Social Calendar

I don't do as much as I wished, so I'm looking for new activities or pastimes to be involved with. More volunteering, being more physically active, expanding my mind -- whatever it is, I need to be doing more of it. I listen to the things that my friends are doing or have done and I'm a little jealous -- I wish I was a little more adventurous or took a little more initiative with my own activities, if you will. I jokingly call Beth my social director but it's true that I let her make plans and I join in, whereas in previous times in my life I was more of an instigator, up for whatever.

The point now was not to be self-deprecating or say I used to wonderful but just to think about what I want to do be doing now. It's a little ridiculous how much I love planning my trip to Boston to visit my sister. It's also a little ridiculous how much of a dork I am. There is the largest sculpture garden in new england -- I wanted to go! Of course, there are no outdoor tours available this time of year but you CAN tour the workshops and inside galleries. I want to visit the Harvard Library, the Harvard Bookstore, The Boston Public Library, The JFK Library, The Mugar Memorial Library (Boston University), Brattle Bookshop (one of the oldest bookstores in America), The Longfellow House (home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), The House of Seven Gables (which inspired the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne), Orchard House (where Louisa may Alcott lived) -- did I mentioned I love books and writing? And stories and telling them and listening to them....

Libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest but who has the right information. Because even as we're the most religious of people, America's innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts."
-President Barack Obama, speech to the American Library Association, June 2005

Plus, there's the Boston Symphony and the Boston Ballet and all sorts of neat concerts and events to go to. I was hoping that Sarah Tollerson might be playing a show while I was in town but she is sadly playing two nights before I get there.

There are a lot of things that are only available in the warmer months: The Boston Movie Mile Walking Tour, Duck Tours, baseball games at Fenway Park, and, well, generally anything that involves being outside. Perhaps the most disappointing seasonal venue that is not open in the dreary winter months is the New England Pirate Museum in Salem. COME ON! I could have gone to a Pirate Museum!!!! That's totally worth a return trip between May and November.

Of course I want to go shopping and I want to just TALK with my sister face to face. Seeing her is obviously the point of the trip. Losing a toe isn't so much a part of the plan, but it is the dead of winter in New England.

So the list of things I want to do are dorky and not so much exciting -- I'm pretty sure my sister can take care of that. She can be my interim social director. There are a few clubs that she likes and some sort of adventure place called The Tomb where you get locked in and you have to work together with the other people to get out. Think Estate of Panic from the Scifi Channel without the parts that are supposed to actually terrify you and the people work together to get out instead of competing against each other.

I guess I'm slowly taking control of my own social calendar with Eddie's Attic on Friday night and this trip to Boston and then the next weekend Brandi Carlile with the Louisville Symphony. But I can do better. This will have to continue. Perhaps it's time to learn rock climbing or backpacking or....