mike in progress

Dear blog,

How I have neglected you so.
Love,

Mike

I was on the T the other day, and I saw a cute girl sitting there on the Green Line.  And then she pulled out a pink Nintendo DS and started to play it.  I fell in love.

I was shopping in Whole Foods today, and much to your surprise, I’m sure, was looking for some bacon.  But all of the bacon there was of the uncured variety.  So this got me thinking, what the heck is uncured bacon?  Well evidently, all bacon, by its very nature is cured.  Its what makes bacon, bacon.  The difference here is that uncured bacon uses salt instead of cured bacon which uses sodium nitrites.  In the late seventies, there was a whole thing about how sodium nitrites were bad for you.  So in uncured bacon, they just use celery and lemon juice and salt and some other stuff in order to get the same sort of effect that sodium nitrites got you.

Anyone that’s been talking to me since I’ve moved to Boston has probably heard all about how much I love the T.  The T is pretty much Boston’s version of the NYC Subway System.  The awesome part about it is how easy it is to figure out.  I’ve lived right next to NYC for most of my life, and I never bothered to learn the subway system.  But here, in just a few days with extensive consulting of the subway map, I can get to anywhere I need to go.  The only thing I am not too confident about is what things are close to what stops.

Anyhow, I am growing to not like the green line.  In fact, on my way to Cambridge today, I took the Red Line instead and walked a few blocks instead of riding the T all of the way to Lechmere.  However, since it started raining, I decided on the lesser of two evils and took the Green Line back to Copley.  And on this ride of rides, I had two lovely occurrences happen.  First, I had the pleasure of a homeless woman sit next to me.  How could I tell?  Her shabby dirty looking clothes.  Oh, and because she smelled horrid.  After that, the train or tram or whatever you want to call it, got rather crowded.  And a rather large girl was standing really close to me.  When I say really, I mean really.  Really as in she was pretty much straddling one of my legs.  It was awkward.  Not awkward turtle, not awkward moose, but awkward dolphin.  That was how awkward it was.

Anyhow, it is time for me to end this post.  Marcus moves in tomorrow.  I think I’m going to try to not be here so I dont have to carry anything.  I think I shall update this tomorrow and start talking about some of the restaurants I’ve been dining at around here in my refusal to cook. Which is another story.  I have enough china and silverware to have eight dine in comfort.  I have more kitchen appliances than Martha Stewart.  But I don’t own a single pot or a pan.  Well that’s not completely true, I own a cast iron pan.  And it is glorious.

So I had a good day in Boston. I moved the first carload of stuff to my new apartment. I have to say that I am loving the location. I have three restaurants in the ground floor of my building, all good ones, there’s a Morton’s across the street, and numerous other eateries abound.

On another note, I read the most interesting quote on pacifism. It pretty much said although war is ugly, there are many things that are uglier. And that the most frightening prospect of all was a world where there wasn’t anything worth fighting for.

Side note: I talked to a pretty neat girl.

Sunday is your last chance to see me.  I will be working from 11 until 6.  Monday I leave for good!

I have one week left till I move.  I’ve got a bunch of stuff packed, most of the stuff in my closet and my on my personal bookshelf.  Thursday is phase one.  I’m taking up a carload.   I might even be spending the night there.  I’m excited to go.  It’s a great opportunity for me, and I’m not going to let it go to waste.

So as time marches on, and spring approaches, my time in Connecticut is quickly coming to an end. Next week is my last at work, and the week after I will be spending moving. It’s creeping up, and even though it is all very real, it still has an air of unreality to it. It also makes me think about everything that’s happened to me since I came here.

So I thought I would recap everything that’s happened to me here.

I arrived late in summer of 2006, fresh out of college, and fresh out of most of a summer spent in a drunken stupor in Buffalo, NY.  I started work with a defense contractor.  I started dating this med student named Ashley.  She was cute, smart, and fun.  One problem, ego clash like whoa.   So that ended.  Work continued, and as time passed, it was getting less and less cool.  I realized more and more what a twit one of my bosses was.  Come March 2007, I was pretty fed up with my job.  I quit and soon started to work where I do now.  I got a promotion in September, and got to spend two weeks in California.

The holidays passed and then I met Elizabeth.  And that’s over.  And here I am, moving to Boston.

I fear that I will pick up a Boston accent while living in Boston.

So the just the day before last, I went up to Boston with Marcus to go apartment hunting.  We found the perfect place, and we are currently applying.  But that’s not the good part of this tale.  First, I have to provide some back story.  Boston streets aren’t the best.  Marcus hates potholes.  He feels that hitting enough of them causes his car to become unaligned.  So I made fun of him for cursing every single pothole that he hits.  So there we were, driving in Back Bay from Cambridge to get some dinner before we head home.  It’s about 6:30.  He hits a pothole.  Not all that hard, but pretty hard.  He gets pissed, then all of a sudden, warning lights go off.  Low tire pressure.  We pull over and I check the tires.  He has a flat on his front drivers side tire.  We pull into a parking lot, and I ask him if he knows how to change a tire.  He has no idea, so I end up changing his tire for him.  That alone is enough mockery to last a good month or two.  But then we head to the closest Lexus dealership.   They don’t have a spare and they don’t have anyone around to change it.  We head to a Bridgestone, and they don’t have tires in stock.  They send us to an NTB, and they say we have to get all the tires changed.  His car is an all wheel drive model, and you have to change all the tires together, else the transmission will go.  So long story short, he gets four new tires, we go out and have dinner, and we head back.  I get home a bit past midnight.

So that was a much more interesting story when it was in my head.  But the thing I am really taking away from it is that for the first time I really realized that I was in the city that was going to my new home.  It hit me for the first time.  And as much as I am looking forward to going, there’s still a lot that I’m leaving behind.  More than I realized, after tonight.  I have to go, because it’s the best thing for me to do right now.  But there’s a part of me that will still wonder, “What if?”

Life is full of what ifs.  And as much as we can tell ourselves that they don’t matter, they still factor into our thinking and decision making.  So what does one do?  I don’t know.  If I ever find out, I’ll tell you.