Boston, Massachusetts!

Before there was Lindsay in Denver there was Priscilla in Boston.

Lindsay enjoyed a blizzard in the mountains; I enjoyed sunny skies and three pleasant days.

Fresh off the plane my darling Melanie picks me up and masterfully negotiates through the patchy Boston traffic all the way home. Let me tell you how exciting it was to be in a three-story house: very. Can’t tell you why. I only got as far as the second floor, but it was great. AND! on my very own bed in my very own guest bedroom was what? Was “Eres muy especial,” the pillow with arms. What a promising start. Then I left my wallet on the driveway. Then I met Becka, FINALLY! The woman has a flight to catch to the other end of the country the next morning and is not-so-sidelined with a bad cold, but she still rallies and looks like one million dollars and hangs out. What a lady. Then we picked up my wallet, then we picked up Rachel! Yay, Rachel!
[I don’t tell a good story, I don’t and I know and there’s nothing that any of us can do about it.]
Can’t remember the name of the restaurant we went to [terrible] but they had beets and I had Sam Adams like any good tourist on her first night out in Boston Mass. Ah, then across the street to Queereoke.
Alright, I live in the Rocky Mountains. That’s high-altitude. I can run forever, walk for longer than that, dance my pantalones off, yet I get to Boston and I.am.winded. And everybody in there was, more or less, rocking the house. Nicki, I’m talking about you. And in Laguna at Main Street bar (or is it just called “Bounce” now?) and after several cocktails, I can hold my own. Um, not so in Boston. Maybe it was stage fright. It’s likely. I’m so bashful. But Melanie and her rad voice and pretty face saved me and the rest of the queereoke-ers from myself. And then Melanie put the o! in queereoke by performing a moving rendition of “Baby Got Back.” Rachel was beaming. I was awed. Everyone celebrated. It was wonderful.
Onward, Friday! Melanie gives me a map to get to Harvard Square while she was at work. I walked there just fine. I checked my e-mail at the law school. I walked back. The walk there took me about 20 minutes, maybe; the walk back took about 3 hours. I suppose that I took for granted the linear streets of Denver and D.C. In any case, it was a nice way to see things. I met a lot of people. Did you know that they have crossing guards for adults? Frankie was the nicest. He understood that I don’t like when people say “Priscilla? Like Priscilla Presley?” if I tell them my name. Thanks, Frank!
Then, warm tea, very necessary. Then, awesome dinner at a piano bar. As we’re waiting for a table, some guy just standing there exchanges a few pleasantries with us, then asks if we’re from here. I’m about ready to pour out our common life story, Melanie’s and mine, when Melanie just says, “No, California,” and I don’t know if it was the tone, which was still nice, or the mere absence of possible continuity, but the guy backed off immediately! I think we even got an “Enjoy your night.” Lesson learned. Awed, two-for-two.
Listen, then we go to this other bar. I meet Anastasia and her fiancée. The conversation naturally turns to tequila. Next thing I know, I’m doing Cristal body shots with very friendly strangers, Melanie’s grabbing onto one flaxen-haired suh-lut after another, and three of the Spice Girls, I kid you not, walk in and start dancing with Anastasia on the bar! It was a very memorable evening, and I use “memorable” about as loosely as…well…
the next morning I wake up with a rash on my stomach. And that’s the story. I despise lies. So the yarn before about citrus oils and prolonged exposure to the early afternoon sun is nothing more than a fairytale. And now I am free.
Sometime on Saturday, I’m going to say afternoon, Melanie and I find ourselves walking around a big tree park. I enjoyed it very much. I like huge trees because you can really access the wind that way, the noise and the feeling. Nice walk. Very good lunch at this place next to the Samuel Adams brewery! Big thanks to Melanie for causing us to snag a primo spot at the bar for the tasting part of the tour. She was telling me under her breath where I need to stand, stay at the back, ok, just stay right here in the back…and then we turned right around and were the first in line for the bar. Most people sat at big tables of about 10 people. We sat at the bar with 4 people. One pitcher per each such group. Subsequently feeling fine, Melanie and I take a nice walk around the town and get on the mofo green line. I make it about 5 stops out of 9 before I advise Melanie of the immediacy of the need to get the f out of there. Sweet, kind Melanie hangs out in some bar, drinking by herself, with a bunch of annoying chumps doing some kind of an annoying themed bar crawl while I get sick for a little while. We missed the museum, which both of us really wanted to see, and actually which my mom was also very sad that we didn’t manage to get to. But we walked some more, saw the big dig area, looks good, Boston! and made it to the North End where we enjoyed a slice of Europe, even to the point of, as Melanie pointed out, charging us for water.
OK, now we get to Two Women and This Dude. Melanie, you can tell this story if you want. For all you fans, it involves a tiger, a zebra, and Jiminy Cricket. And zoology.
After Melanie and I cycled around Boston the whole day, Rachel saved us from more possible physical ravages of unkindly metro trains and comes out to pick us up and we three watch “Flight of the Conchords.” It was a rerun for me because Melanie played it out for me earlier in the day while we were walking around. As always, I liked Melanie’s version best.
And so Sunday arrived, and we went to mass at this little convent, and there were all these kids, so many kinds, so much motion, and as the mass went on it seemed as if all the kids belonged to all of the adults. And we never saw the nuns, but we knew they were there. Then breaking bread over a super good breakfast with super good company, Rachel and Melanie and Anastasia and her fiancée. Afterwards I got to see some of Melanie’s and Rachel’s neighborhood which has some really cute and likely really addictive shops. Melanie got something from a cheese shop, Rachel got a doorknob, I got a sandwich and carrots.
Sad, then the airport. I’ve blocked it out. When I came to, I was still at the airport because my flight was delayed, delayed, canceled! But my quick-thinking mother had already called me with the info for alternate flights and alternate connections—and let me tell you, if you’re trying to get on another flight and another connection, you must know the flight number, the time it leaves, and the time it lands; otherwise, the United people will feign ignorance. Next to lies I despise that, disingenuousness.
Spring breeeeeeak!
And Melanie and I still have “Poker Face,” and I will check out the Watercourse restaurant per Rachels’ recommendation, and now I’m waiting waiting waiting for Mel and Rachem to come on out to the Rockies, for Leilani and I to have another Great American Pia and Leilani Festival, and for Lindsay to stop pretending that she hates the snow.
Fin.