Thoughts on run for first time in a year

1. Nothing like waking up in Vermont to see one's op-ed essay about Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses has been published in The Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/20/in_2_visions_a_blueprint_to_a_livable_city/
2. Need to get life insurance.
3. Gorgeous hawk in the swaying trees overhead, peering down at me, hopping from branch to branch like a parakeet. Usually only see them soaring.
4. This isn't so bad.
5. I think I might need an oxygen tent.
6. Do sweat flies have any useful purpose in the ecosystem?
7. What do they do when I'm not here?
8. Around here, it's like the real estate equivalent of a red light district.
9. Does this vacation have to end?
10. Downhill ... margarita ... nachos.

Back to Boch

Faithful readers may recall my bittersweet experience at Boch Toyota for the premium-price purchase of a hybrid Highlander. Today I drove my 1998 BMW 238i 4-door sedan down to the dealership to get what I could for it -- I couldn't qualify for "cash for clunkers" because the car is listed at 20 miles per gallon at 130,000 miles, and the threshold is 18 miles per gallon. Pulling off Route 1 with steam billowing from the hood wasn't exactly a position of strength. I said at my book party Thursday at Tory Row in Harvard Square in Cambridge that it was the ghost of Jane Jacobs, scolding me for using the car so much; accordingly I took the T to get my seersucker suit at Brooker Brothers, and lugged a jerry can of coolant in a tote bag. Anyhow, Boch granted me a pittance for the beemer, and I must say I was a tiny bit emotional leaving the old rig, 10 years later. The car served me well, and I loved the peppy way I could drive it, the singular and slightly smug feeling, pulling up to a valet. It's a window into American culture -- car as identity, the vehicle you love to care for and pull through the car wash. As of today I have moved from car that symbolizes other things, to car as transportation. From the vehicle I dabbed with Armour-All wipes, to the car that keeps my eye on the Tie-fighter like readout, displaying how I'm getting 50 miles to the gallon, how I'm on battery power, emitting no greenhouse gas emissions. I'm finally walking the walk. It's a new era, and one I think we're all going to have to enter.