MeSoFun Blog

Possibly the most Maine photo ever taken. We have owned a home in Maine for three months and 20 days. In that time, we have had 10 groups of visitors spend time with us. We are thankful that people still like us, though we live in a faraway corner of the country. But people seem to like it. Of those 10 groups of visitors, Belle liked it so much here that she decided to move from Boston to Maine. Another, Diesel, started applying to jobs here after his May visit. And this weekend, Hashtag, started openly figuring out what it would take for her to move here. It's always nice when people like where you live. They Instagrammed everything. This is, of course, the best possible time of year to visit Maine. The weather certainly put on a show for Hashtag and #PoundSign, who were visiting from New York City (Brooklyn) and La Crosse, Wis., respectively. They were friends of The Wife's in college before I co-opted them via social media. There are many different types of vacationers, we h...

What? What are we doing? Shouldn't you be paying attention to driving? It's not often I have a car to drive around. It's also not often one is missed. Portland has almost everything I could want. There are amazing restaurants, good friends, a baseball park, grocery stores and my place of employment within easy walking distance of our home. What it does not have is places you can go for long runs in the woods. This is the failing of just about every major metro city, with the exception of Salt Lake City. When The Wife and I were preparing to leave Utah, we rented a little one-bedroom place next to the state capitol. In an easy five-minute jog, I could drop down into a canyon trail and be lost to civilization pretty quickly. That kind of access is unique. That kind of access also requires living under the laws passed under that state capitol dome, but we won't get into that because your head might explode. (OK, fine. A little aside: You can't show up in a restaurant (...

Do not talk to me immediately after I finish a run. I really don't want to talk to you. Though normally pleasant in conversation, that all changes after an hour or two of running in solitude. Many runners enjoy their workouts, look forward to them, even. I am not one of those people. I don't have any action shots, so you get this disturbing picture from after a run. After the first half mile of a run, the voices in my head are downright nasty. All I can hear is absolute garbage: This is all a waste of time. You're soooooo out of shape. You're soooooo slow. You're just going to have a huge meal later anyway. What's the point. My God, you just got passed by a woman pushing a stroller. You're stopping for a break NOW? It's only been 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 miles! And it just goes on like that, mile after mile. The thoughts are your worst gremlins, let out to play by your increased heart rate. Maybe your better angels are busy keeping your legs moving during a run a...

Yes, I always hold my cards this way. STOP CHEATING BY LOOKING! The first year of marriage was rough. The Wife was not happy. The Husband was not happy. There's a correlation there, but we won't get into it. We had 17 sets of guests come to visit us in our first 12 months of marriage. Many were family members, showing their support for us living in Utah by making the trek from Florida to visit (and ski). Friends came out to ski. Friends came to hang out. We were busy. In our first six weeks in Maine, we've had six sets of guests, putting us on pace for 52 sets of visitors over our first year back in Portland. You might expect the pace to slow down, but there's skiing in Portland and I'm actually closer to my family in Florida, so who knows what the final tally might be. Perhaps we should wager on it. The thing is, we love it. The Wife was bouncing around the kitchen Monday morning after a workout. This is not normal activity on multiple levels. Our friends, Nutmeg...

The Beernut and his TW, Messica. Despite my gregarious nature, I do not make friends particularly easily. People in their mid-30s tend to have little kids running around and little spare time. And I don't much care for people. That's kind of a joke, but really, I can count on one hand the number of friends I made in Utah who I call "middle of the night" friends. When your car breaks down in the middle of the night or your dog is missing in your neighborhood, which friend would you call? I haven't made many of those since high school. This is my hairy leg, not helping load the UPod. That's been due in part to my nomadic lifestyle. I've moved 17 times since I turned 18 years old. It is  hard to build bonds when you leave town every 12 months. Making friends revolves around a little bit of happenstance. And so it was in January of 2011, when The Wife was helping out at her PA school's interviews for the incoming class of students. She met Messica, a blond...

The bugs aren't so bad, so Daisy Duke is allowed to look out our "Juliet" balcony onto the back patio and yard. It's not a balcony at all, for the record. It is a door to nowhere. That wasn't fun. Two months ago, I set off to Seattle to visit Rossmosis. Since then, I have: A. Started a new/old job in Maine; B. Slept on friends' couches and spare beds; C. Bought a house; D. Moved; E. Attended a game at Fenway Park, watching from atop the Green Monster; F. Not slept much. It's tough to blog about all of these happenings when you don't have a computer and are basically holding on to the will to live. I get a little persnickitty when I'm getting 5.5 hours of sleep a night. But things are settling into a routine. We have our new house. It's a three-story townhouse with piles of boxes in it at the moment. We have a 12-foot ceiling in our master closet, so we're thinking about adding some shelving because, well, we don't have any storage. Prac...

It's defiantly sunny in Boston today and temperatures in the 50s demand a run. I bounce out my front door and jog to Maverick Station on the Blue Line. It's a five-minute cruise. The three state troopers' cars that were there yesterday are gone now. A single trooper looks intent as he walks the platform. The only military presence is a couple of teens wearing Military Police uniforms. They are carrying Dunkin' Donuts iced drinks. Nobody is going to attack this part of Boston. One stop down the line, I hop out at Aquarium, located next to Quincy Market. No police, no military. I slog up the cold, shaded State Street, staring at the State House where the Boston Massacre (1700s era) happened. There are black police vans and cops in tactical gear carrying automatic rifles. Inside, a woman in Marine gear is checking Facebook on her iPhone. Priorities. I hang a left on Tremont and here come the memories. There is the Freedom Trail and the hotel The Wife and I stays at a coupl...