Boston Boston Boston

After several mishaps and failed rides throughout the weekend, my roommate and i were finally on the fitchburg train out of new hampshire and into the big city of boston. With friends called, and barely any plans made, we discussed philosophy louldly then got off at porter square singing.

the excited middle-age shoppers, and cute preppy couples lined the street trying to unload thier pockets, while we explored the new non-meeting school terrian. after some time, and a music shop, we bought some smokes and took the T north, and jumped off the moment we saw boats on the charles river. Sniffing flowers, singing more louldly, we reach the picturesk river, and debated swimming. Plastic and strifoam trash and strange green residue convinced us to settle for an old green wood bench facing the waterfront. A gaggle of three ducks, lead by one goose, came over to try to score some of the dryed mango we were chewing on, between swigs of the remaining whiskey and smoking reds. the big goose, Carrie claimed as a husband, and it reached out its long neck almost giving a goose kiss. A little kid came running down the bank wiht her mother's camera following with zeal, having a touching moment by the river, wiht the boats, and the ducks, when a huge golden retriver comes by barking up a storm, scaring the ducks, and almost the little girl into the nasty water.

By this time Carrie, and i had already whipped out the guitar and had been passing it back and forth singing our minds to the world. Don't think the rich yacht club, or urban joggers cared. We just sang. her phone rang, and we decided to abandon our river front in search of national bike polo tortement that the voice on the other line enthusiastally suggested. i called my friend, and we were off to meet up at harvard square, after quickely finding a bathroom for the jumping Carrie.

Polka music, break dancing, and a graffi painter welcomed us into harvard square while we waited for my dear friend of six years, Rob Roche, who lives in Villanova, Pa but has been studying at BU, and his friend abby. Met him through Quakers and he is truly one of the more beautiful people on this Earth. With hugs and handshakes, we started towards where the polo match is taking place, passing the huge statium where the girls soccer team is playing, we found a beautiful tree and ran towards it shoeless. An epic climb, ending in an epic stick battle. Cole and Matt, Carrie's biker friends, found us. the sun was a cadence of reds and oranges, as we walked towards an athletic feild with a taken over hockey court by grunge flordia bikers with mallets yelling intensely. The surrounding crowd were also intense bike kids with cases of cheap bear littering the surroundings. After a bathroom trip to subway, we sat down and played somemore music talking about the scene, rob and I catching up.

Parted our ways, heading back to Coles apartment, watched a rollerskating movie with a couple beers injested, passed out.

D. C. World Bank/IMF talks

5:00am my cell phone alarm goes off only to be shut off for the next half hour as I attempt to find my limbs and lift my heavy eye lids. The light hesitates to flash on, but prevails letting me read a couple pages of Kerovac's Darma Bums, then pass out again till six, when the beaten red phone rings transphering Amber's sleepy voice saying she missed her train in-she wouldn't get in until 8. I yell to my mother, who's driving the crew down, and throwing her goosedown pillow over her head, yells "GOOD!".

I stumble up shower, pack, and gather important phone numbers and addresses for our venture. My mother made her way down the stairs, and came across a map of D.C, which was of course forgetfully left on the kitchen table in the scramble out the door to the 8:00 train.

Amber and I have known each other for a year or so through the SDS crew in Lancaster City, a small progressive island in the middle of amishland, PA. I've only seen her once since I went gallivanting to California for utopia hippie school, then bummed around looking for something real. I have been hiding in New Hampshire ever since, in a place far too real and far too cold. So it was really nice to see a familar face on the foggy Friday, way too early, morning, jumping in the back of my mother's muddy farm ford Explorer complete with a canoe rack.

Making small talk, we drove far to pick up Anthony, a good friend and strange character who survived public school homeroom with me. I had called him up the night before, and with no idea of any details of the journey jumped in the car up for adventure. His mother, Meg, my old teacher and now a politician (like the rest of the family), exploded with an uncomprehendable enthusiasm so early in the morning, glad to see us again, and sent her son off with many hugs.

Excitement overwhelmed me as we neared the city, for one to tell off the International Montetary Fuckers, and two, to eat the savory Ethiopian food that D.C. has to offer. I was drooling the whole car ride just thinking about spongy injura with Watwat on it... and putting up with jokes of the starving country's food not existing.

We landed on street with two Ethiopian places, and examined both of them before gorging on the exquisite cuisine. Then napped in parks, swam in fountains, and created a series of epic haikus before running into a big band festival and decided I needed thai food for sanity.

Park bench philosophers

“…And so my life is, “ The causal voice on a park bench explains. “waking up to grey skies framed by white walls, bland furniture and the same obnoxious alarm clock. You come with dreams and all talk of purpose and place, when really you are just as empty and lost as any one. So go look for adventure, dive into art, and I promise you that you’ll find in the end the same white walls and blank sky, only with a larger ego and a bloated sense of pride. You are nothing, just like the rest of us. So why would you go out of your way to find some more disappointment and the emptiness that is inherent in everyone-the fact that we are primal, self-serving beasts.

“Why, if you know the starting line is the same as the finish line, run the lap? Perception is a joke, when we are all blind beggars, groping around for a light switch. Even if we manage to find it our broken eyes will still be in the dark. So, why not just give up now, you’ve been dying since you’ve been born. “

Second voice on any park bench, “I’m bored! I’m fed up with the bullshit routine, and window metaphor. I don’t give a fuck if the damn light switch will give me something I can’t see, I’ll flick it till it breaks and find a new one. What else am I suppose to do? Just sit in the dark and wait as I starve my life away? I don’t care if I break every bone in my body trying to break down the door that will just lead to another room. I’ll kick over all the furniture. I’ll make my own meaning, and yeah I’ll brag about how many fucking circles I’ve run around a track for no reason except the human fact that I can. So laugh, go laugh away at trivialness and frivolity of it all, but I won’t fall into domestic complacency with the inevitable.”

“No one will remember you. No one is impressed, just mad that you shove it all in their faces, reminding them all comically how pointless it all is. I pity you and your effort. You are not special, not better, you are nothing, just like the rest of us , bidding our time until we’re hijacked from everything that we ever worked for or cared about. Your sandcastle will just be flattened and look just the same as everyone else’s no matter how detailed and big it its-soon it will be flat. So, yes, I’ll keep laughing at you, like all the others will. “