Klipspringer 5 Crashes an After-Party
So I've been back in Gloucester for a little while right now and have made it down to Boston for a couple of days this week to see and participate in events associated with the DNC. It's been fun. I got to see Michael Moore twice on Tuesday, as well as got handed a lot of flyers and buttons and stuff in Harvard Square. And walked through a good chunk of Cambridge. After the second time I heard him (both times in Cambridge, the mayor of which gave Michael a key to the city at the first event, a free screening of Fahrenheit 9/11, which I got into by being patient and some invited union members having extra tickets), I walked over into Boston and helped a couple young women my age visiting the convention from Michigan navigate the cross over the big mess of road at the Boston end of the Museum of Science. I became a sort of guide for them, being a comparative expert on city geography, and we ended up walking together for a while, then hanging out, getting food in Faneuil Hall, and eventually going to the Red Hat (a bar) to watch coverage of the convention. There we ran into some college-age guys from Illinois that they apparently sort of knew and we hung out until it was time to go or miss the last subway. So the girls headed off towards their homestay in West Roxbury and the guys got on the B line with me and headed to BU. I continued to the end at BC and proceeded to hunt for my friend Jeff, who has been taking some classes and working in the library and stuff there this summer. Unfortunately his door was closed and everyone inside seemed to be soundly asleep. Fortunately, the guy across the hall was trying to do laundry and gave me his couch. Actually, the door to his room was open and he came by just as I was starting to write a note to announce that I would be sleeping on the couch and I hoped that would be okay. But Reyn (sp?) was extremely cool, we talked for a while and then finally got to bed about 2.
The next day I woke up, went home, found out my mom didn't know that I wouldn't be coming home, went to the dentist, yaddah, yaddah, yadd...
So yesterday I went back into Boston, first for a couple panel discussions by and about progressive groups. When I got there the Reverend Jesse Jackson was giving a speech, which was cool. It actually went a little slowly and was not altogether cohesive, but he closed with what was probably my favorite point, saying that "America is a liberal idea". Then there was a break, then another panel. After that I got my mom's car out of the garage, found out that the low rate they'd been advertising only applied to evenings and weekends, and went and found myself a parking place by the esplanade. I thought there was going to be a concert and fireworks that night, held over from the day before, and the natural equation for me was concert+fireworks=esplanade. Not so. For a while I thought that it had actually been Wednesday, but I found out later that I was right about the date. So I missed it, but that's okay. I had taken the book I'm reading (the DaVinci Code, how mainstream, but hard to put down nonetheless) and ended up just sitting on the esplanade watching people jog, bike, row, or otherwise by, but mostly reading for a few hours. Then I got up, dropped my stuff off in the car, and went for a walk to try to find fireworks. It turned into a big meander across the Commons out to the docks area and then up through the North End looping right to where I was heading, back to the Red Hat. There was a line outside this time, so I missed all speechifying, just chatted with other people in line until it all ended. Then I went in and had a Harpoon IPA for dinner, finally. I was pretty hungry. By then it was all pretty boring, so I left to start heading back to the car and directly across the street ran into Rob, one of the guys from Illinois. He said they were going to be meeting up with Sarah and Betsy, the girls from Michigan and the other guys, Dan and Mike, so we hung out for a while. Then it seemed that the event to attend was the Illinois delegations post convention reception in the Hilton. So we went there on the green line and walked right in to the Belvidere room, with an open bar (beer, wine, and soft drinks only) and plenty of cheese, veggies, and crackers, which probably at best evened out the calories I'd burned (and would burn) walking. Anyway, it was a fun, ritzy event, and it didn't even matter that I was from Massachusetts. And of course there was an added advantage to it being the Illinois delegation. I got my picture taken with Barack Obama! Boo-yeah! Anyway, we were there for a lot longer than it felt like, and then spent more time hanging out downstairs, in and out of the building, one highlight of which was a discussion of dead bodies with a drunk Chicago policewoman in a bright red dress. Sometime between 3 and 4 we all found each other and managed to leave. As the T had by this time been shut down for a while, I offered to give them all rides to where they were going. Which first meant we needed to get back to my car. My sense of direction, particularly in Boston, is an interesting combination of observation and intuition, but infrequently like looking at a map in my head. Although if I actually have a map I can use it, although I think it's more fun when I don't, as long as I'm not in a hurry. Which, generally, I'm not any more. What this all boils down to is that we probably didn't take the absolute shortest way the 10 or more blocks it was back to the car, but before too long a I found us on Newbury street, remembered that the street I was on should cross a good long ways up, and, with a stop in front of Condom World, we made it to the car. The good thing about this was that in the car was a map of the metro Boston area, and so, with only four or five missed turns, I got everyone home. Let me here note that, while I had had a few drinks, that was many hours in the past. I was just very tired. And if unless you can drive in Boston without ever messing up once, don't judege. So after exchanging contact info and dropping Sarah and Betsy off at the Chestnut Hill T station, I was finally able to head home. I made my way back to Boston and got on the newly reopened I-93/Rt.1 N sometime around five and tried to get home before I hit the bottom of a sleep cycle. A little bit later I woke up to find myself jouncing along the left-hand shoulder of Route 1, but managed to pull back on to the part that's meant for driving before having an unfortunate encounter with a concrete barrier. That kept my eyes open for what may have been as much as a mile, maybe even two. For the most part though, that trip is scarily blurry. I do think I spent an inordinate amount of time in between lanes though. I just wish that I'd been awake enough to realize a) that my mom had borrowed the shop van and b) that since she had the van at home not only did she not need the car first thing in the morning, but she couldn't use it anyway. Because all I wanted to do was pull over somewhere and take a nap. By the time I finally got home I was actually awake enough to brush my teeth and take off my clothes, but that was about it.
Okay, end of story time for tonight. Oh, if you're wondering and I didn't already say it, I'm not actually up at 3:10 in the morning, I've just decided to publish in "universal time", i.e. Greenwich Mean Time. So I started this at 11:10. But now I'd like an earlier bed time. Good night.
The next day I woke up, went home, found out my mom didn't know that I wouldn't be coming home, went to the dentist, yaddah, yaddah, yadd...
So yesterday I went back into Boston, first for a couple panel discussions by and about progressive groups. When I got there the Reverend Jesse Jackson was giving a speech, which was cool. It actually went a little slowly and was not altogether cohesive, but he closed with what was probably my favorite point, saying that "America is a liberal idea". Then there was a break, then another panel. After that I got my mom's car out of the garage, found out that the low rate they'd been advertising only applied to evenings and weekends, and went and found myself a parking place by the esplanade. I thought there was going to be a concert and fireworks that night, held over from the day before, and the natural equation for me was concert+fireworks=esplanade. Not so. For a while I thought that it had actually been Wednesday, but I found out later that I was right about the date. So I missed it, but that's okay. I had taken the book I'm reading (the DaVinci Code, how mainstream, but hard to put down nonetheless) and ended up just sitting on the esplanade watching people jog, bike, row, or otherwise by, but mostly reading for a few hours. Then I got up, dropped my stuff off in the car, and went for a walk to try to find fireworks. It turned into a big meander across the Commons out to the docks area and then up through the North End looping right to where I was heading, back to the Red Hat. There was a line outside this time, so I missed all speechifying, just chatted with other people in line until it all ended. Then I went in and had a Harpoon IPA for dinner, finally. I was pretty hungry. By then it was all pretty boring, so I left to start heading back to the car and directly across the street ran into Rob, one of the guys from Illinois. He said they were going to be meeting up with Sarah and Betsy, the girls from Michigan and the other guys, Dan and Mike, so we hung out for a while. Then it seemed that the event to attend was the Illinois delegations post convention reception in the Hilton. So we went there on the green line and walked right in to the Belvidere room, with an open bar (beer, wine, and soft drinks only) and plenty of cheese, veggies, and crackers, which probably at best evened out the calories I'd burned (and would burn) walking. Anyway, it was a fun, ritzy event, and it didn't even matter that I was from Massachusetts. And of course there was an added advantage to it being the Illinois delegation. I got my picture taken with Barack Obama! Boo-yeah! Anyway, we were there for a lot longer than it felt like, and then spent more time hanging out downstairs, in and out of the building, one highlight of which was a discussion of dead bodies with a drunk Chicago policewoman in a bright red dress. Sometime between 3 and 4 we all found each other and managed to leave. As the T had by this time been shut down for a while, I offered to give them all rides to where they were going. Which first meant we needed to get back to my car. My sense of direction, particularly in Boston, is an interesting combination of observation and intuition, but infrequently like looking at a map in my head. Although if I actually have a map I can use it, although I think it's more fun when I don't, as long as I'm not in a hurry. Which, generally, I'm not any more. What this all boils down to is that we probably didn't take the absolute shortest way the 10 or more blocks it was back to the car, but before too long a I found us on Newbury street, remembered that the street I was on should cross a good long ways up, and, with a stop in front of Condom World, we made it to the car. The good thing about this was that in the car was a map of the metro Boston area, and so, with only four or five missed turns, I got everyone home. Let me here note that, while I had had a few drinks, that was many hours in the past. I was just very tired. And if unless you can drive in Boston without ever messing up once, don't judege. So after exchanging contact info and dropping Sarah and Betsy off at the Chestnut Hill T station, I was finally able to head home. I made my way back to Boston and got on the newly reopened I-93/Rt.1 N sometime around five and tried to get home before I hit the bottom of a sleep cycle. A little bit later I woke up to find myself jouncing along the left-hand shoulder of Route 1, but managed to pull back on to the part that's meant for driving before having an unfortunate encounter with a concrete barrier. That kept my eyes open for what may have been as much as a mile, maybe even two. For the most part though, that trip is scarily blurry. I do think I spent an inordinate amount of time in between lanes though. I just wish that I'd been awake enough to realize a) that my mom had borrowed the shop van and b) that since she had the van at home not only did she not need the car first thing in the morning, but she couldn't use it anyway. Because all I wanted to do was pull over somewhere and take a nap. By the time I finally got home I was actually awake enough to brush my teeth and take off my clothes, but that was about it.
Okay, end of story time for tonight. Oh, if you're wondering and I didn't already say it, I'm not actually up at 3:10 in the morning, I've just decided to publish in "universal time", i.e. Greenwich Mean Time. So I started this at 11:10. But now I'd like an earlier bed time. Good night.
posted by Colin at 3:10 AM
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