Item #32 - Ride in a Helicopter

Boston is one of the few American cities that has so many historical sites and landmarks, after you live here for awhile, you just kind of start to take them for granted. In fact, it only took me a month to start doing so. The first time we came into the city to drink, we got drunk at the Bell in Hand Tavern. It was a good time. But some time afterwards, I learned that the Bell in Hand is actually the oldest continually operated tavern in the country, opening in 1795. So, there's a damn good chance I creepily ogled a cute girl without talking to her in the very same spot a 60 year old Paul Revere got some young wench all up on him. "Oh, you're THAT Paul Revere? Please take me back to your stables, you handsome man, you. And light one lantern there if you want me in the front, and two if you want me in the back." Man, even in 1795, chicks dug celebrities.

Besides having marks from the Revolutionary War all over the place, the outskirts of Boston are also home to Walden Pond. Back in 1854, Henry David Thoreau got his inner Unabomber on by living like a semi-hermit in a cabin in the woods near there. Because of the overload of historical sites, and because I've had zero desire to read Walden since it doesn't teach me anything about advanced sports statistics, I didn't even know Walden was even in the Boston area until a girl I was kind of dating took me along for a beach day there back in 2002 with her friends (let's call her Rose to protect her anonymity).

Even if you haven't read Walden, you still probably have a basic image of what Walden Pond would look like, given that Thoreau went there for a little R & R. Probably something like this:

Well, get out of the 1800's grandpa. Welcome to the 2000's:

Kids. Yelling. Screaming. Waves. Snack stands. Paid parking. Pissing in the water.  U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!  So, not exactly the bastion of serenity you probably envisioned. But, if you willing to throw your towels on a patch of rocks and grass, you can escape to more secluded parts of the Pond. And that's exactly what we did, and we had a delightful little time doing so. 

So to truly experience the tranquility of Walden Pond, you need to go when no one else is there. You need to go when it isn't opened. And Rose and I did just that, as not too long after the first Walden Beach experience, we headed back around 1am some night. We parked my car in a cove of trees 15 feet of the major road. We crept down the gravel path 100 yards to the beach, fearing any slight sound in the bushes was surely some ax murderer or the ghost of Thoreau looking to destroy our iPod's and smartphones because technology is ruining our future or some transcendentalist mumbo jumbo like that. And then, to appease the possible ghost of Thoreau, we did what we thought would please him most, by detaching ourselves from the rules of "society:", and living the natural way . . . and we got naked and skinny-dipped.

I think that was the first time I skinny-dipped in a natural environment. Rose also added another two firsts to my life's list. One night she showed up unannounced, on a weekday, in all black, and just said "come on, we're going to goth night."  And being weak-willed, I threw on a pair of black dress pants and a black button down shirt, and I went as probably the only prep-goth in the club. The other first? She got me to head to The Middle East (for non-Bostonians, a small music venue), and we saw a couple death metal bands. It was more funny than scary. Rose also had semi-dyed hair and several non-ear piercings.  In the words of MXPX, "Just you and me punk rock girl."

Sadly, it was a cold night and the water was even colder, so before I could even hear the voice of George Costanza lecture me on the consequences of cold water, we got the hell out, got our clothes back on, and got our asses back to the car. None-the-less, a good time was had by all.

9 years later, I finally got to see Walden Pond in its most serene state. No worries about the crowds. No worries about "turtling". And it only took me viewing it from 1000 feet above to see it in that state, as Alycia, Ryan and I went for a short helicopter ride.

See! Actual peace! Just like Thoreau had imagined.  You know what else actually looks peaceful? Something Thoreau could have never imagined. Suburbs.

Though it does look a little Stepford-ian. However, what didn't look peaceful? Alycia.

I'm seen that face of terror before, considering Alycia came along for the trapeze trip as well. At least this take-off didn't come with a 5 second scream.

The ride only lasted 10 or 15 minutes, but it was cool little jaunt, especially considering the helicopter cabin was about the size of a Prius. 

And just because, obligatory shot of downtown. 

Item #31 - (Attempt to) Ride a Unicycle

"Lisa, why did you start to unicycle?"
"Because my brother could and I wanted to be like him"
"Why did HE want to learn?"
"Because he thought he would be cool"
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About 10 years ago when I first moved out to Boston, I went with 2 of my co-workers up to Killington Vermont for the weekend. One of the guys had an old cabin that we crashed in for free. Yup, just 3 hetero guys staying warm together in a little cabin in the woods.

Before that, the only time I had done any winter sports was skiing a few times back in Detroit at Mt Holly, which was supposedly built on a landfill. It has a vertical of 350 feet. Killington has a vertical of 3000 feet. Mt Holly is basically a zit on the ass of Killington. Thus, learning to snowboard at Killington was a bit of an undertaking.

If you've never tried to snowboard, you're missing out on a ton of fun. However, you're also missing out on a ton of bruises on your ass (my buddy Samesh actually offered to lend me his ass pad. No really, for a mere $24.95, you can get a Butt Shield for yourself! Sadly, he did not offer any butt massages. Wait, I didn't mean to type that out loud).

 

If you want to learn to snowboard, and learn to snowboard quickly, you need to have good balance, some balls, and an ass of steel. You will fall. You will fall a lot. You will then fall some more. And the worse the you are, the harder you'll fall.

When you're good, and you can actually board with some speed, when you fall, you'll tumble, and you'll probably roll, and you'll probably come to a stop, look up, and laugh. "Hey, I bit it. That sucked. Let's go." Well, unless you fall into a tree. That probably hurts. (insert Sonny Bono joke)

But when you're learning and going slow, you typically fall by catching your front or back edge. Catch either at a slow speed though, and you don't tumble. You whiplash into the ground. It is . . . not enjoyable.

But when I was learning, I was 22 years old. I was young. I was spry. I was slightly stupid. And I operated my body with reckless abandon.Try to board. Go 10 feet. Fall. Get up. Go 11 feet. Fall. Get back up. Et cetera. And thus, despite numerous, numerous falls, and numerous bruises, and no man-on-man massages to make them feel better (dammit, why do I keep typing that), I was a competent boarder after just a 2 day weekend on the mountain.

Last week, I faced a similar challenge. Lisa (a former college gymnast, and thus, someone who has legit balancing skills) invited me over in an attempt to teach me to unicycle.  Another skill with a high learning curve and lots of potential for bruising.

 That's her unicycle, and when it's used properly, it should look something like this:

Obviously, Lisa knows what the hell she's doing. Rumor has it that's how she won over her husband Charlie.

And yes, that's her unicycling down her hallway. The hallway was probably the safest place to actually learn, mainly because my best attempt of the day looked like this:

That right there is a man who balls have shrunk approximately 73.8% since he was 22 years old. And I mean that metaphorically. However, physically shrinking by that much may have also been a possibility, as my worst fall of the day consisted of the unicycle kind of jamming itself in between the 2 walls of the hallway . . . and Alan Jr.

Artist's rendering, due to lack of a photo

9 years ago, I would have said "fuck the hallway" and immediately gone outside to take my lumps. Face plant. Get back up. Go again. Get bruised. Repeat. Be a decent unicyclist in 2 hours. Go home. Drink. Feel almost nothing the next day. Nowadays? I'm 48 hours out from my last soccer game, in which I played 90% of the game but only took one good lump/fall, and I still bypassed a run tonight, hoping to get back to 100% before running tomorrow. So there was no fucking way I was unicycling in the driveway. It's concrete. It's hard. And there are cars going by in the street I could end up hitting. And maybe a stray weed catches a spoke in the wheel.  And there might be a puddle, which along with being slippery, could soil my slacks and leave a permanent stain because I forgot to bring my stick of stain-be-gone. And the children, my god, won't someone think of the children. No. Fuck that. I'll just be rolling in the hallway dawg (that's what the kids say these days right? "dawg"?).

Rollin on a single 22" dub

So it was the hallway for me, with . . . modest results. BUT, with a body with limited bruising (the inner thighs were quite displeased the next day). And reminder that, sigh . . . I'm old.

31 . . . so old.