The answer to that question, it turns out (with all due apologies to Percy Shelley), is "No. Not really." At least, it doesn't seem that way in the dead zone at the end of January and the beginning of February, when it seems like it's been winter forever and spring is still two months away. […]
Yesterday was a day off work for me, so I took the bus to Niantic, a smaller town a few miles to the southeast. Niantic has a beach and a boardwalk, which I didn't get a chance to visit this time, and (the big draw, for me) a rambling secondhand bookstore called the Book Barn, […]
Thanks to a mixture of stubbornness, inertia, and a preference for living in places with viable public transit, I'm a lifelong non-car owner. When I moved to New London, people warned me that I'd need a car. I'm starting to see why: I live in a fairly walkable area, but getting to and from work […]
Most unexpected thing I learned today: that there are moose in these parts. Not right in the middle of town, of course, but in slightly more rural areas just a few miles from here. And not just moose, but coyotes. I didn't think there were any coyotes on the east coast,* and I didn't think […]
I finally made it out to Saeed's International Market on Ocean Avenue, and was overjoyed to find a reliable source of decent olive oil, linden tea, rosewater, Cafe Najjar with cardamom, red lentils, and various jams (gooseberry, rose hip, fig) not easily findable at the main grocery store. Also baklava and za'atar bread. This made […]
The biggest surprise of moving here: even a couple of miles upriver from the Long Island Sound, I can still smell the sea, especially downtown, especially if the wind is blowing in the right direction. And there are always seagulls flying around over downtown. At some point I’ll have to try taking the ferry across […]
And now, for those of you who aren’t already tired of hearing about my move to Connecticut, here’s the pictorial version (full set on Flickr). Click to embiggen: Packing underway in my old living room. The same room, emptied. Last sight of Center City and the Schuylkill River from the train window, going north. […]
I’m now in my new apartment in New London, surrounded by boxes, getting ready to crash hard for the rest of the evening, and listening an unknown recording of Don Giovanni that’s playing on the radio. (I was just searching through the channels and came upon it right in the middle of Leporello’s catalogue aria. […]
I’ve got a little over a week before my big northward move, and I’m trying to enjoy my remaining time in Philadelphia as much as possible while not frantically packing. Tomorrow a friend from out of town is coming to visit, and we plan on taking in my neighborhood’s Bastille Day celebration and the Maurice […]
My move (a little less than a month away) is finally arranged, and now the address-changing and packing begin in earnest. Tomorrow is my last day at Swarthmore, and then I take off for a long weekend of camping and canoeing in the wilds of Delaware with my extended family. And then back to Philadelphia […]