with unexplained reluctance, i left work, came home on the motorcycle. with a keen sense of potential irony, i made extra sure that my ride back was uneventful, didn't exactly want to get into a car accident 16 hours before i close on my house. i could briefly see myself signing my mortgage papers in a body cast. ha ha, irony, ha ha, be careful! while trying to go on huron avenue on my way home, i came across a dense perimeter of police cars and television vans, as the road was blocked off and i ended up taking a detour. it was only later that i heard from my father that there was actually a murder on that street, and the area was taped off as a crime scene. that's kind of freaky, i was just over that bridge this morning on my way to work. some great town (cambridge) i'm about to live in!
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got a few mosquito bites while trying to further document the backyard bamboos. i was especially impressed with one stalk that had been cut down, but even that didn't seem to stop it from continuing to grow, as a little nubbly shoot poked out from the bamboo.
 delphinium tadpole |
 ladybug on dunguay flower |
 chopped cherry tree branch |
later in the night i picked up dan from allston and we went back to william jackson avenue in brighton to pick up some furnitures, 
some remaining items (that we'd later junk in the trash bin behind his apartment complex), and to break apart a twin sized box spring. dan left me a lot of his unwanted kitchenware, i'll take a look, maybe some i'll keep, the rest i'll toss away. god knows i could use all the hand-me-down housing essentials, because i basically have nothing for the new place. during our conversation, dan told me that pirate's cove was actually the same miniature golf place he and his girlfriend cymara went to when they went down to the cape a few weeks ago. what a coincidence! but in hindsight, pirates have such an irresistable draw, it was only inevitable that we'd all end up at the same pirate's cove place.
and finally, less than 10 hours before i become a house owner. tonight is my last night as a free man. it's almost like getting married (not that i've ever tried it before), that sense of long term commitment, of being bound to something that's metaphorically bigger than me. i'll be paying for this place for the next 30 years. i'm going to be 58 years old before i can actually own it. i haven't even lived 30 years yet. it's like being in this heavy debt for all the years i've lived thus far plus 2 more. i am surprisingly calm tonight though. i have intermittent bouts of excitement, which feels like the night before a long trip, or having to take a big test tomorrow. am i nervous? yeah, maybe a little bit. i have peter, my lawyer, to hold my hand, and my parents in the background to shout instructions to me in chinese should i falter. i can feel the historical moment about to arrive, like everything i've done since this point will be known as pre-house and everything i do after this point will be post-house, like a demarcation in time. i feel guilty though too. i think i'm fortunate that i can afford (barely) a condo right now, with the economy still sour, with so many good friends still unemployed (and some friends as recently unemployed as yesterday). i feel like i don't deserve it, that i haven't really done anything special, other than to live at home for so many years and save up my money. believe me, this was not my plan at all. only probably within the past year or so have i been serious about buying a place. if you were to suggest the thought to me fresh out of college back in 1996, i wouldn't be the least bit interested, and most definitely i couldn't afford the mortgage anyway with the money (the pennies) i was making back then. but now, 6 years later, things are different. i don't know, it's just the right time for me to buy a house in the wrong time to be making big money decisions. it's all about responsibilities, and responsibilities make people into adults. at 10am tomorrow i guess i will start my life as an adult then. which is ironic, to say the least.