Nobody Calls Boston Beantown

This park and this view are a five-minute stroll from our new condo.
We're a one-hour swim from the Old North End.

It's a little hard to believe I ever complained that there wasn't much happening in my life. That was pretty much the case until mid-May. You might have noticed a certain derth of posts. It's been a busy eight weeks:

* TW graduated from school! It was a rare and wonderful opportunity I, my parents and TW's parents had to literally applaud all her hard work, which we did not do at the actual graduation ceremony because it was held in Portland's AHL hockey arena.

* We went to Florida to see my cousin Bwi-Bwi graduate from high school. I changed her diapers and saved her from drowning multiple times shortly after I graduated high school myself ... in 1995.

* We went to my Aunt Flo's (tee hee) cabin in Henderson, N.Y. and did next to nothing for a few nights.

* I turned 35, celebrating with a 23-year-old all day.

* I started a new job in Manchester, N.H., as a news copy editor!

* I commuted from Portland, ME., to Manchester, N.H.!

* We moved from Portland to Boston, with the help of a couple of lunks TW hired off of Craigslist. They were quite helpful. It took an hour and a half to unload a 24-foot moving truck. And I made them carry the beds.

Moving is turbulence to the routine. I know many of my friends haven't moved that much. I'm not one of those people. Here is my list of moves:

1. Moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to be a live-in nanny. (1995)
2. Moved back to my parents' house in Minnesota before college. (1996)
3. Moved into dorms. (1996)
4. Moved back to my parents' house. (1997)
5. Moved into a horrifying trainwreck of a house off-campus housing with five friends. (1998)
6. Moved into a nice apartment in Roseville for my senior year. (1999)
7. Moved to Newport, NH for my first job. (2000)
8. Moved to Burlington, Vt., for my second job. (2002)
9. Moved to Duluth to meet TW. (2002)
10. Bought a house in Duluth. (2002)
11. Left Duluth to live with the most depressing people in the world in Utah. (2003)
12. Lived in the ghetto of South Salt Lake. (2005)
13. Bought a house in The Middle of Nowhere. (2006)
14. Sold the house and moved downtown because TW was going to PA school ... somewhere. (2009)
15. Moved to Portland for PA school. (2010)
16. Moved to Boston! (2012)

This is why I do not have a clothes' dresser, an entertainment center, a king bed, or anything weighing more than 25 pounds.

Massachusetts is my seventh state of residence. I would love to tell you that I am not leaving for a long time, but I can't do that. Never presume to know what God has in store for you. You can only make your plans and hope they coincide with his. That's my philosophy on prayer right there.

I'm not proud of this list. And every move of these 16 makes absolute sense, in context. This much we already know: There are a lot of things to love about Boston. We are one, two-minute subway ride from Quincy Market, the heart of tourism-ville. We are a 11-minute walk from the airport. People are wildly enthusiastic about baseball here. It's going to cost $9 to see a Red Sox game on Wednesday. It's awesome.

We will also be doing move No. 17. Talks have already begun, loosely, about where we want to move ... in Boston. We are ready to settle down in a neighborhood we love. There are many, many options to choose from (some affordable, some not).

Change is inevitable. We might get new jobs, we might not. We might love it here and we might not. But I know this much: I'd really like to buy a dresser.