"Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem"

(By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.)

-Official motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Hi Everybody!

Well as much as I'm in love with the journal entry that this will be replacing once I'm through writing it (and I am), I realized I could only keep it up for so long without updating.

Well, now my goals have been realized and my whiny, bitchy journal entries up here on DA will be a thing of the past. (God willing.)
Yes, I can now attest to the fact that living in southwest Florida is a soul-draining experience that will suck every savory, juicy drop of humanity from out your body like a sparkly vampire and leave you a bitter, cynical, evil husk of a human being.
Having lived in this natural paradise that served as home to the noble and seemingly indomitable Seminole Indians, invaded by the white man and slowly and enthusiastically metamorphed into an existentialist hellscape of sun-baked strip malls and appalling labor laws that allow the Cuban and Haitian populations to remain poor and exploited while the affluent caucasuses engage in the favored leisure activities of wealthy Floridians: melanoma from sunbathing and myocardial infarction's from consuming all the beef the state produces.
Spend an hour driving through the bleak and soulless sprawl of identical strip malls and commercial ventures and you'll have little trouble imagining how the founding of Florida's major commercial infrastructure was rooted in the smuggling and trafficking of illegal drugs, and how they still serve as a mental escape from the Kafka-esque wasteland of the naked pursuit of capital and the slow death by heat stroke of the avant garde, creative spirit.

... Can I be blunt about this?

Now to be clear, I'm not bad-mouthing the entire state of Florida... Well, not really. Just specifically the southwest region of America's wang.
I know there are plenty of perfectly nice places in Florida to live, as my other Deviant friends such as , and have attested to. (okay, not so much the latter... But you get the point! )

And to be fair, much of my ennui in the state was caused by the fact that I had a terrible job for most of the 3 1/2 years I've lived down there.
Now it would be unfair to tell you which company I worked for which shifted me around into departments I clearly had no business being in in the first place and placed me under the thumb of authoritarian managers with a penchant for sadism and abusing their tenuous authority to inflict psychological torture upon me and their underlings, as indeed it might be unfair to tell you that it was a very large chain of hotel's who's eponym does NOT spring from the namesake of a nymphomaniacal heiress.

In all honesty, if I had to judge southwest Florida on the criteria of natural beauty and abundant, fascinating wildlife, I wound rank it an exceptionally wonderful place to life. But the reasonably good job that slowly devolved into an unbearable agony that nearly gave me stomach ulcers and a culture of intellectual stupor and blithe banality, ultimately surrendering to commercial homogeneity, I knew I was going to die either from without or within if I stayed much longer.
The few friends I made down there helped make my life bearable, and the truly poetically sad part is how bad I realize I miss their company now that I've tried deliberately to improve my station in life.

Well, in any case, as those of you who have read my last journal know, I made the trek from south Florida to my motherland of New England via the Interstate Highway system with my dad toward the end of March. After which I spend about a week leeching off my parents in a state of waddle-some sloth in the soothing embrace of the Connecticut countryside to help bring my mind out of it's long stasis and while the lease for my new home kicked in.

My dear sister was kind enough to help me move all my crap into the new digs, and by the first days of the month of April I was comfortably settled into my new, happy home.
My new housemate Cait, doting wife to my High School friend and other housemate, Glenn, found us a real honey of a sweet deal on a new home. Built in a bastardized Cape Cod style, our new house is over a century old and was built with actual aesthetics, taste, homey comfort and beauty in spite of it's small size. All of which are things Florida architecture conspicuously lacks... Except in the homes of the obscenely wealthy, of course.  

So now I'm here. I did it. It's done.
I've come home to the land I swore I'd return to and I'm happily living in the region I was quite literally born to live in.

I'll spare you all the gritty details of trying to license and register my vehicle in the state. Suffice it to say that... No, I'll just say it outright. The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles kinda sucks.

There was also the small matter of obtaining employment, so I could... you know, have the monetary means for food and shelter and such.
Anyone who knows me knows that I like to keep my personal and professional life separate. So I'll just say the job I acquired after three weeks of searching shows promise for a good place of employ.
And just as an aside, the seminar for the job I knew I didn't want wherein I dressed up in a suit that made me look like Colonel Sanders actually went surprisingly well, and I was called back to do a follow-up interview. But between accepting a job where I knew I'd feel like dragging a cheese grater across my face every day and the prospect of trying to find something better... I think I'll take my chances.

So now I have a home, I'm gainfully employed, and I'm slowly settling down and trying to make a new life for itself in America's first and oldest State... Except for Virginia... Oh yeah, and the Dutch colonies in New York... And the Spanish colonies in the southwest.

It's the little things I'm starting to appreciate. It really is.

There are odd things and scary things about living in Mass, certainly.

The traffic goes without saying.

Oh yeah, and the whole place is chock-ablock with Dunkin' Donuts... Seriously?!?! WTF, mate?!
Throw a rock in the Boston area and you'll hit a Dunkin' Donuts, I swear. Judging by any of the public garbage cans anywhere around here, the popularity of the donut franchise is based on their coffee products and the "convenience" of the inordinately long lines at their drive-through windows. (Oddly enough, actually walking into the stores almost always guarantees faster service.)
I believe in free enterprise and capitalism (in a warm, fuzzy sort of way) But I still find the ubiquity of Dunkin' Donuts around here a bit odd.
Still though, after having been deprived for three and a half years, I can't object to the ready availability of fired and glazed dough products too vehemently.

There's also the fact that there's a noticeable change of seasons. Watching the dead trees spring into a lush and startlingly vivid explosion of emerald splendor in the space of a day is a most novel and enchanting experience. I'm looking forward to the coming of the justly legendary New England autumn, I can tell you that much.

There's also the charming notion that I now live in a place with a clear, distinct, vital center both geographically and culturally.
I don't know who pushed this mandate through, but apparently it's a fevered and much-enforced state law that at least half of the state's population must have some kind of visual support of the obscure sports team known as the Boston Red Sox either on their person or on their vehicle at all times.
The heart of New England, and especially that of eastern Massachusetts is undeniably tied to Boston.
While Orlando and Miami vie for superiority (and Miami looses badly) down in Florida, the heart of New England from the time of the great, noisy John Adams to today has always been and will always be in Boston.
This great touchstone of culture and higher learning allows for vicarious culture to trickle down to it's satellites and affiliates.
In southwest  Florida the only guaranteed pastimes I could hope for were admiring the natural beauty and writing novels. But in the greater Boston area there are actually THINGS TO DO!!!

Another odd thing I noticed is the clear and present existence of the natural human life cycle where I live.
Let me explain.
Southwest Florida is referred to "Gods waiting room" for a reason. Which is why I was actually surprised to see groups of teenagers walking down the street once I moved up here.
There are teenagers on Marco Island, where I lived, certainly. But if they have any sense they latch onto the first person with a drivers license that they find and beat a hasty retreat to somewhere with any semblance of a cultural of communal center.
Here, packs of teenagers rome freely like roving bands of carnivores grouped together for mutual protection. And there is no shortage of young children, young adults, middle-aged adults and olderly people either, all in seemingly equal amounts to boot.
It was the teenagers who really struck me though, as they're fond of traveling in packs (of either gender) and using the sidewalks that border the roads I drive on as their terrestrial thoroughfares...
I find it all quite fascinating after having lived in a land where the natural progression and cycle of human life is stuck in an artificial and perverted imbalance.

Oh yeah. And there's also the fact that I now live in a region more suited (based on the sentiments of TV pundits and other mindless meat puppets) to my personal philosophies and  outlook on life. (Recent Senate elections notwithstanding.)
Plus I now live in one of only four states in this great Republic where it's actually legal to become connubially linked to someone of whichever gender you damn well please.

Dude, that's just fucking cool.

Well, in any case, I'm very happy I made this change to better my life.
I'm back in my homeland, on the road to a better job, a better life, and one step closer to my ultimate goal. (Which I shall not mention here... cuz' it's pathetic.)

In any case, my new housemates are proving to be most agreeable and charming folk to live with.
My parents have been more than generous in helping aide their firstborn son to live all the closer to them,
and even some of my friends here have pitched in and helped me settle into the new digs, most notably my old pals, and

I'd also like to take this opportunity to give a shameless plug to my good chum
JD recently released his first book "The Celtic Shef" which you can find... right here. [link]
My friend here spent the last 4 years working on this thing... and from what I've read thus far, the care and attention he put into it REALLY shows.
Filled with compelling characters, fluid, approachable, honest prose and a very entrancing story "The Celtic Shelf" deserves all the love and friends it can get.
So I suggest to you, casual reader, to buy a copy... Or better yet, a copy for every room in your house so you'll never be far from this wonderful book.
JD was kind enough to give me a copy as a housewarming gift, but I assure you it's worth every penny of it's cover price and then some.
Once again that's my good chum. 's book "The Celtic Shelf."
Available here. [link]

Well, in any case, one chapter of my life is, at long last closed forever, and a new one is upon me.
I'll proudly fly the flag high above the Statehouse of the Commonwealth that so happily adopted me. (All bee it reluctantly at the RMV.) Singing the State song with full-throated vitality.

We all know the State song of Massachusetts was the rather risqué "Massachusetts says you can keep your fucnin' tea."
But since the growth of a certain political movement, it's fallen out of favor, to a degree.

It's since been replaced with the more wholesome, "The Spirit of Massachusetts," as popularized in TV commercials and by the popular animated show "Family Guy."

[link]

So everybody... SING ALONG IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS!!!



"The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America,
The spirit of what's old and what's new,
The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America,
The spirit of the red white and blue.

The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America,
The spirit of what's old and what's new,
The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America,
The spirit of the red white and bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue!!!!!

*AMEN!!!*"