6/11/1998: Expectations

I took a Creative Writing class when I was in college, and I recent conversation reminded me of the enjoyment and frustration I took out of that class. Thankfully they were in unequal measure (far more enjoyment than frustration, at least in the end.)

One of our first assignments was to write a one page scene. I had a lot of trouble with this. My nature is to see the big picture, and I kept seeing my stories as "the big picture" and had trouble breaking out a scene, or even just creating one. My teacher's advice was simply to focus on the scene, on the moment, and finish it. The next scene will be their waiting when you're done. And you can always change it later if you aren't happy with it. I've tried to carry that bit of advice into other areas of my life (though I'm fully aware that in the real world you can't always change things later on) and I've had a good measure of success.

In fact sometimes my focus is so intense that I forget what's going on around me. Rachel pesters me about this when I'm watching a sports team I really like. She doesn't like the fact that she has to shout at me to break my concentration on what I'm watching. I've already told her to give up this battle. It's a Donovan family trait, maybe even genetically embedded. If we're watching the Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots, or Celtics, the outside world ceases to exist. Except during timeouts, period, or inning breaks of course.

(and aside, do any other men out there have this problem with their significant others? Rachel claims it's only me but I think most men are like this. I'd be curious to know.)

Anyway, back to the tale. Eventually I learned how to focus in and create the best scenes I could before moving my attention to the next one. Our final project involved writing two short stories which would be graded by the class and by the teacher. I had discarded several
attempts and finally whittled it down to two stories I thought were the best; one about a bank robbery, one about a drunk driving accident where a couple is blindsided and the husband decides to pull the plug on the machines that are the only thing keeping her alive.

In my mind, the drunk driving story was stronger, I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted to do with it, and I thought if was far more complete than the robbery story.

So of course, when I go to get my grades, the robbery story got an A and the DD story a B. I was amazed. Then I started reading through everyone's comments, mad at first because my expectations were not met at all.

Once I got the reasons for their reactions, I began to see my own writing in a much different light. It was one of my first experiences in perspective, of making myself step away and seeing how others saw what I was doing. It allowed me to more easily project myself into situations and characters and say "how would THEY do this" instead of "how would I do this."

One of the few classes I took in college where I learned something useful.

I'll talk about Intermediate Financial Management another time....

6/11/1998: Regarding October 25, 1986

This whole reminiscence was brought about by a discussion about which team was the biggest heartbreaker, the Boston Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs. Being a die-hard Sox fan, I say that they are the worst because on occasion they give us hope then snuff it out. Tim agreed, mentioning that in 1986 they were only one strike away from winning it all. This is the flood of memory that followed my reading of that phrase, "One strike away."

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Dan Shaugnessy, a sports columnist for the Boston Globe, actually wrote a book on the 1986 Red Sox called One Strike Away. I never read it myself; I have no need to read about the subject. I lived and died it.

I will offer you this story for reflection. At the aforementioned date my entire family is watching the game. We were one strike away from winning the World Series for the first time since 1918. I used to have a picture of that game from behind home plate in which you could read the scoreboard. It said "Congratulations 1986 World Champions, Boston Red Sox."

At this point, I called a good friend of mine (mind you it was 11:30pm or so, but I knew he'd be up) and laid into him. This was finally it, the waiting was over, I told him. His reply, "It's not over until it's over." He hung up.

Events proceeded. Schiraldi can't get an out. Stanley throws a wild pitch (or Gedman allows a past ball, whoever you feel like blaming.) Buckner misses the ball that he should never have had an opportunity to field, since in every game that year he had been replaced late in the game with a better defensive player. The game ends. We are all in shock. Not a word is said. Not a word CAN be said.

The phone rings.

I made the pronouncement that anyone who touches that phone is a dead person. My friend finally gives up and hangs up. This merely delays the inevitable, as he is in our morning carpool.

Strong consideration was given to simply not picking him up the next day

One of the radio show hosts here was a complete cynic concerning the Red Sox, and with good reason. All throughout his life they had often been pretty good, but everyone knew they were never really good enough. All through the year, he kept the refrain, "they won't do it, they can't do it, they never do it."

Does anyone remember that the Red Sox were down to there last outs against the Angels in the League Championship Series? Down two runs, bottom of the ninth. One out. Don Baylor hits a home run to make it a one run game. Another out. Dave Henderson comes to bat, takes two
awful swings. It's all over, we think, and my dad says it out loud.

Unjaded sixteen-year old youth that I am, I maintain a glimmer of hope.

The pitch comes in, Henderson swings, and the ball goes.....and goes....I moved to the edge of the couch and watched it go over the wall. Next thing I know I'm rubbing my knuckles because I had jumped up and smashed them into the ceiling (a la Nick Cage in Raising Arizona.)

The game went another inning and we won. Back to Boston, and Clemens dominated the Angels in the final game to win the series.

At this point the above mentioned host converted. "I believe," he told us after the game. "I finally believe. These guys can do it."

Cut to after Game 6 of the Series. We've turned the radio on because we know this man's show will start after the game. The standard lead-in plays and the radio tells us "Here's Eddie."

Silence.

And then the most heart wrenching scream of pain you will ever hear a man utter.

Once again, the Red Sox had planted a tiny seed of hope in the hearts of their fans, just to cut the seed out and rub salt into the wound.

I hope against hope that some time in my lifetime the Red Sox win it all. People say baseball is dying, but Boston is a baseball town and nothing will ever change that. No matter how good the Celtics, Bruins, or Patriots may be, the Red Sox create the buzz and define the mood of the city in a way that few things can. You could feel it in 1995 when they won the American League East. You could just FEEL the energy in the city. Boston is a great place to be in the summer, probably the best city in the country. But when the Sox are in the pennant race, it's indescribable.

I hope against hope that they will win it all, because this city will explode in a party that will make Mardi Gras look like a bunch of grandmothers on a church outing. And I want to be here to see it, to feel it, to live it.

Can you tell we like our sports here in Boston?

I'm not quite like Eddie yet. I still hope.

end
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Epilogue. I retained hope. They did win the World Series in 2004, and it was every bit as glorious as I could have imagined.

5/31/1998: Life in Boston

What to do when it's warm....


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This weekend was a hot and steamy one here in Beantown, so what better way to cool than go someplace air-conditioned?

Yeah, yeah, I know going for a swim would do the trick too, but air conditioning is pretty good too. Anyway, we decided that today, since the sun wasn’t really out, we’d head to the Museum of Science, where the IMAX film “Everest” had its world premiere and will be showing all summer.

I knew I was going to write about this tonight, and the whole time leading up to the viewing and during it, I kept thinking of how I would describe it. When I left the theatre, there was only one word in my head. Wow. Wow Wow Wow. Watching an IMAX film is like being in a helicopter with a big glass dome on the front, and just sticking your head right in it. It was like flying. The panoramic shots are just simply breathtaking, and they make sure that there are plenty of them.

The movie starts and ends with Tensing Norgay’s son (Norgay is the Sherpa who accompanied Edmund Hillary to the summit in the 50’s.) This would be his first trip to the summit. He gives you a deep feeling of what the Himalayas mean to the Sherpas, and why they climb them. You also get, here and throughout the film, some fascinating views of Buddhist temples. The first with Norgay’s son as a youth, lighting prayer candles to speed his father along to the summit. And as the close, with him as a grown man, putting together a twenty-five thousand candle tribute to speed the souls of the 8 climbers who died on their journey

After meeting the younger Norgay, you are given short biographies on the expedition members.

First you follow Ed Viesturs (I think that’s the spelling, apologies if not) and his wife on a mountain biking trip through the Utah desert/mountains. Watching them bike a trail and flying over the thousand feet drop-off their edging along is indescribable. The shape this man is in is simply amazing. A quote from his wife, “When we go for a five hour bike ride, I consider it a workout. Ed considers it warm-up.”

Then we move to Mexico, where another member of the group is rock climbing right on the ocean. You first see her hanging from the underside of a rock by one hand, and watch her as she makes her way over the ledge and works her way up. Then, they hooked the camera to her and had her rappel down the cliff. I have to stay that my stomach turned at this point. Watching these movies, you have to realize that you can’t see ANYTHING else but the screen, and your body reacts to it, believe me.

When the movie finally moved to Everest itself, I was just speechless. You really get an idea of how vast the mountain is. Five and a half miles above sea level. They make a point of showing you a view with all the tents of base camp in the foreground, with the glacier and mountain taking up the rest of the screen. If that doesn’t give you the idea that this is not a place that people should be, I don’t know what does. Just amazing, watching them cross the icefield on roped-together ladders, spanning crevasses maybe 500 feet deep. Then watching them climb straight up the mountain, suspended thousands of feet above the air, and then looking up and seeing the mountain looming impossibly high above them.

The film crew had to put their climb on hold to help out the climbers whose attempt at the summit was told in the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. They do this with no hesitation, no consideration that it might jeopardize their own attempt at the summit. Read the book, and you’ll realize that there were many others who were nowhere near that selfless.

They do eventually make the summit, after nine weeks on the mountain. Pictures from the top of the world. Breathtaking.
The film left me with two very conflicting thoughts. Going in, I thought to myself, “you’d have to be absolutely insane to try to climb Everest.” Leaving the film, that thought stuck with me. I think the IMAX camera did the best job I’ve ever seen of showing just how massive everything on Everest is, and just how small the humans are who scale it. But seeing the views of the Himalayas, I think I can understand how someone could be moved to try it. Could you just imagine being able to tell someone, “I’ve been on top of the world?”

That would be something.

3/12/1998: Ballet on the Hardwood

Regarding Princeton basketball and its upset of UCLA in the first round of the 1998 NCAA tournament.

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I wrote about a full moon a few months ago, and seeing that same shining sight again tonight through the Arctic cold that has embraced us East Coasters (and undoubtedly made Barbara a happier woman) inspired me to write tonight. I thought I was going to write about the moon and just see where it took me, but something just changed my mind.

Most of you know that this is the time of year know as March Madness, when the NCAA holds a sixty-four team tournament to decide who the national champion will be in basketball. I caught a few games this afternoon, and as always I was impressed by the enthusiasm with which these men approach these games, even the men who knew their teams had not a chance of winning. Just being invited to the Dance is enough for some.

Princeton University probably fell into that category for a number of years, almost always playing well, and usually coming up short by a point or two. Last year that changed when they knocked off UCLA. But the underdog image is still firmly rooted in most of our heads. I’m hear to tell you that, in the words of Dick Vitale, “they’re the real deal, baby!!”

In a time where basketball, and most college and professional athletics, has degenerated into a chest thumping, roof-raising orgy of self promotion, along comes a team that declines to play that game. People say they play a style right out of the fifties. To that I say BULLSHIT. They simply are one of the few teams around that still remembers that team has no “I” in it. They are one of the few teams where the sum is far far greater than the individual parts.

As I watched the game tonight, I noticed that their style changed my viewing habits. Usually I try to follow the ball handler, maybe anticipate where the next pass is going. When I tried to watch Princeton that way, I was missing the beauty. It was like standing three feet away from a Renoir or Monet and trying to appreciate the beauty of it. Impossible. You have to step back and let the picture coalesce in your mind. So instead of focusing on the ball, I focused on the colors, I sort of let my eyes fall out of focus and just watched the white shirts dance across the hardwood. Constant movement, fluid and rounded, and then
BANG

A white shirt cutting through the lane with no one between it and the basket.

BANG

A bounce pass that puts the ball right in the hands of the cutting player.

Swish

The ball falling through the net for an uncontested lay-up.

Princeton has lost one game this year, by eight points to the University of North Carolina in the Dean Dome. If both Carolina and Princeton win their next games, they’ll meet in the Sweet Sixteen. And I have no problems believing that Princeton can win that game. I think Princeton WILL win that game.

Some of you know I despise North Carolina, but I’ll fully admit they are and have been the best team in the country this year. But if Princeton gets another shot, I have a feeling they won’t miss 16 of 24 three pointers.

It’s just a feeling, I could be wrong, I probably am wrong. Just a feeling.

I love college basketball, a love that was fully cultivated in the years I spent on Tobacco Road at N.C. State, and the years I lived there after college. Tonight was just a slap-in-the-face reminder of why I love it so much.


(from the here and now: I was wrong. Princeton lost their next game.)

2/14/1998: My Life in the Library

A bit of childhood remembered....

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My bookshop stories will come later, but what really formed me when I was young was the library. I lived there. It was like my Cheers, everybody knew my name, and that means something to a 10 year old.

It actually started long before that. Mom tells me I was reading at two and a half, and probably a year after that I was in the library once a week, minimum. I recall them having some sort of young readers
plan (really meant for kids 10 and older) that called for you to read around 5-6 books and find the answers to some questions about the stories. So from an early age I was reading, not only to just understand words, but to understand stories. Well pretty soon I was reading all of the books in one sitting, so Mom just set me loose in the kids section while she went upstairs to the adult section. I longed to go upstairs, but more on that later.

For some reason (probably involving being a 9-10 year old male) I gravitated to all the WW books. I remember two in particular that were illustrated histories of both world wars. At that stage I was
fascinated by the pictures of the various machines, tanks, planes, fortresses (the Maginot Line is still fascinating to me. Sometimes the French as so foolish.) Not so much just the pictures, but the descriptions of what they were, what they did, etc. Later on I reread the same books, but the actual battles became more interesting, I'd look at strategy, tactics, ask if I'd have done the same (yeah a 12 year old leading the Allied drive to Berlin.)

Thoughts of tactics and strategy (and an older next door neighbor who used to pound me in it) turned me to books on chess strategies. From May one summer until the end of July, we played every day. It only
lasted until the end of July because from mid-July on he didn't beat me once, the last few games I totally mauled him (the Queen's gambit.) Man I wish I had kept up with that. I play chess against the computer
now and get whipped. Oh well

Well around age 12 or 13, I'd pretty much read every book the kiddy section had to offer me, time to move on to the real stuff. I'd already started reading some juvenile fiction (Piers Anthony's Xanth series held
me until I was about 16) and wanted to read some real books. I never read any classics before high school, just fantasy, science fiction, mysteries and espionage stuff. I never was and am not a big mystery fan, but mom devours them so every once in a while I'd read one. She's the one who created my Tom Clancy addiction. A friend gave her The Hunt for Red October, and she never got to reading it, so I picked it up
around 8pm one night and started reading. Around 4am I finished and that was that. I think I've read that book 10 times and I still love it. The tension he creates is amazing, I've never read an author who
made me physically anxious to turn the page and read what came next.

I've always been a big SF fan. Not so much for the quality of the writing, good SF writers are few and far between. Larry Niven is a favorite (I've read Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer at least 5 times each)
But my library had a rather small SF section, and I read everything that interested me pretty quickly. But I never like SF so much for storytelling as for the idea. If the book had a unique and original idea that it revolved around, I liked it. I could sink myself into that world and forget about the book, I could become my own character and do what I wanted, create my own stories and adventures. I still do this,
probably even more vividly than I did back then.

Man, I realized I never described the Lynn Public Library to anyone. It's an old building, Carnegie built I believe, but very much like a traditional library should look. Huge front with marble/granite facing.
The 4 pillars supporting the front are in themselves a story. Most pillars are sectional, and when the raise them they stack the sections to create the pillars. These 19 foot granite monstrosities are one piece. I ask once how they got them there in one piece when they built this building in the 20's, and was told by one old timer, "With great difficulty." He then told me the story about how they broke the first several one, but the architect was stubborn and money wasn't an object, so it finally got done with a lot of sweat and muscle. But as you come in the front door, you walk up a semicircular staircase on the left and enter the rotunda, a two level domed room with the circular check out desk in the middle and various rooms off the rotunda. History was one way, fiction the other, reference up stairs, etc. Unfortunately right as I was leaving Lynn for college the city started slashing their budget. Damn shame too. It was a great library, and now I understand is just a shadow of its former self. Almost make me want to cry.

So those were my formative years, spent in the library. Most of the other hours of the day were spent with friends, baseball, or some other sport. I didn't discover women until high school. Look at me now.

1/28/1998: A Pyramid Scheme

I wrote this, as is quite obvious, during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. While I'm a Republican, I was and am disgusted by the way the Republicans handled this whole episode, as you'll see below.

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I cannot watch television news or read the front page of the newspapers anymore. I cannot avoid this Dynasty episode that seems to be unfolding in Washington. So I might as well confront it.

I could care less whether President Clinton slept with that girl or not. If he coerced her to lie, and if he himself lied under oath, then that is a serious problem.

Side issue, the woman involved is talking now about recanting her sworn affidavit that she had no sexual contact with Clinton. She will do this, of course, only if she’s given immunity from prosecution. Why should she avoid prosecution? Solely to bag a bigger fish, that’s why, and it’s a disgrace.

Back to the subject. Essentially what this revolves around is $40 million witch-hunt lead by Preacher Kenneth Starr, with the Republican congregation shouting loud “hallelujahs” and “Amens.” Anyone remember Bob Packwood? 29 women accused this Republican ex-Senator of sexual misconduct. Democrats do not have a monopoly on philandering.

Inside the Beltway, power is an equal opportunity corrupter, it would seem.

I wonder why we don’t hear about campaign finance shenanigans by the Republican National Committee. Are we expected to believe that their hands are clean when the Democrats aren’t? Oh yeah that’s right, the Republicans control both houses of Congress. The Elephants can do know wrong, it’s Donkey kicking time in D.C.

Have you ever asked yourself how much better off our country would be if our elected representatives spent even one-tenth of the energy that they spend trashing each other actually doing something constructive to help their country become stronger? Even with that little effort we would all be much better off.

But why should we expect just that? Why shouldn’t one hundred percent of their efforts be spent actually doing their jobs and helping their constituents? Imagine that.

This Clinton fiasco was the last straw, in my mind. The thing that has really had me steamed lately is this talk of how they’re going to spend the expected 1999 budget surplus. You would think that even ONE politician would come out and say, “you know, it would probably be a good idea if we paid off a little of the $5.5 trillion national debt?” Not a one that I’ve seen has even mentioned it. They want cut taxes, and Clinton is using the surplus to expand Medicare without increasing taxes. I don’t need an extra $50 in my wallet every year, just pay off the debt so I don’t have to have it hanging over my head when I’m 80!

Everyone feels helpless when they read about crap like this, but I have an idea, and maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. But I think it’s worth a try. I’m gathering all of my friends, since we all vote. And I’m going to propose that each of us go and find 5 more people who’ll vote, and convince them to do the same. That’s right, a good ole fashioned pyramid scheme. Maybe all of you Nosh readers can do the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican (like me,) Democrat, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Populist, and Cannabist. Who cares? Just go and speak your mind and vote your conscience. And maybe a few of us can get motivated enough to make a few changes here and there. Anything is a start.

So give it a try. Get registered. Get involved with a candidate you like, do whatever it takes. We all bitch and complain constantly about those bastards in Washington screwing us. But we’re the ones in charge; we’re the ones who put them there. All we have to do is speak up and be heard.


Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists first, in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and secondly, in each person's bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation.

John Stuart Mills On Liberty 1859

January 1998: New Years Eve 1998

What follows describes the events of New Years 1998. Several of my college friends came to Boston for New Years. These were our adventures.

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Five of my friends from college came to Boston last week to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It was a story I’d heard every year when I went to Homecoming. “We’re going to come up to Boston and paint the town red!!” After years of speaking, a few of my fiscally challenged friends managed to scrape up (or charge up) the funds to get up here. I often wondered what it would be like to be in college again, I think I found out these past five days, much to my body’s chagrin.

Of course, my friends couldn’t make it easy on me by coming up on the same flight. No no no. Three of them, came in at 10:00am, the other two came in at 1:30pm. Picking up my early friends would mean me hopping on the subway, headed to the airport, getting them, bringing them back to my place, and immediately hopping on the train to get the next contingent. That prospect didn’t appeal to me too much, so I told Chris, EJ, and Christophe (he’s French, he can’t help it) to head to the airport bar. I planned on meeting them at noon, and then we’d walk over to pick up the other two. As I arrived at the airport, I realized my mistake. The three amigos had been sitting in the bar for almost 3 hours and were thoroughly loaded. I of course hadn’t touched a drop, my liver long since having rebelled at the notion of alcohol before noontime. There is nothing worse than being Mr. Sober in a room full of drunks. Call me Mr. Sober. It wouldn’t be the last time.

I managed to survive (and keep the boys from getting thrown out of the airport) until Luis and his girlfriend, Priscilla, arrived. They too were sober, so at least I wasn’t alone in Drunkland anymore.
They presented their own problems, though. They took a connecting flight from Greensboro NC through Pittsburgh. They had had only one half hour to make their connection, and their bags weren’t quite as fast as they were. So we were housebound until 7pm, when the airline delivered the bags to my apartment.

At this point we were getting antsy and were ready to roll, so we headed out to Whiskey’s for dinner and a few (many) drinks. Whisky’s is a pretty cool place, on Boylston Street across from the Prudential Center if you’re familiar with Boston. Given that is was a Tuesday night, there wasn’t really a lot going on. We decided to try another bar, The Pourhouse (the bar where U2 played their first American gig, by the way) for a little while more to see if any prospects (i.e. women) presented themselves. None did. It seemed like everyone was saving it for New Years, so we decided to as well. We hopped on the T and headed back to my apartment.

As luck would have it, my new roommate was headed out of town to Boca Raton for a wedding the exact days my friends were coming in, so sleeping arrangements weren’t that crowded. Priscilla and Luis took over his bedroom. Our living room has a large, L-shaped leather couch, so two of the guys slept on that. The last one got a little fold out futon that I had brought over from Rachel’s. So everyone was pretty cozy and ready to go out and explore the city on New Year’s Eve.


Wednesday afternoon was for sightseeing and shopping. It was a nice crisp day with some snow beginning to drift down later on. We wandered through Quincy Market, which is a large walk-through marketplace with probably a hundred or so shops. We all ended up taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales at Abercrombie and Fitch and the Gap. The Southerners stocked up on scarves, hats, etc. I got a great belt from the Gap for $10 (half price.)

We got back to the crib relatively early, around 4:00pm or so. We just lounged around, resting up for the First Night Festivities. I checked my email and took a nap. At around 7:00pm, we all started preparing ourselves for the long evening ahead. Showering, shaving, the usual hygiene items. My friend Jorge from work also came over, and by 8:30 we were ready to roll and headed out to the club.

My friend George from work used to bartend at several places throughout the city, so he knew some people who worked at the Marketplace Café in the above-mentioned Fanueil Hall. He was able to rent out the downstairs part of the club, called the Brewskeller, and about 200 of us joined in the fun. It was only $15 including chips, peanuts, and other bar food. For Boston on New Year’s Eve, believe me this is a good deal. I got my first two beers for free, as I sold the most tickets (I had around 30 friends there.)

We got in relatively early, and the place was still filling up as we arrived. Everyone got their first drinks and we laid claim to the only pool table in the establishment. My pool playing skills have deteriorated immensely since leaving school. I no longer have the ready access to a pool table that I did in college (we had one in our fraternity house.) So I only played a few games and let the guys with some skill (all my friends) take on the rest of the bar. As far as I know they never lost. Every time I looked at that table one of my friends was on it.

The first round of Jell-O shots sent me on the proper course for the evening. Of course that was about twenty minutes after we arrived. Soon all of our (Rachel and I) other friends started to trickle in. Many of them were friends of Rachel’s from work, and the rest were friends of mine from wherever. My brother was supposed to come, but he ended up bailing out. He missed a hell of an evening.

The night moved on, and to be honest my memories grow vaguer and vaguer. I’m sure that had something to do with heavy alcohol consumption. It usually does. But anyway I was very much not my usual self this evening. I was the social butterfly, moving around the bar and greeting all the people I knew, which was probably around 100 people. I kept and eye on Rachel (the natural social butterfly) and every once and while we’d look at each other and wink, just to let each other know we were around. As the night dragged on I made sure I kept an eye on the TV, as I surely didn’t want to tie one on this good and miss the big event. I remember looking up and seeing nine minutes until the New Year, so I continued my rounds and eventually tracked down Rachel so I could plant a big kiss on her when the time arrived. Lucky me, by the time I found her there was only ten seconds left. Just like me, waiting until the last minute to do everything. But we kissed and hugged each other and all was right with the world. We then moved around the bar and kissed and hugged pretty much everyone in sight. I didn’t kiss my NC friends (well Priscilla I did) but I did hug them and drunkenly thank them for coming up and sharing this with me. Luis bought a bottle of champagne and we all shared a toast to the New Year.

Well we sure as hell weren’t going to let the party end there. At midnight the DJ really started revving up the dance music, so everyone was moving. Even me, who never dances, was socially lubricated enough to get down and boogie with my lady.

A funny side note to the evening develops here. One of my friends on AOL, Becky, came to Boston to hang out with her friends, as she usually does. It turns out that she was in the very same bar I was, and neither of us knew it or recognized each other. I’ve seen a few pictures of her, but they aren’t very good quality, and the browser on her Mac is broken so she has no idea what I look like. We started chatting on line and it struck us. I started describing some of my drunker friends and she recognized a few, including one of Rachel’s good friends who decided to have a seat on the floor for a little while and couldn’t be talked out of it. And I remembered her group of friends dancing up a storm. The more I travel through life the more I realize that truth is almost always stranger than fiction. I’m sure Patty Duggins (True Stories from the Legal World) will vote with me on that one.

Luckily for all of the drunker citizens of Boston, the subway ran until 2:15am (it usually closes at 1) so we were able to stay out until around 1:30. Being in Fanueil Hall, we of course had to stop off and get a few grilled sausages from one of the many vendors who are smart enough to prepare fragrant, greasy food at 1:30am. It was while I was happily chomping my sandwich that I saw one of the few things that stuck in my mind that whole evening. I saw a kid (and I say kid because I doubt he was more than 20 or 21) walking dazedly with his friend, blood covering his face. And I don’t mean a few smears, I mean it looked like someone painted him with a brush. And I remember seeing it drip off his chin and nose and stain his shirt. Obviously he had just been in a fight, and he and his friend were trying to get away. No such luck. As they staggered off, around six or seven other drunks jumped them and started beating the crap out of both of them. Kicking, punching, you name it. I felt bad, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I had my friends to guide through the subway, and even as big as I am I’m not about to take on six people. I watched this go on for about a minute and marveled that all the police officers we had seen around earlier were no where to be found. But on that night, I’m sure they were busy.

That’s another thing I’ve never understood. Violent drunks. But that’s a topic to expound upon another day.

The adventure in Fanueil Hall was over, so it was time to move onto the train. We managed to stumble across the street and past city hall to catch the train at Government Center. Of course there were plenty of cops inside the subway station where it was warm, and they made their overbearing presence felt by yelling at all the drunks (i.e. 99.9% of the people in the station.) We were among those drunks. My friend Christophe almost got kicked out of the station for some reason or another, but I was able to generate a moment of clarity and promise the officer that I would keep him quite and get him on the train. I told him they were from out of town, etc, etc, and he relented.

The train ride home was another adventure in and of itself. Jorge, in his very drunken stupor, heard a few girls sitting next to us speaking in French. Being fluent in French and Spanish himself, he joined right in. Now I speak French too, and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. But I guess they could, because they chatted away with him. No Jorge, at some point in this conversation, came to the understanding that neither of these women was going to have sex with him this night. On this night, that statement would have been true for every woman on that train, hell, for every woman in the city. As this realization dawned on him, he turned to Christophe and attempted to whisper “they won’t sleep with me, they must be lesbians.” Except the whole train heard his “whisper” and promptly lost it. Needless to say the novelty of a French conversation with Jorge wore off at this point.

We finally got back to my place around 2:45am. I somehow managed to hang up my jacket and tidy myself up before going to bed. Rachel, on the other hand, flopped fully dressed onto my bed, right across the middle. I went about my business and came back, and she hadn’t moved. I asked her if she was going to change into her bedclothes, she mumbled something about her “just resting for a while” and then changing. So I straightened her out, threw a blanket on her, and climbed in next to her and went to sleep.

She ended up changing around 6am.

So in summary, everyone danced, kissed, shot pool, drank, did Jell-O shots, and pretty much did everything you can legally do in public without getting arrested. Or should I say, without getting caught.



1/1/98

“Why do you drink?
Why do you blow smoke?
Why must you live out the songs that you wrote?”

Hank Williams Jr. “Family Tradition”

A day of recovery, football, and Chinese food.

I remember stirring groggily at around 9am. My bladder was sending messages that couldn’t be ignored any longer. I swung myself up to a sitting position over the side of the bed, and when I stopped, the rest of the room kept moving. Being the experienced drinker that I am, I realized I was still drunk. Taking this into account, I tiptoed my way to the bathroom, where I took care of business and made the mistake of looking in the mirror. There are few times in life that we look worse than the day after a lengthy drinking session. The bags, the mussed hair, the general look of pain, all of them just didn’t add up to a pretty site. Given this, I went back to bed.

I rolled out of the sack around 10:30 and commenced a day noteworthy only in it’s lack of activity. We started watching football around 11 or so, and only life sustaining activities took place from there on out. All non-essential movement was eliminated. We moved only to go to the bathroom and get water. Eating at this point was not an option.

However, as is inevitable with a hangover, it passes, and the need for food sets in. And what is the best hangover food on the planet? Damn straight, it’s Chinese. There is nothing like shrimp fried rice to suck up that leftover alcoholic residue in your stomach. And it just so happens that there is a great little place around the corner from where I live, so we walked over, ordered approximately $60 of food for 7 people, and trekked back. This is remarkable because it is the only time that day I left the apartment.

Chris and EJ mixed themselves a few drinks later on, but at this point our bodies had been abused enough. We just planted our asses on the couch, watched football, read the newspaper, alternately dozed off on above-mentioned couch, and essentially wasted twenty-four hours of our lives.


1/2/98

After such a lazy day, we were all up and about relatively early. We cooked a great breakfast (pancakes with fresh-picked Canadian blueberries that my roommate had retrieved earlier in the year) and headed on out for some more exploring.

Priscilla decided she had to have a Patriots hat to properly cheer against them Saturday in their playoff game against the Steelers. And of course, I happened to know of a shop in the Copley Mall that had fitted sizes. And if I can find hats to fit my big-ass head in that shop, then anybody can. Mission one, completed and successful.

Mission two: post cards. No problem, bookstore downstairs, tons of Boston cards. My friends loaded up and mailed a bunch out later on that afternoon.

Mission three: A watchband for Luis. We found a shop where he got a great deal on a nice steel band ($20, he said all the ones he had looked at in NC were not near a nice and cost twice as much.)

No other missions really, just some sightseeing. I took everyone to the top of the Hancock Tower, which is the tallest the building in the city, and coincidentally where I used to work until they moved my job to another site. It was a cool clear day, so we were able to see for around 30-40 miles. They also have some great displays on the growth of the city, from its colonial past right up to the present.

We moved on to a quick lunch at Durgin Park in Fanueil Hall, which is a pretty decent restaurant and not too expensive. EJ, as usual, was light on the check, which pissed me off to no end. I put in my share of the money (actually quite a bit more than my share) and just walked outside. I think that maybe he got the idea at that point.

As we were going to be headed out for a long night, we decided that naps were in order. We retreated back to headquarters and sacked out for a few hours. Around 6 we got ourselves ready and headed out. It was Rachel’s birthday, and we were headed out on the town.

Rachel’s 24th birthday was on the twenty-ninth of December, but this was the best time for all of her friends to get together. I made all the arrangements. About twenty of us went to an Italian place in the North End (this is redundant if you are familiar with Boston) called La Summa. I had been there before and new it was outstanding and not too pricey. My entourage (6 of us) arrived promptly at 8, and we met Lisa, Denise, and Kristen walking down the street at the same time we were. So the nine of us arrived and ordered drinks and waited…a few more people, Sadiq and Paul trickled in. Still no guest of honor. Around 8:30 Rachel, Megan, Tara and the rest of the entourage decide to grace us with their presence. Rachel immediately came to me and apologized, as she knows tardiness is one of my pet peeves. But knowing her (she’s never late) and knowing who she was with (they are always late) I had expected it. And how on God’s earth could I be upset with her on HER night? I couldn’t. I wasn’t.

So we all ordered up, I got the house special. It was a concoction of sausage, chicken, seafood, shrimp, and who knows what else and it was heavenly. One of those dishes that just explodes across your palette when you eat it. Pure heaven (or so I thought until the next night, but that is another story.) Dessert was just as good, some kind of Chocolate Heart Attack. Rich and delicious beyond belief. Everyone just sat back with a collective sigh.

We paid our bill and headed out on the town. The bar of choice this night was the Beacon Hill Pub on Charles Street, which is a great and inexpensive local haunt. The main crowd is college students, but it tends to draw a little bit of everything, from college kids to bums.

BHP

1/3

By this point in my friend’s visit, I was exhausted, but we still had places to see, so I sucked it up and we headed out to see some of the sites. We wandered around downtown and followed the Freedom Trail for most of the afternoon. We came back and had an afternoon nap, then headed out for food. Christophe, Luis, Priscilla, Rachel and I headed out to Grillfish. Luis had expressed his desire beforehand to get some really good seafood while we were in town, and this restaurant had come highly recommended. With very good reason, as we came to learn. All of the dishes are either pan or grill cooked, as you might imagine from the name. After having some calamari and mussels for an appetizer, we moved on to our main courses. I had pan fried trout, which was far larger than I expected, and quite honestly one of the best seafood dishes I’d ever had. The fish was fried with tomatoes, scallions, and a very light sauce, it was delightful. Priscilla had scallops, which were large and plentiful, Rachel had a spicy shrimp dish whose name eludes me, as did Christophe. Luis went all out. He started out with a curried seafood bisque that just exploded across your palate. He then moved on to the grilled lobster, which was very good, though a little different in taste from traditionally boiled lobster. After settling back for a few minutes, we ordered up a few chocolate brownie Sundaes and some expressos. We sat back contentedly for about fifteen minutes, then settled up and headed out to meet up with Chris and EJ. The hadn’t wanted dinner, so we sent them off to a sports bar and met up with them there. We then cabbed over to Jake Ivory’s, since Chris wanted to go to a good piano bar. Jake’s has dueling pianos, where you can pay for the songs that are played. The more you pay, the more likely they’ll play it. It was a good night, full of 22 oz beers and dancing and singing. Chris and EJ were leaving at 6am the next morning, and we didn’t leave the bar until it closed at 2. Luckily, we had planned ahead. We cabbed it back to my place, and they ran upstairs and grabbed their pre-packed bags (and a bottle of booze) and headed right over to the airport to sleep by their gate. The rest of us just went to bed.
We woke up around 10am the next day to see off the rest of the crew. Rachel and I called a cab and sent Luis, Christophe, and Priscilla on there way. The visit was over. We ran back upstairs and crawled back into bed. I needed the rest.
It was a fun time and I enjoyed catching up with some old friends and showing them around the city I love so much.