ve simultaneously been 5 minutes away and nowhere near it.
I check in, dump most of my stuff, and take off for the Fens. I decide they’re not very picturesque, that I’m tired and that watching football and cricket being played and reading a book for a little while seems like a capital idea. I am confused by cricket (it involves a lot of milling around between change-overs, a lot of random cheering and clapping and ululating. I am covertly trying to watch one of the two girls play football; she’s pretty cute. I must have done my ogling in a manner reminiscent of a spy, as no members of the BPD or the people playing football come to question me or beat me up. Pictures of the cricket proceedings were taken but not of the footballers, that would have blown my cover. Eventually (when I finished my book), I left. I’m not really sure I can fully retrace my steps, but I know it involved very little (probably no) food, a few pints of Guinness, watching parts of the third round of the US Open in a faux-Irish Pub (since this was in the midst of a pretty pricey shopping district in the Back Bay, pretty much any bit of authenticity must be fully earned. It really wasn’t, although I was heartened to learn that people were paying as much for Bud Light as I was for Guinness. Sweet), meandering around the city, seeing multiple things I’d like to photograph in the daylight (I think I’d later get to them all), seeing an awning for “Dana’s Astrology,” [a different coworker of mine, further enlightening context also not available] snickering, then deciding to not take that picture and send it quite yet, since my phone’s camera absolutely sucks in low-light situations and since it was Saturday night and surely Dana had better things to do than get a random, potentially anonymous (from her end, anyway) picture sent when she was in Milwaukee. Those were no where near chronological order. Also, I think I got lost a few times. Well, as lost as you can get when you’re in a strange city and you’re entire purpose is to wander aimlessly. And, yes, I realize that this is a good metaphor for my life.
I think, then, after all that it was about 11:30 or so, and I went back to the hostel and went to sleep. So ends Day 1.
(Pictures for the entire trip are going up on flickr now.
