Boston

Yesterday, Jess, Angela, and I went to Boston for a day trip. We left kind of late, which is fine with me because I was mostly into clubbing, but it disturbed Jess. She used to live in Cambridge, the suburb (?) of Boston which contains Harvard. She did not go to Harvard, but went to Brandeis (where she got her first masters), which she commuted to. She did her undergrad at Columbia. When in Connecticut, she likes to go to New Haven and hang around Yale. She clearly has an Ivy League fetish.

So we went and hung around her old haunts from her year in the area. She was intent on showing us everything cool. When some members of our group had to go to the bathroom, for example, she declared that she would take us to the public restroom voted "best place to pee" by a local free newspaper. (It was considerate, but I think the place voted "closest place to pee" might have been better suited to the occasion.)

My goal was to go hang around the gay district. Her goal was to take us to museums, but we left too late, so in liue of that, we went to the best coffee shops and bookshops in the area. She took us to a cafe called "the Other Side," which was very granola-crunchy and actually had really good beer. There is good beer on the East Coast! Hope returns to a cold, dark world.

We rode the MTA, but they kept raising the faire by a nickel, so we could never get off of it.

Ahem. We rode the MTA around and ate and drank coffee and visitted bookshops and esteemed restrooms and actually got a pretty good tour of Boston. It was kind of dark out and very very very cold. I was wearing two swearters, thermals, a ski jacket with a scarf inside and another scarf outside and a ski hat and the hood of the jacket and ski gloves and was feeling only a bit cold. Angela was suffering.

We went to a lesbian dance club at place called Club Hollywood Boston, that I found listed in a free weekly newspaper, but I dunno if it's the one giving out restroom awards. We showed up around 10:45 and left around 12:15, so thigs were pretty much just getting started as we left. This was because Jess wanted to park by Harvard and ride transit around, which was logical as she's new to having a car, etc. But like other transit systems that I can name, the trains stop running pretty early.

Anyway, I danced with Jess a few times which was fun. I realized that it was not going to help my goal of picking up chicks, as people would think I was with her. And furthermore, I'm much too shy to pick up chicks, they have to come for me. I know I'm awkward and not a great dancer and somehwhat (ok, very) nerdy looking, which is truth in advertising. But I also realize that there are women on earth looking for nerds. By which I mean that I'm much older than the last time I was single and I know I don't have to pretend to be something much hipper than I really am to get chicks. Not that I wouldn't mind being hipper. What am I trying to say? something about self-esteem, probably.

But this doesn't cure my shyness. The only stranger that I talked to, aside from telling someone that I was in line for the bathroom, was the coat check woman. And the bartender. Someone cute approached me and asked if I had dropped a sock, since there was one lying on the floor near me. I laughed. but I had to leave and spoke to her no more.

The dance club scene might not be the best place for me to cruise for chicks, but it is super-fun dancing with Jessica and I'd like to go again.

We got home around 3:00 am.