I said whoa no, William and Mary won’t do now

I had a rare Friday with a choice of four simultaneous engagements to go to. I honored two of them: watching Game 6 of the Celtics / Pistons series at a bar in Watertown with some friends from jiu-jitsu, then catching up with Kate G. for a drink at Bukowski’s. The former involved sliders, talk about Baltimore and two Guinness; the latter, a surprise visit from Dana J. and Orit, the soundtrack to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and two PBR.

Melissa and Fraley had their engagement party on Saturday, so I dressed reasonably well and helped toast their upcoming marriage. Dave Green had unearthed the infamous “Reality Bites” photo of Mel, Fraley and I on the night of their first date, way back in … March of ‘04? Holy hell … and framed it for the two of them. Now I want a copy. Fraley and Mel ordered catering, so we ate tasty steak tips and exotic cheeses while sipping champagne and toasting the happy couple. Christine and I held court in a small corner with Edward Tufte horror stories. PowerPoint is evil, people! Learn it and fear it!

I excused myself early to stop in on the BC reunion which, as I speculated, did not turn out to be awesome fun. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed seeing Lindsay M. (now Lindsay D., and I approve of her husband), and hanging out with Aaron and Tim H. always means a good time, but all of those people live in the Commonwealth. I can do that any weekend - and not in a humid gymnasium that I didn’t need to pay $45 to get into, since I had to write my name on a badge anyway. I saw a roomful of people I took one class with or lived across from, tried to place the names of girls I hadn’t had the courage to talk to as a college student and couldn’t, and drank cheap beer. I left early.

More updates to come re: Sunday.

hurricanes and faster things

o Good news, everyone: I found the filthiest toilet in Boston.¹ It’s the men’s room in the Borders at Downtown Crossing. The first time I used it, several years ago, I remember I needed a token to open the door but nothing else about the experience. The second time I used it, this past Sunday: disaster!

Picture the worst train station bathroom you’ve ever entered, but with a lone Robert Doisneau print on the wall. A floor awash in urine. Two stalls, one of which won’t stay closed and the other of which o’erflows with solid fecal waste. The soap dispenser hangs on the wall above the trash can, rather than within arm’s reach of the sink, thus guaranteeing fewer people will find or use it.

Can I blame the entirety of its disgusting decline on no longer requiring a token for entry? Yes. Yes, I can.

o I have nothing but good things to say about the lunchtime bartender at the Grafton St Pub in Harvard Square. He not only has an Irish accent, but he’s everything you’d expect of a proper European bartender. Picture that guy in the Stella Artois commercial, trying to pour a beer in a train car and failing, but without the snooty attitude.

o Sometimes when I get out of jiu-jitsu, I notice that the music on the stereo seems about a quarter-step slower. I never notice it at any other time. Still flushed from exercise, I attribute it to the cocktail of adrenaline and oxygenated blood. I’ve worked out so hard that I’ve stepped outside of time. I have a mutant power.

On Tuesday night, driving home from jiu-jitsu, I decided to at least offer a sop to the scientific method and turn on the radio to see if other music sounded slower. It did not.

o I’d fret publicly over how much I still needed to pack, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. I really ought to be fretting over how many boxes I need to buy.

o My school’s five-year reunion falls this weekend and I don’t know if I’m going. I already have plans on Saturday, so I’ll show up to the Saturday event late if at all. And I’d gladly forego the Friday party if someone had a better offer. Many of my better friends from school can’t make it, many of the rest fall either a year ahead of or behind me, and the few that will be there I see every week anyway.

As I’ve said before: BC was big enough to have subcultures, and for that I’m grateful. Smaller schools tend to drown students in the overwhelming social circle of the same hundred people. But I got to hang with the theater kids. Specifically, the improv kids. Specifically, the improv murder mystery kids. You can’t drill down to that level at St. John’s, let me tell you.

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¹ If you have a website, weblog, LiveJournal or Facebook page, please post the above link, using the text “filthiest toilet in Boston.” I’d like to revive the dormant tradition of Googlebombing as a public service. The people must be warned!

make sure he a thug and intelligent too

Some life lessons, smuggled in the form of weekend anecdotes:

Learn Enough Dance to Dance to Funk / Soul; Everything Else is Wasted. Well, okay, and the bare minimum of dance required to get married in the States. But so few places bust out any sort of swing worth swingin’ to, and salsa can only be found in seedy gin joints with knife artists in sharkskin suits. But if you’re ever in Central Square on a Friday night - like I was for Rachel R’s birthday - stop by the Cantab and listen to Diane Blue and the Fatback Band lay down the oldest and greatest. “Dancing in September,” “Knock on Wood,” and maybe even a little James Brown for you. Really - all you need.

Pick a Party and Stick With It. I left Rachel’s celebration midway through to see if anyone had camped out at 90’s Night in Allston. Had I called ahead I could have saved myself the trip - the cool kids had been crowded out by the BU kids. After waiting in line for a minute and confirming the situation with Matthew, I returned to Cambridge and closed out the night at the Cantab. I probably missed a lot of prime dancing thanks to my indecision and I will regret it until the day I die.

You Build a Surprise Party with 90% Discipline and 10% Innovation. I went to a surprise party with Kym from work on Saturday evening. Kym’s friend Allie had been planning this for about a month and had gone above and beyond to keep everything quiet. But it takes more than just secrecy to get a surprise party going. So, that afternoon, she recruited Kym’s landlord, who called Kym and told her that a burst pipe had flooded her closet. She hurried home and found us waiting.

Never Drink On An Empty Stomach. Seriously! Never! What did you think would happen? And no, two plates of tortilla chips and a bowl of creamy dip do not count! And no, a single slice of a pulled pork quesadilla does not count! How old are you? Have you learned nothing? Seriously! It’s like I can’t even look at you!

(But I had an excellent time at Bukowski regardless, helping Kate G. tick off the last few items on her beer card. If you go into the Inman Square dive and find the Charlotte Perkins Gilman mug off its hook, you’ll know she’s in town)

If You Have Time Alone, Enjoy It. I caught up with Jodi at the Grafton St Pub in Harvard on a cool Sunday afternoon, giving her the chance to vent about dealing with undergrads (apparently, the dumb kids at Harvard are just as dumb as the dumb kids anywhere). After seeing her off, I took the T to Kendall and walked to Kendall Cinema to get tickets for Redbelt. With two and a half hours to kill, I had an early dinner at the Cambridge Brewing Company right around the corner.

The afternoon had hit that “magic hour” that photographers love, when the sun lights everything soft. The red brick of the CBC kept the inside warmer than the outside (low 60s), but the ceiling fans provided a gentle downdraft. Not quite dinner time yet, so I had a quiet corner of the bar to sit and read some Fritz Leiber while a perky bartender brought me a pulled pork sandwich and the house pale. Afterwards I walked two blocks and bought ice cream at a 7-11.

Don’t look too hard for those moments; that never helps. Just stay ready when they arrive.

I said, fine ma! How’s Washington?

A couple notes from the weekend:

#: Once you get to Natick on the Mass Pike, missing your exit will add about 20-30 minutes to your trip. Especially in the driving rain.

#: An eagle-eyed Watertown police officer spotted my expired inspection sticker in my windshield on Friday. So I took the car to get inspected first thing Saturday morning. There’s a tiny garage around the corner from my place where you can drive in the back and get an inspection done while you wait.

I’m used to handing the car off to a mechanic and waiting fifteen minutes for the good word, so sitting in the car and doing most of the inspection myself opened my eyes to its simplicity.

“Turn on the headlights,” the guy said. “Now the high beams. Okay, put on the parking brake, then shift into Drive.” And so on for less than ten minutes.

#: I always knew you paid a markup when buying liquor in a bar¹, but man! I tried an Irony Cabernet Sauvignon on Saturday that treated me just right. I Googled it today to see what I’d pay to take home a bottle of my own: less than 50% of the menu price. If I’m willing to trust my credit card to a sketchily-named online vendor, I can get a bottle for what I paid for a glass of this delicious wine. Why do I even leave the house to drink?

#: Speaking of: if someone’s invented a better beer for Chinese food than the Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, bring this person to me. I will reward him with spices of Araby, silks from Cathay.

#: Sunday I made the right call in blowing off Neutrino rehearsal (sorry), as a fit of productivity followed: taking my bedroom rug outside and thwacking it severely, sweeping and Swiffering my room, and not only doing laundry but putting it away, too. In the same day!

#: Cooking experiment last night; stay tuned for updates.

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¹ When I say “markup,” I mean “the increased cost of a Boston liquor license, commercial zoning and downtown real estate, paid for by increasing the resale price of consumables.” C’mon! Who do you think you’re talking to?