Time

One month ago today, I proposed to Laura, and she said yes. She later described the look on my face as the most "genuinely vulnerable" she'd ever seen anyone, which sounds about how I was feeling. I knew she was probably going to say yes, but of course I couldn't know for sure, and yet I had to lay my heart out on the line. I was nervous, to be sure, though not nearly as nervous as I could have been; I just wanted to make it absolutely crystal-clear to this woman, and to everyone else, that I wanted to be with her always and spend all time, the rest of my days, with her. Being engaged doesn't feel any different, and yet it does. We still treat each other as lovingly as we always have, but there's more of a sense of permanence, and of expectation, too. We have a wedding to put together! Working on it...

Twenty-two days ago, New Jersey Transit interfered with my commuting schedule again. While the trip home from work sucks as badly as always, with me getting home at 6:45 PM on the really rare, really good day, I've suddenly found myself having to add a bus to my morning routine, which already consisted of a train and a bus, to get to work 40 minutes or so later than I used to. The bad(der) news is that this Bergen Line train is already proving slightly less reliable than the Main Line train had been; one day last week, the train was almost 30 minutes late, which caused me to miss my regular bus, and then the next bus was ten minutes late.  The good news is that I'll be paying less for my monthly passes, since I'm now traveling through Rutherford Station rather than Kingsland, so at least NJT is going to lose some money for inconveniencing me.

Two days ago, two explosions tore through the tail end of the Boston Marathon's route on Boylston Street. The last time I walked along that stretch couldn't have been more than four years ago, and of course Laura and I are heading to the Boston Comic Con this Saturday at the Hynes Convention Center, just a few blocks from where the tragedy unfolded. As a techie, I donated through this site to support the victims; it's nice to see such an outpouring of support online for Boston and those hurt by this, but money is needed, too.

I'm still looking forward to our mini-trip to Massachusetts. We're going to visit a yarn shop on the way to the Boston area, and we're considering having dinner in Salem on Friday night. Breakfast on Saturday definitely has to be at Zaftigs! Seeing Copley Square will hurt, though. I don't like innocent civilians, just people, being attacked anywhere, but particularly not somewhere I know and love. I've spent a lot of time in Boston. I've walked it from end to end, I've ridden T trolleys and buses so tightly packed that some cultures might consider me married already, I've seen Aimee Mann perform at the Orpheum, I've daydreamed in Boston Common and at the Public Garden, and I've been alone with my thoughts on the Esplanade while gazing out over the Charles late at night.  Boston is my city as much as New York is, and as I was shaken by the destruction of the World Trade Center, I am shaken by this.  Still, it will not deter me from visiting and it doesn't diminish my love for Boston.

There were a lot of quotes and a lot of memes circulating Monday and yesterday. I shared (and will leave you with) this one, from former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, another big fan of Boston: "Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's fate. And we are all mortal."