Sailing off FROM Boston

"I believe t that what you sing to the clouds, will rain upon you when your sun has gone away. And I believe that what you dream to the moon will manifest before you rest another day. So stay strong, sleep long, and when you need to let the morning take you out on to today, yeah yeah. And when you find you're at the end of the road, just lift your head up spread your wings and fly away" -Michael Franti

I started my day with the packing that I should have done last night. I was a little sick to my stomach, which I would love to blame on my “nerves,” but lets face it, it was probably due to the hangover. I’m really hoping it wasn’t from sampling the homebrew that Hadley, Geoff and I made. Or the beer bottles that we retrieved from the Savant Projects’ last night recycling…

Anyway, I had a nice breakfast with Luis in the South End, followed by some last minute packing, freaking out and mixed taping. After all my possessions of importance were packed in my car, it was time to head out. I popped the “Allie’s Road Trip CD” that Luis made (it was a matter of secrecy and I was very curious as to what was on it) and headed west on the Mass Pike. It was a crisp, clear blue sky day and Boston was now in my rear-view mirror.

My apologies for not elaborating very much on this part of the journey, it is a section of road I have driven more times that I can count. My grandmother and her husband, whom I refer to as Pop-Pop Fred, and the entirety of my mother’s side of the family, live in Lancaster, PA.

My first stop is made just outside of Hartford, CT at a TA travel center. I need to make a bathroom stop and top off the gas tank. Now, why is it that you have to get all the way into the bathroom, do your business, before you realize there is no more toilet paper on the roll?! Luckily, there was a very nice person in the stall next to mine and was nice enough to hand some under the divider… Gas here is more expensive than in Boston, it is $2.12. Hopefully this isn’t going to be a trend.

I listened to Luis’s CD twice. Then put in a masterpiece of my own.



I love driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge. It is a cantilever bridge that spans the Hudson River between Nyack and Tarrytown, New York. On a clear day as you pass over it, if you look to the South you get an amazing view of the New York City skyline. If you are not driving on this clear day, you can look hard enough to spot the Statue of Liberty. In my case, I got a quick and excellent glimpse of the city while simultaneously trying to get the camera out to snap a quick photo. Hence, why this photo doesn’t nearly do it justice. I don’t know if any photo taken from a vehicle moving 45mph would, I think it is just what you experience as you are driving over it. It is pretty majestic, especially at dusk when the lights are on even though it is still bright enough to see.

I pulled into my grandma’s driveway at 8:00pm. It only took me 6.5 hours to get here, though I didn’t spend too much time on stopping. My grandma, bless her, is always trying to feed me. Especially now that I weigh 25 pounds less than I did the last time I saw her. She probably thinks I starve in Boston, how wrong she is!

You're the Worst

Friday night was spent with a handful of good friends’ at Jacob Wirth, a restaurant in Boston that has become a favorite Friday night spot in my group of friends.. Jacob Wirth is one of the oldest restaurants in Boston’s theatre district with some pretty excellent traditional German food, good beer on draught, and a piano man on Friday nights. Mel, the piano man, is a middle aged guy who is not afraid to tell you how pathetic your drunken shout-singing is, but who also loves a good crowd around his piano on a Friday night, so he’ll settle for your horrific singing. After many a pitcher of beer, some delicious fried pickles, and bellowing gut singing, we dispersed and started making our way in different directions. Amy and I had missed the last train to Somerville, so decided to take a taxi home.

Things get a little hazy here, but we had to stop at an ATM to give the cab driver money for our fare, then stumbled our way to 19 Banks. When we emerged in the morning from the blur of the previous nights festivities, we started to do “damage control”.

“Damage Control” is defined as the act of assessing what may be missing from your life the morning after a night of heavy imbibing. I am a pretty responsible drunk, so I don’t usually have too much controlling from the damage. This morning, however proved to be special. I opened my wallet to make sure all the necessary pieces of plastic where still in fact there and calculate how much cash I had blown. One very important little card, also known as a form of Debit, seemed to have grown legs and left my wallet. My heart rate started to accelerate upon realizing the problem. Where could it be? Jacket Pocket? No. Loose in the purse? No. On Amy’s floor near all of my other stuff? No. In my shoe? No.

Retracing the events of the previous night brought us to the conclusion that it either fell somewhere in the ATM area when we were getting money for the cabbie, or was sucked into the machine and not returned. Amy, while talking me back down from cold sweats, high blood pressure, and a near anxiety attack, is walking with me in the snowy cold New England weather to the bank to ask if the may have found it.

I walk up to the first available teller, and I am sure I look like I hit the bottle hard last night and that maybe the bottle also hit me, repeatedly. I begin to explain to the gentleman “See, I’m starting this road trip tomorrow, and I seem to have lost my ATM card somewhere between your ATM and the bed I fell into last night, I was wondering if maybe you have seen it?”

The kind sir responds professionally with “I can take a look, do you have your ID on you?” I’m thinking, yeah, I can do this, it isn’t the worst possible thing that could happen if I lost my debit card right now, is it? I mean, worse things could happen, like losing my right arm or, having an aneurism.

So I unzip the wallet to rifle around for my ID, and out of nowhere, magically returned to my wallet, is said debit card. Now, I am not one to overreact when I think my debit card is missing, especially in crucial times of need (yeah right.) but I can tell you that I pulled out every card and assessed that had in fact been missing. I mean, I swear on my life it was NOT there. How, had it supernaturally just reappeared in my wallet?

As I that my debit card is in my magic wallet, I chuckle to myself and look up to see the guy waiting for me to hand over my ID. I kindly say “oh. Here it is.” And I turn to Amy and say “I think God just smiled on me.”