My life in Boston continues to amaze me.  Just in this past week I:

• Danced until 12:30 PM at the second JP vs Somerville Dance-Off in support of Boston’s own Girl’s Rock.
• Volunteered for my ninth consecutive year at Pie Central, sorting and quality checking pies for Community Serving’s enormous and enormously profitable pie bake sale.
• At work, hosted the 40th Annual Thanksgiving Potluck Feast, where at least two hundred community members attended and ate turkeys (purchased by my job, roasted by volunteers) and more dessert than is probably appropriate.
• Swung by late to my friend’s pre-holiday potluck, where I successfully bombed at a game of Cranium.

The hours I’ve kept:

• Sunday: 1:30 AM arrive home, by bike
• Monday: 10:30 PM arrive home, by T, lugging bike
• Tuesday: 10:30 PM arrive home, by bike
• Wednesday: 10:30 PM arrive home, by bike

Exhausted?  Yes!  Luckily, at all the above events, I’ve been graciously accompanied by friends, whose energy and enthusiasm inspired my own.

I often compare my experience here in Boston with my younger life in Jersey. Naturally, I’ve had a lot of good times in Jersey, but when I think back to high school, it doesn’t escape me that my scheduled looked more like this:

Weekdays: Up at 7:30 AM (groggy), 8:20 AM school, 12:30 PM bus to second school (a story for another day), 2:30 PM school end/bus back to my home town, 3:00 PM work at library, 6:00 PM picked up by mother or brother, 7:00/8:00 dinner, 9:00 PM homework, 11:00 PM bed

Weekends: Hang with mother, aunt, cousin.  Knit/crochet.  Read.

I don’t mean to imply that my life in Jersey wasn’t a perfectly good life -I was safe, loved, happy, and had all the library access my little heart desired.

Still, (here comes the gratitude), how very thankful I am for strange, funny, exhausting, and beautiful Boston moments!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!