Sunday morning in the city

I am a big proponent of living in a city during your twenties: there is nothing better than having a group of friends just a train ride away, having access to arts and restaurants and good times. I have to take issue, though, with the depiction of this lifestyle of TV. Young people always have apartments that are way too nice to be affordable, your best friends just show up at your door , and you all go down to Central Perk to talk about your day. That’s not really how it works.

Until today.

I was dozing around 8am when I heard my phone buzzing. I got up and saw it was a friend calling, and I immediately assumed it was an emergency (most likely that our other friend, who is visiting from NY, needed a ride somewhere quickly). So I called back and was told “be out front in 5 minutes”.

I dashed around the apartment brushing my teeth and getting the sleep out of my eyes. I threw on a pair of jeans and my fleece and went out front, where they were waiting for me in a zipcar and the BC shirts they had worn to the game last night.

They had gotten a Zipcar in order to go to McDonalds, and Max had seen a documentary on the ICA so he wanted to go down to the Seaport District and see it. Since my apartment was between those two points, they picked me up. After cruising the parking lot of the museum, we stopped at Dunkin’ for refills and drove out to Castle Island to sit behind Fort Independence, eat some Mickey D’s and complain about the cold.

We were going to watch a little Pop Warner, but we had to get the car back.

So it’s 9:30 on a Sunday and I’ve already had an adventure. Plus I had all the fun we used to have after staying up all night, but I got to have a good night’s sleep.

Today I went to the pawn unit to see if there were any records of the stolen items being sold or pawned. Since it has been almost 30 days since the burglary I had a bit of a time crunch because secondhand shops are only required to hold items for 30 days. So after a long day at the end of a long week, I left work early to head over to Tremont St.

The had told me on the phone that they were at 1199 Tremont St, near the Reggie Lewis Center. It occurred to me on the way over there that they were probably in the Boston Police Headquarters, but naturally there weren't any numbers on the buildings so I drove up and down the street a few times, then found a spot, passed through the metal detectors and asked if I was in the right place. Lucky for me I was.

Everyone in licensing was very pleasant, and they sat me down in a comfortable chair with piles and piles of records starting with 9/27. I pulled out my list of stolen pieces, lowered the chair so that my feet touched the floor, and started skimming. The experience was just about as miserable as I had expected (think Erin Brockovich at the water board, minus the sycophant in the plaid pants). In addition to the charts and descriptions swimming in front of my eyes, a woman was trying to change the life of one of the officers with a nearby cubicle ("you should come to church! you should eat fruit! you should pack a lunch!"). As all of my senses reached a breaking point, my neck started to hurt from hovering over the sheets of records.

There were a few redeeming moments. None of them involved finding any of my lost things, but there were some wild items listed. Some were amusing in themselves- a Patriots helmet gold necklace for instance - and some were purely the result of transcription. These included a Hairing Bone chain, a Cladder ring, and a Bango bracelet.

Lest you think my experience was all mocking superiority and bad posture, I will add that I got a little emotional when I got deep into October's records and accepted that nothing was going to show up. I had been trying so hard to remember my jewelry in order to describe it, and the pieces were all very present in my mind. Letting them go again this afternoon I found myself crying over those long sheets of white paper, wondering if it would be better to catch the tears in my glasses or let them drip onto the BPD's records.

Another half-marathon for the books

I started long-distance running about 3 years ago purely out of stubbornness. I was sick of watching my friends push themselves in these races and always watching from the sidelines, so I decided to train for the New Bedford Half-Marathon with a bunch of friends despite the fact that I am the opposite of a natural athlete (an unnatural athlete? maybe).

Today I completed the Hartford Half-Marathon for the third time, with a time 25 minutes faster than my time in March of 2006. I'm still slow, and running is still hard, but I am walking (limping) proof that you can do most things if you set your mind to it.

My Fall fall into irritability

Being back at work since September, things have gone pretty well: vocal fatigue is at a minimum, I don't dread getting out of bed in the morning, and I don't find myself getting testy at work as easily as I have in years past.

But as Columbus Day sneaks up on us, the results of early mornings at work and long nights at rehearsal, of early morning Sunday church gigs and late nights at the theater, are starting to show. Twice in the last two days I have become irrationally annoyed at store employees who only exhibited minimal signs of culpability regarding my annoyance. Yesterday's story is almost too shameful to repeat, but I will admit that it culminated in my sniping across the Finagle-a-Bagel counter "Next time get it right the first time, Daryl", repeating the name on his name tag like it was a curse word.

Now that the summer is over, Fridays no longer feel like any other day. Rather, on Fridays I feel so tired I can't see straight, and if I spend another second around a human being I will lose my mind. So maybe it wasn't a great idea to hit up Bed Bath & Beyond at 5pm looking for a wedding gift for a wedding this weekend.

As it turns out, a number of things for which a person can register at Bed Bath & Beyond are not available in stores. I had already decided exactly what I would get; the fun, quirky items I would pair it with; the beautiful wrappings with which I would adorn it. And then a nice, bearded man (who, lucky for him was not wearing a name tag) told me I couldn't buy what I want.

I grabbed the pages of the registry which contained the things I could get in store and paced the aisles, but I was so shaken and perturbed about not being able to get my way that I couldn't even function (see also: Being a Felice). I ended up leaving and going next door to the craft store to formulate plan B.

It's inevitable for most New Englanders this time of year - as the days get darker so do we. Then suddenly it's June and we realize that we have been down-in-the-dumps for 8 months without noticing. The business of my fall schedule do little to help with that, so I beg you all to bear with me as I begin the fall's slow decline into lunacy. Give me a few months and I'll be back.

Wildlife in the 'hood

Yesterday morning I opened my back door and turned on the light to see an opossum staring me in the face. I have to admit, it freaked me out a bit. Growing up on a busy road in an area full of wildlife, I saw my share of critters, both living and dead. But when I moved to the city, sacrificing the grass and trees of my home for asphalt and walk-ups, one thing I thought I would be rid of would be gross animals like oppossums.

Not so, apparently. After seeing Critter #1 I set out for an early morning run. Around mile 2 I saw Critter #2, small and soft and black, creeping out of the edge of Dorchester Bay with an ominous white streak down it's back. Nothing helps me with my speedwork like the prospect of taking a tomato sauce shower before work, so I swung as far to the left as I could and sprinted past Stinky back toward Dorchester Heights.

Sock it to me!

I promise that soon this blog will stop being all woe-is-me-I-got-burgled and start being about all the different ways I make a mess of my life, like usual.

This post falls somewhere in between, because it’s really not the burglar’s fault that I can’t find my toenail clippers. Regardless of any culpability, this missing item resulted in my toes finally poking through a pair of favorite striped socks which are at least 10 years old. This, of course, happened at rehearsal when I really couldn’t put my shoes back on.

I try to repair socks because I hate being a “Waste-e-roo”, but with how busy my life is these days, I’m not too inclined to add anything to my darning pile. Unfortunately I don’t see much of a choice in the matter because apparently when thieves steal jewelry they put it in your socks to take it out.

When the detectives were here, marveling at how my apartment had been ransacked (I had to fess up that it had been that messy when I left in the morning) they asked if anything else was gone. I said “I must be imagining this, but I think they took my socks”. They were the ones who filled me in on the thievery technique.

This post brought to you by Mark Twain

N O T I C E.
To the next burglar‒‒‒‒

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise—it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away.

Very truly yours,
S. L. Clemens.

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Not only is it appropriate, it gives me a chance to brag about famous people from Connecticut.