Views Of Boylston Street After The Boston Marathon Bombing

These are taken from Newbury Street. It was eerie to see one of the busiest streets in Boston deserted. There were several posters of  of support along Newbury.

If the shirt fits - A small tale from Attleboro

He was standing in the sun of a 94 degree day and he looked dumb as hell. I pulled in to the gas station in to the Cumberland Farms on the corner of Country Street and Wall Street in Attleboro Center and saw this shitty Kia at a pump surrounded by cop cars . There were two cruisers: one blocking the front and one blocking the rear, two unmarked cop cars, and what looked like an off-duty sergeant or lieutenant. One cop stood next to the kid who's Kia it must have been, while two others searched his car. He had a friend/passenger who wasn’t immediately visible but was in the shadow of the canopy of the pumps near the rear of the car. An officer accompanied him as well.

The police were pulling piece after piece of paraphernalia out of this kid’s car. Bong, piece, bong, gravity bong, bong, scale, piece, grinder (accurate to me from my vantage point).  They even found a baggie that went directly in to the police officer’s back pocket (as a side note, I can not comment on what was in the baggie, but regardless that seems like a very poor way to collect evidence. I can’t imagine back pockets are CSI ( In Massachusetts it is actually the Crime Scene Services Section) approved). The cop searching the trunk found a suitcase and a blanket. 

The kid just watched all this with his hands behind his back. He wasn’t cuffed but looked like he was kind of ready to get cuffed. He at one point asked the officer if he could put the money he was holding in to his pocket leading me to believe the cops got there mid him trying to buy gas. He had messy blonde hair, white plugs in his ears, and a lip ring that glistened in the sun. His baseball hat was backwards. The look on his face was somewhere between bemused and trying to look tough, possibly baked out of his skull to high heaven, but that's merely conjecture. A tie-dye tank top with a cat on it hung from his shoulders. It read in big bold white letters “ I’m so fucking high right MEOW”

His friend was similarly dressed, but his tank top was striped. I’m not sure if he realized it or not, but if I was him I would’ve wished I had chosen a different shirt that day. 

[ This Occurred Friday May 31^st around 4:25 PM. I haven’t found an updated police blotter, but will keep looking and post it] 

Photos by Micaela M. 

The Field Museum- Chicago, IL

http://fieldmuseum.org

Chicago, IL In April.

When is the last time you will see someone?

When is the last time you will see someone?

Everyday you pass by people you won’t see again for the entirety of your life. They are like extras; they are just there coming and going.  But what about the people you know ? The people you have met, interacted with, loved, hated, talked to, learned something about? What about those people?

It’s hard to imagine because you never know when it’s going to happen. There is no sense that you have that says, ‘this is the last time I will ever see this person again’. When graduating high school or college, or quitting a job, or moving you may have the sense that you won’t see a majority of these people ever again. You will never know with any sort of finality. They may go on to live long and happy lives parallel to yours. They may live in that red house 4 blocks down and you just never happen to pass them by. But, You may bump in to them in the grocery store, a party, the bar.  Tragically, there might not ever be a chance for you to see them ever again.

My brother graduated from Fairfield University last week and a majority of the students he graduated with, many he didn’t even know, he will probably never see again. Unfortunately, there is one student he will with certainty never see again. This classmate, Deandre Lawton, crashed his car in the early hours the day before his graduation. The baccalaureate mass was also a memorial. What were the last thoughts his friends, his classmates had about him? What if you didn’t like him? What if you loved him?

No one knew when he left a party on that fateful Friday night that this would be the last time they will ever see Deandre. Someone I spoke with said the last conversation they ever had with Deandre was him bumming a cigarette, something so incredibly ordinary. A conversation that you would never recognize as the last conversation you will ever have with this person.

How will you find out that you never will see someone again?

This year I have had two friends pass away, both by committing suicide. And I found out both had died via Facebook. It is possibly one of the most bizarre ways to learn about something so sad. Before this year, the only way I had found out about any deaths of people I had known were my Mom, or a call from a friend.  While this is an awkward and strange phone call to have to make, it is undeniably human. I have been on both sides of that phone; I’m not sure which is worse. To find out about death from a website used for updating people on your life feels unnatural, but perhaps it is becoming macabrely fitting. We use the site to tell people what we are doing and it seems as though it has started to tell people when we cease as well.

When will be the last time someone sees us?

Similarly to not knowing when you are seeing someone for the final time is the opposite. What will the last impression you will leave on someone. Is being a jerk to the person in traffic, to your waitress, to your brother, what you want to have as your last act on this earth? You could be watching a marathon when a bomb goes off, riding your bike to school and get clipped by a bus, you may not have the will to continue on. Life is horribly fleeting.

Nice Guys and Slutever at Zuzu 5/20/2013

Snow in Massachusetts

Chicago, IL

ARE YOU THERE COURTNEY? IT'S ME, MARGARET - An art Show by Faye Orlove

ARE YOU THERE COURTNEY? IT'S ME, MARGARET was an art show/ altar to her heroes put on at Zuzu in Cambridge, MA by the lovely Faye Orlove. Check out the rest of her work at her website http://resilientbastard.com  .