Heat

Two items of interest: me bitching about the new apartment, and also a road trip with Kevin from my office.

The new apartments is mostly better than the other apartment, but at the other apartment I was at least able to sleep.

This apartment feels hotter, and because Saori and I are sharing a room the approximate size of the mattress we're sleeping on, it's a slow, simmering, smothering of heat, like I'm being slowly suffocated.

It actually makes me perfer the mosquito attacks to the security of the sheets.

Honestly, I've not slept well at all since I ever came to Boston. It's partly because I just dont sleep well away from home, but also partly because of the extreme heat, humidity, the discomfort of our beds and pillows, noise, and most recently, mosquitos. I cannot honestly say I've had a good night's sleep in about two months.

The other thing is that with communal living, things just go missing. Someone drank the lemonade I specially bought for Saori, and then today, inexplicably, my towel is missing. The issue is compounded by the fact that my roommates are, like me, only subletters and temporary ones at that. Furthermore, everyone has been bringing friends and family back to the apartment.

Tonight for example, we brought Chuck (China) back to the apartment and we soon saw Michaela (Ireland) and Cahil (Ireland), the couple who live here. Then Noel (UK) came back with two of his friends (UK, UK) and the entire group of us were in the kitchen talking and drinking while the Brits attempted to iron a shirt for a wedding reception they were planning on crashing later tonight.

I'm just beat. The heat takes it out of me.

Today, we went for a drive to Salem and Marblehead with one of my coworkers, Kevin. Kevin is the coach for the company softball team, and looks very much the part. He kindly offered to take us around and we took him up on the offer. We drove out to Salem first, and hit the Peabody Essex museum, which had some really interesting exhibits of Asian artwork collected in the early 20th century and earlier, all from the traders and whalers coming into and out of Boston.

We then drove up to Marblehead and drove around the town, which is really amazingly cute, picturesque, the kind of nearly cliche vision of small old town in New England. Wood slat houses, small restaurants and stores, the harbor filled with boats, the small bars and restaurants, the harborside seafood cafe with the lobster traps outside. We drove out to one of the promontory points with the lighthouse and an amazing view of the Atlantic and the harbor and the rocky islands dotting the craggy coastline. We agreed we could stay there for hours, but we needed to get back, so we drove back to Boston, passing by the multimillion dollar seaside mansions that we'll be living in once we make it in architecture (right).