Summer in Full Swing

First order of business: I suppose there is need to mention the hot debate going on among the literati concerning the dropping of the serial comma, ironically by an Oxford style guide. Now, being an afficionado of excessive punctuation, personally I will cling to the Oxford comma until you pry it from my cold, dead, pretentious fingers. But as Gaurdian blogger David Marsh puts it, still let common sense prevail. English is constantly evolving, and if you want to use the serial comma, then use it. If not -- well, leaving it out will make for a very confusing list (Are the last two items connected somehow?) -- but if that's your bag, then go for it.

Phew. Now that that's over with...

So I've been quite busy lately, as you can tell from the radio silence -- the constant energy of summer in the city has a way of doing that -- so I'll do my best to update completely, albeit briefly. Also of note is the fact that I lost my glasses at Phoenix Landing on Friday night (an evening I will not be recounting here), so pardon the typos. They did find them at the bar, but I can only imagine the state they're in. The bartender I spoke with could only describe them as "pretty mangled." Sad face.

Taking it to the streets
A couple weeks ago, the City of Cambridge held its annual dance party in the street in Central Square. My friends and I weren't there long, but boy was this just the best idea that the city ever had. They closed down Mass Ave, and hundreds (thousands?) flocked to kick off the summer and dance:

Summer's near and the time is right for dancing in the street!

SoWa: A Market of Epic Proportions

Oh you are in for a treat. Now you know how much I love farmers' markets (ref: post on 6/16). But SoWa (which stands for South of Washington Street, in the South End) is more than a farmers' market. In addition to farm-fresh produce and food (love buying herbs here), there are craft tents with artisans selling clothes, jewelry, kitchenware, you name it... I got one of those hip feather extensions for my hair there. It's just a barrette, but is further fueling my (safe) love of badass things that appear permanent, but aren't.

Outside at SoWa there are these magnificent food trucks, peddling everything from ultra crunchy, healthy fare to greasy, chili-covered foot-long hotdogs. I usually partake in the latter, and then get some kind of pretentious beverage from the healthy truck, mostly out of guilt... And that's not all! Hop indoors and you'll find the vintage market, a veritable museum where you can buy the artifacts pretty affordably. 

I just love it here. One of my oldest, best friends from home was visiting, and I took her there for a quintessentially Boston experience. I think it's safe to say she enjoyed herself...

Happiness is a half-eaten hotdog

The CAVE Project

I have a particularly artsy friend who heard about a gallery opening near Harvard Square, in which they turned the gallery into an indoor cave. I was all for it, and a bunch of us drove over to check it out. Approaching the gallery, this is what we saw:

We entered to find that the "cave" had been constructed entirely of newspaper, chicken wire, and papier-mâché. The experience was very interactive -- we were given flashlights and walked around to find carefully-chosen and interconnected headlines in the newspaper, in addition to modern-day cave paintings. Besides a preoccupation with Angry Birds imagery (they were randomly everywhere), it was a great show. Very cool!

Man-made stalactite/stalagmite in the gallery

A panic on your hands on the Fourth of July

Look it up.

I went to Truro, MA, down on Cape Cod, for July 4th weekend, and this is definitely what the title of this post references. I had a little moment when I was sitting with my family in my aunt's Cape house and thought, 'All right, it's officially summer now.' I think as a New Englander, I'm conditioned to be extremely skeptical of weather patterns -- we know that if it's good, it probably won't be good for long. I actually had an unpleasant dream last night where it snowed in the middle of summer... But last weekend I felt at ease to proclaim the fact that we are undeniably in summertime here. It's in full swing, and it's a good thing.

My aunt has a big beautiful house in Truro, way down the Cape just before Provincetown, and it's tradition that we all pack up, brave the traffic, and enjoy a few days there for July 4th weekend. I took the day off on Tuesday and made a full vacation out of it -- we went to the beach, bad souvenir shops, this adorable little Audubon nature preserve in Wellfleet. And of course we visited P-town for the great seafood, the shopping, and (after dark) the spectacle, i.e., the drag queens. 

It was great to get the entire family together. The weekend composed of ultimate comfort -- my aunt made amazing drinks and food, which yielded great conversations, and my uncle even orchestrated a mini fireworks celebration for us on the beach:

...with the help of ItHasToBeZachary 

(You see how much I am plugging you? New material please!)

My heart leaps up just thinking about it. Great weekend.

Be In a Movie...!

My prose tends to get a little stale if I write out too much, so I just want to include one last, really unique experience from this weekend... being an extra in the movie Ted, with Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarland, and Mila Kunis. It takes place in Boston and they've been filming here for a few months, but this was a great chance to be part of the excitement!

Ever since I was a wee one I've wanted to be a movie extra -- it's kind of on my bucket list -- so my friends and I headed over to the Hatch Shell to see Marky Mark and a "special musical guest," who turned out to be Norah Jones!

Norah was very mellow -- it was nice to see her perform -- but by far, the best part was when Mark got up on stage, delivered a few lines in that expertly delicious Southie accent, and proceeded to sing terribly. Then as the audience, we did a few takes of some extremely enthusiastic booing. I felt slightly like I was in the acting game again. Yay to that :)

A very fuzzy Marky Mark

Well, I am absolutely spent. I have a few really big weekends coming up, so watch this space for my epic upcoming camping trip, and the weekend that I see the final Harry Potter, or rather, when my life unravels as I try to fill the deep hole of nothingness that seeing the final movie will leave... Well, toodle-loo!

Briefly...

Walking home from work today, I saw, in rapid fire:

-About 100 Japanese tourists in Harvard Yard
-A particularly nerdy fellow walking, reading, and laughing at his book, all at once
-A woman walking an animal which I am 90% sure was a fox.


I just don't know how I managed before I lived here. There's just so much to observe and experience.

Greet the Brand New Day

Hubi Frubiends. Welcome to the next installment.

Since I'm up early on a Sunday with nothing much to do yet -- mostly because my throat is sore, and in the past few days my glands have swollen up quite ridiculously, not unlike some kind of slimy balloon animal -- I have a little time to update you on my adventures. Shall we?

Because this weekend isn't over yet, I'll just cover everything leading up to it. Neat n' tidy.

Zuzu: The Return

First, I'll briefly mention returning to Zuzu last Friday. Now I love dancing -- excessively so -- but I'm beginning to learn that it's a very inconsistent activity, and can change depending on the DJ, the size and nature of the crowd, and perhaps even that intangible variable of the night itself. After indulging in some crunchy falafel (ah-mazing) and listening to a pretty sub-par funk band at the Middle East (again, non-Boston people, it's a bar not the region), Zuzu was surprisingly (read: tragically) pretty dead. So we ventured to the much more conventional, top-40 type Phoenix Landing, also in Central Square. We danced. My friend found a friend. She left without getting his number, but then there was this serendipitous moment when we had left and she said, "It just wasn't meant to be." And then I discovered that I accidentally hadn't closed my tab, and we reentered the bar to encounter her new friend sitting right at the bar. She did get his number.

The title of this post refers to a similar story of serendipity that concluded later in the night -- this time to me -- but I won't really get into it in such fierce description as you're accustomed to from me. Let's just say my romantic life has been pretty non-existent lately -- mostly because I only recently (really) recovered from my last -- and there was a nice, broad-shouldered distraction from such. But the title mostly has to do with my new, happier outlook on things. I'm okay with me! Yah!

After rereading those two paragraphs, now thinking: I have a (bad?) habit of using more punctuation than entirely necessary.

Hm, that description was not as brief as I had hoped. Damn my verbosity.

Knowledge Is Power
The next night, my roommate -- who volunteers for the Not for Sale campaign -- invited me to a viewing of the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate, which revealed some secret footage of child slaves working on cacao plantations in Côte d'Ivoire. It was actually very uplifting, in addition to informative, and ended on this note of hope; as in, we're going to get those damn chocolate companies and stop this. It made me think twice about buying from Nestlé. After the movie, there was a very lively conversation with the audience, and a representative from Fair Trade did a chocolate-tasting demo. Kudos! What a great, multisensory, thought-stimulating program. I bought a couple of cards from the Not for Sale table, and learned about their iPhone app, of which I absolutely love the concept. It gives the consumer more purchasing power in these matters by giving products a grade (A through F) based on just/fair supply chain practices. And it's mobile, so you can look it up right in the grocery store. Power to the people, yo.

E-I-E-I... ohh.
At risk of changing the title of this post to Stuff White People Like, I will now indulge in my newly discovered, now undying love of farmers markets. Last week my roommate and I finally made it to the Union Square Farmers Market, which I've been meaning to visit since it opened in early June. It was small, and pretty standard as far as these markets go, but still highly enjoyable. I went a little crazy -- I bought some dill for my growing windowsill herb garden, some colorful mixed greens and yummy snap peas in a carton from Drumlin Farm, and a Rutgers tomato plant (big, heirloom variety) growing in a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup. It's now on my porch in a proper pot, and oh am I going to make the most epic tomato sauce from that guy once he's ripe for picking.

My little herb garden, brought to you by farmers markets and Mom

Hit The Road, Kayak
My family has started something of a Father's Day tradition (as in, this is the second year in a row we've done this), in which we go out for the day on some body of water, kayak for a few hours, and then cancel out any calories we've expended by eating more than we should. This year, my parents, brother, and sister came to visit me in Boston and we rented a few singles from Charles River Canoe and Kayak in Kendall Square. I've never kayaked in the city before -- only through nature in a sort of appreciative way -- and man, was it a different experience. It's very surreal (and fun) to see Mass Ave, MIT, even the John Hancock Tower and other landy landmarks from the angle of the water. It was a beautiful day, too -- the sun was out (nothing like this gloomy weekend), and my brother and I both got kayak-shaped sunburns on our respective legs.

Kayaking on the Charles, ItHasToBeZachary makes a cameo

 
After kayaking, we went to one of my favorite dives on this earth, the ultimate guilty pleasure, the legendary Charlie's Kitchen, the Double Cheeseburger King. Of course my dad went into his typical appetizer-overload mode, and ordered way too many jalapeño poppers and buffalo tenders before our greasy burgers, but we let him on his special day. Deviating from my usual Guinness burger, I went with the BBQ burger off of the special menu, which inside was filled with (I shit you not) barbeque sauce. Heaven, greasy, deep-fried heaven. They also have a great beer selection, and I'm a little ashamed to say I tried Hoegaarden for the first time -- definitely my kind of brew.


My God, What Have I Done
Quite frankly, I am extremely surprised that I did absolutely anything that weekend. Because that weekend, my friends, corresponded with when I started my sweet, sweet, free trial of Netflix. Since then, I have accomplished precisely nothing that I've meant to, because there's always a TV show to watch. In addition to indulging in some old favorites (the Office, Arrested Development), I've gotten back into the BBC's Merlin in a big way, mostly because it's fixing the dearth of good-hearted, kinda bubblegummy, supernatural television in my life. The balance that out, I'm finally watching Dexter, which is so multidimensionally wonderful -- complex, great characters, has an intriguing storyline that's being executed beautifully -- it's really fulfilling my void for a great dark comedy that Six Feet Under (which I have been attempting to plow through over the past few months) just couldn't fill. But with Michael C. Hall as the front-man in Dexter, I keep having this sneaking feeling that Nate and Brenda are going pop out and make it terrible... Other than that, I'm excited to try out some new shows I've been meaning to tackle -- Angel, Battlestar Galactica, and Doctor Who being the frontrunners.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game
I'm not a huge baseball fan, but man, do I love Fenway Park. The design of the building itself is such a throwback -- accented with old-fashioned pointing fingers guiding spectators in the direction of their seats and food menus in endearing 1920's-style fonts. The food is phenomenal in its quaintness -- with the mighty Fenway Frank carrying the team. Pardon my webspeak, but OMG, a Fenway Frank with a pump of wholegrain mustard and a generous sprinkling of raw onion from the onion crank... I just dream about it. It's not even that it's an amazing hotdog -- there's just something about being in Fenway that makes it the holy of holies of Hot Doggery. Maybe that's it -- the atmosphere. If Boston sports constitute a religion, then Fenway is its St. Peter's Basilica. Although I don't share that degree of devoutness, it's still fun to observe Boston fans, eat great ballpark food, enjoy some time with whomever I'm with, and oggle at Jason Varitek.

 What I meant when describing the iconic Fenway signage.

The always-epic Fenway Frank.

My sister and I went to a game this week -- my dad scored us some tickets from work -- and to bluntly switch gears, it was kind of terrible. Between four rain delays, and a pitching incident that was the stuff of nightmares, the Sox fell 5-1 to one of the worst teams in the league. Womp womp. It was still fun to spend some time with my little sis.

 With all the rain delays, this was a frequent sight.

Yes, Another One About Food.
I should also briefly mention my excursion beyond the Boston walls to Vello's, American Pub Food Wonder of Westwood. Ever since seeing it rated on the Phantom Gourmet, my high school friends and I have been dying to go. After weeks of waiting, we finally made it last Thursday. In order to benefit from as much on the menu as possible, we each ordered something to share. When the food came, we divvied up our plates and engaged in some intense Iron-Chef-like judging of each dish. I have to say that this turned out to be an extremely fun way to eat with a group -- such camaraderie! Conclusions? Unanimously, get the meatloaf or the pulled-pork sandwich... and tragically even lobster could not save the lobster mac n' cheese.

Well then, I think that's quite enough for now... stay tuned for reports from this weekend, including (but not limited to) dancing in the street, visits from old friends, and (good gracious me) more farmers markets!

Fellowship Fail

I enjoy not having to adhere to any kind of headline conventions here. This is going to be a good thing.

What is this new devilry? LOTR at the theater was sold out. One showing at 7:00 and we didn't think to book tickets ahead of time -- so no hobbits, no Council of Elrond, no 'You shall not pass,' and worst yet, no Sean Bean.

It was too late to see it at Patriot Place, so we wandered listlessly at Legacy Place until we found a Qdoba, and then ate our feelings with burritos, later ice cream, and discussed why Two Towers and Return of the King are better anyway. Yeah! Kind of. I'll catch up this week.

Bridesmaids is not worth an update. It was -- sadly -- a chick flick in every way.

Until next time, adieu to you and you and you.

And I'm Spent

So remember last time how I talked about my 'plans' to visit a museum every weekend? Well, plans have a particular way of serendipitously being rearranged when you least expect it -- and be it fun or devastating, you have to pull an Adam Sandler and just go with it.

Also, obsessive-compulsive word of the month: serendipitous. I just can't stop using it.

Oddly the weekend I chose to start blogging was an incredibly busy one. So I'm going to go ahead and borrow a style that It Has To Be Zachary often employs to organize his European adventures. PS: My brother is the funniest person I know, and you should read his blog.

Celebrate Life, Relay for Life
Friday night I participated in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Medford-Somerville. We arrived around 6:30 at the tiny Hormel Stadium in Medford, where the field (the pitch, as my Irish teammate called it) was surrounded by a ring of people in tents, blankets, chairs, and barbeques, and enclosed in the track where folks were already walking.

It was my first relay, and I had no idea what to expect, but my other teammates arrived -- along with my friend who is a survivor and now works at the ACS -- and we kicked it into gear. By the time we headed out at midnight, we racked in a total of 10K. The event was definitely an emotional roller-coaster -- and it should be -- it's meant to celebrate the lives of those living with cancer, those who have beaten it, and those who we've lost to it.

For example, there's one ceremony that's done at every relay called the Luminaria, in which paper bags set along the track are lit when it gets dark, along with the words "HOPE" and "CURE" written in the bleachers. Sad (and happy) speeches were made about the ones we've lost (and still have), followed by a silent procession of everyone around the track, to the background of bagpipes. Cancer is one of those things that has touched everyone's life in one way or another, and that's when it really hit me. It was powerful, and it was hard to keep it together. When the procession silently returned to the field -- people crying and hugging -- the first words that returned to me were, "Well that was the shittiest five minutes of my life," and after the blank stares, "Good-shitty." But suddenly, there was this incredibly stark, Dickensian moment, in which the DJ tried to encourage us to celebrate the lives of those who have died or are dying... and proceeded to play Celebration by Kool & the Gang, accompanied by flashing disco lights. That's a real-life transition for you, Dickens.

But from mourning weeds to holiday garments we went, and we started to dance a little. In addition to walking, our team all sat around and engaged in activities that you might have done when you were camping as a teenager -- magic tricks with cards, the hand-slapping game, staring contests, all while munching on pizza and Cheddar Bunnies. So much camaraderie! Oh I just love it. It was the best night I've had in awhile.

Incidentally you can still donate -- at least until August -- on my fundraising page here.

Don't Be a Drag Just Be a Queen
If you know me, you know that like Kathy Griffin, I love my gays. I'm a child of musical theatre, so it's just inevitable that I miss my boys. So you can imagine how elated I was when one of my Relay teammates suggested we get out and support the Boston Gay Pride Parade and post-parade festival, which was happening in the Government Center area the next day. This about sums it up:

Yup that's a bikini. Yup those are bubbles. Yup that's the Statehouse in the background.

The parade was chock-full of shirtless dancers, fabulous drag queens, and (of course) peaceful protests -- not to mention we left with a fine booty of free beads, stickers, and bags. Yay pride! There was also a great festival in Government Center after, where I got some five-dollar henna. Well, you get what you pay for -- I had two coworkers tell me the following Monday that it looked like someone magic-markered my hand. Now I have it for ten days... holla?

Incidentally, we went out to lunch at Zuma in Faneuil Hall, where I'm surprised that I've never been. Famously home to the $4 margarita, you'll find decent tacos and other Mexican small plates ranging from $2-3 apiece. I was surprised to find such cheap eats in such a touristy area!

Zuzu's Petals!
Waddya know about that. (0:50)

Everyone has a friend who is incredibly connected; who always knows exactly what's going on where, what's free, what underground show is going on, or what have you. You know, the friend that texts you mid-afternoon on a Friday saying, "Would you pay 11 bucks to see a freak show?" That one. Well, that friend of mine led me to Central Square on Saturday night to see some live music at the Middle East and then go to Zuzu bar after, where I'd never been. New places, new faces, oh joy!


Apparently I talk about the Middle East a lot -- or so says my mother -- and let's just say I have a mild obsession with the place. Free live music most weekend nights, baklava for $2.95, and three (that's right, three) variations on that holy nectar of the gods, the honorable Dark n' Stormy. I'm hooked already. Saturday there was a blues band playing -- not the head-bopping kind, but the head-shaking kind -- and the electric organist was absolutely dirty. Can't remember their name for the life of me, but they had every heavily-intoxicated human in the joint up and dancing.

My only complaint about the Middle East: The one bathroom stall is unisex. Yeah. Drunk Boys. Gross.

My friend and I sauntered over to Zuzu, where I now fully intend to spend ALL of my free weekend nights. You walk in, and it just oozes Cambridge-hip. Mood lighting, fringed lamps, leather couches, bartender with a baller 'fro and yellow costume beads... in word, Hipster Heaven. All night the DJ played 50's jive, upbeat jazz, and big band -- incredibly refreshing coming from your typical top-40, Rhianna-infused club scene. It was a fun night overall -- just fun -- we found a group of guys and swing-danced with them. Five stars, Zuzu, I'll be back.

Well, that was my epic weekend. Watch this space for a movie reviews -- I saw Bridesmaids this weekend (meh), and am starting a three-week installment of Tuesday LOTR marathoning, courtesy of Legacy Place in Dedham. Yup. All three Peter Jackson films on the big screen once again. I. DIE.

Until next time, biddies.

The Serial Comma

Well this is something I've been meaning to do for awhile.

As an editor by trade, I've tried my best to make writing my hobby. Now hey, I love what I do. But I've found that if you make your passion something you do on the side, it doesn't become work. It doesn't become monotonous. Instead, you look forward to it. You work to make it happen.

So, it would be a lie to say I haven't blogged before, just at the time I didn't know it was blogging -- I thought it was spilling my guts on my livejournal. And when I stumbled across my old (semi) teenage thoughts, I was inspired to start over. I'm hoping to achieve the same level of frankness here, minus the overarching tone of adolescent melodrama.

Now, for a little background: I moved to the Cambridge/Somerville area just outside Boston about six months ago. Since then, life has been exponentially better than it was in the bowels of suburban hell from whence I came. 

I'm planning on this blog being about me -- the reformed country mouse -- and my life in the big city. Check here for my take on everything I love: places/events around Boston, great food, exciting new places, and friends old and new. For example, I'm planning (you'll see I like planning) on going to a museum every weekend... this weekend will be a surprise. And I'm sure photography and anything I am writing about will slip in there too.


The blog's title, The Serial Comma, points to the fact that this is my ongoing little writing project, which of course may morph with my passing fancy. More important -- as the subtitle alludes to -- the serial comma is more commonly known as the Oxford comma, and sometimes known as the Harvard comma. One is a nod to my employer, the other my favorite place in the world -- I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.


Now if I can only find that damned em-dash in this template, we'll be all set.

Upward and onward!