Please pause for station identification.

Rebekah came to visit last week. Rebekah who said, "You have to go to Seattle – you will love it!" but stayed in Cambridge. At my going-away party she gave me a charm of a little silver pig with wings and told me anything is possible.

I'm homesick. It happens occasionally, though not as often as I thought it would. When Rebekah was there, sitting at my table on the upper deck, talking about Harvard, eating Thai food, it was like she was still warm from the Boston streets, like I could see it still clinging to her clothes. Michael came by to visit last week, too. He made me homesick for New York. Talking to VVB about Chapel St. makes me miss New Haven. I wish I could give the whole Nor'east a big hug today.

Most of the things I miss are small details, little comforts and rituals. I miss Davis Sq. I miss the subway, especially the Charles/MGH stop on the Red Line. I miss Au Bon Pain and 12-grain bagels with honey walnut cream cheese. I miss jaywalking. I miss ordering a large coffee by saying "large coffee" instead of "grande drip". I miss autumn. And snow. (Lou Barlow sang, "without the seasons, will I know how to change?") Racquetball and Fat Kid Night with Ruby. $4 matinees at the Somerville Theatre. I miss playing Djembe on my big front porch. John in the Morning, at night. The uneven bricks of the pit in Harvard Sq. I miss Bee's weird vegan squash concoctions. The red lights of the Burren on a Tuesday night. The way Davis Sq. smells in the spring morning – alive. Jared dropping by to play guitar. Mostly I miss getting two $35 parking tickets a week for missing street cleaning.

I miss my friends.

Daniel sent me a copy of the new porterdavis bootleg, a live show. That brought back my life there in a flash, all at once. the Toad, sold out, on a Saturday night. Rolls and rolls of film. The Lizard Lounge. The Porter and Davis Sq. subway stations, respectively. Faneuil Hall. My synthetic beast green blanket with yellow stars. Plumeria. A black down jacket and a cold black Altima. Winter Hill. The sidewalk outside the Paradise. Tiny purple lights strung window to window. Samezvous and los halos in the livingroom. CDs exchanged spastically through the mail. Postcards papering kitchen walls. Chunky headphones and a minidisc player on the August porch, crying through "My Jolene".

Last night I had a dream I was in Boston. All the clocks showed a different time, and all of them were wrong. I kept getting lost and I couldn't hear what anyone was saying. There was a fissure in the middle of Mass. Ave. that spread as far as I could see. It was August. It was snowing. It no longer felt like home.

i am an indie snob!

You're just too cool for school, aren't you? You're pretty narrow minded and opinionated with regards to music (and probably most other things as well). But you're allowed to be, because you really are better than everyone else. You take pride in obscurity. You probably prefer vinyl too, you elitist bitch.

Actually, as it turns out, his name is Jasper.

Progress, not perfection.

It's hard work, getting in the way of painters all day.

And not to mix church and state or anything, but the Boy put up a neat new toy on our Pirates website. It's a real-time view of Seattle from the S.S. Octopus of Loooove. Check it out.

Delia has taken up Internet dating. This is Samson. They started out just emailing each other, but things are looking pretty serious. He may be joining us on the S.S. Octopus of Love. I think he may have lied about his height and weight, but who can resist those blue eyes?

The results of their first date are forthcoming.

~k