A Sense of Place

When I first moved to Boston I used to walk around looking for clues that I was actually in Boston and nowhere else. This move came after a confused run of moving around, then a good while in the middle of nowhere in Ohio. I would walk down the street and read the manhole covers and police cars. When I woke up in the morning during the first year (when things were not going all that well) I'd be absolutely convinced I was in my bedroom back in Ohio and I'd open my eyes to yellow walls and curtains and morning sunshine. Then I'd wake up and see my drab little Boston room, and go read the manhole covers once I headed out for the day.

In London you don't need visual clues which literally spell out where you are. This was what we saw out of our window the first night in London:



I guess in the US you might need to read manhole covers to figure out where you are sometimes, but when you travel to places with more history and more engrained historical identity you don't. There was little doubt we were in London no matter where we went. Now, for research purposes, I'll have to go to Paris and see if and how you can tell one European city from another.

This is what we saw out of our window in Yorkshire:



Aside from the quaint village buildings, you could tell you were in Yorkshire by the pervasive greenness, the lumpy moors visible from the edge of town, the way people would call you "love" even if you never met them before, and the smell of coal fires and manure (depending on which way the wind was blowing, and how cold it was). When the sky was overcast, the gray clouds seemed different from the way the clouds blow off the ocean and hit the continent here... more leisurely, less solid, more lumpy. The mist that often hung between the hills was different, too. The rain was finer. When it was sunny, though, it had the same nuclear intensity as the sun has here.

As I was riding to work this morning I was looking for clues that I was in Cambridge and not Boston... the only one that struck me was that every third car was a Prius. But I don't ride in Boston traffic enough to know if that's a difference.

Monkeys and big naked men, and flower gardens

The V&A is all about the cast room... I am impressed by size, I guess. It's awesome to be surrounded and overwhelmed by the art of centuries.



My next goal in life is to go someplace where there are wild monkeys... we came close to monkeys in London, but there was still that one pane of glass. We were so close we could examine this monkey's fingernails.



I like flowers. I know, it's very simple-minded. Flowers and monkeys, and I'm clapping with glee.

there are 8 billion statues of men in London

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a statue of a dead man in London; but other than Queen Victoria, the one monument to women we came across features empty clothes hanging on a wall. WTF???

SomedayMaybe hasn't had a day off yet this year. SomedayMaybe will be back soon with lots of cool new photos.

Rainy Day

Yesterday was like wool socks you take off after sledding... damp, gray, chunks of snow clinging to it, not likely to be dry anytime soon.



yes, this is a NEW picture of the locks. No matter what the weather, the great thing about walking across the locks is you can sing along to your iPod and there's no one around to hear, and if there's someone who has snuck up behind you, they still probably can't hear because of the noise from the traffic on the Zakim Bridge. I don't think you could even say that of my house; if you sing, walk around, take a shower, turn on your heat, etc., chances are someone's going to hear you do so. But there's this one spot in the middle of the city where you can walk for 15 minutes and be alone.

Happily, the weather has perked up.



The daffodils in Paul Revere Park are really out now. I think the only people who enjoy them are the crazy locks-singers, and people walking their dogs in the park.

Spring, finally

I haven't been photographing much recently. Spring flowers seem so cliche. I know I need to turn my camera on people, so I'm working on figuring out how to do that. And I'm going on a trip next week, and just like all the best vacations, my mind is already on the road. Anticipation is the longest-lasting part of the trip so it might as well be enjoyed. I'm wondering if I can still use my torn old money from the last trip, and I'm searching for the perfect pants which will have lots of pockets, dry fast and be presentable in a country where people don't wear playclothes all the time.



On Friday, after a rough day at work I found myself behind the old jail. The new bars looked really cool in the evening sunlight.

Yesterday I finally finished my taxes. I'm really pissed off to find that the tax rate for Married Filing Jointly is lower than that for Head of Household. Maybe I should get myself a non-working accessory spouse for tax purposes. Not only would my tax rate be lower but I'd have another deduction. And maybe then I wouldn't have to do all the housework myself, and maybe there would be someone who could muster up the energy & motivation for cooking meals. I hope there is some complex reason for MFJ getting a lower tax rate that my befuddled & overworked mind can't figure out.