Sunshine

I woke up to sunshine teasing an epic headache, broken hints and glimpses of things I’m not sure if I regret. There are bruises behind dried blood on arms and shins and then this giant stain on my jeans I couldn’t even begin to explain. Images: Back Bay, hard pre-gaming, a prompt ejection from Boston’s #1 single’s bar for being an absolute fucking ninja, presented to bouncers in turn for future reference, some apartment, a six mile stumble home in the dawn, Chinese food and cigarettes from somewhere.

I wrote four-thousand lines of code in past two weeks. I’m automating a technique, and soon I’ll be ripping through test problems. The plan is to publish this work by the end of the summer, submit an abstract to a conference in Krakow, Poland for next June, keep the NSF at bay about their money for a time. I’m driving at this hard right now because I can finally see the payoffs I’ve been eyeing for the better part of a decade and it’s all looking very real. Most of my peers are aimless, neglected by their advisors and nowhere near publishable work. Turns out I’ve made some strong choices and now the advisor everyone was scared of two years ago is provoking some unspoken jealousy. Truth is, I’ve got more pride in this lab than I’ll ever have in MIT. And then the boss and I spend an hour at my computer looking up pictures of the resort we’re staying at for a conference in Cancun and express similar sentiments about the poolside drink pavilion.

I spent one year with high hopes for this city and a second wallowing in disappointment. I’ve said a lot of shit about Boston, and believe that I’ve meant every word, but the next era is where I quite talking and resolve to wring a good time out of this city or raze it to the ground trying. Work long hard weeks with every intention of winding this thing so tight that I explode into Friday night like it’s my last; Saturday some meaningless maybe on the other side of cataclysm. Maybe it’s the sunshine, or maybe I’m getting sentimental about upcoming August days in Detroit, but sometimes I get the feeling I’ll miss this place terribly when I’m gone.