The first fortnight
Hi. I'm alive. I am feeling alive. All this change really has been reinvigorating.
I've been trying to ride out the high of moving by doing lots of activities. Actually I've only gone straight home from work once, on the first day, and even then I felt restless enough to walk over and get a library card. The last couple of weeks have included:
Yesterday I popped by the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) to hear a panel on using comics for science education. Some of you would have loved some of the art and comics on display, like Maris Wicks' Hulk yoga series, Michael Rapa's cartoon of frowny-faced Batman flying on equally frowny-faced Superman's back (not online :( ), and Tami Wicinas' fan art including several iterations of The Doctor. Other personal favorite: Rosemary Mosco (example one and two). Then over to a book sale for the science and science fiction shelves at the Harvard Book Store's warehouse near Union Square (restrained self to four books for $20, including a guilty pleasure vampire romance anthology), followed by the What the Fluff? Festival around the corner in the square proper, where, it is said, marshmallow fluff was invented lo these many years ago. I ate my first fluffernutter. Confess it was not a revelation.
Then I got to hang with therienne, mollyamory,
arduinna and katie_m for tacos and an Iron Man 3 rewatch. Super enjoyable.
Other fangirl encounters to follow. I look forward to creating and deepening those relationships; many of the above activities would have been better with company.
.
Ten days in, the job remains as great as it seemed. There are more evening commitments than anticipated, but given other flexibilities and the fact that everything so far is interesting, I don't much mind. The people are smart and pleasantly weird and morale is good, the last of which makes for a wonderful change.
Although there are few direct ways to get to it, the apartment is also good. Today I'm learning how the washer-dryer works. Three weeks without doing laundry was enough to overcome the fear of what people say is more of a sauna than a dry cycle.
.
It's strange, being back in Boston. In a good way. Just, I am encountering layers of memories when I go certain places. Some from freshman year of college 13 years ago, some from senior year, some from grad school, some from grad school remembering college, some from visits in the intervening years, etc. Little flashes when I turn a long-unvisited corner or smell a certain something in the air. An arc across time. To get to work I take a bus that passes through both campuses. Eight years in fifteen minutes.
My geography expands each time I live here, seemingly at a greater rate. First it was a walkable radius around school, then it was a few stops along the Red Line in Cambridge, now it is several of the Boston cluster cities plus what I can reach by car. It's like I'm all grown up or something.
.
festivids disputes period = time to contemplate what to offer and what to request! It will be nice to do fannish things again. Maybe I will even be able to do the vid I want to do for Halloween.
.
Miss you guys. I'm reading LJ & DW every day, just haven't been saying much. Will try to do better. Come winter, I'll bet computer time will soar.
I've been trying to ride out the high of moving by doing lots of activities. Actually I've only gone straight home from work once, on the first day, and even then I felt restless enough to walk over and get a library card. The last couple of weeks have included:
- a reception at the Museum of Science
- a Story Collider event
- art gallery exhibit opening (check out this amazingness)
- a bike ride around Fresh Pond
- a pig sighting in the Public Gardens
- a free lecture on playing with food elasticity by the White House pastry chef
- the acquisition of some shirts and a coat and a pair of rain boots
- a neighbor's BBQ
- chavurah Sukkot services in Beacon Hill (still beautiful over there, especially at dusk, wow)
- Shabbat dinner at my friend's place
- and a handshake with the fabulous doctor-writer Atul Gawande
Yesterday I popped by the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) to hear a panel on using comics for science education. Some of you would have loved some of the art and comics on display, like Maris Wicks' Hulk yoga series, Michael Rapa's cartoon of frowny-faced Batman flying on equally frowny-faced Superman's back (not online :( ), and Tami Wicinas' fan art including several iterations of The Doctor. Other personal favorite: Rosemary Mosco (example one and two). Then over to a book sale for the science and science fiction shelves at the Harvard Book Store's warehouse near Union Square (restrained self to four books for $20, including a guilty pleasure vampire romance anthology), followed by the What the Fluff? Festival around the corner in the square proper, where, it is said, marshmallow fluff was invented lo these many years ago. I ate my first fluffernutter. Confess it was not a revelation.
Then I got to hang with therienne, mollyamory,
arduinna and katie_m for tacos and an Iron Man 3 rewatch. Super enjoyable.
Other fangirl encounters to follow. I look forward to creating and deepening those relationships; many of the above activities would have been better with company.
.
Ten days in, the job remains as great as it seemed. There are more evening commitments than anticipated, but given other flexibilities and the fact that everything so far is interesting, I don't much mind. The people are smart and pleasantly weird and morale is good, the last of which makes for a wonderful change.
Although there are few direct ways to get to it, the apartment is also good. Today I'm learning how the washer-dryer works. Three weeks without doing laundry was enough to overcome the fear of what people say is more of a sauna than a dry cycle.
.
It's strange, being back in Boston. In a good way. Just, I am encountering layers of memories when I go certain places. Some from freshman year of college 13 years ago, some from senior year, some from grad school, some from grad school remembering college, some from visits in the intervening years, etc. Little flashes when I turn a long-unvisited corner or smell a certain something in the air. An arc across time. To get to work I take a bus that passes through both campuses. Eight years in fifteen minutes.
My geography expands each time I live here, seemingly at a greater rate. First it was a walkable radius around school, then it was a few stops along the Red Line in Cambridge, now it is several of the Boston cluster cities plus what I can reach by car. It's like I'm all grown up or something.
.
festivids disputes period = time to contemplate what to offer and what to request! It will be nice to do fannish things again. Maybe I will even be able to do the vid I want to do for Halloween.
.
Miss you guys. I'm reading LJ & DW every day, just haven't been saying much. Will try to do better. Come winter, I'll bet computer time will soar.