11-18 August, 2002

Letters Home

Hello Buttercup,

I'm doing well, work is fine, if a little boring. I met another Californian turned Bostonian last weekend. He sounded like a bit of an airhead when I first met him, all into yoga and meditation and stuff, but then I asked what he's doing in Boston and it turns out he's doing PhD work at Harvard. Because he already got his master's at MIT. After living in Amsterdam for two years. Which was after getting his undergrad degree at Stanford. Where he knew Tiger Woods, Fred Savage, and Danny Pintauro (the "Who's the Boss" kid). He met Chelsea once or twice, but didn't really know her.

Mostly this guy was very kind and friendly and incredibly bright. He had just arrived from India where he had a grant to do a documentary (a continuation of the master's work he did, involving immigrant communities and communication through various forms of media), and he was also paid to come to Australia to work at the national museum in Canberra and consult on a multimedia exhibit there about Aboriginals.

He was in Sydney just for a few days to visit a girl (my roommate's friend) who he met two years ago at a hostel in Italy. Not to be outdone, I had to tell him my Luke story. So yes, he's made the most of his life and I felt like a big waste of time. I mean, what am I really accomplishing here? I got his email address so hopefully we'll get together when I'm back in Boston. He lives in a warehouse in Chinatown that I'd kind of like to get a peek at. I've never known anyone living in a warehouse before.

I went to the zoo on Saturday. My friend Jorge took a bunch of students from the university where he works, so I got to tag along. You have to take the ferry there from Circular Quay, but you get an amazing view of the city from the boat. Once you're at the zoo it gets even better, as the zoo is built on the side of a hill. The giraffes and birds probably have multi-million dollar habitats, just based on their view of the skyline and Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

The zoo itself is better than most. There's a lot of green and trees, and it looks well-maintined, so you don't get that depressed feeling that some zoos give you when the animals are in concrete cells. Besides the elephants and giraffes (and zebras, which Aussies pronounce ZEB-rahs, not ZEE-bras) and usual zoo animals, they had platypuses and kangaroos and deadly spiders and other Australian animals. The prickly little echnids were my favorite. They're very waddley. I appreciate a good waddle.

There was also a section of farm animals, which were probably very foreign to a lot of the visitors. I actually heard one mother telling her little girl not to touch the goats because they had germs, and if she touched the goat, and then touched her face, then the germs might get in her mouth and she would eat them. Talk about giving your kid nightmares.

Hmmm, what else... The new drama here is that my friend from college is in the middle of breaking up with her boyfriend. They've been living together for about two years, so it's getting kind of messy with them splitting up their stuff, but still having to live together until one of them finds somewhere else to go. They just moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago, so there's the lease to deal with, and it's all very complicated. It almost makes me happy to be single. Almost.

There's another big dinner with the roommates tonight. I think it's becoming a Sunday tradition. They've got a bolognese on the stove that smells delish, and an angel food cake in the oven that doesn't quite smell like angel food cake. It's bound to be gorgeous though, like everything else that Melissa and Ben put together.

Talk to you soon babe,
Lisa