21 Friday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Here are some photos I took on my way to work this morning, at the Barnes & Noble store, and on my way home again.
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| Barnes & Noble (Boston) #2 |
I’ve discovered that (on nice days) it is as fast to walk to work along the Fenway park system as it is to ride the T, so I am getting my exercise without having to get up any earlier than the 7:00-11:00am shift at work requires!
17 Monday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Today being my self-imposed day of rest, I left early with a sack lunch for Concord, Mass., to take a walk through the Walden Pond Reservation. This meant boarding the T and then switching to the commuter rail at North Station for the remainder of the journey to Concord. I left home at 8:15 and was in Concord by 9:30.
Walden Pond is a mile outside of town, though I made an inadvertent detour by turning the wrong way on Thoreau Street and walking for a good ways through a wealthy suburb before realizing that I was not going in the right direction. I backtracked through town, passed the rail station, and out across, finally ending up on the boarders of the reservation.
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| Walden Pond |
(click on the photograph for the complete album)
I admit that I know very little about Henry David Thoreau, nor have I made any serious study of the transcendentalist movement. The site, however, is beautiful and–despite its well-trodden paths–reminded me of Northern Michigan, particularly the small lake systems I used to canoe in the Upper Peninsula. And I was also reminded of my time at the Oregon Extension, since Thoreau’s retreat to Walden Pond was one of the early inspirations for their own educational project.
I stopped for lunch on the far side of the lake, away from the visitor’s center. There were several intrepid souls swimming in the water! The guy working at the gift shop later told me told me they swim till it freezes over out there, so I guess this wasn’t much different than high summer for them. Sitting by the lake, I caught up on some correspondence and got slightly sun-burnt on the back of my neck for my troubles.
In the park shop, I bought a Dover edition of Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century (and early American feminist tract), which I started reading on the train home. My favorite quote so far? “We would have every path open to woman as freely as to man . . . a ravishing harmony of the spheres would ensue”! (16).
I have to say, of all the results of women’s equality, I never put “ravishing harmony of the spheres” on my list . . . but whatever it is, it sounds good to me!
I will definitely have to go back when the leaves start to turn.
05 Wednesday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
On Labor Day, I took the subway out to Wonderland and walked along Revere Beach, which used to be “Boston’s version of Coney Island” according to my Lonely Planet Boston City Guide. No longer so glamorous, it provided me with exactly what I needed: a few hours within sight, sound, and touch of the ocean. Here are some pics (once again, click on the photograph to view the full album):
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| Revere Beach |
01 Saturday Sep 2007
Posted in a sense of place
Hi Everyone! Just a quick word to say I’ve arrived safely and am in the hectic midst of moving in–some of it fun, some of it not. I promise pictures as soon as I have my ethernet working at the dorm (it’s giving me problems . . . why can’t the magic computer faeries come and fix it??)
I moved in yesterday, somewhat hurridly, in order to get the rental car to Logan Airport by noon. I left the residential campus at 10:30, which turned out to be a good amount of time, since I got off at the wrong exit and ended up driving around East Boston for an hour, asking directions on three separate occasions (everyone was very nice, but either I’m bad at following directions, or they neglected some crucial detail). Boston is one of those cities that, once you’ve left the highway it’s virtually impossible to get back ON said highway unless you do so by accident (sort of like how you can only see certain magical beings out of the corner of your eye). But I did finally get to abandon the car, and am now the relieved owner of my very own CharlieCard MBTA pass for the semester. Hooray for public transportation!
Then I returned, after lunch at the Trident Bookstore and Cafe (why eat anywhere else when you can eat at a bookstore?) on Newbury Street, to begin the daunting task of unpacking and arranging my life.
The PROS of my dorm room:
A door that locks, to which only I possess a key
A tree outside the window
High ceilings
Only on the second floor
Located across the hall from bathrooms
It came with a its very own bookcase! (already filled . . .)
Next door to the campus gym
. . . and also to the Riverway park, which I ran along this morning.
A few CONS:
Air conditioning unit located right outside the window (noisy on warm nights!)
Linolium floors
North-facing window (Calliope is worried)
Wonky lock takes fiddling
Awkward confguration for furniture (if I believed in feng shui I’d be pissed)
All in all, I’m fairly confident I can make it feel homey.
I have my ID card on the requisite lanyard (though I spend enough of my time lanyarded at Barnes & Noble that I am resisting wearing it, and carry the thing around in my pocket instead). The photo is just the right amount of embarrassing. It’s just a little too weird being a student again, but I’ll get used to it. Particularly when I get to pay student-price admissions to museums and theater and other cultural events!
Today, I have a long list of little items to pick up at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Staples (yes, we have them here, too, right down the block . . .), and somewhere in there, some food to eat. The campus meal plan doesn’t kick in until tomorrow, so I can treat myself to restaurant food for one more day before feeling profligate with my pocketbook (I do have to eat, after all).
More soon . . .
the feminist librarian 