Day 22.
I moved to Northampton, Massachusetts.
Do you know where that it? Look in the back of your embossed aqua New Yorker monthly planner for a map, find Massachusetts, and then drop your stylus on the southwest-most corner. You may notice it has an upside-down glowing rainbow triangle marking it.
Northampton is a town of 10,000 hard-working women and their stay-at-home husbands, plus 15,000 lesbian priests, and 5,000 townie Protestants who throw their fists in your face when you dare refer to the town as “Noho,” rather than its time-worn “Hamp.” (This faux pas I was schooled on on Day 1. More on this to follow.)
One main road runs down the center of town; another, Pleasant Street, bisects Main. I live on Pleasant, above a discount natural food and sundries store, which also sells half-off European comfort shoes and throngs of parkas. Daily, I stop by this store for dented cans of vegetarian chili and slightly stale bars of organic chocolate.
My apartment is a disaster; I will share photos soon. Built in the early 1970s when Northampton was in the middle of its downtown revitalization, it featured - as per the era - lots of espresso-stained wood, not of the West Elm persuasion. Dark beams cover half of the ceiling; no amount of incandescent light seems to be able to brighten this spot, making my living room feel not unlike the bunks I inhabited summer after summer at Jewish sports camp. I have a lofted second story where my bedroom and bathroom are; a tiny yoga practice space sits at the top of my staircase, under a skylight (definite plus). On my first floor, I do have 23-foot ceilings next to the loft, one adjacent to an exposed brick wall. But the dark wood beams, nearly-opaque-with-years-of-filth windows and a kitchen straight out of the Conner home make me sigh when I get home each night. A very wobbly spiral staircase - a feature I thought charming when seeing the apartment the first time - is a broken ankle waiting to happen. (I’m on drink No. 2 currently; I no longer worry about getting home from Union Hall in one piece - I’m just concerned about reaching my bed.)
I have now lived here about three weeks. You may recall that I was summoned here to work on a new parenting magazine that focuses on messing with kids’ brains so that children stay quiet and sweet and pretty. Just kidding! Who likes too-cute kids?!
Mine is a really awesome position with the exact amount of responsibility that I’ve been after for years, working on both the print and web properties. The staff is smart and au currant and really has vision for a pub that can cut through some of the malarkey in the marketplace right now. I’ll not wax corporate ever again, but it’s a damn good magazine and you should pick it up, if only for the gorgeous photography and holy-shit-ha-ha fun writing.
If all I ever did was assign and edit and write for 18 hours a day, taking a breather to eat some really great veggie food (of which there are many options here in town), I could be sated. But seeing as how my office is literally 40 paces from my front door, I’ve cut out nearly three hours of exhaustion a day just trying to get to and from where I needed to be. I am now charged with finding ways to fill that time with productive, social, healthy activities. I say healthy and mean Things That Make Me Sweat - not healthy as in Won’t Engage in Sinful Activities. I’m wholeheartedly looking for sin; I just don’t know many folks here yet with whom to engage in any debauchery. I have one really awesome and very busy friend from Drake who’s convinced me to drink with her and some yokels at a local veterans’ club (I am now a card-carrying member, thankyouverymuch). I also have palled around with some girls from work; they all are sweet and funny and willing to hand me my ass when necessary - my favorite trait - but they all have boyfriends or folks who’re thumb-wrestling for together-time.
I do not know how to make friends in a new town, but I’ll learn; it’s just hard right now. Spending time alone is really hard but gratifying for me; I fight enjoying it, but realize later that I’ve done everything in a day that I wanted to, like drive to Vermont to look for buttons for an old coat or go to his really incredible old mill/ bookstoreand that it’s been a really good one. I don’t know where this need for people comes from; maybe I’m just a true extrovert. But it’s all going to be fine.
I'm going to the veteran's club now to appreciate our war heroes, drink $1.50 wells and learn to hustle pool from a 65-year-old shark named Stanley. This, you see, is my new life.
Do you know where that it? Look in the back of your embossed aqua New Yorker monthly planner for a map, find Massachusetts, and then drop your stylus on the southwest-most corner. You may notice it has an upside-down glowing rainbow triangle marking it.
Northampton is a town of 10,000 hard-working women and their stay-at-home husbands, plus 15,000 lesbian priests, and 5,000 townie Protestants who throw their fists in your face when you dare refer to the town as “Noho,” rather than its time-worn “Hamp.” (This faux pas I was schooled on on Day 1. More on this to follow.)
One main road runs down the center of town; another, Pleasant Street, bisects Main. I live on Pleasant, above a discount natural food and sundries store, which also sells half-off European comfort shoes and throngs of parkas. Daily, I stop by this store for dented cans of vegetarian chili and slightly stale bars of organic chocolate.
My apartment is a disaster; I will share photos soon. Built in the early 1970s when Northampton was in the middle of its downtown revitalization, it featured - as per the era - lots of espresso-stained wood, not of the West Elm persuasion. Dark beams cover half of the ceiling; no amount of incandescent light seems to be able to brighten this spot, making my living room feel not unlike the bunks I inhabited summer after summer at Jewish sports camp. I have a lofted second story where my bedroom and bathroom are; a tiny yoga practice space sits at the top of my staircase, under a skylight (definite plus). On my first floor, I do have 23-foot ceilings next to the loft, one adjacent to an exposed brick wall. But the dark wood beams, nearly-opaque-with-years-of-filth windows and a kitchen straight out of the Conner home make me sigh when I get home each night. A very wobbly spiral staircase - a feature I thought charming when seeing the apartment the first time - is a broken ankle waiting to happen. (I’m on drink No. 2 currently; I no longer worry about getting home from Union Hall in one piece - I’m just concerned about reaching my bed.)
I have now lived here about three weeks. You may recall that I was summoned here to work on a new parenting magazine that focuses on messing with kids’ brains so that children stay quiet and sweet and pretty. Just kidding! Who likes too-cute kids?!
Mine is a really awesome position with the exact amount of responsibility that I’ve been after for years, working on both the print and web properties. The staff is smart and au currant and really has vision for a pub that can cut through some of the malarkey in the marketplace right now. I’ll not wax corporate ever again, but it’s a damn good magazine and you should pick it up, if only for the gorgeous photography and holy-shit-ha-ha fun writing.
If all I ever did was assign and edit and write for 18 hours a day, taking a breather to eat some really great veggie food (of which there are many options here in town), I could be sated. But seeing as how my office is literally 40 paces from my front door, I’ve cut out nearly three hours of exhaustion a day just trying to get to and from where I needed to be. I am now charged with finding ways to fill that time with productive, social, healthy activities. I say healthy and mean Things That Make Me Sweat - not healthy as in Won’t Engage in Sinful Activities. I’m wholeheartedly looking for sin; I just don’t know many folks here yet with whom to engage in any debauchery. I have one really awesome and very busy friend from Drake who’s convinced me to drink with her and some yokels at a local veterans’ club (I am now a card-carrying member, thankyouverymuch). I also have palled around with some girls from work; they all are sweet and funny and willing to hand me my ass when necessary - my favorite trait - but they all have boyfriends or folks who’re thumb-wrestling for together-time.
I do not know how to make friends in a new town, but I’ll learn; it’s just hard right now. Spending time alone is really hard but gratifying for me; I fight enjoying it, but realize later that I’ve done everything in a day that I wanted to, like drive to Vermont to look for buttons for an old coat or go to his really incredible old mill/ bookstoreand that it’s been a really good one. I don’t know where this need for people comes from; maybe I’m just a true extrovert. But it’s all going to be fine.
I'm going to the veteran's club now to appreciate our war heroes, drink $1.50 wells and learn to hustle pool from a 65-year-old shark named Stanley. This, you see, is my new life.