Urinal Etiquette...

There's a Boston expression that goes like this, "Wicked pissah, dude!"

It has nothing to do with actual urination or any sort of bowel movement, evil or not. Rather, it's something you say when you like something. Perhaps a friend's shirt is "wicked pissah." One's mode of transportation, a movie or an extra-large burrito can all qualify. Papi hitting a homah ovah da Monstah is always "wicked pissah." Whatever you determine to be "wicked pissah," it's always a good thing—a moment for celebration and camaraderie among friends.

It is important to note the pronunciation. Although the phrase is, literally, "wicked pisser," you can't just go around saying it that way. The harsh R sound at the end is dropped and replaced with an elongated, breathy "ahhhh" sound. It's not unlike the involuntary noise you make after sipping a much-needed, cold drink on a hot day. I like it. It makes the phrase sound satisyfying.

"Wicked pissahhhh."

While I've known about the phrase for a while (being from New England and all), I had no idea that there were also wicked pissers in Boston until this past week. Standing apart from the jolly, colloquial expression, wicked pissers are most certainly not "wicked pissah."

There is a certain unwritten and unspoken etiquette when it comes to the men's restroom. Guys, you already know what I'm talking about. Girls, in case you haven't been filled in, the major rules are, as follows:

• Do not make eye contact.
• Do not look down.
• Do not smile.
• Do not say a stall is disgusting. Quietly back out and move to another one.
• When waiting in line, keep your hands in plain view.
• Above all, never use a urinal directly next to another urinal that's currently in use unless all other empty spaces are taken.

There are other regulations, too, such as "washing your hands requires water, but not always soap" and "no smiling," but those tend to be subjective. The ones bulleted are the bathroom's cardinal law and every man who values his manhood holds to them truly.

So it was a dark, dark night when I found myself in violation this week.

I went to see the Kings of Leon at the Orpheum Theater this past Thursday. On the way to our seats, I decided to take a pre-show leak (no sense in getting up during a set, right?).

The Orpheum's bathrooms are old, just like the building. I'm not sure how old, but it had to built during an era where the man's average height was 4'6" and shoes came with brass buckles. Like all old rooms, it was small. The toilet fixtures had, thankfully, been updated. But due to a lack of space constraints, they were crammed tightly together.

When I say tight, I mean to say there were four urinals in a section of wall that was five feet across. When the Orpheum's owners redid the restrooms, they found the slimmest models on the market. Then, they positioned them shoulder to porcelain shoulder along the wall. It looked like john paneling—there wasn't so much as a crack in between each urinal.

When I got into the bathroom, there was a guy on either end of the row of four. They had done their duty and chosen the urinals furthest from each other. No matter that there was only two feet (and two urinals) separating them. They'd made the correct call.

It was my turn to chose. I had the option of picking the left-center or right-center one. I always favor the right-hand sides of things, mostly due to some slight form of OCD I've nurtured over the past 25 years, so I picked that side.

It wasn't until I'd gotten right up to the urinal that I realized just how close I was to my new neighbor. I could smell his cologne. I could feel his itchy sweater. His stubble of a beard was prickly. It was like we were crossing swords in the same toilet. We may have well been sharing pants, too. My right side completely pushed up against his left. I tried maneuvering myself to come at the urinal at an angle that minimized any contact but also shielded my unmentionables from sight, in accordance with common decorum, but it was no use. We stood shoulder to shoulder, both of us shifting weight in opposite directions and making every effort to appear nonchalant and unaware of any sort of inconvenience.

Just as I'd unbuckled my belt and opened my fly, the gentleman at the far, left-hand station zipped his and backed away. Now, not only were my compadre and I rubbing elbows (and no more, thanks to some nifty side-lean work), but we were the only two at the row of urinals.

And I couldn't go. The pressure of the situation was too great. All I wanted to do was to quickly fasten my pants and get the heck out of there, but I knew I couldn't do that. For if there's another, greater rule of the restroom than the ones I haven't listed—one that trumps all others—it's to act tougher than you actually are at all times. Soap must be applied violently. Noisy bodily functions are not to be giggled at. Hands should be slapped on pants and not just wiped. You get the point. And in this situation, a tough man had to tough it out. I couldn't back down from this pissing contest.

So, I stood there. Right arm abutting my neighbor, hand on the hose, and I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. There was a drip. Then nothing but a white flag. But still I stood, weight shifted to the left, staring straight ahead and pretending like everything was fine. In my head, I made trickling noises.

Finally, my neighbor left. I waited an obligatory eight seconds, then left, too. I washed my hands, keeping up the having peed illusion, then left the bathroom and the wicked pissers behind as quickly as I could.

Definitely not "wicked pissah."

BostonNow...

This is going to be quick, since I have class in a few. Right now, anything that's not a Tweet is on hold, in terms of blogging, until I finish my thesis. It's due on April 9th, but I'm hoping to have put a wrap on it after this Friday (since I have a 1/2 marathon to run and other writing to do this weekend).

I'll let you know how that lofty goal goes.

But, I was featured in last week's BostonNow. It is not, as you might assume, because of the awesomeness of my blog or because I pitched them an article. No, it's because I was in a bar at 1p.m. in the afternoon and one of their reporters interviewed me about college drunkeness. Go figure.

The link to the pdf is here. I'm on page 10 or something (first quote in the story).

Coming home to the Granite State...

My apartment in Cambridge is bare. Well, my half of it is, anyway. There are boxes and boxes of books, knick-knacks, art work, souvenirs and the collected detritus of my past 24 years of life. When you see that your whole world can fit comfortably into a small, 12-dollar-a-month storage unit. you can't help but feel a little depressed.

I'm moving out of the city this weekend, packing up my junk and heading north to a small town in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire. Eight years after I left my tiny home state for college, I'm returning for the foreseeable future. Since then, I've lived in three of the world's greatest cities (London, New York and Boston) as well as a reasonably decent college town in upstate New York (Ithaca).

I think, at one point, I swore I'd never, ever move back to New Hampshire. Now that my stuff is all packed away, it's sort of hit me that I'm a city boy no more.

There are a bunch of reasons behind the move. I've never had a place of my own, so I figure as my quarter-century birthday approaches, it's about high time.

Of course, being a freelance (penniless) writer doesn't really lend itself to spacious one-bedrooms in urban areas, unless you count the handicapped-sized port-o-johns they set up at high rise construction sites. My economic needs forced me to look outside of Boston for a place to live.

Also, since I really do intend to make this whole writing thing work out, I needed a place free of distractions. Well, I got it. The town I'm moving to has a thriving downtown of one cafe, one convenience store, one pub, one dirty Chinese place and one crazy townie that wears a one-piece Carhart suit and an orange vest everywhere he goes. Whereas, the town I'm moving out of is widely considered to be the cultural hub on Boston, is home to two world-class universities, contains plenty of shopping, hundreds of restaurants, dozens of bars, a half-dozen T stops and one really gorgeous area to run.

I'm also moving for love. My girlfriend has been driving her Jeep Wrangler (in all its eight-miles-per-gallon glory) to Boston on a weekly basis for two years now. She has gotten lost on the Mass Pike (which is actually about 20 miles west of the city), she's been stuck in hours of traffic before, during and after Sox games, she's been involved in a highway car crash, she's had to reverse direction on Storrow Drive hundreds of times, she's learned how to parallel park and she's fallen asleep at the wheel going in both directions. She hates that drive more than I hate Yankee fans named "Sal."

Has she ever complained about it? Well, no, not too much (Only when I forgot to reminder her about that night's Sox game, which causes the 75 minute drive to escalate into the 150 minute range. That only happened a half dozen times or so. Last season.). Did she ever ask me to move? No. Unless you count the way her eyes flashed with the clear, though subtle message that I would be receiving a prostate examination with a 9-iron and a hacksaw if I signed another lease.

But I wouldn't do that to her. Nope, it's time for Mike to pack up and head to New Hampshire.

I have a lot of good things going for me. I have a tremendous apartment (I'll write more on that later) that's a 1-bedroom, practically brand new and I'm getting for only slightly more than what I paid in groceries and cable each month in Boston. I'm near New Hampshire's cultural center of Portsmouth (which, actually, does have culture that doesn't involve Nascar, bass fishing, ice fishing or the ever-popular lit-dynamite-in-a-barrel fishing). And I'm just over an hour from Boston, making the commute down there pretty smooth, since I'll have to be there about three days a week or so until May.

Life's looking up.

Yes, it's sad to be leaving Boston. I've had a great two-year run. Though moving can bring on some brief twinges of nostalgia, it's also an exciting time. It's a new chapter in my life and I'm looking forward to what I've got in store. It'll give me plenty of material for this old blog thing, too, so I'll keep you updated. Wish me luck...

PLUS I get to redecorate! Which I'm totally pumped about. More on that later, too...

---------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be remiss to end this without giving a huge thank you to my incredible girlfriend who, singlehandedly, packed my entire apartment yesterday while I sat and typed up a story that was on deadline. How did I ever get to be so lucky?

Guys out there, that is love. She did that for me just because I needed the help and she cared enough about me to pitch in.

Either that, or she took the opportunity to throw out my Mr. Rogers sweater (this is probably the closest thing to it, just add argyle and subtract the beard) that I like so much and she despises. I'll find out when I unpack...

Observations at a Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon...

My writing compadre Julie and I decided to meet up today in a downtown Starbucks and get some good work done – me on my thesis and her on a job hunt. While I did manage to write a couple pages, I couldn’t resist people watching (one of the things I love to do when in coffee shops) and put down some of my observations for you to enjoy…

Three ladies sit down at my table. One is “of a certain” age and seems nice enough. Definitely well put together – the lipstick matches the jacket, which also matches the bag. The other two are younger, and, as it turns out, are her daughters. They don’t look anything alike, unless you count the scent of money wafting across the table.
The one in the middle has an enormous circle-cut diamond, encircled by diamonds on a (platinum?) band with, you guessed it, more diamonds. They’re out wandering the streets of Boston planning a wedding. Judging by the amount they’re dropping on flowers for the rehearsal dinner (two grand – I’m so nosy), it’s going to be a high-class affair.
The bride-to-be eyebrows seem to be constantly arched in surprise. This is less due to any sort of sticker shock, but more to an overly enthusiastic wax job, which gives her the look of someone being goosed in their Paper Denim jeans every 15 seconds. Or, maybe she’s just surprised that the popped-pink-polo she’s chosen to wear for bridal registry day is so 2004.
The three of them crowd over their venti teas and examine a Crate & Barrel “free gift” card insert from this season’s bridal magazine. The card entitles one of them to a silver-covered wicker basket.
“What the hell would you use that for?” asks the sister. She’s wearing a Pink Burberry scarf, that matches her light freckles, upturned nose and $200 haircut perfectly. Oh, and it looks good with her $85 lip bleach job, too. Snap!
“We could fill it with candy for Valentines Day!” sniffs bride-to-be.
“Oh, that’d be cute!” coos the cougar mom.
“Let’s go to Pottery Barn and then we’ll be done,” says bride-to-be.
“Can we at least go to one store that I want to go to?” Mom asks, only whining ever so slightly.
“Which one is that?” sister/maid-of-honor/girl most likely to go home with a groomsman asks.
“Maybe Lord & Taylor.”
“What about Nordstrom’s?”
“There’s a Nordstrom’s around here?”
“It’s a Neiman Marcus, you always do that. Get it right.”
“I don’t like pleated pants.”
“Oh, they’re pleated. We couldn’t get anything but pleated.”
“Why is that kid whining? You know, if you let your kids whine, they’ll just develop a speech impediment.”
It was at this point that I have to start tuning them out, otherwise I would be tempted to overturn my table, spill their teas and mess up their hair while laughing maniacally.
Oh well, congratulations. May you last ‘til ’09.

I can’t place this one guy. His appearance gives one the impression of either being a brilliant M.I.T. professor, mentally working out theorems, or of the guy who digs the cans out of my recycling bins each week on a break between talks with Verne, his imaginary pet troll.
I looked up to see him chewing on a plastic bag, so it appears to confirm my latter suspicions. His hair, styled in the ever-popular Ben Franklin fashion (bald on top, long on sides and back) sticks out haphazardly in all directions, coming dangerously close to the latte belonging to the studious co-ed next to him.
He’s also switched seats three times in the hour that I’ve been stationed behind my laptop. Perhaps he’s waiting for someone? Or maybe he’s even more OCD about his seating arrangement than I am (I refuse to have my back to the door – you never know when your mortal enemy might show up. In my case, my mortal enemy is either Derek Jeter, the lead singer for Maroon 5 or Griffin, the smelly kid from fourth grade.).
He’s dressed in a fairly clean, 3/4-length wool dress coat. Underneath that, he has corduroy slacks and a v-neck sweater, both also in presentable states of cleanliness – no stains, no smell. He does come off as frumpy, and not just because of the hair. Everything he’s got on is wrinkled.
If I were a betting man (and I am for the right odds and money), I would have to wager that he is nuts more than he’s brilliant, even if it is a combination of the two. While I’ve been typing the last three paragraphs, he’s still been in focused, intense conversation with Verne the Troll. And, if I’m not mistaken, Verne has done something to make him upset. Watch your back, Verne!

I have seen no less than four iPhones in the past ten minutes, not including my own, confirming my suspicions that I have already slipped dangerously behind times. I must now go and my replace my horribly outmoded iBook G4 with a shiny new MacBook Air, stat. Whatever “stat” means.

This other guy, his head is huge. It looks like a lumpy bowling ball squatting on top of his rounded shoulders. His posture is terrible – all hunched over, gremlin-like - and it is an instant reminder for me to correct mine. Now sitting straight up in my chair, one leg crossed over the other (attracting sideways glances from the boys, but dammit, it’s comfortable) I shoot sideways glances his way. He's removed the bubble-top of his non-whipped frappacino and is tilting the slushy chocolate drink back to his lips, gulping each mouthful down with a long, drawn-out sssssssslurp. I can see the other table members shooting him glares over their copies of Love in the Time of Cholera and How Starbucks Saved My Life. And I find myself doing the same… I wonder if I’m better at shooting darts with my eyes than I am in bars?

What is it, exactly, that gives high-schoolers the herd instinct? Two groups of eight just walked in here, one right after the other. The first was chattering non-stop about some girl named Tracy, who apparently isn't with them and also has some questionable hygiene and moral issues, at least by their standards. I don't catch what the second group was yammering on about, because I’d just noticed another instinct they all seem to share – the motivation to wear that bare minimum of cold-weather clothing.
It’s chilly out. I’m sitting by the door and every time it opens, my fingers turn a slightly deeper shade of blue. I’m typing furiously, not to record all of this stuff, but to keep my digits attached to me, right where they should be – at the ends of my wrists. I’m sitting inside and I’m cold, yet not one of these kids is wearing anything heavier than a thin, unzipped sweatshirt. The girls all seem to be part of some sort of team, or buy their clothes in bulk, since they all wearing identical fake-fur lined, puffy black vests.
Whatever, I probably used to do the same thing. Actually, I have two vests that I recently donated to the Salvation Army because I haven’t worn them in years.

What is it about the French that make them so freaking skinny? This lovely couple just added cream and sugar to their respective coffees. I’m not a big guy, but they could’ve used my jeans as His & Her sides to a denim sleeping bag.
I hate them.
Good thing I stuck with the soy latte.

Okay, time to go warm up… my fingernails just went black and I can’t feel my toes. I thought coffee shops were supposed to warm you up?

I've missed you...

As you, my faithful readers, have no doubt noticed, I haven't posted much this year.

Okay, I've only posted once and, to be honest, that was one I'd started writing before the ball dropped. I should beg your forgiveness - I know you've come to expect at least thrice-weekly Internet lovin' from me to make it through those tedious 8-hour days in your cubicles. I have a good excuse, though!

Here it goes...

So, I went home from work on January 4th, just like it were any other day. When, in fact, it most certainly was not.

That Friday marked the last day that I, Mike Nagel, could truthfully call myself an employed man. When I re-started my computer at the end of the day, it was out of habit - I always did that when leaving at the end of the week, just to give the poor, non-Mac machine a break. But it was a futile, worthless gesture... the thing could have spontaneously combusted and it wouldn't have affected me one iota (or, less, depending on how big your particular iota is, I wouldn't know).

I woke up the next day in a cold sweat. Which, when you think about it, isn't really possible - who's actually cold when they're sweating? Unless you're talking about Tom "Terrific" Brady's icy blue eyes, that is.

Suddenly, I was without purpose. At 3 a.m. on that Saturday morning, a most inconvenient time to be awoken, I realized that even the word "Saturday" had lost its meaning. I no longer had any "weekends," because I didn't even have a "week." My week could never end because it couldn't even begin.

I freaked out and began pacing my room, which is something I'd never done before, most likely because it only takes two-and-one-quarter strides to reach either side of the room and the 180-degree pivot to turn and step the other way causes extreme rug burn after a few minutes. But I was too panicked to care that my soles (and very soul!) were bleeding... I needed to find a meaning, a purpose in my existence.

At precisely 5:42 a.m. - which was sunrise on the 5th - it dawned on me (ba-dum ching!), I would take a trip! I would search for meaning in my travels! I would wear the same pair of pants for 10 days straight!

Hastily, I gathered some belongings and shoved them, willy-nilly, into my backpack: my journal, a digital camera, a couple Clif bars, three sets of socks and underwear, a Hooters t-shirt, flip-flops, wool socks, a Sharpie, a picture of my mom, an Espanol word guide/dictionary, a flask, a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and my bottle of allergy medication. I flung the load onto my back, scribbled a hasty goodbye to my roomie (and an apology for using the last square of Charmin) and threw open to the door of my apartment and stepped out confidently, albeit hastily, because I slipped and fell down a flight of stairs, landing prone in front of a lawn ornament of Little Lord Fauntleroy (seriously, my landlady has lawn ornaments adorning her landing).

Recovering from my fall, I continued out the door to Logan airport...

There, I bought the second-cheapest Jet Blue ticket they had to offer - a one-way to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I could've saved 20 bucks and flown to Fort Lauderdale, instead, but one look at each destinations advertisement was all it took to convince me to spend the extra Cleveland (which is what I call 20-dollar-bills, refusing to acknowledge the switch that took place in 1928 to put the impeached Andrew Jackson on the front... read more here). The photo of Puerto Rico showed smiling couples with taut, bronze skin playing in crystal clear waters... bosoms and pectorals everywhere! Fort Lauderdale's showed the same thing, but in geriatric form - the guys all wore black socks with sandals and the gals showed off plenty of bosom-action, but it was all around their belly-buttons.

I was going to Puerto Rico! I had a plan! My mind was filled with exclamatory punctuation!

I landed without a place to stay, but I didn't care... I had decided on my flight down, in between happily enjoying the Dunkin' Donuts coffee that now comes on all Jet Blue flights and the little blue bag of pretzels, that I would sleep on the beach. I'd never done that before.

When night came, I dug myself a little bed on the beach, made a mound of sand for a pillow and curled up with my backpack to watch the sun go down. I fell asleep watching the sun painting the sky a brilliant palette of pinks, oranges and reds. The waves crashing into the shore, lulled me to sleep and a gentle breeze wafted over me.

I woke up to find the surf pounding around me, my bag nowhere to be found. The undertow had dragged it, along with one shoe, away, and was threatening to do the same to my pair of pants. I was completely soaked and a rather large piece of seaweed had wrapped itself around my head, partially blinding me.

I stumbled around the beach for a while, grasping at my pants and struggling to pull the wet jeans up to cover my bare rear, when I found about about two cups of sand had found its way into the crotch. Now THAT was comfortable.

Sputtering seaweed, I tried to figure out what to do. The entire beach was completely dark and that comfortable sea breeze I'd fallen asleep to was now freezing cold. My erect nipples were cutting twin holes in my Hooters t-shirt, which I would have found amusingly ironic, had they not been blue.

The closest apparent source of light (a neon sign) and civilization (it said, "Budweiser") was about a quarter mile down the beach, so I started walking towards that. My one bare foot leaving footprints in the sand next to my shoed foot that read "Puma" and had a cute little drawing of a cat on it. I reached the bar and tried to assess the situation. I looked like I had just washed up on shore (which I kind of had), but I still had my wallet, which albeit soggy, could be used to pay for some drinks, a spot at the bar and a chance to dry out and figure out what to do next. I took a deep breath, held my head high and walked through the door up to the bar, my bare foot leaving wet, sanding footprints on the floor, which, incidentally, was covered in peanut shells, causing me to squeal in pain every other step.

Crunch. Ouch! Crunch. Ouch! Crunch. Ouch! Crunch. Ouch!

It took eight steps to get to the bar.

I ordered a "cheapo cerveza," no doubt impressing the bartender with my fluent Spanglish, and looked around. It was about as close to a biker's bar as I'd ever been in. Everyone there was bigger than me, more leather-clad than me and harrier than me, including the chick behind the bar. I was, as the British say, scared poopless, but no one was paying any attention to me.

No one, that is, except this one scruffy dude in the corner. He was a small guy with, no joke, an eyepatch AND a wooden leg. Seriously. In 2008, someone was walking around in a bar with a wooden peg leg. It started at the floor and disappeared into his cut-off, khaki shorts. Someone had taken the time to ornately carve and paint a mermaid into the side of it. Her sea-foam tail started at the base of the leg and continued upwards to just below a pair of fantastic, wooden breasts (36 C's, I'd say). I couldn't see her face, since it disappeared into his pants (if I had a nickel for every time...), but it was quite the piece of work.

Anyway, Mr. Peg-Leg Eyepatch was staring at me. Not wanted to be rude, I didn't stare back, but tried to drink my beer in peace, which is hard to do when one eye and a wooden leg with boobs on it are fixated on you. I sipped. I pretended to read the Spanish label. I sipped again. I learned the Spanish names for the months by checking the born-on date. I sipped some more. I re-read the label, and so on.

I did this for three (tres) beers. I had no where else to go! And all the while, the weird, piratey looking dude just nursed his own beer and kept staring at me with his one good eye.

Eventually, while I was on my fourth beer and giggling without reason every time I read Junio on the bottle's label, the guy walked over. He was surprisingly smooth for a guy with a wooden leg. You couldn't even hear him striking the floor with it - just the same crunch, crunch sounds everyone else (but me) made when walking over the peanut shells.

"Ahoy, there!" he said. No, really.

"Ahoy!" I said back and saluted him with my bottle. No reason not to be friendly.

He looked at my bare foot. I looked at his mermaid's bare chest.

"You look like you could stand to have a drink bought for you. Ever had a Mind Eraser?"

Visions of roofie coladas danced in my head. But I didn't want to seem standoffish. Plus, I still had nowhere to go and I didn't want to spend all of my own money.

"Nope, what is it?"

Peg-Leg chortled heartily, if not somewhat ominously. I don't know what it was - perhaps the fact that his laugh was deep and dark and that his smile didn't reach his eyes - but I was nervous. Apparently, though, not as nervous as I should have been.

He hauled himself and his leg up onto the stool next to me.

"Betty," he said to the mustachioed bartender, "get this kid a Mind Eraser."

I tried to watch all the ingredients her tatooed hands poured into the blender, but it was impossible. Clearly, it was a popular drink and she'd made it plenty of times before, because she spun bottles, poured in syrups, crushed ice and blended it all together in a flash. She set the drink before me, condensation dripping from the outside and a deep, red, slushy mixture inside.

I took a sip.

Boy, that felt good! I started to warm up inside... and all the way down to my bare foot...

I took another sip.

"So, tell me your story," said the pirate.

I did, right from the beginning of my revelation that morning to waking up on the beach that night, sparing no detail (including my airport purchase of a grande-triple-shot-soy-extra-hot-extra-foam-no whip-latte). During which, he bought himself another beer and me another pair of Mind Erasers, laughing another dramatic har-har guaff when I drunkenly started on both at the same time (Man, if I had a nickel for that!).

Did you know they still Shanghai'd people in 2008? Yeah, um, me neither...

When I woke up the next morning, with the absolute worst headache I've ever head in my life, I was on the deck of a fishing vessel bound for Caracas in the company of Peg-Leg and a bunch of other guys I recognized from the bar. Apparently, they needed another drug mule for operations coming out of Bogotá. Their last one had burped too hard and three condoms full of coke burst in his stomach.

At the risk of self-incrimination and a life-sentence from the D.E.A., I won't tell you about the next week, except to say that if you've never pooped a balloon before, thank your parents. And, if you have, tell me where to buy the most comfortable, inflatable donut, okay?

I finally managed to escape while I was expelling the balloons into a public toilet in Havana. I pulled a Shawshank and crawled through a hundred foot pipe filled with foul, stinking, ballon-infested fecal matter and then found my way, via sewer main, to the black market, where I managed to find passage on the next ship bound for (no joke), Fort Lauderdale. It cost me quite a bundle to get on that homemade raft and I'm not proud of what I did (suffice it to say, that word "kidney" in Spanish is "riñón"), but I finally made it back.

Didn't you miss me?

-------------------------

Okay, okay, okay... so maybe I made some of that up. Or all of it. But at least it's better than telling you, "I had writer's block and not much time in front of a computer," right?


Any idiot can play greek for a day
and join a sorority or write a tragedy.
Articulate all that pain,
and maybe you'll get paid.
But it's a sin when success complains,
and your writer's block - it don't mean sh*t.
Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks.
Gonna write a hit - I think this it.

It's a hit.

-- Rilo Kiley, "It's a Hit" from More Adventurous

(Was listening to this album, which is ridiculously good and I just sorta re-discovered, while I wrote this post. You should check it out.)

I [miss?] NY...

For those of you that don't know, I lived in New York City for just over a year (June '04-August '05). While I wasn't there for the longest of times, my life did confirm to me that I really don't ever need or want to live there again.

Anyone even remotely familiar with the City knows that there are a ton of things to dislike about it:
- it's enormously overwhelming, and that never changes
- living expenses are so wildly out of proportion to the rest of the country
- the abundant bouquet of smells: from the rotting essence of the East River to the garbage-juice squelch streaming down back alleys to the piss-smell of the subways to the fried, over-cooked oil burn of street vendors to the unmistakable and overpowering cologne of a Guido all dolled up for date rape
- paying $12 for a Corona, repeatedly
- the thousands of mustachioed Yankee fans
- JAPs
- massive crowds blocking sidewalks, taking pictures of buildings, hideously-decorated Christmas trees and the dark Today Show studio in Rockefeller Center, thereby causing your commute time to double during the months of October-January
- the way the wind whips up and down the Avenues, turning the city grid into one giant wind tunnel
- people. Everywhere. All the time.
- Times Square

I could go on, but you get my point. New York is a rough town to make it in. I think if I had stayed, I could've gotten used to a lot of that, but, quite frankly, I didn't want to. I was comfortable being an outsider and I never wanted to become a "true New Yorker." Now, I know enough to take visitors around to the main sights, go to a few out-of-the-way places and have favorite restaurants, coffee shops and bars. That's all I really need.

Every now and then, though, I do start to miss life in the Big Apple. These feelings are fleeting and they're never accompanied by a desire to pack up my cheaper, bigger and better-located apartment in Boston and head south, but they do happen from time to time.

For example, I was walking through Copley Square here in Beantown the other night and saw the image above. It's pretty and full of holiday cheer, but that's not what grabbed me. What got to me were how the lights from the tall buildings sparkled against a clear, cold night sky. Looking up, I was able to ignore the few people around me and enjoyed a brief, sparkling moment of Zen.
(Either that or the burrito I had for lunch was acting up.)

Sometimes, when I lived in the City, I'd have those same moments. Most often, they would come on a Sunday night, after I left my church. Morningstar New York is located in midtown, in an old, renovated theater. Some nights, when the snow fell softly over the city, I'd decide to talk the long way to the subway. Instead of catching the N train around the corner from the church, I'd bundle up, wrap my scarf around my face and walk a mile north to 63rd and Lex.

It was like stepping into a photograph. Nine p.m. on a Sunday night, after the shops close and taxis look elsewhere for business, the east side died down. I could walk for blocks and not see another person out-of-doors. The snow would crunch softly under my feet as I picked my way across the concrete sidewalk slabs. The big, white flakes drifted down and the skyscrapers loomed above me, lit up and stretching toward the sky. It was as if I was walking inside of a giant snow globe.

Invariably, I'd switch to listening to Death Cab of on my iPod... the mournful sounds of Transatlanticism filling my ears...

I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer

At times like those, completely alone in a city of millions, I'd find a peace unlike any I've felt before or since. It was the sort of mournful solace that only comes from a solitude multiplied against the masses.

I felt a touch of that here in Boston the other night and, just for a brief instant, I missed New York.


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Thanks to Jessa Barder for the photo. I stole it from her facebook page, not having the wherewithal to take the picture when I was actually there.

"Gotta make the donuts..."

If there's one constant in my life, one love that has spanned the years, a rock that keeps me grounded, something worth waking up to every morning and something that I miss and long for when separated from by the cruelties of life it's Dunkin' Donuts.

More specifically, it's the New England-based chain's coffee.

Now you Starbucks-sippers in Seattle, or you Waffle House-loving southerners don't know the joy that is the morning's first sip of the rich, creamy iced coffee sucked from a bucket-sized cup through an orange-and-purple straw. It's a high that shoots straight through your mouth to the front of your brain, endorphins shower down, birds sing, the world is beautiful once more.

Alas, my favorite double-Ds isn't worldwide yet. But, darn it, we'll get there!

But if you've never had a chance to visit a Dunkin's and have an iced coffee on a steamy summer day - DO IT AS SOON AS YOU GET A CHANCE.

(Disclaimer: I promise not to yell too much on this blog, but for God's sake, some things I just feel too strongly about!)

For example, if you visit Boston, stopping under the purple-and-orange is just as important as visiting the site of the tea party, paying homage at Fenway Park and drinking a Samuel Adams. You can't miss them, anyway, there's literally one every block.

You New Yorkers out there have the same experience with Starbucks. In fact, I think that's the thing that pissed me off the most about living in the City - you can't get away from that stupid angel in the green circle, but there are, like, three measly Dunkin's in all of Manhattan. Abomination!

What's funny about our local Dunkin' Donuts, though, is the variety of differences in each retail location. Sure, they're pretty much branded the same, but unlike Starbucks where a barista from London is the same as a barista from the airport is the same as a barista from the Upper West is a same as a barista from hell, local flavors actually get added to the mix at DD.

For example, there are four locations I visit on a regular basis (generally, I go to each at least once a week). I'll rate them here from worst-first.

4) Dunkin's on the corner of Tremont & Boylston, right off the Boston Common. It's in the basement of 180 Boylston Street (an address I know only because it's the main campus building for Emerson College, where I'm getting my master's).
This location has everything I dislike about coffee shops... it's busy (because of it's location - right by one of the main tourist sites and a T station), homeless people shill for change constantly outside its doors, there's no bathroom and the ghetto-blastin' staff's quantitative IQ probably doesn't add up to Stephen Hawking's toejam.
But, the iced coffee tastes just as good as the nectar of the gods and it's super-convenient for the 8pm halfway-point break during my night classes.

3) Dunkin's on Boylston, one block from Copley Square, across from the public library.
Okay, so some of the same problems here (particularly with the homeless guys at the door, begging for spare change. Ugh - look, if you reek of booze, I'm not giving you money. It's obvious you're not there for a coffee! Every now and then, I'll buy a cup of coffee or a donut for the "doorman," but just as often, they'll turn it down, claiming they "just ate." Yeah, right.).
Other problems: crowded, due to the business towers in the area and tourist traffic, it's long and narrow so it can get kind of cramped, for some reason a lot of candy-faced kids hang out there.
Pluses: the staff is super-efficient and the line always moves fast. They also seem to be friendly all the time and they've never gotten an order wrong.

2) Dunkin's on Newbury Street, between Mass. Ave and Hereford.
Again more homeless (gah! They're everywhere!) brings this location down. The staff, which seems to be predominantly Arabic, with the exception of the super-enthusiastic Filipino guy who makes the sandwiches, has the most trouble communicating of any other Dunkin's out there. But it does add to the unintentional comedy when you have three people, from three different continents all trying to explain to each other how to make a non-fat, no-whipped cream, decaf coolatta. Good times!
For me, the reason I go to this one is it's there. It's a block from my office, which makes it convenient, and whether or not I ride the T, walk or bike to work, it's on my way and calling my name every morning (and, sometimes, every afternoon). I'd compare this branch to a girlfriend you have because she's fun to hook up with - she'll blow your (mind) at night or when the time is right, but you have to put up with a whole lot of ish all the time and you wonder why it's worth it to stay but since there's nothing better you do but secretly you always hope for something better to come along or a new store to open up one block in the other direction.
Uh, not that I've ever been in that situation or anything...

1) Dunkin's in the Shaw's Plaza, off of McGrath Highway, just over the Somerville/Cambridge border.
This one has all the good and none of the bad - it's the closest one to my apartment, right in a plaza that I visit a couple times a week anyway for groceries, it's on the way to the T (with only a slight detour). The staff, which seems to be the entire female/teenage child branch of an extended Indian family, is very friendly and even tries to upsell by insisting on asking every customer "If you would like any donuts or muffins today" (which, as a salesperson, I appreciate). They make the best breakfast sandwiches - even double-toasting the English Muffins so they have a nice crunch. The orders are always right and they're very fast. Heck, even the floors are always clean.
And the coffee? Ooooooooh, the coffee is so good. I visit this one when I'm running late, overslept or after the occasional hangover. That first sip is pure bliss.

I guess the only downfall is that they don't deliver.

I'll have to put that into the "comments" box.

I'd never leave my house.