the world is your acorn

Tomorrow morning The Little Red Haired Girl takes me to the airport, and by early afternoon I’ll be in Boston. Gay-marrying, public transporting, Dunkin Donutting Boston. I am ridiculously excited. That is all.

Since my excited discovery of the Dunkin Donuts in Cool Springs, I’ve been about 4 or 5 times. Every time there is some disappointment. Usually the wait is way too long given the ratio of employees behind the counter and customers waiting in line. Sometimes it’s just incorrect filling of orders. Today we had a ridiculous wait even though there were at least three employees standing around doing nothing. Our donuts came promptly, but our iced coffee order didn’t get filled until The Little Red Haired Girl went up to ask the boy standing by the coffee doing nothing. He apologized, asked what our order was, gave us two iced creams with a tiny bit of coffee in them, and apologized again.

Where is the owner? Where is the manager? How can the place possibly be so poorly run? Why do they have no system of filling orders? I come from a place where 4 people behind the counter serve 20 people in a minute for hours on end without a hitch. I get that a brand new store won’t have that kind of efficiency, but at I should at least be in and out of there in 10 minutes if there are only 2 people ahead of me in line, right?

I don’t mean to complain; I’m grateful that there is a Dunkin Donuts in our area, and that Mr. Rando is initiating The Return of the chain to Middle Tennessee. However, it hurts my heart that it’s such a disappointment every time. Surely it will have to get better if his plan of opening 12 in the next 5 years is to succeed. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I’ve bitched a fair amount the past year about the lack of a Dunkin Donuts here in Nashville. Well, yesterday, on the day before my 28th birthday, my prayers were answered.

Yesterday was the grand opening of an official Dunkin Donuts down in Franklin. It’s the inspirational story of someone who didn’t like something about how things are, and did something about it. Joe Rando moved to Nashville, discovered that there are no Dunkins here, and opened some. Simply brilliant. Mr. Rando, if you are out there, my hat is off to you. And ps, can you open one on West End? Or closer to Sylvan Heights? Just sayin’.

Anyway, my new little buddy who I’ll probably talk about later drove down with me this afternoon to check it out. There are some confusing things on the menu (like pizza – have I been away from Dunkin for so long?), but the basics felt right. When The Little Red Haired Girl came home I let her have the rest of my iced coffee, and it was kinda like watching one of those Herbal Essences ads. So I think we’ll be visiting Cool Springs a bit more often from now on.

I’m getting back into audio books. Not in a “I listen to them” way, but in a “I wish I had a long car ride every day so I could listen to them, because there are so many I’d like to listen to” way. Which is silly, because now that I’m sort of on summer break I have way more time to read with my own eyeballs. I could probably get through many more books that way. For some reason though, I’ve been spending more time checking out the audiobooks at Audible and what’s available at Boston Public Library (where I still have a library card, shh – don’t tell) than actually trying to read. The Nashville Public Library also loans out audiobooks for download, but I haven’t had a chance to check out their collection yet, since I don’t have a library card.

At any rate, if you have an mp3 player, a cd burner/player, or even find occasion to listen to audiobooks while sitting at your computer, I highly recommend checking out what your local public library offers. It’s free, and sometimes the reader does voices for the characters, which is always fun.

Here’s a Boston T map with anagrammed stops

Boston Anagram T Map

I really like “Divas” and “Queer Parrots” on the Red Line, but them’s my old haunts.

I know that blizzards and snow storms are not “fun” for a lot of reasons: they are often dangerous, snow removal is expensive, traffic and traveling is disrupted. Still, though, I miss it. I miss getting snowed in with friends, and sitting outside in the dense quiet, and falling into heaping piles of fresh drifts. I even miss shoveling. I know there are things that I don’t miss, and I’m romanticizing the blizzard since I’m not there, but I also know that I was used to them as a part of life and this morning, when The Little Red Haired Girl reported the 24 inches that Boston got, I had a little pang, and since then that pang has turned into some serious homesickness. My wallowing is definitely not helping. Here are some pictures from the storm:
A Record Storm [New York Times]

Long time no post, hey friends? I may as well warn now, this is probably going to be a long, rambling entry about my activities over the past few days, so feel free to skip if you want.

Thursday:
Fly into Boston from Nashville, only to discover that my baggage has been left behind. No big surprise, such is my airplane luck. Fanclub Girl and I go to JP to meet Fierce n’ Fiery and wife for dinner and have a great time catching up. Then we hit Queeraoke and met up with lots of other fun people and a great time was had. I tried to stick with beers, but who can resist a cocktail mixed by The Bartender? I was hurting the next day, but Fanclub Girl’s pad is so cozy that it was ok.

Friday:
Lady E. collected me from Fanclub Girl’s place around noon, we went to get my bag at the airport, met up with Upside Down Wall Humper, and headed off to New Haven. It was an ok night. Beers with old college buddies is never a bad thing. At the same time, I felt a little distant and unwilling to go nuts. Getting old, I guess. I managed to stay out until 3 in the morn anyway.

Saturday:
Yale Harvard football game. Mimosas and tailgating starting at 8:30 am. It was pretty fun. We ran into some folks that we did not expect to see, including my old rugby coach. Also Distant Cousin stayed for the day, which was not in the original plan, but helped to make it more fun. That night I tried to take it easy – my body cannot handle the drink and lack of sleep the way it once could. I had a few beers, but mostly water. Spent time with rugby girls – fun, but chill. It was nice to see everyone again. I missed out on hanging out with friends from my class who were dancing at the club, which is sad, but I saw most of them this past summer at reunion anyway. Came home a little after 1, only to find that Party Girl Doctor was already back and passed out. Apparently she doesn’t even have the steam to close down the bars anymore. Woah.

Sunday:
Nice goodbyes with some folks, then to see Harry Potter with some other folks. Ben and I were silly and spiked our coke. That evening I went to see The Trainer and company. It was so great to see them and the baby and hang out, like old times. I miss getting to just sit around and shoot the shit with them. It was too bad The Little Red-Haired Girl couldn’t be there, she would have enjoyed it. Came home and played We Love Katamari with Lady E until all hours. I’m now obsessed with it.

Monday:
KFC and movie marathon, followed by little hugse/tie reunion. White Debs put together a nice dinner, inviting everyone who was still around from school last year. It was awesome – everyone made the effort to drop by, even if only for an hour or two. I’m pretty sure we had 100% turnout. The food was amazing, the conversation was fun, and I felt super loved. A nice way to finish off the weekend, I think.

Tuesday:
That’s today. Lady E. went to the airport early this morning; I didn’t even wake up when she left. I hope she made it ok. She’s letting me borrow her car to drive home, where I’ll meet The Littles for wing night. Then a couple of days of family time, followed by Dykenight on Friday night, then back to Nashville on Saturday. It’s been crazy and fun and hectic so far, and I’m lovin’ it. The next couple of days will have to be homework days to make up for all the fun. I’m not really psyched to get back to Nashville; I fear it will be hard to adjust again, now that I’ve spent all this time here at home. However, I can’t wait to see The Little Red-Haired Girl again. I miss her lots. That’s the recap. Sorry so long and boring. Details may emerge later on.

Ooh, did I mention that I had a doodle burger for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday? YUM!

So I guess the TIE alumni all headed over to the bar, John Harvard’s, after the events today. I just got a call from White Debs (sorry, too lazy to figure out nicknames tonight) from the bar. She handed me over to all kinds of folks, including the Turtle’s New Dad, Thong Boy, and Other Me. It was great talking to everyone, although it made me sad not to be there with them. It did, however, remind me that I will be heading back really soon, and hopefully I’ll get to see all of them then.

Ok, I finally got my shit together and uploaded photos from our digital camera from this past summer. Yes, I know, I am a little behind (“Who’s behind?” … “mine”). There’s stuff from bbqs this summer, Fierce n’ Fiery’s wedding, The Club, Thong Boy’s birthday, and some Nashville stuff. Some of it is posted as private, so you’ll have to sign in and make me a friend to see it (that includes all 66 pictures from the wedding, so DO IT!).

friedApplePie’s Flickr Photos

In no particular order:

• Fierce n’ Fiery and my Dykenight buddies (which makes up the majority of people reading this)
• Public Transportation
• A halfway decent local newspaper
• Not being afraid to hold hands on the street
• Eastern Standard Time
• Proximity to other cities
• Running our free laundry/dinner service (really I just miss Lady E)
• Seafood, sushi, dimsum, and other good restaurants
• Supermarket 88
• Russo’s and Trader Joe’s
• The Trainer, her baby, and others in that category
• Bike Lanes and cars that stop for pedestrians
• The ocean
• Recycling
• Other buddies (you all know who you are, even though you never read this anymore)
• masspirg

Just kidding on that last one.