Saved.

In case anyone was wondering, the second coming has already happened. "Christ" is an employee at the Vineland Avenue Ralph's in North Hollywood. 

Apparently they didn't want to make a big deal of it this time around.

Pennies.

I have discovered my future place of residence on Beacon Hill.

I will return from L.A. when I have $650,000 with which to purchase my one bedroom apartment with two fireplaces on Garden Street.

Annnnnd GO.

Intervene.

After watching Intervention for the first time and witnessing the struggles of Caylee, a 21 year old meth/heroin addict AND  her mother, Christy, a bulimic, chronic over-exerciser, I have made the executive decision to eliminate my own crippling habit: fingernail/cuticle gnawing.

I'm not going to do it anymore because I realized that it probably makes me look like a fidgety meth addict and in a place where people don't know me that well, I can't risk that kind of misconception. 

I should also point out that I am totally serious. Just as I always am when I discuss the effects of crystal meth and meth labs in general. This is important to note since last year, while strolling down Newbury Street, Liz and I got admonished for our apparent lack of reverence on the subject of exploding meth labs by an angst-ridden stranger who was eavesdropping on our conversation, which had to do with finding hypothetical reasons to bring down Boston Realty Works following our apartment fire, and meth labs on Grey's Anatomy. He informed us, rather unnecessarily, that there was nothing funny about meth labs and that his own apartment in Atlanta suffered damage from a drug related explosion. All of this happened on the street, completely at random. Bottom line: Yes, sir. Meth labs are no joke.

We brushed it off as him being angry with his own ignorance for choosing to live in Atlanta, of all places. What did he expect?

Move.

Growing up, my grandparents lived six hours away in Ocean View, New Jersey. Six hours. In a pre cross country road trip world, six hours might as well be four years. My parents tried to throw the travel time into perspective for us by converting the hours into increments of time we could wrap our minds around. Ocean City, New Jersey is six hours away from Massachusetts which is equal to two The Sound of Musics, four The Little Mermaids, six Star Trek: The Next Generations, and twelve Reading Rainbows away. Pretty far.

Since Grandma and Grandpa lived a whopping twelve Reading Rainbows away, we didn't get to see them as often as I wished we could have, so our time there was always really special and, as is typical of treasured time, went by in a flash. It didn't seem fair that six hours could drag on for so long when six days went by in what seemed like one Opening Credits Sequence of Star Trek. Obviously, leaving my grandparents' house in New Jersey was always a real bummer, but I remember my mother reminding us that we had to leave in order to be able to come back.

So I'm 22 now and I'm finally realizing what she meant by that. For years I brushed it off: If we just stayed at Grandma's or Disney World or wherever it was that was so hard to say good-bye to, we'd be happy forever. Sure, we'd be happy, but soon it wouldn't be special anymore. It'd be regular. It'd be toast. Time would eventually slow back down to normal, the hours would become hours again and someplace else would become the coveted escape from the familiar.

Right now I feel like I could stay in Massachusetts forever. It's great here. So great in fact, that I could almost forget why I can't stay. It's easy here. It's stable. It's familiarly filled with memories of my most favorite years and moments and people but at the same time, I know that I can't be a grown up in a place where I've always, until now, been a kid. Being home makes me want to hold onto a part of my life that cannot exist anymore, and for every hour that I sit here wishing I didn't have that damn apartment to go back to in L.A., a city that I have come to associate with sunshine and bitterness and opportunity and stress, there's a second when I remember that I have to go back there for awhile so I can look forward to coming home. That second is all it takes. 

I will always only love Boston. Only, only, only and I will be back for good someday. I've got to hand it to L.A. though- it was moving there that made me realize how truly special the East Coast really is and how wonderful it is to come back to. I don't know how long it will take, or how many Titanics I am from my triumphant return to Beacon Hill, but when it happens, I know I'll appreciate it.

Bugs.

My dog- am I still allowed to call him my dog or is he now, since I'm a Real Person, considered my parents' dog? I have no clue. At any rate, Milo is a real treasure of a Golden Retriever, but he never finished the portion of puppy school that teaches the puppies how to come the instant they are told to. He gets it eventually, but holding the storm door open at 11:30 PM, welcoming every blood sucking member of the local mosquito population into the house, repeatedly ordering Milo to "come" in my most authoritative voice while he stands there staring at me, slack-jawed with eyebrows aflutter, makes me hate him. He always redeems himself though.

I think I heard somewhere that they don't have mosquitoes in California. I might have made that up, but I don't remember getting viciously bitten by them while I was there, so maybe there aren't. Which is great and all, but let's not forget that there are no black widow spiders in Massachusetts.

My night would be infinitely worse if I had just let dozens of black widows into the house. Thinking about it makes mosquitoes seem kind of peachy.

Truth.

When I was in second grade there was a solar eclipse and all of the teachers at Johnny Appleseed elementary stressed the importance of not looking directly at the sun. When a problematic classmate of mine whined "What if we wear sunglasses?!" everyone flipped out and jumped down his throat, reinforcing the fact that nothing, not even sunglasses, could protect his eyes from the solar eclipse.

This got me thinking. What would happen if we looked at the sun? Nothing good, that was for sure.The consequence I came up with was based on Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I saw for the first time earlier that year with my dad: eyes dissolving and pouring out of sockets, skin melting away- biblical horror.

I'm not sure that that ISN'T what would have happened to me if I looked at the sun back in 1993. What I am sure of, especially after having just re-watched Raiders in preparation for Indiana Jones' triumphant return this Thursday, is this: When I have kids, I will absolutely tell them that if they look directly at the sun, their eyes will melt out of their sockets.

I will also tell them that dinosaurs are actually not extinct but nocturnal with a penchant for children who aren't in bed before dark.

Yes. My hypothetical children are hypothetically awesome.

Musing.

Swiped from a headstone in a Revolutionary War cemetery in Groton:

Stop, friend and read as you pass by.

As you are now, so once was I. 

As I am now, so you must be: 

Prepare for death and follow me.

I really appreciate the foresight this guy had. When I die, if I don't make it into the Bodyworlds exhibit as an example of what the muscles do when one lies on a couch and watches Titanic, I at least want an interactive epitaph. 

How great would my Bodyworlds exhibit be? Just Titanic...on a loop...all day.