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Dream Girl
Aug. 23rd, 2021 01:28 amI asked Tuesday what to write about tonight and she suggested my favourite place in [colloquial]0 Boston. Which is a neat way of wording it, because there's a lot of places I like in this big ol' weird mess of towns, and even a lot of places that feel like _home_, but do I have something I'd call my *favourite*?
Yeah, I probably do. If the Doctor showed up and said we're heading off, you get one last look at one place you're into, it's pretty much no question: 42.39561, -71.13051.
Like, obviously the fact that it's the Randall Munroe Sweet Ass-Park is a huge amount of why that's my ~favourite~. That event was...truly something else. It's absolutely the second destination on my list once I get a time machine1. Partly so that I can go enjoy it *right*2, TW, but mostly so I could go and see how many people I actually know are there --the number in 2007 was _drastically_ lower than the number in 2021!
That particular party sorta...set the tone for the subsequent decade and a half. It was early enough living here that I didn't even have any friends at college to bring (maybe Lauren can join me in the time machine now). It really was the first Big Thing I did in [colloquial] Boston and what it taught me is that this is a city _just chock fucking full_ of Geeky People Into Cool Stuff.
Like...so many people I want to be friends with. So many hobbies I want to do. I've narrowed my hobby to the really important two (SCD and Bellringing) and that narrows my city choices to...here, Seattle, and DC. So yeah, a place that has both of those (how blest we are) plus an abundance of circus and lightsaber fights and math and weirdos and hacking and the other kind of hacking and and and...
...and damn near all of that was represented on 2007 09 23 14 38 00.
I've told this story before, but there were...much fewer people in 2008. Like, three orders of magnitude fewer3. And a single person in 2009. And then I wasn't able to keep attending because other things got in the way.
But I didn't stop visiting the park, on occasion. I've gone there with Brenton, and with Sparr, and with Austin and Phoebe. Possibly with mek? Possibly with K. There's...a chance this playground's met more of my various partners than anyone except my mom4. I mean, you'd think a place where I'd hung with *both* of the shit exen would be hard off limits for the "favourite spots" list, but like...it's a place that belongs to me _way_ more than to anyone else. My first solo visit was in the three weeks between starting college and the DreamGirl meetup, my most recent was...probably pre-pandemic but not by as much as you'd think.
I really like playgrounds, yanno? And that one is a pretty superb example of the form. It has a swingset (which I know isn't actually a great piece of equipment in terms of the space:population ratio but you will pry swingsets out of my cold dead hands). It has a pirate ship kids area. There's a basketball court and grassy space to sit on.
And it has a spiderweb pyramid to climb in and on and through and around. It was probably the first of its kind I had ever seen, and I was hooked at first sight. My kinesthetic ass would like to climb on everything available to climb, and oh, oh. It's such a good piece of equipment for that.
It's not that it feels like "home" (like the escalators in Porter Square Station, goddess all bless), it's that it feels like joy. It is, without question, my favourite place in the city, may it never change.
Where do you love?
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Which is to say, the city I tell people from out of state I live in, and not the city I actually live in. You know, Greater Cambervillefordton, plus "across the river".
1: The wedding I most regret missing is first.
2: Which is to say "not in the company of an emotionally abusive rapist".
3: Okay fine, two. There were 7(?) of us the second year.
4: Oh no, I'm going to get distracted drawing the web of which of my past and current partners (and other significant people) have met each other. Mom is the only person who's met the majority of everyone I've ever seriously dated, although they might not've realized it at the time in some of those cases.
Yeah, I probably do. If the Doctor showed up and said we're heading off, you get one last look at one place you're into, it's pretty much no question: 42.39561, -71.13051.
Like, obviously the fact that it's the Randall Munroe Sweet Ass-Park is a huge amount of why that's my ~favourite~. That event was...truly something else. It's absolutely the second destination on my list once I get a time machine1. Partly so that I can go enjoy it *right*2, TW, but mostly so I could go and see how many people I actually know are there --the number in 2007 was _drastically_ lower than the number in 2021!
That particular party sorta...set the tone for the subsequent decade and a half. It was early enough living here that I didn't even have any friends at college to bring (maybe Lauren can join me in the time machine now). It really was the first Big Thing I did in [colloquial] Boston and what it taught me is that this is a city _just chock fucking full_ of Geeky People Into Cool Stuff.
Like...so many people I want to be friends with. So many hobbies I want to do. I've narrowed my hobby to the really important two (SCD and Bellringing) and that narrows my city choices to...here, Seattle, and DC. So yeah, a place that has both of those (how blest we are) plus an abundance of circus and lightsaber fights and math and weirdos and hacking and the other kind of hacking and and and...
...and damn near all of that was represented on 2007 09 23 14 38 00.
I've told this story before, but there were...much fewer people in 2008. Like, three orders of magnitude fewer3. And a single person in 2009. And then I wasn't able to keep attending because other things got in the way.
But I didn't stop visiting the park, on occasion. I've gone there with Brenton, and with Sparr, and with Austin and Phoebe. Possibly with mek? Possibly with K. There's...a chance this playground's met more of my various partners than anyone except my mom4. I mean, you'd think a place where I'd hung with *both* of the shit exen would be hard off limits for the "favourite spots" list, but like...it's a place that belongs to me _way_ more than to anyone else. My first solo visit was in the three weeks between starting college and the DreamGirl meetup, my most recent was...probably pre-pandemic but not by as much as you'd think.
I really like playgrounds, yanno? And that one is a pretty superb example of the form. It has a swingset (which I know isn't actually a great piece of equipment in terms of the space:population ratio but you will pry swingsets out of my cold dead hands). It has a pirate ship kids area. There's a basketball court and grassy space to sit on.
And it has a spiderweb pyramid to climb in and on and through and around. It was probably the first of its kind I had ever seen, and I was hooked at first sight. My kinesthetic ass would like to climb on everything available to climb, and oh, oh. It's such a good piece of equipment for that.
It's not that it feels like "home" (like the escalators in Porter Square Station, goddess all bless), it's that it feels like joy. It is, without question, my favourite place in the city, may it never change.
Where do you love?
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Which is to say, the city I tell people from out of state I live in, and not the city I actually live in. You know, Greater Cambervillefordton, plus "across the river".
1: The wedding I most regret missing is first.
2: Which is to say "not in the company of an emotionally abusive rapist".
3: Okay fine, two. There were 7(?) of us the second year.
4: Oh no, I'm going to get distracted drawing the web of which of my past and current partners (and other significant people) have met each other. Mom is the only person who's met the majority of everyone I've ever seriously dated, although they might not've realized it at the time in some of those cases.
