Summer 2007

the "Karen B", a lobster-boat at Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor









What I did this summer...

- planted a garden - had a visit from a Peace Corps friend - celebrated 5 cousins' and friends' graduations - helped save gay marriage in MA - hosted brunch for my family at my new apartment - celebrated my sister's 10 year college reunion with her and her friends - got involved with Jamaica Plain's neighborhood group, Neighbors for Neighbors - went to LA to visit - published an article on a dating blog, and got paid! - hired 5 new staff members at work - saw the author of two of my favorite non-fiction books (Shadow Divers and Crashing Through) speak - got drunk in Nashua - went canoeing with my brother, his girlfriend and her Pug - had dinner at new friends' apartment and then hosted them for dinner - did laundry in a laundromat for the first time in years - visited Martha's Vineyard overnight and stayed at the hostel - saw an amazing show at ImprovBoston - was published twice in the new BostonNOW free daily paper - saw three Sox games at Fenway - participated in the 2-mile road race before the Chelmsford 4th of July Parade - froze to death on the 4th in the wind and rain that night - saw the 16 Tiffany's windows in Arlington Street Church, which I didn't even know were there - was interviewed on Armchair Traveller, my friend's radio show in Worcester - saw the Hopper exhibit at the MFA - went to three WBOS concerts on Copley - started volunteering at the Friday Night Supper Program - went to the sand castle festival at Revere Beach - volunteered at the Nametag Project event at Fenway Park - visited NYC to visit my sister and her husband with my brother and his girlfriend and then met up with her brother who lives in the city - had an ultrasound - went on a moonlight canoe trip on the Charles - made my signature guacamole twice for parties -found a financial planner - kayaked on Squam Lake in NH - spent the day on Block Island - went to a concert in Christopher Columbus Park downtown - was one of the artists for First Thursdays art exhibits in JP - went to Atlanta for a training - went Ziplining in NH - learned how to transfer a photocopy to canvas using an acrylic medium - had dinner with a high school friend who I haven't seen since 2001 - babysat for my best friend's children - mowed my parents lawn for three weeks after goading them into firing their slacker high school mower-kid - stopped using the JP Library and moved over to the other JP branch, Connolly because the women at the JP branch are rude - went on a tour of Fenway Park - spent an entire weekend at my great-grandparents' (now my aunt and uncle's) cottage at Cobbett's Pond in NH - joined the board of directors of a small nonprofit organization - spent 8 hours out exploring the Boston Harbor Islands - participated in my street's Labor Day block party - read a lot of books - harvested more green beans than I can count, about 20 radishes, 4 cucumbers and a handful of tomatoes, all grown on my deck! - ate fried clams at Brown's in Seabrook - had a great summer!

A Letter to the T

Dear Tina,

I really want you to know what happened tonight on the 39. I was on the 39 bus and the back of the bus had number 1021 on it at 7:15 p.m. I got on at Copley Square, headed outbound for Forest Hills.

We stopped at the stop right before the Stop & Shop. The corner of Exeter Street and Huntington Ave. I was way in the back of the bus, and there was a long delay. I got up to see what was happening and saw the driver on her cell phone on the sidewalk. Outside the bus, there was a woman in a mechanical/electric wheelchair. I asked her what was going on. She told me the driver wouldn't pull the bus out a bit to lower the lift to let her on.

That corner has Huntington, and then a little side road that also cuts in there. The driver kept saying that she couldn't pull out into traffic. She told the woman she would have to go to the next stop, all the way down on the other end of the Pru where the duck boats load. The woman kept telling her that cars are always parked there and it's worse. The driver kept talking on her phone and refusing to lower the lift. The driver got back on the bus and got ready to drive away. The woman in the wheelchair began heading across the street and then came back and knocked on the door. I said to the driver "WHere do you want her to go, I'll walk with her." The driver ignored me and then left the bus again, and entered a yelling match with the woman, who was insisting that she could be picked up here and the driver telling her no.

At this point, I decided to get off and walk. I didn't want to be on a bus with a driver who didn't think it was her responsibility to pick up a disabled passenger at whatever stop they were at. A photographer came up at that point and took photos of the woman and the driver having words and then claimed he was from the Herald. When I walked away, he was kneeling down talking to the woman. God knows what'll be in the Herald.

It is bad enough that the T is so inaccessible to those who are disabled already. There are many many subway stations that are not accessible. It takes a lot longer for someone in a wheelchair to get somewhere in this city. And, fine. I know you are making improvements. But, people in wheelchairs should ALWAYS be able to enter a bus that is equipped with a lift. I don't see what anything (cut in the sidewalk, etc.) has to do with it. And they should not be asked to put themselves in harms way crossing streets or whatever to get on the bus. Bus stops should be RE-ASSESSED to ensure they are accessible.

That bus driver was ill equipped to deal with the situation. She blocked traffic, held up passengers and did not handle the situation well. She needs some sensitivity training, because not once did she apologize to the woman or try to explain the shortcomings of accessibility to her. She only said that she was trying to help her and that it wasn't going to happen, as if the woman's disability was an inconvienence to her and something to be fixed rather than her responsibility as a T employee to be accessible to all.

Thank you for listening.

Karen
Monthly pass holder

The Idiot Box

I've almost completely stopped watching TV. I never thought it possible. After years as a junkie, I've gone almost completely off the juice.

I am dedicated to only three shows, two of which won't start up again until January 2008 (Lost and The Amazing Race). The third begins in September (Grey's Anatomy). I am considering adding a fourth (Private Practice, the Grey's spin-off Kate Walsh vehicle), but we'll see how that goes.

Not having cable has partly precipitated this and it being summer and light out till 8 is responsible for the other part. I wish daylight savings would just get on the fast train outta here so we can have sun and no reason to turn on the tube.

Right now, I'm watching the end of Two and a Half Men, which is a stupid show that is actually funny. This is how they get us. Even when it's stupid, it's usually somewhat funny. This is the first time I've turned on the set in about 3 weeks or so. I'm turning it off.

Don't think I'm all high and mighty (like, you watch too much TV and I'm better because I don't engage in all that crappy stuff) since I paid $14 including parking to watch an extra-long Simpsons episode masquerading as a movie on Friday night.

So there you go.

This feeling I get....

Ever since I was small, when someone had come to visit and then left, I felt really sad (most of the time it was my Auntie Patti, since she was really the only person in my life that lived far away when I was small and would come to visit and then leave again). I remember distinctly, all through school, not being sure what the feeling was. I remember telling my mother I felt "weird" or "funny". I think it was a lack of understanding about what sadness felt like, since I lived a particularly charmed life and rarely felt sad.

This sadness has always manifested itself physically for me. It sits in my chest and rumbles in my belly. It makes my heart beat faster and it feels sort of like low-level flu. No wonder I never knew how to describe it to my mother. How does an 11-year-old describe an emotion that is rearing it's head physically?

As I got older, the feeling continued. Usually far worse when someone had been to visit me as opposed to the other way around. For whatever reason, when I visited others and then left to go back home (or visited home and left to go back to wherever I was living), the feeling was never as strong. I did that a lot in my 20s, since I lived far away from most family and friends for the better part of a decade. I think it was because I was going back, to where my life was, which I missed, and that made the sadness of leaving people I loved less pointed; less strong.

I begun have the feeling when I leave a place, too. Every weekend, when we, as a family, would travel to Vermont to ski, and then on Sundays head back home, I would have a twinge of that ever-growing-more-familiar feeling of sadness. I hated leaving Vermont and the friends and famiy who we spent time with there. Nobody lived there; everyone lived back where we did, so it wasn't the people I was mourning. I was sad about leaving Vermont and the snow and the relaxation. The sadness I feel driving home on Sundays from Vermont has strengthened as I've gotten older. My friend Kathleen understands this feeling because she gets it too. We will often say "I have that leaving-Vermont feeling" and each of us knows explicitly what that means.

I still hate this feeling - this sadness that pulls at me. My sister visited this weekend and stayed at my house in Boston. Since she lived with my parents close by Boston for 3 years leading up to getting married and has been in NJ this past year, I think this is the first time she's stayed over with me in a long long while. We've slept in the same place in that time, but not in my house. It was really nice. And when I left her off at the bus station at mid-day, the icky feeling enveloped me as I drove away. It's silly, since I will see her again next weekend when she and her husband come up for the weekend. I tried to talk myself out of it; I stopped at the SOWA Artisan fair to distract myself; but as I sit here and write this about 2 hours later, I still have the feeling in my gut.

I suppose I should be grateful. This feeling is a wonderful indicator for me of what is really important to me - of what I really love. It has given me information over time. I used to sign my emails home when I lived abroad "Love and Missing" because for me, loving someone in a closing is nice, but missing them is much more of a compliment.

I really enjoy having people come to visit. I welcome them with open arms, but I still have to prepare myself for when they leave and the bitter-sweet sadness that will come with it. When I forget to prepare, like this morning, it's harder to shake. I'm off myself today, on a trip to Atlanta for a training. Hopefully the hustle and bustle of that trip will distract me. I think it will.