So, in my life, rock climbing is always that interesting friend of a friend. You may know the type. You run into them sporadically, at a party or an event, and you have good time chatting, and you always end that moment by saying, "we should hang out more often. We should actually be friends." Then one of you flakes. Or really, I flake, ( Read more... )

The gym is a tall ceilinged wooden room in the midst of metal shops and artist studios. There are mats all over most of the floor and whenever one walks in, there's an even chance that from the door, you'll see glimpses of people suspended from bolts of cloth hanging from the ceiling or practicing handstands or balancing on one foot while doing ( Read more... )

I first met Ollie at the recruiting meeting for the university rugby club. He was a blond, wiry Welshman and was also a freshman, also new and, as it turned out, a neighbor in my dormitory1. The morning after our first practice, I remembered waking up sore and shattered and heard a dull thump on Ollie's side of the wall. His legs were so tired ( Read more... )

The couple that had breakfast with us was older, but not too old. They weren't the soft, aged retirees that one sometimes sees in bed & breakfasts, having blown in to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of a friend's restaurant in Williamstown, had gone to bed at 3AM the night before on the tail end of an all-night bender and were looking to ( Read more... )

When I was in high school, I went on these annual Outward Bound camping expeditions that the school sponsored in the hopes of turning scrawny boys into something approaching men. These outings were mandatory, and that meant for the first two years, I hung out with math and lit geeks on the kayaking expeditions that represented the low effort route ( Read more... )

I left work ten minutes ago, taking my car out onto on the northbound highway and angling for the most direct route to the Museum of Science. That was when my phone went off and a distraught silentq told me that somebody had slashed her bike tires and that she needed a pickup for our date at the museum's IMAX theatre. I should've been heading south then ( Read more... )

The first question they usually ask when they first see the cast on my right hand is, "what happened to your hand ( Read more... )

When people asked me if I followed the Red Sox, I'd usually preface my answer with "I used to live in Kenmore Square. And I'm not a baseball fan." Typically, that was enough to explain things -- like why my jaw still clenches and my body still tenses up whenever I hear that the Sox are playing at home, even now, when I no longer live in the shadow ( Read more... )

There was still another 30 minutes before the club was supposed to open, and I was standing at the bar, picking at the fries on a chicken melt sandwich, waiting to pay my check so I could go back and see how Bridget was re-acclimating to the mixing board in the DJ booth. There's a big screen TV behind the waitress, showing a football game, and it ( Read more... )

I signed up for the company golf tournament more out of a whim and desire to get out in summer weather than out of any actual love for the game -- not to mention the idea of playing golf in the middle of a workday felt like some grownup version of hooky ( Read more... )