WHEW, the stress.. All the moving... All the boxes with no place for them to go. Finally after having all our stuff in storage somewhere in Boston since April we rejoin with our belongings. The 5 movers brought it up box by box by box. Funny how less important things become when they all can't fit into a 515 sq foot condo, which by the way is pretty much an apartment and that is even what the locals call it even if you bought it. The US post office even lists it as an apartment. We closed on the place on the 30th of July and immediately began work on painting and prepping it. It took us about two days total to paint the entire place which included the kitchen, the one small bedroom and bathroom. I decided the trim was livable and just scrubbed it down. The Kitchen really needed some serious cleaning before we tackled any fixing in there.
So Jay packed up our temporary 850 sf apartment downtown in an afternoon, since all we had there was some clothes and toiletries and rented the ever so popular Zipcar to transport it over to Park Drive. I think I have driven five different cars in the last two weeks with all the errands associated with moving. We had to rent a U-Haul so that the furniture and all other boxes that we DID want to keep could be transferred into it on moving day. The 5 guys started at 11am and they systematically read off the tag numbers and we began the process of checking off all the stuff. Some of the items went into the U-Haul and some upstairs. About 2pm we finished up and immediately took the U-Haul to our 5 X 15 storage unit about 2 miles away. We exhaustedly unloaded the 500lb antique barber chair, the BIG old salon mirror, our entire bedroom suite and 20 or so boxes and locked the door.
I believe that same evening we began to dig ourselves out of boxes. I just unpacked and unpacked. We didn’t officially sleep in the apartment till just this past Monday, Aug 6th, and for now we are sleeping on a mattress on the floor until our custom built Murphy bed will be completed sometime in September. They empty the Dumpster behind our building every Tuesday and Thursday, so we moved in on a Friday and by Sunday, had filled the dumpster with boxes, trash, packing paper, crap we didn’t want, sheets, junk, and thing we didn’t have time nor want to pay to rent a car to donate. However Michael from Pure did offer to help take a few loads to Boomerangs thrift store in Jamaica Plain. Boomerangs take its proceeds and gives it to the AIDS Action Committee. So we took an entire hall way full of more crap I wished I had the insight in St. Louis to get rid of.
With the storage unit being full and the apartment being all stung out and disorganized here we are finally in a permanent place. I tell you I miss the space downtown, but I don’t miss the tourists and the late night drunk crowds piling out of the numerous clubs. Fenway is a nice place; we went to the Fenway Young Professionals meeting yesterday and met a few locals. Fenway of course as I have said in past blogs is in the city and borders other neighborhoods such as the South End where I work (20 min walk to work for me) Back Bay, Brookline, Mission Hill, and Roxbury. The Metropolitan Fine Arts Museum is in our neighborhood so is the ball park of course and good number of popular late night clubs and great restaurants, Longwood medical, Beth Israel Hospital, Northeastern University, and many more I yet to know.
So with all that, I am a bit stressed..LOL, but things will improve, just a bit overwhelmed with the move again and having to sort through all of our stuff again and decide the fate of keep sakes and collectables; I know in the long run it will feel great to purge all the belongings. It is also the daily grind here, It is such a process to get to work and do other mundane things. The people are certainly more abrupt and often times rude. It is tough here. I feel a visit to St. Louis coming on. Missing home.

Feeling better this week after settling into our condo, not that it isn’t small, just feeling a bit more comfortable, but I think it is still far off from complete acceptance of the space. We have a guest coming in late October and he had to make hotel reservations because of how tiny our place is. We would love to be able to host guests, but it is definitely going to be a shock for friends and family to see how small it truly is.
It is booked; I am flying back to St. Louis mid September for 5 days. I need a break from New England. It will be exciting and refreshing to come home for a visit and catch up with clients and friends. I plan on doing hair almost everyday I am there.
This week the weather is cooling off, so it is really beautiful here right now. I hope we get a chance to get to the beach before the summer ends. Jason is bringing Pru (our Great Dane) along with my car next week, so things are really going to feel like home. I spent 3 hours at the RMV (Registry Of Motor Vehicles) yesterday just getting a drivers license, so within 7-10 business days I should be receiving my Massachusetts drivers license. Jay went today and got the car registered and got his license. Then we have one day to get it inspected, so we can park it in our neighborhood. I was explaining to a friend the other day how incredibly ruthless the parking is here, not just finding a spot, but getting tickets and being towed. I am not exaggerating, it is the worst. We live two blocks from the ball park and on game day the tow trucks line up just waiting to cart off cars. On move in day I rented a Zipcar (hourly car rental) and was unloading boxes outside our new condo after about two minutes a tow truck was waiting for me to leave the car double parked, just so he could tow me. There are more stories, but I am trying to keep these blogs shorter.

Take care and I can’t wait to get to St. Louis.

I MET THE PUPPINI SISTERS
last night. Jay, Jenny and I all went to see them at a small local Jazz club called Scullers. Marcella remembered me from chatting on Myspace with her. For their second show starting at 10pm, they were certainly full of energy. They have quite the little routine.. very off the cuff and seemingly spontaneous. They have a smart way of showing off their talents and comedic timing. Very enjoyable, if they keep it up, I predict more fame for them in the States. They played a good mixture from both albums. The standards you would expect from this 40's Andrew's sisters influenced group, Lovely Daddy, Bugle Boy, Iand In The Mood. Some wonderful surpising reworks included Walk Like An Egyptian, Heart Of Glass, Beyonces - Crazy In Love and an encoure of the beautifuly styled I Will Survive. Thank you to them for bringing a such a unique talent to the East Coast.

We took the fast ferry to P-town on Sunday with Matt, his boyfriend Scott and our friend Jason visiting from St. Louis. (Jason had driven Pru, our dog out in my car this past Thurs.) We had a wonderful day trip down there. The 90 minute boat ride was nice in the morning air on the ocean. On arrival we had breakfast at a small quaint spot upstairs above one of the thousand stores that line the main street called Commercial. We did walk a bit up and down the street browsing the fine merchandise and strolling in and out of artisan shops and galleries. We then stocked up on water and some snacks and took the shuttle bus to the beach. Even with the ride we still had to walk about ½ a mile to the good part of the beach. We found a spot along side the hundreds of other gay men and some women lining the sands, some naked many not. The beaches here are rockier than I have ever seen and the water temperature is defiantly something to get use to. I did sprinkle a bit, but after a few hours we were off to the showers and back on the Shuttle bus to participate in the Sunday ritual of Tea Dance at the “Boat Slip” as they call this heavily attended dance club on the bay in the heart of P-town. The tea ends on the dot at 7pm and just in time for the mad dash to the ferry. Everyone must have been tired, drunk, or simply just worn out because, as a stream of people were leaving the bar down commercial street, a very well dressed and quite striking tall gorgeous drag queen on a pink beach cruiser bicycle riding up the street against the flow of the crowd said. “oooh, everyone looks so sssserious, what happen, did someone die at Tea?” I am not sure if everyone else thought it was as funny as our crowd quite did, but it was spot on funny. I know I was tired and sun drawn. So here is a photo of us on our way back to the boat. A friendly passerby took this photo of us, see the tower behind us while the sun is setting.. AWW, I love Provincetown.