Hi all,
Hubway journal, part three.
Click here for part one.
Click here for part two.
Click here for an idiotic video diversion unrelated to Hubway.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
05/01/2016
Seaport Square - Seaport Blvd. at Boston Wharf (1:29 am)
Charles Circle - Charles St. at Cambridge St. (1:47 am)
My first Hubway ride in a suit! I make this trip after a wedding for one of my current basketball teammates.
I arrived at this wedding apprehensive. I thought my experience would repeat those of the most recent weddings I attended last spring and summer. At those times, I found myself unable to set aside my personal circumstances long enough to fully enjoy myself.
But early on, my friend, the groom, proposed a toast in honor of his late father. I drew strength from his and proceeded to have a tremendous time.
05/01/2016
Central Square at Mass Ave / Essex St (5:33 pm)
Brigham Cir / Huntington Ave (5:55 pm)
Before entering hospice, my mother spent considerable time at hospitals in the Longwood Medical Area. Back then, I often walked or rode the 'T' to the hospital in order to support her during appointments or visit during inpatient stays.
Hubway, I note, is a much faster and more reliable mode of transportation to this area. All the time I could have saved if I'd signed up a year earlier...
05/10/2016
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (7:51 pm)
University Park (8:52 pm)
A common question I get from non-users is what to do when the bike rack is full. It works just like a full laundromat. A rider can wait for something to open up or can just go to the next one.
Hubway allows riders to request extra time in these situations using a touch screen on the rack's kiosk. Sometimes, I link two or three of these full rack time extensions together to go over the thirty minute timer without paying a fine. This is my longest such ride, a single trip where I was on one bike for just over one hour.
For some reason, no one ever asks about how I do my laundry.
05/18/2016
The Esplanade - Beacon St. at Arlington St. (6:53 pm)
Wentworth Institute of Technology (7:10 pm)
Wentworth Institute of Technology (9:25 pm)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:47 pm)
Unemployment finds me seeking new ways to spur my creative juices at just the time when I start to worry about casually spending money. Free Wednesday nights at the MFA prove the perfect intersection of these developments.
One exhibit from 'Megacities Asia' stays with me. This featured a series of birds perched along a ledge, each holding a torn piece of a poem in its beak. The portions of the poem, read alone, were sometimes fragmented and sometimes stood alone. Brought together, the poem described how ideas both completed and in progress come together within a city to give it its full character.
Well, that was my take, anyway. Maybe it was about litter and how the birds were killing themselves by eating it. So stop littering is the message? When I was a kid, littering was just starting to become uncool.
Who knows. Artists.
05/19/2016
Lesley University (6:28 pm)
Alewife Station at Russell Field (6:42 pm)
Mysteriously, some of my friends take up a brief but furious interest in bowling. I'm suddenly inundated with requests to bring my gutter-seeking left arm to the lanes. I discover over a couple such sessions that size twelves are much tighter than expected. I overcome my discomfort by unleashing a torrent of bowling puns.
I'll spare you the details, patient reader.
It's been a while since I've worn new shoes. Are my feet growing? Or is this 'size-inflation' a new Nike conspiracy?
I've struggled of late with intermittent pain in my leftmost toes (pins and needles, I'm tempted to say, but that would be a lie, not a pun). It feels like each step places my foot directly onto a marble. The equal tightness in my left and right bowling shoes rules out swelling, though. Thankfully, this also likely rules out a stress fracture.
Unfortunately, if this were an episode of House, we would only be at the second commercial break. It always took about twenty minutes of ruling out potential causes before we got anywhere closer to the actual issue. (I suppose right about now would come the weekly lupus joke.)
We might also be at the point for one of the good doctor's petulant antics, a point where this already-tenuous analogy officially breaks down. There is not a second to spare for me. I'm petulant from minute one at bowling.
Maybe my soles are expanding, after all these years. It's about time. We'll investigate that one, right after these messages.
05/24/2016
Charles Circle - Charles St. at Cambridge St. (10:12 am)
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (10:23 am)
05/26/2016
Charles Circle - Charles St. at Cambridge St. (12:59 pm)
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (1:22 pm)
05/31/2016
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (12:22 pm)
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (12:46 pm)
The opening of the new computer center at the Boston Public Library sees a shift in emphasis of my library trips. I now go there first, whenever possible, to take advantage of their superior technology. When it comes to the critical computer related tasks in my life such as job hunting, blog proofreading, or soccer highlight viewing, the main Boston branch is tough to beat.
Trips to the Cambridge Library now happen in the afternoon. Sometimes, I go direct from the Boston Public Library. Other times, I do so from my apartment. Rare is the day where I need to go to both but rare too, is the day when my schedule presents decent alternate activities.
06/04/2016
Davis Square (1:55 am)
Inman Square at Vellucci Plaza / Hampshire St (2:14 am)
Inman Square at Vellucci Plaza / Hampshire St (2:15 am)
Charles Circle - Charles St. at Cambridge St. (2:29 am)
Tonight's exertions involve more bowling, this time to celebrate a birthday for a former colleague. My feet continue to pose problems. Earlier in the day, foot pain caused me to stop a run after ten minutes. This is my first stoppage during a run since my IT band injury in 2011. I guess it was strike three for me. I decide not to bother squeezing into bowling shoes for this one.
I'm in better touch with a handful of my former colleagues now than I was at any point in the past year. They, unlike everyone else in my life, know exactly what losing my job means. I'm grateful for their support and their willingness to serve as references in my job search.
It mirrors the situation of last summer. My friends and family who knew my mother provided a different kind of support compared to those who only understood my loss from an abstract perspective. I sometimes forgot back then that some of my friends and family lost, too, and that I might need to support them at times. But it was a hard thing to keep in mind as I worked through my own suffering.
For the first time, I recognize that I have not supported my former colleagues, those who were also hurt when I lost my job. My natural inclination prevents me from reaching out and again, it was a thought I lost sight of as I struggled to work through my own feelings. I see tonight that I'm not ready to do it yet, either, despite my increasing understanding of how I could- or should- help.
On the late-night ride home, I wonder if I learned anything at all in the past year. I come up with a lot and hope to remember it all. I decide along the way to start calling a friend who lives out of town, once a week, and try to actually become better at keeping in touch rather than paying it ongoing lip service.
06/13/2016
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (2:35 pm)
Danehy Park (2:57 pm)
Danehy Park (6:24 pm)
Cambridge Main Library at Broadway / Trowbridge St (6:51 pm)
After a couple of false starts, a number of shorter shifts, and an unshakable sense of trepidation, I take on a temporary weekly hospice shift. It is on Monday afternoons. I'm filling in for a volunteer whose mother just died.
I met her during a prior month's group meeting. I learned more about the role in those ten minutes- her sharing her grief, the other experienced volunteers offering their support, me sitting dumbly in place- than I did during my entire month of training for the role.
06/19/2016
Faneuil Hall - Union St. at North St. (12:29 am)
Seaport Hotel (12:43 am)
Seaport Hotel (12:44 am)
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (1:07 am)
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (1:09 am)
Lesley University (1:36 am)
Lesley University (1:37 am)
Davis Square (1:46 am)
Davis Square (1:48 am)
Inman Square at Vellucci Plaza / Hampshire St (2:05 am)
Inman Square at Vellucci Plaza / Hampshire St (2:06 am)
Charles Circle - Charles St. at Cambridge St. (2:22 am)
I'm out of town on this day but, as I make my way home to Boston, I hear that some of my former colleagues are out and about downtown. Again, the occasion is a birthday. I make my way over but learn my 'beach attire' is not going to meet the minimum entrance requirements stated by the dress code.
That's too bad. I'm out and about now, unfortunately, and therefore wired for action. The only logical move is a midnight Hubway joyride.
06/23/2016
Inman Square at Vellucci Plaza / Hampshire St (6:06 pm)
Seaport Hotel (6:38 pm)
Inman Square is unusually crowded on this night. Initially, I assume there is some event taking place in the square. When I notice the police tape, I realize what's happened.
Later on, I'll learn a fellow rider was struck just past noon. The immediate cause of the crash was an open car door. I'm unsure if the door caused an impact or merely prompted an instinctive reaction to avoid the obstacle. Either way, the rider ended up in the path of a truck.
The quick explanations lead to predictable but irrelevant follow-up questions about blame. I'm sure mind-numbing discussions about how to best open a car door took place all over Cambridge in the ensuing weeks.
Why people wait until a loss to talk about certain things is beyond me; realizing they will continue to do so rather despite such conversations never leading to needed changes leaves me shaken up on this summer night.
