The moment you step in, you’re welcomed into a cozy, inviting atmosphere where people sit together, chatting and crocheting. There’s an immediate warmth — an unspoken understanding that here, you can just be.
On May 31, I will leave Boston — the city that I have loved forever. The city that has given me my funny group of funny friends and my rat companions and the only city I have ever really known. You can imagine how scary it might be to leave a place that you’ve lived in forever. So, for now, that is why I am pleading “no more strangers.” I just can’t take them anymore. I just want people that I know. I just want to be with my dad, walking through the yard on the Cape to the Front House for dinner.
That’s it. I’m never going to a psychic again. Well, that’s what I said last time. Before I went to a psychic again. How can you blame me, guys? It sounds so fun — and it is. Well, at least until you’re walking out the door, checking your wallet and wondering whether that $100 you just gave her was the last you had to your name.
A long, long time ago in a castle far away — okay, four years ago in Warren Towers — a very scared Lili moved in. And then, there they were: Sarah, Izabella, Sara, Jessica and Jennifer.
Until I was about 16, I went to Supercuts — the OG that gets the job done. But, when you’re a 16-year-old sophomore in high school and your mom says “maybe you should start going to Marcia,” you think: You know what, maybe I should start going to Marcia.
If Past Me saw Present Me I think she’d think I’m pretty cool. I think it would make her write in her little journal something similar to this piece, about the college version of herself that she is looking forward to becoming. But she’d definitely think the reading thing is crazy. She wasn’t much of a reader. But she did like to write. “She” being me. I liked to write. And I still do. I wonder if the old lady in the little coffee shop likes to write
I do love Christmas, but I am happy to hold off on singing, “Santa Baby” for a bit longer in order to have some Thanksgiving fun. Because Thanksgiving is so much fun! You get to make people go around the table and thank you for a bunch of things! What other day can you do that?
Listen, I will be the first to admit that the bar isn’t always the place to be. Sometimes it’s too empty, sometimes it’s too full. Sometimes the drinks are too expensive, sometimes they’re too strong — wait, who am I kidding? The latter would be a dream! I wish I could be so lucky!
I make it a point to ask my Uber drivers how their day is going, maybe even strike up a conversation about where they’re from or what they do. Those who are receptive to it turn it into a peaceful conversation — something to pass the time on the drive. Sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere, and you just have to respect that, but most of the time you can tell they appreciate your empathy and will engage just as far as you’re willing.
There’s this guy who is a stranger, but maybe less of a stranger than strangers usually are. He is an acquaintance. A friend of a friend, if you will. And maybe that is closer than stranger territory, but the fact that I don’t know him very well counts for something.
The pieces of Dunkin’ that out-of-towners might think help it maintain its popularity are often misinformed hypotheses. It is not the intense sugar-rush that their syrups provide, nor is it the way they keep us on our toes as we gamble whether the first sip will be sweet, sweet paradise or like licking the butt of a cigarette. What is the home that your local Dunkin’ makes for you?
I like putting together something fun and walking down a random street to some random house party and telling some random people that I love their Wizard of Oz group costume — except their Cowardly Lion, who didn’t even have a tail. I took offense as I believe I would be the Cowardly Lion in my friend group, and let’s just say, I would at the very least wear a tail.
