compassion

today, the convicted lockerbie bomber was released from prison on compassionate grounds. i am pretty disassociated from this, being only 3 when the plane bound for new york was blown up by a bomb placed in a suitcase, killing 270. while the decision has sparked outrage from many, including president obama, it has sparked a very different emotion in me: intrigue.

i am intrigued by a society that considers having compassion for convicted murders. i have always erred on the side of anti-death penalty, without really knowing why. something about killing another person bothers me, but there are so many practical arguments for the death penalty. it is cheaper than keeping someone in prison, and there is always the fear that this person could hurt someone else in prison.

the thing that hit me most about the scottish compassion clause is how much sense it makes. in a civilized society, showing compassion for people who have done the unthinkable is the ultimate forgiveness. the death penalty doesn't make any sense, because it is saying it is wrong for you to kill, but okay for us. showing compassion to the worst criminals is the only way to prove to ourselves what society should be.

america's pastime

growing up in portland, me. meant easy access to baseball games. the AA sea dogs sold out a couple times every season, but i could basically go to live, professional baseball game whenever i wanted--and for cheap. now in boston, i miss that. i live two blocks away from fenway, but on a nice night when i have nothing to do, i sit and watch the game on tv instead of in person. i have attended numerous red sox games, but never had an experience like those relaxing summer evenings in portand until i decided to investigate the mystical red sox day of game tickets.

this did require some planning. a friend and i picked a game we wanted to see a week in advance. some simple legwork on redsox.com yielded the rules. tickets go on sale 2 hours before game time at gate e, fans can line up 5 hours before game time, and your whole party has to be there at the time of purchase because you are immediately escorted into the park.

i went with low expectations. even on a tuesday night against the detroit tigers, this was the red sox after all. we planned to meet a little after 5 in kenmore after we both got out of work and walked up to find the already-formed line past the sausage cart and souvenir vendors on landsdowne street. it moved at a pretty quick pace, and after about 20 minutes we arrived at the box office window. not knowing what kind of tickets to expect, i was shocked to learn that there were three different types available. while we went with the cheapest option ($30 in the right field grandstand), i might come prepared to pay a little more ($90 for infied boxes) in the future.

a friendly ticket taker also acted as usher to explain where our seats were ("a five minute walk that way"), and we took a detour along the way to get some sausages and sodas while taking in the sites along yawkey way. by the time we got to our seats, it was 20 minutes to 7, and almost game time. in the end, the red sox won 7-5, with a bases clearing brawl, three ejections, a one hour rain delay, and two very satisfied ticket buyers along the way.

in our city, baseball games have become an event. you buy tickets months in advance, wait the whole season, and constantly fret about making the most of the one chance you will have at fenway this year. day of game tickets, however, bring boston baseball back to what it should be. last night's game was not an event, but rather a pastime.

goals

from childhood, we are forced into having goals. my answer to the "what do you want to do when you grow up question?" has always been something to do with writing, though it has varied over the years. my answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" has remained the same: i want to be happy.

now that i am in the phase of my life where i have to realize my goals, i am having trouble figuring out what it means to be happy. while reading the leon uris book trinity, i stumbled across the following quote from a man discussing the idea of heaven equaling eternal happiness. it sounds good in theory, he supposes, but it could get pretty dull after a while. He continues:

"It seems that we have to have moments of turmoil to contrast to moments of peace in order to truly understand and appreciate that peace....What we have confused is the belief that heaven and paradise are the same. So long as we are capable of moments of paradise here, we ought to cherish them."

life's greatest moments wouldn't be as sweet if there weren't a little despair to juxtapose it against. a happy life does not mean being happy at every single moment. it means that the happy moments - the moments of paradise - more than make up for the moments of despair.

so why is it so hard to come to that conclusion with a job, as well as with life?

when did michael jackson die?

i understand that michael jackson was a cultural icon, and i understand that he death is a tragic end to a life that touched millions. what i don't understand, though, is people my age who are truly upset about his passing.

i like the ABC, i like off the wall and thriller, but the person who recorded those hits was a superstar unknown to my generation. I would say the last of the good Michael Jackson was Bad, in 1987. I was two years old in 1987. Michael Jackson did not shape my cultural landscape at the age of two.

Maybe it was because my parents were more into the Beatles and the Grateful Dead than MJ, but I did not really get him until high school when I head the Off the Wall album. It was then that I first got his songs stuck in my head, and couldn't keep my head from bobbing when I heard the songs. By that time, the man who made those songs and the man living as Michael Jackson were two very different people.

I get that Jackson made a huge impact on recorded music, music videos, and performance. He was no longer influencing the music world to the same extent, though. While his death was tragic, especially as the circumstances surrounding it become more well know, it did not affect me that much. His legacy was all that impacted me before, and nothing about that has changed with his death.

the up side of moving

i am getting ready to move into my 6th apartment since I moved to Boston 6 years ago. there is nothing fun about psychically carrying everything i own down the stairs, into a truck, and up the stairs again. there is nothing fun about spending hours or days getting the logistics of finding a new place and getting to that place figured out. 

what makes it slightly more tolerable, though, are the zen-like realizations that come along with moving. a home is one of the most important things to me. i want a place that i come into and feel relaxed after coming home from wherever i have been. i spend time and energy arranging and rearranging furniture, buying art for the walls, and doing everything possible to make an apartment a home. then, about once a year, i pack it all up and start over. 

it is nice not to be tied to one room, apartment, or neighborhood. it is also nice not to be tied to too many objects, because there is never time to collect too much before i need to move again. then, i have the privilege of seeing everything i own in boxes in the back of a truck. i can see everything i own and realize that it is all just stuff. most of it is stuff that makes me happy, but in the end it is just stuff. 

so while moving is a giant pain in the back, literally, it is also an incredibly cleansing experience. 

which comes first

i have always loved sports. 

let me start that again. 

i have always loved watching sports. my first love was baseball and i gradually moved on to football. these were the two sports that my mom was interested it, so they were easy fits. when i came to college, i finally developed a love of hockey that any good maine girl should have (thanks to live, good college hockey), but still had a hard time watching it on tv. i still believe that, more than any other sport, hockey is best watched in person.  recently, i have started to casually follow the celtics and the bruins as well.

why do i get so into these sports, though? all of the teams i root for have won national championships in the past few years except for the bruins, and they are better this year than i can ever remember. do i just follow them because they are winning? it sure makes it more fun to watch.

but i think there is also a subtler theme. it seems that the more time i have on my hands, the more sports i watch. i guess this makes sense. i have plenty of time now to pick up some hobbies, so why wouldn't i just get more into something that i have been interested in for my entire life? but would i really be watching all of these sports if the teams weren't doing as well as they are?

that, my friends, is one of life's little mysteries. i think for now, i will just enjoy the fact that my friday and sunday nights were incredibly busy because the sox, bruins, and celtics were all playing on the same night.

tis the season

boston is a college town, plain and simple, and i love that about it. there is this vibrancy, idealism, and liberalism that makes the city feel fresh and young. some of the smartest people in the country, and world, work 10 minutes away from my apartment. 

sometimes, all that youngness really makes me feel old, though. may in a college town means graduation. it is a yearly reminder of how far away from that youthful vibrancy i am. now, don't get me wrong. i am 23 years old. that is not old. what is old, though, is my state of mind. i have had a 9-5 (or 6..or 7..) job for the past 2 years. while my idealism is not gone, it is reconciled with the fact that certain things just don't happen in the real world.

graduation is exciting because the opportunities are limitless. you can do anything you want, and be anyone you want to be. the real world, on the other hand, is pretty limiting. you have bills to pay, which means you need a job. from asking around, it is rare that a job actually fulfills the ideals of youth.

there are parts of being in the real world that i love. there is no homework (other than the work you bring home). there is a routine to life. there is more weekend time to hang out with friends rather than study. there is more disposable income. there is vacation time. it would just be a lot easier to appreciate all the good things if those youthful ideals weren't 10 minutes down the road.