sports, angst and snow

Day one of my self-organized two-day campus tour. I meet with a group and a recent grad student, all of whom are really nice folks and interested in what we’re working on. I met with the local JWJ/SLAP coordinator here, and we have the collective rant about the elections that’s really becoming more of a greeting than a rant. “Hi, can you believe over half the people in this country hate gay people more than they want health care?” Is basically how we’re all starting conversations these days. The very awesome grad student - who, coincidentally, had worked with USAS as an undergrad - was telling me about the moment of group angst after Kerry’s concession at Fanual Hall. “I was there,” she recounted, and I thought of how I started the conversation at the Brewster spiritual espresso parlor. “Nobody wanted to move. We just stayed there in the area, under 4:30 am, until they turned the lights out on us and the security guards had to tell us to leave. It was like, ‘if I don’t leave, then I don’t have to believe what just happened.’”

I said what I usually say, which is that I would’ve liked a riot - well, not the part where people hurt each other or the cops shoot someone, but you know. But only the Red Sox can get a riot in this town.

Speaking of which, my Number One Question for my hosts is whether now that the Sox have won there will be a collective identity crisis among Bostonians. Everyone replies in a sort of hushed tone that, yes, they suspect people won’t be sure of what to do with themselves next year. People aren’t quick with this analysis until I relay that I’m a second-generation Cubs fan, and they recognize the solidarity immediately. That’s as manly as I get, by the way. I suggested to my fellow organizer that Sox fans take on a love for the radical Left in the US, but I suppose that’s a far too cynical thing for me to say. Even I have snarky moments.

So back to my day. I dropped the nice grad student off at her friend’s, and immediately upon getting somewhat hopelessly lost on my way back to Jamaica Plain, I saw snowflakes hit my windshield. Snowflakes!! It was 65º (F) yesterday, and I’m suddenly beginning to realize that those numbers mean something to people, because in the rest of the world, they fluctuate wildly from day to day! And my long underwear is a plane trip away.

Another thing I learned about this “weather” business - metal nose-rings conduct the cold right into yer schnoz. Perhaps this is why San Francisco is the capitol of obscure body piercings and not, say, Wisconsin.

OK, that was the last of my brain cell allotment for today - stay tuned!