Chrysalis

I guess I haven't written here in a couple of weeks. I was waiting, I think, for something to click, for some golden sunbeam to glimmer through the fog, so I'd be able to burst out of the papery little shell I've been hiding from Boston in and exclaim, Here I am! Take that, big city! It hasn't happened yet. The city is still big, and I am still small. Some progress has been made: A nice older woman in Kenmore Station produced CharlieCards from her pocket for me, so I can stroll onto buses and trains with RFID-powered insouciance. I found decent pizza and Thai takeout on my block; I ventured as far as Fenway to take in a movie, then walked in the light of the Citgo sign until midnight; I shopped at the giant Super 88 Asian grocery store, with its tanks of live tilapia and its bags of dried lotus blossoms and its incense-smoky shrine in the produce aisle (red and gold and piled with little broken spongecakes). Take that! Even so, I'm still uneasy, still hunched and touchy; the dense weight of human lives presses in on me, makes my skin prickle.

But then, I've been rereading what I wrote here after moving to Saratoga Springs, and apparently I felt equally uneasy when I moved there in 2005. I retreated into my apartment then, too; I peered suspiciously out the windows at an unfamiliar world. I was so comfortable in Saratoga when I left that it's hard to credit, but it seems to have been true. It gives me hope for Boston.

One thing is different this time: I need to find a job. Unemployment panic flutters constantly underneath my skin. It's hard; adfamiliares is striding boldly toward an exciting new phase of her career, and I'm stepping off the edge of a chasm, with no idea what's at the bottom. She gets to be anticipatory; I quail.

Chandlers Pond is only a few minutes away. That's important. It's possible to forget you're in a city there. It's just trees and still water and cattails and goose poop, with the seminary visible on a hill in the middle distance. When I went, there were about 30 adult Canada geese (the sign said DO NOT FEED!, but that battle seems lost), half a dozen goslings, quite a few ducks, and a pair of swans trailing three cygnets that they might've been pulling on a string. Snails the size of crabapples. A sign spread rumors of a great blue heron, but I didn't see her.

32 Montfern

This 1916 map of Brighton tells me that our house is at least that old, and that the property belonged at the time to an M.N. Darling. You can zoom in on Montfern in the lower right corner to see that a Mary Lyons used to live across the street. The site of the Boston Elevated Railway Co.'s Oak Square Station now holds the YMCA, alas.

This is what we've done with the place — with floors 2 and 3, at least: ( here's the floorplan I used to help us arrange furniture. )

My office was the last room to be arranged, but I was able to settle in after my new old desk was finally delivered on Tuesday. I had to take the door off its hinges, but I think it was worth it. ( This is the excellent desk. )

There are three leather panels on the top, with embossed scrollwork around the edge of each and gilt scrollwork nested inside that. The front is interestingly swoopy. I've really taken to it, though I've never spent so much on a piece of furniture — I could've bought either the desk or a 12" Boba Fett in its original packaging (which was also, temptingly, on display at the Cambridge Antique Market). Stacks of empty boxes are still cluttering things up in here, but once our split box spring is delivered tomorrow we'll be able to bring the bed frame out of the bedroom closet and stick boxes in there instead. I'm really looking forward to getting back to writing. (Cue trepidation.)

Because "Ol' Samovar-Head" didn't sound dangerous

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I somehow missed it until now. Star Wars geeks, take a good look at IG-88's head. Then look around the Mos Eisley cantina. Hmm...

Perhaps IG-88 was tracking Han Solo even then, but when he saw what happened to Greedo he did a quick blend with the scenery. Wotta bounty hunter — that's dedication!