I like how Nick writes about transitions, so instead of articulating the same sentiment in my own words, I will quote him:

> Moving this week. Things seem to be shifting a bit in this city, this burning old town. Sort of like how time slows when the ball is soaring towards your head.

I find it mildy hilarious that he and I no longer communicate via email or phone, but rather via static, subjective blog posts for other people to read. I like this global age in a lot of ways, I really do, but on many levels, it makes me sad. Is having a pseudo-connection with someone (i.e., via web communication), equal to or better than person-to-person communication? In terms of convenience, certainly. But I’m reaching a point now where I’d almost rather talk, write real letters or see the person rather than perpetuate a less sincere, less personal cyber relationship. You know what I mean?

Much how I feel about George, but that’s another story and I don’t feel like telling stories tonight.

In more mundane news, why is finding an affordable apartment proving to be the most difficult task I’ve ever undertaken? Seriously. The flats I’ve seen have been nice, but their inhabitants have been a new breed of weird. All of them. I was finally psyched to see a cheeeeeap, awesome-sounding setup near Kendall today, but I called and called and never got in touch with the chic who was supposed to meet me. She never called me, and she never emailed. Geeze!

However, it was a pretty glorious day, even with the overcast sky. It’s not like Manchester’s overcast; it’s lighter here, the humidity doesn’t permeate the skin. The clouds are thin here, and they glow a shy yellow. In Manch, the sky is rolling, always, with low blue-grey clouds that constantly threaten not to rain on you, but to beat you with their water. Boston is a gentler city, and I’m thankful for it.

Today I met up with my old conspirator Marcus Rhinelander to discuss, oh, the usual: his upcoming trip to Asia; business prospects and grant proposals; anthropology; interview techniques in fieldwork and videography; our varying career prospects; and possible collaborative business ventures we will or might or at some point contemplate beginning. It was nice seeing him. We met up first last night at MassArt’s Iron Pour Party (don’t ask), then this morning for the Red Sox parade, which he was photographing for pleasure, as opposed to business.

I feel like there’s gotta be some great reason why I know all these talented, creative, cultured, intelligent people. Why is it? What am I supposed to do with them? What are we supposed to do together? Throw your ideas my way, please. I’ll be here — in Ryan’s crowded room while he sings to prospective producers in other cities. Sheesh.

And their show tonight at the Paradise was the best show ever. EVER. EVER!!!!!

And I got a phone pic taken with Sarah and Gert!!!

And Autumn, since she manages bands, knew someone on the tour so we all got invited to party with the band in Days Inn after the show. But the show ended at 2a and Autumn was tired, so she said no thanks…..ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ryan’s been very nice to let me crash at his place til I’m resituated. So nice, in fact, that he doesn’t deserve to have annoying little me mess around on his computer while he’s playing a gig and upload funny glamour shots from his recent PR photo shoot. Sorry man, I couldn’t resist! They’re glamour shots! I can hear those 16-yr-old girls squealing right now…

But seriously, folks. For those of you in NYC, check him out at the Bowery Ballroom tomorrow night in Manhattan. Buy him a drink after the show and whisper: “Thanks for putting up the old woman while she’s homeless.” He’ll know what you mean.

I come home and look what happens: the Sox break the curse & win the series. I think this is definitely some kind of omen. Here are some photos I took with my new phone camera of the TV right before running into the streets of Davis Square to celebrate with Ryan and Brendan and Jason and a bunch of other guys. It’s been a good homecoming, lemme tell ya….

Why am I always leaving behind a good thing? Sure, Manchester hasn’t been great to me, and I get aggressively sexually harassed every single day when I walk through the park, or walk anywhere, but I couldn’t possibly have cooler roommates.

They just made a nice goodbye dinner tonight, and last night we had our wild costume party. But first,

Peter spent all day, and I do mean ALL DAY, making ceviche, a typical Peruvian dish with raw whitefish marinated in lemon and salt for 4 hours, served with parsley and chilli and onions and sweet potatoes. Me, who’s never eaten any seafood, let alone RAW fish, ate this very well-presented ceviche and actually really liked it. Thanks, Peter.

So we all decided to dress up as girls for the party. Here’s us helping Michel and Peter with makeup.

And here’s the finished product.

When I said “we all,” I didn’t mean to include Ben. We tease him about working at Burger King, so he teased us back:

Here’s us girls, looking annoyed at Michel for taking 200 photos in a row.

Also, it occured to me I have never posted a photo of Declan, our seventh roommate, from Ireland. He had a football (soccer) match the next morning, so he abstained from drinking. This is us, being irish and sober but looking irish and inebriated.

Finally, my pal Cee came up to visit for the weekend from London and she brought along her boyfriend, Steve. Here’s them looking not-posed.

I can’t even begin to tell you how sad it is to leave…in 8 hours.
So I won’t.

I’ve rediscovered how deep those indy rock boys really are. In classic 8th-grade fashion, I’ve decided to name the world at large as the current theme song for the sitcom of my life.

And now that I think about it, “Float On” is right up there too, as is the entire first half of that album. Geeze, I’ve become so High Fidelity. How disturbingly male.

PS — sorry, I’ve disabled the “Comments” function due to some auto-programmed spam that keeps posting fortune cookie comments on this site. Why did spam ever come into existence? Why are people inspired to do mean things? I’ll never understand…

That’s right: us. Whaaaaaaaaat!

I am proud to announce I stayed up past 4am last night “watching” this game by following live-feed plays over the internet and listening to the streaming radio broadcast. Thank God for Johnny Damon, right? I fell asleep at the top of the eighth and woke up again at the bottom of the ninth, but there was barely any scoring in the second half anyway, as you all know.

WOOHOO! SOX!

Here are some more photos of all of us looking very happy and fun in 8 Ruskin Ave. I am so so so so sad about leaving my housemates, I can’t even tell you. Too bad Manchester is like the worst city ever.

One night last week, the street actually looked pretty at dusk.

Peter asked me to cut his hair. Later he decided I wasn’t the amazing stylist he hoped I’d be, but hey, I never promised perfection…

Here’s me pretending to be an assassin. Convincing?

The girls and I decided to hide under Peter’s bed as a surprise while Michel filmed us. We attacked them with perfume, then found out that Peter’s allergic to perfume. WHOOPS!

This is Shiva & Angeline & me wasting $8 each on pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Totally worth it, man.

And you’re all invited to our big huge costume party this Saturday. But I guess it might be kind of a hike. Too bad. You’ve no idea what you’re missing!

Get this: the Big Big head of all social sciences at the university has decided to FULLY REFUND ALL TUITION FEES for me & K, thanks to a very well-written letter she wrote regarding problems with the program. The guy who was mean even issued us a written apology. This is pretty cool. Too bad that Xmas flight I bought from London was non-refundable.

Now all I have to do is stop having anxiety dreams (they have switched from anxiety dreams about England and school to anxiety dreams about going back to Boston), and wait for this awful twitch to go away near my eye. It magically appeared during this turbulent era of freaking out, and it has yet to disappear completely. Maybe when I finally get home.

And speaking of “home”, or the concept of it, super props go out to Nayiri for hooking me up with her bachelorette pad while she practises living married life at her boyfriend’s place. I OWE YOU, GIRL! HOLLA!

Man, what a week it’s been! Just when you think situations couldn’t get uglier, that you couldn’t possible feel more stressed out or whatever, BAM! Crap flies across the room and hits you in the face, and part of it even gets in your mouth and because you already have to sneeze, you swallow it.

Had final final meetings, me & K, with the Big Boys in Visual and Social Anthropology. They’re both temp directors since the real directors are away on sabbatical. Unbelievable. They wouldn’t let us criticize anything, even constructively; they were aggressive and hostile and mean and nasty and the head guy snapped at me and growled, “YOU’RE basically saying my program is crap!” and then went off on K. The only support we got was from the departmental secretary and the head international financial lady (emphasis on LADIES, as if that’s a surprise), and a little support from some other students who ALSO agree this program is, to put it in the director’s words (not mine), “crap”, but are too afraid to admit it lest they get their heads bitten off also. Plus many of them are being funded or are paying less, so what have they got to lose from a program they feel is mediocre? Not too much. It’s so insane. It’s just been such a bad several days.

All of this asserts and reasserts and double-validates my decision to leave. Each subsequent ugly interaction with a school administrator confirms that I’m doing the right thing. Instead of going home dejected, feeling a bit like a failure, I’m running home super-relieved that I got out before it was too late. Honestly, it’s just been unbelievable.

Granted, I don’t know what I’m going home to, but anything is better than this. And even though I’m not yet able to phone certain people without getting completely hysterical, at least I have [most of] my pride.

See y’all real soon.