Tuesday, September 6, 2016

hello from boston

Guys, I made it.

Thirteen (plus) hours of driving; a pit stop in Pennsylvania to see my dear friend Brittany; an audio book (The Boys in the Boat. Read it. Read it now. But if you're a sucker for inspirational sports stories like I am, be prepared for some waterworks.) that brought me to tears several times between New York and Massachusetts; roughly a million hours (give or take) of scrubbing, unpacking, organizing, more scrubbing; three tips to Target (and counting); and only one relatively minor panic attack later, I'm all settled in to my little house (technically a duplex, I think?) in Boston.

My roommates and I have christened the house Ethel. When one of them suggested naming the house, my heart warmed at having found a kindred spirit who feels the need to name any and all inanimate objects, just as I do. The name Ethel immediately came to my mind; it's a fussy old lady name but also suggests character and spunk and quirkiness. All of which our house has. 

Ethel has made leaps and bounds since I moved in on Thursday. To be frank, she was a wreck. She's dealt with 15 years of inhabitation by 20-something Mormon boys, and has taken a bit of a beating as a result. The guys who lived there before us have likely never touched a sponge or broom and clearly didn't have the deeply rooted attachment to Clorox wipes that I have; every surface was dirty or dusty, and we're still working to get rid of the grime. But we're making progress, and I'm relieved to have roommates who value having disinfected counter tops and showers. 

I've had very little to do besides getting settled, so I don't have many good stories to tell (yet). Aside from the fact that there was a man who was either dead or extremely incapacitated outside the subway station today. And before y'all jump down my throat like some people did when I shared that information earlier (you know who you are!), it wasn't just a homeless guy taking a nap. He was slumped awkwardly over a curb and there were EMTs surrounding him. So obviously something was wrong, okay? Also one of the first people I met in Boston (after one of my roommates and my landlords) was so stereotypically hipster that it was almost absurd: beanie, scruffy hair and beard, slim cut button down, rolled up pants, Toms, and a job as a graphic designer. The fact that we met because he was scoping our trash pile for anything he might want to adopt (he ended up taking part of a giant desk a previous tenant had ever-so-kindly left in my room) just made the situation more entertaining.

Anyway. 

The longer I'm here (yes, I'm aware it's only been 6 days, but it's been 6 very long, very full days), the more I realize how important it's going to be for me to keep a record of my time in Boston. I just know, deep in my gut, that I'll regret it some day if I don't. It sounds so trite and cliche, but this time and these experiences are going to be life changing. I just know it.

The last few mornings, I've run along the Charles River and through Harvard Square and just found myself unable to process the concept of Boston being my home now. It's so incredibly different from anywhere I've lived before, and it's thrilling. I'm so excited to explore and discover and probably get lost from time to time.

So in summary: I made it here alive, you should expect more frequent (and hopefully more interesting) reports from Boston in the future, and I think I'm really going to like it here. 
 

2 comments:

  1. Love the update. ..itotivates me to start to write more too...I can't wait to hear all the stories...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the update. ..itotivates me to start to write more too...I can't wait to hear all the stories...

    ReplyDelete