3,082 miles, according to Google. Start out by driving west on Spencer Street, turn right on 48th Avenue South, turn left on Juneau Street, turn right on Rainier....turn, turn, turn, and you're in Boston. Google makes it seem so simple. And while this blog isn't being written for the purpose of delving into my psyche, I assure you that there wasn't anything simple about this move.
I find it fitting, however, that the road that leads from Seattle to Boston starts with Edgar Martinez and Dave Niehaus, because that's where mine started as well. If you don't already know, I am here attending Boston University to get my masters degree in broadcast journalism. Aside from compiling massive amounts of debt, the reason I am here is to get better at what I love doing: talking about sports. This blog will be dedicated to keeping those of you who are interested up to date with how that pursuit is going, as well as to fill you in on the occasional funny anecdote from my life. So here goes...
Welcome to Boston
I have been here in Boston for a little over a month now, and overall things are going really well. My classes are challenging and interesting, my professors are enthusiastic and experienced, and I have had the great fortune of coming to school with a group of students who are passionate and inspire me to work as hard as they do. In summary, the BU experience has been really great so far. I've also been doing a sports radio show on WTBU on Friday nights (6-8 EST, wtburadio.org) which I really enjoy. The radio station is cool, it's totally student run, the equipment is ancient and often malfunctions and the studio is pretty much a closet. But everyone who works there loves radio, and has a great passion for what they are doing...basically the opposite of KJR. Ooooh, a shot at KJR. I kid KJR, I kid.
The thing that has been really funny about Boston thus far however, have been the "Welcome to Boston" moments. Those moments where your new city reaches out and introduces itself to you. For instance, in Seattle if someone was new to town, and they went for a cup of coffee at a corner cafe and the barista was rude to them for not knowing the difference between an Americano and a drip, you would say, "Welcome to Seattle." An introduction to the quirks of the city. Annoying? Sure. But every city has them. Only in Boston, people say "Welcome" in some really weird ways. I have 3 examples.
1. Move in weekend in Boston and the surrounding areas such as Brookline, Allston and Brighton (where I live), is notoriously crazy. It's referred to as "Boston Christmas" because so many students just leave perfectly good stuff on the sidewalk when they move out. I furnished half of my apartment with stuff that I found. I got a dresser, a microwave, 2 fans, an AC unit, a coffee maker, a bunch of rugs, etc. Just to be clear, this stuff is all perfectly good and clean, I'm not some dumpster diving hippie. Rich kids just leave their stuff out on the sidewalk instead of taking the time to move it or dispose of it properly. It's really great actually. So as my mom and I were on one of our scavenger hunts, we stopped on the side of the road to grab some plastic shelves and a lamp that was left with a free sign. While we were packing the rental car with my new furniture, a woman with a thick New York accent yelled at us, asking if we wanted a futon.
--Now, as I said before, I am not some dirty stinky hippie, I have standards. And while some plastic closet shelves and lamps are fine to get for free, a futon is something that you sit on. Nap on. Watch sports on. So I was skeptical.--
We followed her into her son's basement level apartment, where the futon lived, and she proceeded to convince us that it was very comfortable, she in fact had slept on it dozens of times. After about 3 seconds in the apartment, my attention was no longer on the futon however. I was focused on the middle Eastern war zone that we had just stepped into. A broken fish tank sat in the corner, a vineyard of wires grew from every outlet in sight, there were 3 TV monitors hooked up to the computer in the middle of the living room, and there were fast food bags and dirty socks everywhere. This was September 1, mind you. The place was supposed to be empty and clean by noon the day before, and yet it looked like a dumpster. Anyway, there sat the futon, and on it Kev, the son of the woman with the thick accent. Kev was playing with a helicopter that he appeared to have made himself. He couldn't have cared less that his apartment was a haz-mat sight, or that his mom was trying to give away all of his stuff to expedite the cleaning process. He simply sat there, totally content, playing with his toy. He was wearing khaki shorts, and a video game T-shirt, and looked like he was about 30. As his mom continued to push the futon and its virtues, he finally looked up to see me and my mom, nodding slightly at our presence in his cave. To be fair, the futon was actually pretty nice, but we didn't have room in the car, so we had to drive home to unload and then come back to pick it up. Kev and his mom were fine with this plan.
When we got back to Kev's place, there was a new character in the mix; Kev's dad. Not only was this new man Kev's father (very proud of Kev I assume), but he was also Kev's mom's ex-husband. And he was none too pleased that the futon that "he paid for" was about to be given away for free. Never mind the fact that the apartment had to be cleared out yesterday, Kev's dad wasn't about to part with this futon without a fight. Well, actually he just wanted $70, but he was a real douche about it. My mom and I decided that was a fair price, the futon was actually really nice considering its third world home, and I could easily get a new cover. We loaded the car, paid Kev's angry father, and made our way out of the cave. As we left Kev still sat there, undaunted, in the spot where the futon used to be, playing with his helicopter. I was asked later that day how moving in was going by a friend who has lived in Boston for years, and when I relayed the story of Kev and his garbage dump, he texted me back three words: "Welcome to Boston."
2. During my first weekend here, I was out with a group of grad students who I have classes with. None of us really knew each other very well, since we had only been in school for about 3 days at this point, so we did what any normal 20-somethings would do, we went out and got drunk together. The night was fun, we were all telling stories of our hometowns, and why we chose Boston for school, and all sorts of other polite things you talk about when you are trying to be a grad student. As the night went on we ventured out of our small group of classmates, and started talking to some of the girls at the table next to us. I was having a nice chat with this girl from Colorado, telling jokes, buying drinks, all the semi-effective moves I've acquired throughout my bar going life. This went on for about an hour, until she and her friends decided to leave. Naturally, feeling proud of the fact that I had kept her attention and not said anything offensive for such a long period of time, I asked for her number. This is where things went "Boston". She just sort of looked at me like I was little kid trying to dress himself for the first time...her face read amused, but also a little embarrassed. "No thanks," she said, and walked away with her friends. I turned to my classmates in shock, I couldn't believe it. I was funny, my hair looked great, I bought her 2 beers, WTF? At this moment my buddy, who grew up in Massachusetts, put his arm around me and said, "Welcome to Boston."
3. I shipped the majority of the things that I own in boxes on Amtrak. Things like small framed pictures, dishes, books, autographed baseballs, and all sorts of other little things that I decided I couldn't move across the country without. This process takes 2 weeks, and being the procrastinator that I am, I waited until the last possible day to take the stuff down to the train station in Seattle. This meant that for the first 2 weeks I was in my new apartment the walls were bare, I had to eat off of cardboard, and I didn't have my baseball cards. It was a rough two weeks as you can imagine. When the boxes finally showed up in Boston, they came to a place called South Station which is located on the outskirts of downtown just across the water from South Boston. I rented a U-Haul truck and drove to the other side of town to get my stuff, and even though I got lost about 5 times on the trip it was fun to drive through the city. Anyway, when I finally found the station, I parked in the garage and went to ask the information desk where to go for Amtrak Express.
--As a quick aside, keep in mind this is a train, bus, and subway station, and if you have spent any time in train, bus or subway stations, you know that you can meet some interesting folks.--
So, as I walked through the station to find out where I needed to go, I was approached by a woman who appeared down on her luck. Dirty clothes, matted hair, plastic bags filled with god knows what in both hands, this woman looked like she had seen better days. I was reaching for change, assuming she was going to tell me some story about needing to buy gas or something, as she walked right up to my face. She looked me dead in my eyes, and with the confidence and swagger of Dirty Harry she said, "I just pissed my pants. So What?"
Holy shit. This woman just jacked my whole life up. "So What?" She looked right into my soul and called me out. I mean, what do you do? It was clearly a challenge, a "go ahead punk, make my day" type of moment. Seriously, what do you do?!? The only way to top her would have been to take a dump right there in front of her, but I really liked the jeans I was wearing and that would have been gross. This is not the type of person you want to get into a gross out contest with, I mean she started by pissing her pants, that's her FIRST MOVE. Needless to say I was beaten. So I tried to gather my wits as quickly as I could and respond. "Alright," is all I could muster. She stood there shrinking my manhood with her eyes for a few more seconds before she furled her brown and harrumphed. I was a disappointment to her. She chose me, out of the hundreds of people in the station, and approached what she thought could be a worthy opponent. But I was no match. It was checkmate after one move. "I just pissed my pants. So What?" So, you win. That's what.
Anyway, I went on to get my boxes, occasionally reliving this moment in my mind as I drove back to Brighton. I texted my co-worker Manny to tell him about the incident, and all I got back were the 3 words I dreaded most: "Welcome to Boston."
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