Triangular circumnavigation

Location: Cambridge, MA.
Objective: Find home.
Miscellaneous: Calm sniffles with Sudafed.

Yes, it's that time again--when I fly across the country for a two-day trip to find housing in preparation for graduate school. Now I never have flown across the country for a two-day trip nor attended graduate school, but everything becomes déjà-vuey by the end of the second day when you're hopped up on antihistamines. Contrary to my cute little B&B location I'm actually attending school in Somerville (or is it Medford?) at Tufts and living ten minutes away. And oops, there goes the surprise. In the course of eight meetings yesterday I found a place and roommates that I really liked and casually committed myself to a year of their company. What's worse is that the guy of the male/female pair wasn't even there, but traveling in Boulder, CO. And don't worry they are not a pair in any way (yet) but anonymous strangers. I won't ever make the "hi we're a couple looking to fill a room" Craigslist mistake again.

Today I mailed the deposit and cancelled five housing meetings, which is the best feeling in the world when you don't even want to get out of bed at 11AM. I spent most of the day doing a work-sleep rotation and stumbled outside a couple times to find Mexican food. My bedside table looks like a recently-departed pop star's minus the syringes (hidden behind the lamp.)



Tomorrow morning I jet off to Calgary via Montréal to repose on the front porch of the family farm for a short spell. I should mention that I'll be offline so my posting schedule will remain irregular. Maybe I should mention that I have no readers too, but then you'd be miffed.

As the pro-drowsy formula kicks in I bid you all goodnight from my three-person sachel-tied red ruffly curtained room and I'll pray for more humble accomidations on the farm. Think attic with ghost of bat.

organize orange orang-utan

I struggled back to the office today to see what it felt like after 4 weeks of voyage to come back to two jobs, one which may have ended and the other which may not have started. Predictably I spent much of the day evading the clockable hours and tended to more mundane housekeeping, looking for Boston lodging for the fall and filling out medical forms for the university. Way to come back home a changed man--I'll never accomplish personal transformation before a computer screen.

As week-long Alps-related neck pain encroached upon my afternoon I desired a comfy couch and a pile of books. The heat and a couple aspirin put me into a doze but some good reading transpired afterward. The things I really want to do that take a bit more than passive attention, such as working my way through a new pop piano instruction book and sprechin' a little deutch, seem still off limits. But writing is not, and I realize I really have to start writing every day, just in case I have a grandson in 50 years who lives in a bubble and thinks my world was interesting.

Dear grandson, I promise that I'll make the world better for you and all your fellow humans and critter friends of the world, and other planets if such discoveries should be made soon. But I'm not writing to promise you a better world, just to give you a little perspective on a world very different then yours. Hence (yes I know you'll no longer have this word in your dictionary) but hence I will try to be a bit more concrete in my writing from now on so you don't have the abrasive feeling of experiencing bad abstract art, but instead a good funny tale from your old-timer granddad. Oh and here's a picture of me writing this at age 32. Yes, we didn't have 24-hour 3-D personal video recording in my time, just these crazy ear pieces for hearing external music sources.
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My uncle has been writing to his grandson, sending his diary entry and my grandmother's for the corresponding day in 1950. There was an acute dearth of pictures, but great descriptions of every day life on the farm.

Homing in on confusion

I arrived here from Boston via Paris and Geneva from Chamonix, the tourist mecca under Mont Blanc in the Alps. Here is home, but home feels like such a bad word these days. My trip lasted three-and-a-half weeks, beginning in my future home in Boston for Sarah and Oren's wedding (cousin and cousin-in-law and all around wonderful companions.) I played tourist there when I should have been shopping for my future neighborhood, but who can resist a T ride down to Quincy to learn all about the Adams? Next Air France took me to Barcelona with a courtesy dinner and two breakfasts, unheard of in American airspace. I wandered the city until my Barcelonian friend Elena came home and rescued me from bad tourist restaurants and gave me an insider's tour complete with local cheese and meats and a three-course patio lunch in here little beach town of Premia for just 10€. Next it was train time. I breezed out of Spain along the Mediteranean at 80+ mph to Montpellier, a lovely walkable town with nightlife 'til dawn and streetcars and paving stones instead of cars and asphalt. Then I jumped on a TGV to Lyon and a couple mountain trains to Chamonix.

I had no idea what lay in store for me when I began my 12 day trekking tour around Mont Blanc. I was gifted 14 other hikers and two guides, many of whom became my best friends for the duration. My roommate Ross was a one-of-kind intrepid New Yorker (New Jersey, I know Ross) who is spending the Summer conquering Europe and striking up conversation with every old man, beautiful woman, fortunate cute dog, and everyone in between. Language barriers for him are opportunities, and his camera and humor are his tools for priceless moments and a hilarious travel blog, http://rossgoround.blogspot.com/. His outlook on travel is truly inspirational and I wish him the best in Croatia and nations beyond.

The Alps trek can only be called spectacular. The views and flowers are meekly portrayed in my photos, which I'll link to here when I'm off my iPhone and back at the big keys. If there were ever a case where every penny I spent was worth it, it was this trip (and the Lasik surgery I had in '01.) Despite the stiff neck from hiking that still plagues me a week later, I wish nothing more than to be back on those gorgeous alpine passes again.









I wanted to return home and write something humorous, but this weekend I'm really in a daze trying to figure out what it is I'm doing at home. I know I have to get ready for grad school this fall, and that means planning, studying, and making some money, but I have no idea why I have to do any of that from here. Other than some expensive rent to pay I really have nothing keeping me here. My friends and family shouldn't be offended; they've seen enough of me lately and know what's best for me. I've worked for years at making this a place I like to be. I can play that game for another 6 weeks or I can fold and buy some more plane tickets.

At this point any good listener would ask me, what's really going on here? Do I feel like I'm missing out on something, do I fear my immediate and long-term future, or do I just wish my days could be as pleasant and carefree as the mindless, serene trekking of last week? I was so free of stress last week--I didn't wander around with a tight jaw; company was a given and not a luxury; I barely saw a computer and didn't have to worry about being the solitary beta male that seems to dominate my home life. The crystal ball says that I will now resume my daily trudges to the office and gym. I will waste away my evenings with a walk around the ugly neighborhood that is nicer than anything else around the city because this city is so fundamentally ugly. I won't maintain my spirit of meeting new people and talking ro strangers that Ross inspired so simplistically.

We all have our balls and chains, but what should we do when there is a rare opportunity to break free of them all, or at least check them at the airport counter? Maybe all I really need to do is stick my head up straight, stiff neck notwithstanding, smile, and keeping walking down the street with that beat-up Spanish novel that survived Europe as my makeshift dossier. I could lie down in my housemate's new hammock and read that book, or learn some German, or watch the rest of Eddie Izzard's all-French performance on YouTube. I can keep eating the pumkin bread with garlic yogurt that I bought from the Afghan guy at the farmer's market yesterday. Maybe life isn't so bad if I can keep making big plans and stay patient. I dunno.