2002-09-09 - 12:02 a.m.

So a couple of days after I left Winter Hill, a neighborhood in Somerville, and after having moved into Allston, one of many neighborhoods in Boston, I hadn't yet realized that I didn't want to ever go to the Kells for any reason whatsoever.

Delicious time. Just moved. Exploring. And the Gods, smiling down on me, rewarded me.

With a parade.

Yup. With the (ex) and the Roommate, and we had just finished eating or drinking whatever it was that we had ordered, and all of a sudden, through the bar�s open summer windows, we got to watch an entire parade march right by us, right there, best seats in the house, and so on.

Before the neighborhood got old. Before we did. Before most things I can instantly recall without having to think too hard; a parade. An actual, real parade.

And, of course, the life kinda went out of it after a bit. It was ending. Smoking cigarettes. Wow, a parade. Yay. That was really cool.

I was thinking to myself, jeez, I hope every day will be like this, wishing for luck, knowing that my own luck doesn't work that way, but maybe the new move will jump-start it all.

And then, out of nowhere, a bunch of old men brandishing drums, wearing tubas, started performing their opposite of dirge, right in the Kells, and proceeded to march out of the bar and onto Brighton Ave.

I can't remember many times in my life when I've thought to myself that things couldn't possibly get any better, and then things got better.

One birthday, that day and today.

That birthday, my 25th, I might get to later. Maybe.

Today, warmed by both the heat, which I thought was over with, and the glow of having moved in, the Roommate and I, broke, went for a walk. We got coffee, and more coffee, and went from Union to Inman to Porter to Davis and back home again.

We didn't take the bus back home.

I had seen a thousand yard sale signs, and had begged to go to each one.

At the end of our walk, the Roommate finally obliged me, and, with a minimum of difficulty, we found the place.

There was nothing for sale but original art, frames from an animated film.

We bought the best five. Two dollars each.

A random girl I kinda know recognized me at the yard sale. We flirted. I said all the wrong things, and, art in hand, the Roommate called me on it the whole walk home.

In other words, the walk was great. Still enraptured by the new place. Just living here would be enough to keep me happy for miles and miles. I'd beat the warranty.

Still, though, life rose to the occasion and gave me a little something extra, which is now thumbtacked to my hallway walls.

Will things stay this great? Dunno. I'm too busy importing CDs into ITunes to be worried about nonsense like that.

Oh yeah.