Autumn in New England: Trains, Lighthouses, Foliage

October 18-25, 2025

Saturday, October 18th

    Someone at the gate to Portland asked if the plane was going to Oregon and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. There wasn’t a world where I’d prefer Oregon to Maine. In the spring, I was pretty close to committing to the Pacific Northwest instead.
    “We should do a trip,” Surya had proposed. “A boys trip. To Vancouver.”
    “I’m down,” Tarun said. “September?”
    “Yeah. We could also do Atlanta. I’ve always wanted to see Atlanta.”
    “What? No you haven’t. Wait— isn’t there some e-girl you’re talking to from Atlanta? Hold up, is this just an excuse to go meet girls you play League of Legends with?”
    Quietly, I changed my ticket query from Vancouver to Portland.
    The flight was quiet, with the exception of the young person behind me screaming for cheezits.
    When we began our decent I slipped up the window cover and felt my heart slip into my throat. The landscape below felt fake in the golden light the descending sun. Forests covered the earth below, mottled with yellows and oranges, wrapping tightly around odd patches of pristinely kept farmland or lakes. Two lane highways snaked amidst the foliage. The city of Portland looked like a Lego set next to the Atlantic. I scanned the coastline, obviously.

    Portland’s airport was pleasantly small, and I called an uber on the sidewalk outside. It was not unlike Tallinn’s airport in scale, perhaps a bit bigger. I wondered how many planes it saw a day. Surely not too many— I was the only person queued up for a rideshare.
    My Uber driver was an excited Somalian man with all four windows down.
    “Hello Zachary! Very pretty day, great weather!”
    “It’s gorgeous. I just got here from Texas, I’m surprised how cold it is.”
    “It is Maine, man! It is always chilly. What is Texas?”
    “I got here from Texas. Like, I just arrived.”
    “Huh? What is Texas?”
    “Oh. Hot. Texas is hot.”
“Oh, hot! Yessss, I know Texas!    ”
    We drove along at a zippy 35 miles per hour, which I’d soon learn is the upper limit in the state. But I didn’t mind the pace, as it afforded me more time to leer at each tree we passed.
    “You like the trees? Amazing colors! Here, let me take you to my favorite tree.”
    “Oh no, don’t worry about it, Ishal.”
    “Here, I take you! It’s just up here, on your left. Take many pictures!”
    We came up to an impressive tree with leaves boasting a gradient from green to gold, with some red speckled in.
    “Man, this tree has everything, yellow. Red. Uhm, blue.”
    Ah, yes. The classic New England blue tree. I nodded along.
    I checked into my accommodations. It was a small room on the second floor of a house downtown. Cozy. I put my stuff down and debated walking to the ocean. I considered tomorrow’s weather— overcast and damp. I had planned to visit Portland Head at sunrise for some good pictures, but I wasn’t sure that was the best move anymore. I quelled my hesitation and called an Uber.
    The Uber driver was another African man listening to the same country music station. This fellow wasn’t so talkative, but that was fine. I fidgeted in the back seat, worrying about getting there after sunset. It was a valid concern. The speeds in Portland are slow, and everyone treats them with a biblical respect. Four way stops have an aura of Midwest niceness about them as people furiously gesture back and forth, indicating no, you go first, I don’t mind waiting.
    And we got there eventually.

    The lighthouse is about 15 minutes south of the city in a large park. I expected nobody else to be there, which was a mistake because there were about a hundred people meandering about in the final hour of daylight. I suppose it made sense for one of the most photogenic lights in the US. I wandered around a bit by the keeper’s quarters, trying my hardest to stay out of photos, before moving over to the area with the famous vista of the lighthouse that everyone has seen. I took a few pictures. An Italian man asked me to take photos of him. He looked at the phone. “This jacket, it makes me look so fat, it makes me like like I’m the Pac-Man! Please, take a few more, I’m, taking it off!” I took a few more. “Gratzie, gratzie!”

    I asked him to take some photos of me. They were alright. I didn’t think I looked particularly good, but at least I didn’t look like Pac-Man.
    Getting fed up with the crowd, I walked north along the cliffside. The park seemed to be a popular spot for couples. I saw one pair making out in front of a lovely shot of the lighthouse. I spent too much on the plane ticket to give them any privacy, and so I squeezed past them to snap a few photos. I found another pairing a bit further down the road. They were standing and kissing, the woman with her back to the lighthouse. ‘Poor woman,’ I thought. ‘She can’t even see the lighthouse. This guy is taking advantage of her.’ Then it occurred to me she probably didn’t care.

    There were three lighthouses in total visible from the park— Portland Head sat in the park proper. From the promontory, there’s also a nice view of the derelict Ram Island Ledge lighthouse, which was auctioned off a few years ago and now rots in private hands. Quite frankly, I’m surprised the USLHS sprung for a tower and not a caisson on such a barren rock. The third lighthouse visible from the park is Spring Ledge, one of the nicer sparkplugs I’ve seen. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d get better views of those two the next day.

    I left the park and explored the adjacent neighborhoods. Sunset was pretty. When it got too dark, I took an Uber (a third African man listening to country) downtown to the Green Elephant for dinner. “Table for 1,” I said with probably too much emphasis. For some reason I feel so cool when I say that.
    “What do you have on tap?”
    The waitress’ smile suddenly met gravity.
    “Oh. We actually just refreshed our menu, so I’m not sure I… hmm… we have a *incoherent mumbling* IPA, and a *incoherent mumbling* lager, and a *incoherent mumbling* cider.”
    “The lager sounds great,” I said helpfully.
    She brought out the lager.
    “And to eat?”
    “Yeah, I’m debating between the mushroom bowl, the Singaporean noodles, or the peanut curry. Do you have a recommendation between the three?”
    The worst thing about recommendations is that I always feel guilty as hell not accepting it. Even if the recommendation doesn’t sound good, if I ask you for a recommendation, I’m basically asking you to choose for me. Cause to me, ignoring it feels like a criticism of your taste. So I asked, hoping she’d choose the mushroom bowl, cause that’s the one I wanted most. But I’d also be okay with the Singaporean noodles, cause those looked decent too.
    “Definitely the peanut curry.”
    Whelp. With a smile, I ordered the peanut curry.
    “And how spicy would you like that?”
    My go-to in Thai restaurants is always a 3– hot enough to enjoy, but not too hot that I’m dependent on a constant stream of water refills. But to be safe, I asked anyway.
    “How spicy is a 3?”
    “Hmm, it’s pretty spicy. There’s a good kick to it. Do you know what sriracha is?”
    Welcome to Maine, I guess.
    “Oh. Ok, I’ll take it as spicy as it gets.”
    I don’t like peanuts, so the ceiling was already on the lower side, but all things considered it was pretty delicious. It was filled with carrots and tempeh, and the tempeh had a depth of flavor that the Indonesian restaurant near my house doesn’t achieve. It was spicy enough to be enjoyable, but the rice balanced it out well. When it comes to Thai cuisine, a Maine 5 is a Texas 2. I was hungry, so I finished fast, and read Salinger for a bit until the check came.

    Despite being dark outside, it was pretty early, so I ducked into a bar a few doors down. It was called the Jewel Box, and seemed to have a bearded lady-circus retro vibe going on inside. Two groups endcapped the bar, so following the urinal rule, I sat down right in the middle. I ordered something with scotch in it.
    I wanted to read my book, but Read once told me only performative males read in bars, so I stared at the wall instead, sipping my drink. I was bored, so I finished it pretty fast and ordered something with chamomile infused whisky.
    “Nice sweater bro,” the guy next to me said.
    I looked at him, and he, noticing I had turned, in turn turned. I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
    “Oh— you too bro! Great sweater.” He laughed.
    I smiled and mouthed thank you. There was supposed to be sound.
    He went back to his conversation. I went back to staring at the wall. The bartender wore a mask, so she was quite beautiful. Everyone looks good in a mask. Most people aren’t beautiful, so having a mask on gives you some negative space for the possibility to be there. Schrodinger’s mask. You’re both beautiful and ugly until the mask comes off. Sure, the probability isn’t particularly balanced. But I was fine with the superposition not collapsing. Was she wearing a mask because she was sick? Suddenly I was nervous of my drink. It occurred to me that the other bartender wasn’t wearing a mask. If she had fixed my drink, I wouldn’t have thought about sickness. But if they’re both sick, the one with the mask is far more likely to fix a safer drink.
    “So, are you from Portland?”
    The blond fellow at my elbow asked, forcing my train of thoughts off the same cliffs I was photographing earlier.
    “Austin,” I said.
    “Boston?” He shouted over the chatter.
    “Austin,” I repeated. “What about you?”
    “Chicago. So why are you in Portland?”
    “I have PTO. If I don’t use it by the end of the year, it doesn’t carry over. So I need to use all 4 weeks to maximize its value.”
    He looked at me funny. “No, like, what are you doing in Portland?”
    “Oh. Lighthouses.” While I knew that not everyone came for lighthouses, I figured everyone must know about the Portland Head lighthouse. It was a windows 7 default wallpaper, for crying out loud. But his further confusion only furthered mine. How could this grown man not have done any research about the city he was in?
    He informed me that he and his partner were visiting Arcadia.
    “This is Brandon, by the way. What’s your name? I’m Roman.”
    “Zach,” I said, hoping he caught more than just the vowel sound. Immediately it struck me how pointless this exchange was. Why did he want to know my name? Why did he tell me his? This conversation didn’t need our names. He might as well have asked my favorite color.
    As with most conversations I want no part of, work came up. He asked what I did. Machine learning. He didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about that, so I asked what he did. Real estate. God, I did not want to talk about real estate. I couldn’t think of anything more boring.
    “How long have you been in real estate?”
    “About ten years. Before that, I was a tax lawyer.”
    Now I could think of something more boring. Back to real estate.
    “So dumb question— what does a real estate agent, um, do? Do you like, memorize all the listings in Chicago and then when someone tells you what they’re looking for, you take them to the places that best match?”
    “Oh, no, I use the internet. So when they tell me, I look up on websites that show properties.” He replied like it was the most obvious question in the world.
    “So… why can’t they do that themselves? What are you there for?”
    Roman didn’t like this question. He took a long drink.
    “You see, real estate is a lot of soft skills. Like negotiating.”
    “Do you have rival real estate agents you have to fight over properties with?”
    “No, it’s a very collaborative process.”
    “Oh.”
    The conversation stopped. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to restart it. I stared at the wall a bit. It had not moved, so I took another sip of my drink to egg it on a bit.
    “So do you like Austin?” Roman asked, turning to me once more. I had Brandon’s attention now too.
    “Yeah, I love it. I grew up there, which sucks, because I want to leave but everywhere else seems a little bit worse.”
    “Well, everywhere else in Texas, at least.” Brandon loved that, and that both cackled.
    I stammered something incoherent, and they both turned inwards. They did not restart the conversation this time. I finished my drink and closed my tab.
    I extended a palm in Roman and Brandon’s direction. “Alright, good night guys, nice talking to you.”
    They looked up at me, silent faced and shut mouthed, and then returned to their conversation.
    Suddenly deeply uncomfortable, I rose and adjusted my jacket, when the girl who had been sitting to my right immediately pointed to my phone on the bar.
    “You forgot your phone!”
    “I know I was just— I’m sorry— thank you—“ I ejected the first few things that came to my head, picked up my phone, and stumbled outside into the cold air.
    I was feeling pretty shitty at this point, and I didn’t exactly want to be alone with myself, so I thought I should call someone. I gave Ashley a ring. They didn’t pick up, so I tried a few others. Everyone seemed pretty busy. I wasn’t too tight yet, so I thought about stopping in for another drink at the Longfellow. Through the window I could see that the bar was full. From my vantage on the sidewalk, it looked almost like a Hopper painting.

Sunday, October 19th

    I didn't sleep too well, on account of the broken AC unit keeping the room toasty, so when I woke up I loitered in bed reading the results of yesterday’s horse races. Embroidery won the Shuka Sho, which I didn’t expect, but Jocelyn got fourth, which I did predict. I felt happy.
    Bard Coffee in the Old Port part of town supposedly has good homemade syrups, so I hoofed over. The weather report was dead wrong— it was a beautiful day. The sky was blue with some wispy clouds and jet contrails, and a gusty breeze pushed in from the harbor. The streets of colonial wooden houses were lined with trees of rich crimson and ochre, and I stopped every few minutes to take photos. I got to the coffeeshop quite late.

    I ordered a latte with Maine maple syrup and a blueberry and lemon scone. Then I had a date with Salinger by the window. It was a pretty popular coffee shop in a pretty popular part of town, so the door boasted a constant flow of people. When I didn’t feel like reading anymore I watched them through the window come and go, and eventually I became one of them.

    The Old Port is a mess of streets on a hill over the harbor, with plenty of LL Bean style clothing shops and kitschy Maine themed souvenirs. I poked my head in a few, but didn’t see anything I particularly liked.
    At 12:30, I went to the harbor to line up for the lighthouse boat tour that I had bought a ticket for some time ago. I wanted to get there early, so I could get a good spot on the boat and not have to take pictures of the lighthouses with people in the foreground.
    “I’m checking in for the 1 o’clock.” I told the guy.
    “You’re the first one. Go stand there.” He pointed to some ropes indicating a line.
    Some people quickly filled in behind me. At 1245, a tour guide came over.
    “Are you guys ready for the trolley tour?”
    Most people cheered. I did not.
    Fortunately, the boat hadn’t left yet, but my blunder meant I was dead last on the boat. I tried to go up to the observation deck.
    “Sorry, deck’s full. Stay down here.”
    I sat on one of the two benches on the stern. I couldn’t see over the rail. The second most late people sat on the other bench.
    Turns out it wasn’t all that bad— since I happened to be right in the stern I’m sure my view (when standing, at least, which I did the whole time) was better than most of the seating upstairs. The tour guide’s voice upstairs didn’t carry down, so I had to imagine histories for most of the buildings and islands we passed, but it was fun anyway. The sky was clear, the ocean was a brilliant sapphire, and the shores were girded with shallow stone cliff faces and boasted a spread of flaming trees and idyllic vacation homes abandoned for the season.
    A few times the ocean splashed in my face, causing the two women also trapped downstairs to giggle, and if there were fewer lighthouses involved I’d probably try to be friendly and ask where they were from. But I was a man on a mission. We passed Bug Light, a cute little Pierhead lighthouse at the edge of a well kept, well used park, and then Spring Ledge, a very attractive caisson. Half the glass in the lantern room was tinted red, to alter the signal for those coming into harbor from the shoal side, and its five second characteristic winked. We made it out to Portland Head, where I got a few more photos, this time from the water, and a distant passing of Ram Island Ledge, which unfortunately felt just as far by water as it did by land.

    After we saw the four lighthouses, the route shifted to run among the many islands in the bay, and I tuned out my brain’s usual chatter to enjoy the wind and the foliage. Some cormorants sunned themselves, a few seagulls circled the boat. One of the women saw an otter, apparently. Overall, it was the kind of afternoon even a boomer couldn’t find fault with.
    As with most successful boat rides, it ended on shore, and I shook my sea legs loose before climbing back into the red brick maze of Portland.
    Portland has an observatory tower, several hundred years old, and it holds claim of the last of its kind in the United States. I figured it would be worth visiting, so I made for the East End where it watched over the city from its highest hill.
    It was 2:45pm, and the tower closed at 3:30, and it was 20 minutes away, but I’m a very fast walker, but wow this street looks pretty and I should take a quick detour…. I arrived at 3:25. I planned my speech. “I’m a poor visiting boy from Texas and I love this observatory tower, I can do it in 5 minutes– I have lots of experience climbing towers!”
    The response came before my words did. ‘Sorry, we’re closed for the season. See you next year!”’ The sign on the door read. Oh well.

    “残念だね、” I heard directly behind me. That’s too bad. Startled, I spun around. There were two elderly women fanning themselves.
    “Oh, excuse us, go ahead.” One of them said, letting me pass.
    “失礼します。” I muttered as I slipped by, more subconsciously than anything.
    “日本語!” I heard faintly, but I didn’t turn around.
    Given the state of my feet, I found it appropriate that my next stop was a nearby graveyard. It was empty, except for a gravekeeper in a shed doing crosswords, and I spent some time appreciating the antiquity of the dates. They were impressive for America.

    I left the east side and Ashley called back. I told them I was in Portland and they told me there was a store that they visited once, and I’d probably like it, and I should go check it out if I have time. Mainely Frames and Gallery wasn’t really any of the things it advertised— it turned out to be a map store. Every wall was covered in maps, the floor was covered in boxes of maps, maps hung from hangers on clothing racks. What’s more, these maps weren’t your father’s road trip maps, before or after they get thrown out the window by a directionally challenged mother, these were vintage maps. Street maps from 1808, atlas cutouts from 1890, nautical charts from 1931. The variety was as impressive as the number. I flipped through the archive for the better part of an hour, and was torn between a decision between a small 1924 map of Estonia and the Baltics versus a much larger map of Imperial Japan and Russia in 1904. After excessive deliberating, I bought them both.

    Ashley had also offered up a dinner recommendation while they were on the horn, and so after returning my vintage maps to my room (and breathing a sigh of relief to find they just barely fit in my backpack) I found the appropriately named Sichuan Kitchen. The restaurant was small, and they found a home for me in the dark corner of the bar. Summer Salt’s Driving to Hawaii played softly.
    “How spicy is the mapo tofu?” I asked, trying to elicit a similar response as the night prior.
    The guy shrugged. “It’s mapo tofu. It’s spicy.”
    I shrugged back. Fair. “I’ll have the yuba with the Sichuan pickled peppers. Does it come with mushrooms?”
    “Yep.”
    “Great. That’s it then.”
    I pulled out Salinger and started to read, but a conversation down the bar fought heavily for my attention. It seemed the woman on my immediate left was on a date with the man at her own left, and she ate mapo tofu from a flat bowl while the man monologued.
    “Can you believe it, but I tried to start Zizek when I was a boy without Lacan. Can you imagine? I was so lost anytime some Lacanian postulate arose and I just sat there thinking, ‘you’re not going to prove that?’ Crazy.”
    The woman was radio silent. I listened to the man’s soliloquy, probably more tentatively than the woman, until I figured I’d be more productive in my book. Buddy Glass’ narration of Seymour’s wedding fought for my attention, but a conversation shift pulled me back.
    “Brian Eno, in this interview, he said, that some music, right, has the ability to create a nostalgia for things he’s never experienced.”
    Okay, maybe music would interest her more than postmodernism. But maybe letting her get a word in edgewise would be better.
    “That nostalgia principle, see, Derrida—“ he pronounced Derrida long and slow, and if I didn’t find him an absolute tool before that point I did now— “Derrida has this idea, which I’ve expanded on, see Marx once said that communism was a specter that was haunting Europe. But Derrida said that we’re being haunted by the past, that our cultural recycling is speeding up. I’ve realized this more and more lately—“ I realized he was just regurgitating Fisher, and again lost interest, much as my neighbor presumably had long ago.
    My meal came. It was delicious— yuba is a rare treat for me, and on this chilly autumn night it was warm and soft and flavorful. The pickled peppers were a blast of brine, the cloud ear mushrooms soft and complicated. Ginger, garlic, and scallions worked their way into the flavor array as well, and I could taste the Sichuan profile I work so hard to create at home. It was the best meal I’d had in a long time.

    “You ever go on Reddit?”
    Of course this guy would talk about Reddit in public.
    “There’s a subreddit called bookshelf detective, where women take pictures of the bookshelves of men they’re dating and learned men will comment these Freudian analyses of whether they should run or not. I commented once, the picture had an entire shelf of Pynchon. Can you imagine.”
    I signed the receipt and left. I looked at the chatterer as I passed— he looked exactly like you’d expect.
    I didn’t feel like going back to my room, so I found the last open boba shop in the city. I ordered a drink and sat down. The atmosphere was cold and artificial, with bright white lights, bright white floors, cheap plastic tables and cheap plastic chairs. A woman and presumably her daughter made my drink, and I sipped it while staring at the cover of my book. I didn’t feel like reading. I noticed the daughter carrying trash out, and I checked my watch. Closing was in an hour, and by God I hadn’t humiliated myself yet today, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
    “你们几点关门？” I asked in the worst accent possible. What time are you closing?
    “We close at 8. But tonight, we are closing early because some noun I don’t know I’m sorry I’m really bad at Chinese.” She replied solemnly.
    “Okay. I am leaving now. Thank you.” I rose and began to leave. “Also, your hair color is very nice.”
    She looked bemused, and lightly touched her dyed orange hair. To me, it looked like autumn leaves.

Monday, October 20th

    Travel day. I woke up at 6am, took a quick shower, threw my clothes into my bag and was out the door before you could recite the entirety of Hamlet. The trip to the station was an unremarkable walk under the interstate. I beat the train by about 15 minutes. I was the youngest person on the platform by about 50 years.
    I was only taking the Downeaster for 2 stations, so figured I’d spring for business class. When I arrived at the business class car, the age gap widened by another ten years. I sat down in a single seat against the window and took out my book. We got rolling.
    “Good morning passengers, I regret to inform you that our dining car is closed due to an illness, and we weren’t able to get a replacement. Our WiFi is also out, and our ticketing seems to not be working either. In short, it’s a Monday.”
    Apparently the passengers in the business class car hadn’t heard a joke since before the Kennedy assassination, because they erupted into a rancorous applause.

    I shifted my attention back and forth from my book to the window. We sailed through forests of red and orange as the sky hung dark and close, pregnant with rain. I entertained the idea of abusing the ticketing system and just going on an extra stop to Dover, and then catching a bus into Portsmouth. But the rain held out, and so I got off at Wells. The plan was to Uber to Nubble Light, spend an hour or so there, and then Uber again into Portsmouth. The moment I stepped onto the platform in Wells, the sky erupted. The plan was no longer the plan.
    I called an Uber to take me to The Friendly Toast, a brunch place in Portsmouth I figured I could wait out the storm.
    Gary came to pick me up. Gary was a small man with a sallow face and deep wrinkles. A few whisps of white hair clung to his scalp and he wore a quarterzip.
    “Howdy Gary, how’s your day going.”
    “Howdy? This isn’t fucking Colorado. What the fuck is howdy? Where are you from?”
    “Austin, Texas.”
    “No shit? Well Zachary, I’m 74 years old and I don’t give a fuck.”
    “Oh. That’s quite alright Gary.”
    Gary had a way of staring at me in the mirror whenever he spoke with me, which made me really wish he was watching the road.
    “Austin? Fucking liberals everywhere in Austin.”
    “Yep. How’s your day going?”
    “Well Zachary, I’ve had a few gummies and I’m high as tits right now. I hope that doesn’t bother you— my swearing, I mean. Shit, why did I make this turn? Hang on, we have to turn around. You know Zachary, I’m 74 years old. But you know what I love? Pussy. I’m trying to fuck this 20 year old Colombian. I’m helping her with some stuff, you know? She thinks we’re just friends, but I know, you know, what Seinfeld says rings true.”
    I awkwardly laughed. “It does.”
    “Okay, then tell me. What is it?”
    He caught me. “I, uh, cause in Seinfeld, there’s that character…”
    “You know what? I think you don’t like me. I think you’re just patronizing me. But you know what? I’m gonna tell you anyway. Women and men can’t be friends. Cause men only want to fuck women. Just like I’m trying to fuck this Colombian. But she thinks I’m too old.”
    He shifted his eyes from me in the rearview to himself.
    “Fuck. Maybe I am old. I don’t think I look it, but maybe I do. Wanna hear a joke?”
    I did not. “Let’s hear it.”
    “The blind carpenter picked up his hammer and saw.”
    I laughed awkwardly.
    “You don’t fucking get it. You’re not too bright are you?”
    “I guess I’m not.”
    “Was that too mean? Let’s go through it slowly. He SAW. The blind man SAW? Get it? Did you go to college?”
    “I did.”
    “Well that's why. Where do you work?”
    “General Motors.”
    “Didn’t they go under in 2008 and fuck over thousands of workers? Workers who invested in them and thought they could retire? Fucking horrible, if you ask me. I’m really into South African music. Sout’Afreekan. That’s how they say it. Sout’Afreekan. Sout’Afreekan. You like this?”
    Gary turned up the speaker and started dancing. I savored the silence. Gary was not done.
    “For forty years I was a construction worker. I built houses.”
    “Interesting.”
    “No it wasn’t.”
    “Surely one of the houses must have been interesting.”
    “No.”
    “Okay.”
    “You know, I got a buddy in Dallas. He blames everything on the Mexicans. He’s racist. Say what you want about me, but at least I’m not racist. He still says the N-word, for crying out loud. Grow up. Fucking grow up, Dennis. You got a woman, Zachary?”
    “No.”
    “How come?”
    “I don’t know too many women.”
    “What the fuck.”
    A pregnant silence.
    “Whereabouts you staying in Portsmouth? About ten years back I was getting with this fifty year old Portuguese American from Portsmouth. Mother of two. Body like this.”
    Gary removed his hands from the steering wheel to draw her shape, and we drifted into oncoming traffic. He threw his hands back on the wheel before he could complete her shape.
    “We booked hotels a lot in those days. For obvious reasons. One time, I spent $300 on a Motel 6.”
    I assumed that was a lot. “A Motel 6?!”
    Gary nodded emphatically. “A Motel 6!”
    “Was it worth it?”
    Gary nearly slammed on the brakes. “God damn right it was worth it. I’m telling you, her body was like this.”
    Once again his old, wrinkly hands traced a shape in the air that didn’t make much sense to me.
    “But you know what they say about women. It doesn’t matter what comes out of her mouth, just what goes in.”
    I had no idea what that meant, but from his expectant gaze in the mirror I realized he was making a joke, so I laughed politely.
    “Boy are you stupid. Maybe when you get some coffee in you. Where are you going for breakfast anyway.”
    “The something Toast, I believe is what I put in.”
    “The Friendly Toast? That place sucks. I’m taking you to the Roundabout Diner. Biscuits and gravy for ten bucks. Just outside of town. You don’t want anything to do with downtown. Overpriced.”
    In fact I did want things to do with downtown. I had chosen my breakfast for their vegan menu, and I had no faith that a hole in the wall frequented by Gary had anything vegetarian.
    “You know, I’m fine with the Toast.”
    “You sure? I mean, suit yourself. But I’m taking a detour so I can show you better places. You like halibut?”
    “I love halibut,” I lied.
    “Okay. Let me show you the three best halibut places in Portsmouth. But the best on the East Coast is in Kittery.”
    We drove around the city. I wanted to leave, but with the rain I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so I figured it didn’t matter too much.
    We arrived at the Toast. “You know, my kids don’t like me,” Gary said, physically turning around to face me. I waited for the punchline. He kept staring.
    “Damn. That’s too bad. Do you like your kids?”
    “Yeah they’re alright.”
    “...Okay Gary, have a wonderful rest of your day.”
    I exited the car, entered the Toast and ordered an overpriced breakfast. But at least it was vegetarian. I wondered if their were any local gods in Portsmouth I could pray to to keep Gary from picking me up again.
    Three scrambled eggs, a piece of buttered toast, two pieces of vegan sausage, and a helping of potatoes matched pace with three cups of mud. The Toast was an eclectic little place, like what a chain restaurant from the early 2000s tried to be. It was too dark to read in, especially on a rainy day like today. So I didn’t stay long.
    I put my raincoat on, put my hood up, picked a direction, and walked.
    I can’t tell you where I walked, even now with a map in front of me. I just walked until a different street looked good, and then I made acquaintance with that street. It was too early for anyone to be out. I took pictures of the trees and houses and roads that caught my eye and flashed glimmers of that Platonic ideal of autumn. This kept me entertained for a few hours, and then I was back downtown again.

    By now most of the shops were open, so I poked my head in a few. Portsmouth is a tourist town in an expensive area of an expensive state. The shops kept up that standard, and many left me baffled with their airport-handbag-shop level pricing. I figured it would be nice to get a souvenir for Shauhin and Ashley, since I’d see them soon. I bought Shauhin a candle and Ashley some mint tea.
    And suddenly I was out of shops to check out. So I decided to go to New Castle. New Castle is an island just beyond the Portsmouth harbor that engages the Atlantic. I walked for about thirty minutes before the rain started getting angry and then called an Uber.
    “Whatchu doin’ out in the rain, man?” The driver looked at his nice leather seats as I planted my soaking backpack.
    I didn’t know either, so I didn’t answer his question. I tried some small talk. “You live out here?”
    “Hell no, I can’t afford it. Every Uber you’ll get here lives an hour inland. Each of these homes right here, see? Pretty small right. Million dollars.” Of course it came out more like ‘million dollahs’, as all the Uber drivers this far north swallowed their R’s.
    The driver let me off at the Islander Cafe, one of the only businesses on the island. I expected some kitschy Hawaii style interior, but this was islander in the New England sense of the word— a preppy person that uses “summer” as a verb and knows four different sports that involve boats. The establishment was bright but small, and had a large plateglass window facing the street. A few people had had a similar idea to hide from the rainy afternoon here.
    “What’ll it be, bud?”
    The barista was a gregarious man that focused his hair growth to his eyebrows and chin.
    “Can I get a maple latte and a grilled cheese?”
    “Sure. And what’s the name?”
    “Zach.”
    “Sure thing Zach, give me a few.”
    I sat down, facing the door. It felt natural to always sit facing the door. My boss once made a similar statement, attributing it to a Texan’s natural awareness of exits in the face of gun violence. I was more interested in the position today to watch the rain bend through the leaves of the maple across the street and splatter on the asphalt. But also in case some Texan came in with a gun.

    In front of the plate glass were three tables, each with two chairs. The middle table was empty. The farther one had two women of about forty years chatting quietly. The nearer one had a bald fellow with glasses peering deeply into a steaming cup of black coffee, as if scrying for a preferable weather report. A very attractive young woman and a greying man in a baseball cap sat two tables behind me, whispering. This was a pairing I’d seen a lot thus far— cynically, I wondered if it were some kind of old money escort service.
    I was introduced to my coffee and grilled cheese, plugged in my phone to charge, and began reading while I enjoyed my afternoon sustenance.
    A young woman and her child came in, giggling on account of the rain between the F150 and the door.
    “Hey Tim,” she said.
    “How are you guys doing?”
    “We’re doing,” she laughed.
    They chatted for a bit. It was a nice, mundane chatter about how the kid’s school has been and the plans for today and milestones reached recently by Tim’s own daughter. The kid would occasionally interrupt, and Tim would lean down and very seriously respond. The kid ordered some food and lunch, slowly and atomically as his mom whispered each item into his ear, and then they left. Similar interactions repeated when others rotated in. The place seemed to be well enjoyed by the locals. I liked the idea of being holed up in a local place on a day like today.
    Two elderly folk replaced the middle aged women by the window, and pushed the two tables together to indicate they were expecting company. The phone rang. Tim answered.
    “Yep, yep okay. I’ll tell them. Okay, take care. See ya soon. Hey, Bob and Martha are stuck at the drawbridge. They said they’re running late, but they’ll be here soon.”
    The old lady smiled. “Thanks Tim.”
    I read for a while. It was a book called River Town, about a guy in the 90s who taught English at a college in rural China. Andrew had recommended it to me to prepare for the China trip this winter. There’s special when it comes to reading about people in a strange place, when you’re a person in a strange place.
    I stood up and returned the counter.
    “What’s up, Zach?”
    “Can I trade this empty cup for one filled with apple cider?”
    “Sure. Hot?”
    “Hot.”
    “That’ll be $4.39.”
    I enjoyed watching it steam, and closed my book so that I could focus entirely on its sweet, cinnamon spiced warmth. The rain was relentless. In Austin, the rain is powerful but short lived. By now, it had been raining nonstop at a decent clip for hours. And what was worse, the coffeeshop was closing soon. Surya had always said not to trust coffeeshops that stay open late. But today I would have given Surya’s left arm to keep it open another hour.
    “Hey Tim.”
    “Hey Zach.” he looked up from bagging crullers.
    “You ever go out to the lighthouses around here?”
    Tim returned to bagging. “I’ve seen them. There’s not really any public access. There are two out in the water. You’re gonna need a boat to see those closely, and boats don’t run this time of year. There’s another just up the road, but it’s on a Coast Guard base. So you need to be careful. There’s actually a beach if you go off the road right at the base’s gate, go down to the beach and walk a bit and you’ll get a pretty good view. But it’s pretty rocky, and those rocks aren’t gonna be fun in the rain.”
    I thanked Tim for his insight and packed my things, bussed my table, hid myself in my rain jacket and set out into the shower. Rain jackets are a curious thing. They keep your shirt wet, which is great, and they keep your hair wet, which isn’t actually that big of a deal because hair is waterproof. But pants remain exposed to the elements, and consequently my jeans were soaked after ten minutes walking. And my backpack was a water resistant canvas, but I hoped my vintage maps would be safe. So all in all, I’m not sure if the rain jacket is a super useful invention. I guess you’d be colder if you were wet all over, instead of just half wet.

    But wet or dry, directions work, and the lighthouse was just where it was supposed to be. Scrambling the rocks in wet Stan Smiths with a 25 pound bag was both difficult and stupid, but the shot I got off the lighthouse in the rain was worth difficult and stupid. I headed back.

    A soaked Uber ride (sorry, friendly Jamaican guy) took me to Martin Hill Inn, the bed and breakfast I’d chosen. I grew up a fan of Bloom County, a comic strip about a sharehouse/B&B type establishment with a whole cast of zany characters. With hope in my heart, I’d booked a B&B instead of a hotel to try and replicate some comic strip worthy moments, but Martin Hill happened to be deeply antisocial. Check-in was contactless, and they did not serve breakfast. It was effectively an AirB&B. I felt scammed. Scammed and wet.
    Having changed clothes, showered, taken a nap, and aired out my bag and precious maps (I’ll let the order be an exercise to the reader), the weather was finally ready to be cooperative for a poor traveler, and golden rays of light flooded in from the western window over the desk. Finally, I was able to appreciate the area. The B&B was in the middle of a nice garden, on a quiet side of town, and was painted a pleasant pink. An American flag was mounted just outside the northern window, and I noticed it was colonial, not modern. Live free or die, as they say in New Hampshire.

    There is no ramen to be had in Portsmouth. At least there is pizza to be had. The place seemed busy, which I hoped meant delicious. I could not find the New Hampshire entrance, so I tried the main one.
    “Which of these two pumpkin ales do you recommend?” I asked the waitress.
    “Uhm, I don’t know much about beers. But most customers get this one with a cinnamon rim.”
    “Oh okay, then– a cinnamon rim?”
    “Yeah, it’s like a rim… of cinnamon.”
    “They get that on beer?”
    “Yeah, it’s very popular.”
    “I’ll… fine. I’ll try it.”
    The beer showed up a few minutes later, cinnamon rim and all. Embarrassingly, it was incredible. It tasted like cinnamon sticks from a cheap pizza chain, and complimented the spiced pumpkin ale without flaw. If it had a downside, then it was the fact that after twenty minutes my entire glass was sticky to the touch.

Tuesday, October 21st

    I had booked two nights in Portsmouth, but I was quickly realizing that Portsmouth was a one night town. After going to the Islander Cafe yesterday, no other local coffee shop jumped out at me, so I picked one based on proximity. Kaffee Vonsolln was a German coffeeshop on the east end of town, and when I walked in it seemed like many other people were regretting spending a second night, because it was packed. I didn’t need coffee so much as a place to spend my morning, so I went back out the mahogany door, latching it behind me.

    Wandering Portsmouth’s east side, I stumbled across a place I had read about online– Ceres Bakery. What perfect luck– this was reputed to be one of the best bakeries in New Hampshire, and there didn’t seem to be much of a crowd inside. I stepped in and the woman behind the counter greeted me. I looked up at the board behind her, where a menu had been inscribed with chalk. They had a few coffee options, but the second board with food items was far more detailed. ‘SAMMIES’, the headline read, with several sandwiches listed below. I did an about face and exited Ceres Bakery. It will be a warm day in New England before I eat at a place that uses the term ‘sammies.’
    Completely out of options, I found the harbor, and crossed a bridge connecting the mainland to a Peirce Island. The spelling bothered me, but it seemed a prudent move, and was in agreement with several dogs and their leashbound owners.
    Peirce Island is a small strip of land in the harbor that historically had played host to a shipyard, then after a water treatment plant, and now was mostly recreational. Other than some parking at the front of the island by the bridge’s landing, most of the island was peppered with trails and signs about dog waste, and I spent my time exploring while offering thorough good mornings to every canine I passed. I stopped to take a picture of a heron in front of several harbor cranes– there was a joke there, to be sure, but apparently I was too college educated to root it out. I came across a secluded beach with a lovely view of the town. I read for a bit on a rock, then returned to Portsmouth.

    Kaffee Vonsolln was quieter now, and I ordered a breakfast sandwich and a moose tracks latte. I fidgeted with the idea of ordering a Laura Palmer, in deference for one of my favorite television programs, but something hot and caffeinated was necessary to combat the chilly morning. Awkwardly, every table was full except for one with 8 chairs, and so I battled my breakfast quickly with my seven closest invisible friends, feeling guilty as a group of four took their coffee standing. I called an Uber to the lighthouse on Cape Neddick.
    There is a verb that I often hear young people use to describe incessant chatter– to ‘yap.’ The term has always called to mind a noisy chihuahua, and has thusly felt rather degrading, and so I avoid it. There is, unfortunately, no other way to describe Kirsten’s mode of communicating, the woman who picked me up.
    “Zachary? Hey Zachary, lovely to meet you. Beautiful weather, isn’t it. I bet you’re loving it. You traveling, Zachary? I bet you are. Portsmouth is lovely this time of year. It really is. Do you mind I ask what you do? Oh, engineering. My brother in law is an engineer, he loves it. Do you love it Zachary? Good, that’s good to hear. Now Zachary, where are you staying? Martin Hill? I haven’t heard of it! I bet it’s lovely. Do you love it, Zachary? Oh I bet you do.”
    I found myself practically gasping for breath on her behalf.
    “How long are you staying here? The week? What a wonderful vacation! Have you thought of going down to Boston? Oh you are? That’s just lovely! You know, you can actually request me to take you there. Wouldn’t that be fun? No pressure, of course. I’m free tomorrow, and hmm, I’m free Friday, or Saturday. Do you want to do Friday? I have to take one lady to and from work on Friday, so how about I drive you to Boston at say, 10am, and then pick you up at 7pm? That will be lovely!”
    I agreed it would indeed be lovely, if only out of fear of quashing this woman’s rather lovely mood. She asked me no fewer than four hundred questions on our twenty minute drive, which was a shame because she only new two hundred, so each question was asked twice. But eventually we made it to Cape Neddick. Kirsten pulled into the parking lot.
    “Zachary, that was lovely, I hope I get to drive you again. You’re a wonderful customer. I’d rate you seven stars if I could. Now Zachary, when you rate me, could you rate me five stars? I believe its the one on the right, not the left. Here, show me the app and I’ll help you do it. See? There are the stars. Now I’ll rate you five stars. See? Five stars. Oh my goodness thank you Zachary. What a lovely rider you were. I hope you have a lovely day. Enjoy the lighthouse, Zachary. And if you want to go to Boston, please request me.”
    I crawled out of the car and waved goodbye, half hoping there was a library nearby to rest my ears. But there was something better– the Cape Neddick Lighthouse, locally known as the Nubble. The lighthouse was technically on an island offshore, separated from the mainland by 40 or 50 feet of water, but it was close enough to have a wonderful view of the grounds. Cape Neddick Light was only around 40 feet tall itself, but the island, with its steep cliffs and thin green carpet presented the lighthouse on a pedestal, giving the illusion of a height that even the coastal giants further south fail to match. What struck me most about the lighthouse was its presence. It had a commanding aura about it, being so close yet untouchable. The Atlantic roared against the rocks, a few seagulls screamed.

    I wandered the area, taking pictures of the lighthouse from all angles. A friendly man with a midwestern accent volunteered his wife to take some photos of me, which came out great. There was a small gift shop– recalling my passport, I asked the shoptender to give me a stamp.
    “Here’s one for the Nubble. And here’s one for Boon Island.”

    I looked at the second stamp curiously, and then it occurred to me that I had not looked around as thoroughly as I had thought– I’d missed the moon for the light of the sun. I dashed back outside and sure enough, in the distance beyond the Nubble, another tower could be seen out in the ocean.

    Boon Island lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in New England, at around 120 feet, making it comparable to Alabama’s Sand Island. Also like Sand Island, it sits abandoned on a ledge in the middle of the ocean. Boon Island was famously the least desirable lighthouse in the United States, and as a reflex the pay for a lightkeeper was second to none.
    I saw a woman photographing waves with a camera that cost more than a semester of college.
    “Do you have a zoom lens?” I asked her.
    She looked at me nervously.
    “I mean, cause there’s a lighthouse out there. See, way out there, and I thought it’d be cool if you had a zoom lens, you could take a picture. Cause I want to see more clearly. My iPhone camera doesn’t really give much detail.”
    My neurotic rambling lured her boyfriend to protectively move closer to her.
    She nodded. “No, this is actually a macro, so the opposite of a zoom lens. I wish I brought my zoom lens, but I was in a rush to leave the house this morning. It would have been great to get the waves. I have a theory that they make iPhone cameras worse, so you have to keep buying more every year.”
    She spoke openly and lightly, like she was willing to converse, but without a zoom lens, my time was better spent looking for more cool shots of the Nubble.
    “Ah, okay. Well… thanks anyway.” I retreated.
    “Nice meeting you,” she called after me.
    I realized I might have been impolite, but I was too distracted to dwell on it.

    Having taken every possible shot of the lighthouse from dry land, I found a nice rock and sat and absorbed the world. Some Bostoners took photographs of each other. A herd of greying bikers posed with their bikes. An obese couple began smoking weed behind me, so I relocated to a rock that didn’t have an obese couple smoking weed behind it. This new rock was adjacent to a man in a backwards baseball cap that FaceTimed every single person he knew, one after another, to show them the lighthouse. I wondered if he might also be a solo traveler.
    There’s a tendency, or so I think, in this modern world to need validation. People have a subconscious need to broadcast their actions to give them meaning. I wondered if it was some kind of Wittgensteinian language game– emotions are extremely complicated things, but words are not. Sometimes when I’m having a terrible morning, I’ll text a friend, ‘I am having a terrible morning.’ The emotions become words, and words are easy to understand, and my problem is simplified from the exact nuance of my emotional turmoil on that morning to a string of half a dozen words, uttered and resolved a trillion times across human history.
    Or maybe it springs from some kind of desperate need to feel relevant. If I see a tree fall in the forest, it doesn’t really matter. But if I FaceTime my mother, father, sister, and then three best friends to show them that I am indeed at the site of the fallen tree, having watched it fall, then by mentioning it I’ve turned that random occurrence into Something Worth Mentioning. And I was there. The man with the backwards hat smiled at me as he left. I nodded, to validate his FaceTiming.
    Back in Portsmouth, I took one of Gary’s recommendations for lunch at a sandwich shop before doing one last tour of the town, praying for things I might have missed. Fortunately, small towns have secrets. At a bookstore near Ceres Bakery, I picked up a book of Longfellow’s poetry. Inspired, I went to another bookstore, this one a bookstore/bar combo, and played with the shop dog. Down the block, I found a small door labeled “APOTHECARY” with the subheading “Tarot readings on Tuesdays.” I had nothing better to do, so I went inside.

    The store was dark and filled with the occult. Little containers of spices and herbs, wax effigies of historical figures, incense– if it could make a Southern Baptist uncomfortable, you could buy it in bulk here.
    The shop was small, and I made six. The other five were women. They smiled at me pleasantly, and I figured that a shop like this probably doesn’t get many male customers. I browsed while listening to their conversation.
    “I’ve actually done my own research, and Marthothowy is definitely a reference to Andreiaol. Hmm, you might want to delve into Finnish folklore in that case. You’ll have to do your best to ignore what is clearly nationalist bullshit attempting to unify dissonant beliefs, but it can be done. Follow me on Instagram and I’ll send you a picture of the best book for it, I can’t remember the name off the top of my head. Sorry, I’m a little bit autistic when it comes to eastern European paganism.” the tall blue haired girl cut herself off, embarrassed.
    “What a wonderful thing to be autistic about,” the purple hair lady murmured.
    Realizing my brown hair and Y chromosome were a bit lacking, I returned to the street. The sun was setting.

    For a final goodbye to Portsmouth, I went out to Peirce Island once more, and paced the woods while the light was gold and played off the oranges and reds of the trees. I read some of the poems on a bench near the water like I was some kind of performative male, and when the sun disappeared I thought about dinner. Pizza sounded nice.

Wednesday, October 22nd

    Of course, the first good, sound sleep I’d had was punctuated by a shrill 6am alarm. Begrudgingly, I rolled out of bed, packed my things into my bag, and descended to the street. Pouring rain. Adam the Uber driver was my savior, being close enough that I didn’t quite get soaked waiting, and he drove me to the station in Dover. Something about the rain on the car roof, and me in the back seat with my backpack, and the predawn glow made me think of being driven to elementary school.
    Adam was a rare specimen because he listened to morning talk show radio. I was glad that he did. I was glad that there are people out there who listen to these transient, community podcasts peppered with advertisements and crude humor. The ride was silent except for the radio and the rain and Adam’s occasional giggle at something one of the radio hosts said.
    Today’s show was a contest to decide a winner for a ticket to some local concert. The winner would be chosen based on the caller that guessed the correct item, with the hint being ‘something that is in everyone’s house.’ I wondered if there would be callers at all, on a small town talk show radio in 2025. There were plenty, and I was glad that there were. I fully expected the puzzle to be some clever abstraction, like ‘time’ or ‘themselves.’ None of the other callers thought this, they guessed pillowcases, towels, televisions, radios, sofas– one fellow even guessed a trash compactor. I was glad that he did– I hadn’t thought of trash compactors in at least a decade. My grandmother had one before she died. More than that, I was happy that someone out there thought trash compactors were still ubiquitous to be found in everyone’s house.
    The answer was razor, and then I said goodbye to Adam, and thanks for the ride, and then it was cold and wet outside the station under the awning while I waited for the train. I had two people with me, a girl wearing fake cat ears and a nervous fellow with an ankle monitor who couldn’t sit still. I thought them appropriate companions.
    The train was late, but only by a bit, and after a few hours we were at Boston’s North Station. I went outside and navigated towards a diner in the North End. Nobody was out and about, for obvious reasons, as the rain was steady and the sky looked was the color of dishwater. The streets of the North End were a maze to me, and the brick buildings seemed to have been constructed by a team with little certainty regarding height but a deep confidence in color. Finally, I came upon Theo’s. I slipped inside.
    Theo’s was a diner no bigger than my bedroom. It had a few cramped tables with a few cramped patrons eating. A TV in the corner silently played the morning news. It was clear that nothing, including the patrons, had changed since the 90s. I reminded myself I was born in ‘98, so I’d probably be fine, and sat down.
    “Coffee?” the aged waitress asked, putting down a chipped mug and filling it before I could say yes. I looked at a peeling menu. It was all breakfast items.
    “I’ll have two eggs, scrambled, the potatoes, and two pieces of toast. White bread.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s all.”
    “More coffee?”
    “More coffee.”

    Diner coffee is something special. Bitter and gritty and warm. The rain continued to pour incessantly outside. I heard the waitress speak in Portuguese to the kitchen staff. She brought my breakfast.
    “Obrigado,” I said.
    Assuming I was something other than a dumbass who knew a few words of Portuguese, she said much more than a few words in Portuguese.
    “Ah… Desculpe, trabalhei em Portugal, aprendi um pouco… um… you know what, nao falo.” She raised an eyebrow.
    “Can I get some more coffee?” I tried.
    She refilled my mug.
    “Obrigado.”
    The food on its own wasn’t particularly good, but I didn’t mind. I was in Boston, I was dry, or at least out of the rain, the coffee was warm, and the diner was cozy. I took out my book and didn’t read. I watched the sky instead.
    More patrons funneled in, each seeming like they’d passed through that door a thousand times, and I figured I might as well give up my table. I signaled for the check, and was pleased to note that the prices hadn’t changed much since the 90s either. It came out to be about ten dollars. I handed the waitress my card.
    “Cash only.”
    With those two words, my heart about stopped. It had been about six years since I’ve traded goods or services for good old green United States Dollars, and I didn’t even carry them on me. I needed a time machine to get me out of the 90s fast.
    It was actually the 60s that saved me, because my grandfather had always carried an emergency two dollar bill on him. This habit had been passed down to my father, who carried an emergency twenty, and then on to me. With inflation, I probably should be carrying an emergency fifty, but the twenty I was able to fish out of the back of my card wallet was enough to get me out without washing dishes.
    I have two good friends in Boston, both currently MIT students– Ashley, who I was tight with in high school and that probably affords them the right to the title of war veteran, and Shauhin, a guy I’ve known most my life and roomed with in college. Shauhin had humbly offered me a spot in his couch when I told him a month ago telling him I was going to be staying on his couch, so my next stop was his apartment in Cambridge. Shauhin was in class, so I let myself in, and fell asleep on his couch.

    After the day had finished its shower, it put on makeup and a nice outfit, and I woke to a gorgeous afternoon. I texted Ashley to see what they were doing. They invited me to meet them at the Ripple Cafe on campus. It was a five minute walk.
    It was funny to see Ashley sitting there in a cafe in Cambridge. I’ve only ever seen them in Austin, so seeing them a thousand miles removed had this novel joy tied to it. I said hello, and they said hello. They disappeared to go to the bathroom. A man approached me. “Excuse me, I’m looking for the MIT bookstore, cause I’d like to buy a sweatshirt. But the MIT bookstore only has books in it. Am I making sense?”
    “I’m sorry, I don’t go here. But that is a very MIT problem to have.”
    “It is, it is. Thanks anyway.”
    He shook my hand and disappeared. Ashley returned. “Want to walk around?”
    “Sure.”
    We did a quick passthrough of campus, then made it to the river. After some time along the river, we found a dock.
    “Want to sit on the dock?” Ashley asked.
    “Sure.” I wondered if they could hear my response over the Otis Redding lick.

    We sat on the dock and watched the river and chatted about all sorts of things. School, work, family, friends, plans, everything relevant, everything not relevant. At some point some clouds rolled in, and it started raining again. With an impressive grace, Ashley procured an umbrella and held it above us. When I noticed their hand twitch, I took a turn. I tried to be gentlemanly and cool, primarily holding it above them while my shoulder got soaked. I hoped that their shoulder wasn’t more soaked than mine, at least.
    It was nice catching up with them. While most of my friends have very technical perspectives, Ashley’s is artistic– they paint life less in facts and figures than they do in emotions and reactions. It’s a different language, and one in which fewer and fewer people I know are fluent.
    Eventually, they checked their watch. “Ooh, I think I have to go now. I signed up for a seed bomb workshop, where they teach you how to make seed bombs that you can throw in an empty lot or something, and grow flowers. I guess it’s cool, but mostly I signed up to meet people. I was hoping to do a bit of studying beforehand. You’re welcome to join me for a little.”
    I accepted the offer gratefully. We wound back through campus and arrived at the library. Ashley pointed out the music library, and proposed I might find it interesting to explore while they worked. It was a good proposal. I did, in fact, find it interesting to explore while they worked. Arbitrarily I picked a book called Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis from a shelf, and began reading it. It was an account of a German academic’s travels through Pakistan, and how traditional music, religion, and modernization all intersect. I stood there reading until my feet hurt, and then I remembered to check my phone. Shauhin was free.
    I said goodbye to Ashley, and met Shauhin outside the library. It had probably been six months since I’d seen him last, but seeing him standing in the vestibule with a big grin made it it feel like forever.
    He gave me a campus tour. Shauhin was an MBA student, confined to a corner of campus, so his explanations of various buildings, particularly undergrad focused ones, were mostly based on hearsay. I thought that made for a fun tour. He was critical of the architecture, and loudly proclaimed that these days undergraduates are ‘literally children,’ drawing dirty looks from a group of them nearby. Shauhin was never much for using his inside voice in tactical situations. But I was with my pal and far from home, so I engaged back at a matching decibel.
    We took the red line up to Harvard Square, where he insisted we’d find much better food. He asked if I was craving anything. I thought about the distinct lack of ramen in Portsmouth.
    “Ramen, of course,” I said. We ate a lot of ramen in undergrad.
    He took us to Hokkaido Ramen, where people are sat around only a few huge tables. We ordered and chatted. The conversation took us to the country of Djibouti.
    “There’s an old joke, or magic trick I suppose, about countries that start with the letter D. Here, think of one that starts with D. You got it?”
    Shauhin cocked his head. “I can’t think of one.”
    “Yes you can, come on.”
    I noticed the undergrad eating alone next to us reacting like he was listening, so I drew him in.
    “Here, phone a friend. Ask this guy.”
    The undergrad chewed, and then swallowed. He got the order right. As expected from a Harvard kid.
    “DPRK. Denmark. Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
    Shauhin leaned his head back, exasperated. “DENMARK! I should have thought of Denmark.”
    “There’s one more, actually. Any guesses?”
    The undergrad narrowed his eyes. “Really?”
    “It’s in the Caribbean.”
    “Dominican Republic!”
    Shauhin groaned again.

Thursday, October 23rd

    I can’t recall falling asleep, but I woke up at sunrise to the sound of construction from the high rise next door. There’s something about couches that absolutely knock me out. It can take me ages to fall asleep on a bed, and I’ll wake up twelve times, but on a couch, sleep is a one and done deal. For some reason, yesterday had taken a lot out of me, and I crashed hard the moment we arrived back from dinner. I heard Shauhin’s alarm go off through the wall.
    He emerged from his lair with promises of breakfast, but a quick rummage proved that intention was nothing without equipment. He and his Trader Joe’s tote disappeared out the door a few minutes later.
    I brushed my teeth and slipped into some clothes, and was just starting to immerse in a book when Shauhin returned, looking deeply disgruntled. I lived with Shauhin for many years, and I knew he was about to rant. I sat at attention.
    “I, I, I, okay. So I went to buy milk and eggs and peanut butter. I got the milk first. I put it in my bag. Then I got the other stuff. I got the eggs, and the peanut butter. So then I went up to the self checkout and opened my bag. And the milk, okay, some MOTHERFUCKER, some BITCH had opened the lid on the milk, put the lid back on sideways, and then put it back. So when I put it in my bag it spilled everywhere. My bag was milky, my eggs were milky, my peanut butter was… milky. I asked the lady at the self checkout for napkins and she gave me ONE. So I put it in my bag and a second later it was soaked and dripping with milk. So I had to go back and get all new stuff and now my bag is still milky.”
    That was not the last time I’d hear the airing of this grievance today. But we forged ahead and began making Shauhin’s daily decadence of scrambled eggs and peanut butter toast, recalling the classic Big Breakfast we’d get from the UT dorms together many years ago.
    “Be careful with the toaster. The toast needs to go in these two slots. If you use the other two, then it trips the circuit breaker.”
    “It… what?”
    “I don’t know. Just don’t touch that side. I don’t need the fridge going out again.”
    Breakfast was excellent, and I politely excused myself from the Keurig coffee Shauhin has chosen to succeed the death of his espresso machine. I’d find coffee in Salem for the caffeine hit.
    We perambulated to North Station and bought tickets from a very impatient attendant. Walking to the tracks, we passed an attractive woman dressed rather well in soft whites and greens, and she held eye contact with me before waving slightly. I was taken aback by such an aggressive response.
    “Karen!” Shauhin exclaimed.
    “Hi Shauhin.” She had not been waving at me. Suddenly it made sense.
    “Where are you headed, Karen?”
    “Salem.”
    “So are we! That’s awesome! I guess we’ll see you there!”
    Karen smiled again and disappeared. She was pretty enough that I was suddenly very self-conscious of my beard, but not so much that I was self-conscious of my scratched up glasses. Fruitlessly, I combed my facial hair with my fingers in case we met any of Shauhin’s other classmates.
    The train to Salem felt very antiquated compared to the Downeaster, and every seat was filled with people visiting the old town. When the conductor announced Salem on our registry of destinations, several people cheered. I swiveled in the seat. The demographic was overwhelmingly white girls in their twenties, most of them blonde. Many were doing their makeup with pocket mirrors.
    “Pumpkin spice season,” Shauhin astutely pointed out, answering my unvoiced question.
    At one point, Shauhin checked his email and grinned.
    “Ch-low,” I read over his shoulder.
    “Chloe,” Shauhin corrected me.
    “Chlow,” I repeated. “Chlowwwwww.”
    “Chlow,” Shauhin finally agreed.
    “The professor I’m TAing for asked me if I would TA next semester too. Her name is Chloe– err, Chlow. She’s single and 37 years old and has a British accent.”
    “Oh Chlow, I want you to know, I’ll never go, I’ll never go,” I sang.
    “But if you do, I’ll feel woe”, Shauhin sang back.
    “I’ll scream and sob and cry out ‘no!’” I returned.
    “Oh Chlow, show me your toes,” Shauhin crooned.
    I could not beat that.
    About an hour later, the train evacuated almost completely onto the streets of Salem, and as one large pack twisted away from the station and towards the town square.

    Salem was lovely, and the fantastic weather did it a favor. Buildings of no more than three stories lined the main streets, a little back from the asphalt to give the feel of patios and parks and places to exist along the road. A mix of ancient colonial houses and modern brick establishments mingled, with churches that could not be aged properly without sawing their steeples in half and counting rings poked the sky.
    We came to the festive center of the town, a pedestrian area packed with throngs of Halloween enjoyers. People in costume peppered the turbulence, many of which seemed to be offering photos for tips. A scary clown played violin on a fountain. ‘Wedding Violinist for hire’, the sign at his feet said. The stores on each side were novelty occult shops. I wondered if they were pop-ups for the season or a reflex or Salem’s witch oriented history. We tried a wand shop, which seemed to be some answer to an obscure Harry Potter reference that grounded realism in mentioning a magical community in Salem. We also tried a more generic witch shop, which mostly consisted of herbs and spices on the ground floor and books on the top floor.
    “What to do when Mercury is in retrograde,” I read allowed. “Samagra would like this, his Mercury is always in retrograde.”
    “What’s retrograde?”
    I briefly explained the astronomy.
    “And what does that have to do with Samagra.”
    Before I could answer, one of the shopkeepers cut in.
    “Highly spiritual people can sense when Mercury is in retrograde. Just like, you know how you can sense the moon?”
    We ran as fast as we could.
    “Zach. This is the highest GGPC in the world, I suspect,” Shauhin said, scanning the square we found ourselves in, having caught our breaths. We were just outside of the Salem cemetery, or at least one of them, beside the witch memorial.

    “That’s… um… oh. Capita?”
    “Capita.”
    “Yeah, the Goth Girls per Capita here is off the charts. It probably will peak next week and then fall off for another year. It’s a good thing we came when we did.”
    We were somewhat close to the harbor at this point, so we went out to the wharf to take pictures of the square little lighthouse guarding Salem.

    I needed coffee, so we made a brief detour to Front Street and traded currency for lattes. I got a Booooooberry Latte, and to Shauhin’s amusement the point of sale system abbreviated this drink as Boooooob. It was made with blueberry and marshmallow syrups. I would have been delicious had I liked blueberry, but sometimes you got to suck it up to be seasonal.
    Coffees in hand, we began making our way to the most important building in town for me— the House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne’s masterpiece. As we walked, we once again bumped into Karen.
    “Karen!” Shauhin exclaimed.
    She gave a smile. “Hi Shauhin.”
    Seeing her standing there on the redbrick sidewalk in front of some ancient colonial mansion, with the climbing sun throwing out the ebon sheen to her hair, made me very aware of my scratched up glasses.
    “What have you been up to?”
    “Just walking around. I went to the gable house over there, it’s very pretty.” Her voice was about as clear and gentle as the breeze from the harbor, but here between the houses on Derby Street its gusts were rather syncopated. I wondered if this brevity was an axiom of her personality, or of she was just too aware of the strange fellow next to Shauhin that needed a trim and new lenses.
    “Did you get tickets?”
    “No, I just walked around the grounds.”
    “Ah, okay. We’re actually heading there now. I’ll text you when we’re done! What time are you going back to Boston?”
    “Mmm, probably about 2:30.”
    “Ah, okay. Well, we’ll text you when we’re done! See ya, Karen!”
    She waved goodbye and we went up the drive of the house. It was painted black, and somewhat less grand than I had always pictured in the book. I suppose a mansion in the 1600s is not comparable to today. We counted the gables.
    “Seven gables is entirely too many gables,” Shauhin agreed.

    Our tour guide appeared.
    “So how many of you have actually read the book?”
    A single elbow bent. It happened to be the one attached to my shoulder. Shauhin laughed.
    “Well, gold star to you. To the rest, it’s available in our gift shop. Anyway, let’s begin. Follow me please.”
    Our guide toured us through the ancient structure, detailing its history and restoration. The short of it— Salem traded fish caught in its bountiful harbor to the Caribbean to feed the slaves on the plantations there, and in return received sugar and other luxury goods. The Salem merchants that facilitated this trade grew extremely rich, and a Mr. Turner erected a mansion with that wealth, adding more gables over time to flaunt his wealth until he had arrived at the impressive count of seven. Mr. Turner’s grandson failed his accounting courses and bankrupted the family, leading to the sale of the house to the Ingersoll family. The Ingersoll family reduced the house to a much more reasonable number of gables (three), but the Ingersoll daughter remembered the house of seven gables from her childhood, and explained them to her neighbor, a Mr. Nathanial Hawthorne. Enjoying the epithet for the house, he turned the title into a book. Some hundred years later, the house was purchased by a nonprofit that restored the lost four gables, and has maintained the house for the century since as a museum.
    I like old buildings, especially the ones that aren’t meant to be incredibly ornate. This is probably obvious from my lighthouse hobby, but I really enjoyed seeing the House of the Seven Gables alive and around me. God, god give us all blood to drink.

    Shauhin and I emerged from the tour slightly ravenous, and we found an old colonial house (shocker) that had been converted to a small lunch restaurant on the edge of town. I was so hungry I finished my sandwich before Shauhin could finish photographing his. The restaurant knocked the autumnal vibe out of the park, but most places in Salem did. This one was far removed from the tourist center of the city, so it felt more Hallmark Movie than Halloween Parade.

    Up next was the hour walk out of Salem and up to Winter Island, which is accessible by a bridge. The island mostly plays host to campers, and we encountered a few milling about as we moved to the southeastern edge of the island where the Winter Island lighthouse has taken up residence. Excitingly, we could also see the lighthouses at Hospital Point and Baker’s Island. The view of Salem harbor was pretty incredible, however, and the vantage presented us a spread of a hundred boats enjoying the tail end of the day, with the sun low and throwing a gold shine on the water. We returned to Salem. I was so energized I forgot how much my feet hurt. When traveling alone, I can be extremely reactive to my personal needs. In this case, I was tired and getting hungry, and wanted to return to Boston. But this was not a case where I was traveling alone, and Shauhin and I both operated as if the other wanted to squeeze as much of Salem’s marrow out as possible. And so we stayed a bit longer, and wandered the streets.

    A sign bragged that the west end of town was the finest collection of pre-20th century homes in America. That sign was completely correct. Every house on the street was immaculate and had a little silver sign dating its construction, ranging from the 1750s to the 1880s or so. The Halloween spirit was alive and well in Salem— I imagined how incredibly fun it would be to trick or treat on this road of ancient, spooky houses, filled with seasonal decorations and rich people who can afford the full sized candy bars.

    But the houses did not go on forever, and thus we eventually found ourselves once again at the Salem train station, and then on the train, and then in Boston, and then, finally, in Cambridge.
    “The GGPC here is… depressing.” Shauhin said as we exited the final platform.
    I’ve had most of my favorite genres of food this trip, but not slop. So we went out for slop. While I ate what was once an elegantly designed falafel bowl, now a stirred mess of ingredients, Shauhin asked if I wanted to come with him to a bar afterward.
    “Are you cool with coming? I was going to meet up with a friend, and Aditi wanted to meet you.”
    The words sent shivers down my spine. Shauhin, ever perceptive, noticed.
    “But I know you woke up early and you’ve been sleeping early, so you must be exhausted. So don’t feel any pressure at all,” he added, politely giving me an out that left my honor intact.
    But this was Boston, goddamnit. This was a lighthouse adventure and there is no room for introversion on a night like this. So I tagged along.
    The bar was Flat Top Johnny’s, a deeply red institution split neatly between two flavors of tables: the pool kind and the regular kind, and Shauhin and I found a spot on the border, equipped with our drinks. We chatted idly, with a large portion of the conversation dedicated to the history of Boon Island lighthouse. Eventually I saw the specter of a smile touch Shauhin’s face, and without turning I knew Aditi had arrived.

    She joined us at the table momentarily, just long enough to hug Shauhin, lightly shake my hand and engage in some shockingly fluid conversation. She excused herself to the bar and returned with a Miller High Life.
    “Shauhin, you still owe me five beers. You should have bought this for me.” She spoke with an accent that reminded me of the plastic wrap some people left on their couches— both obviously there but not at all obvious; clean and thin and mildly classy.
    “Fuck, you’re right. Did you close out already? Oh, I’ll Venmo you then.”
    “It was twelve dollars.”
    “What? You paid twelve dollars for this? You got scammed.”
    “No, it was five dollars. I’m scamming you. I would not be a reasonable MBA student if I weren’t always trying to make a profit.”
    “Zach and I were just talking about his lighthouse passport.”
    This was not true. In fact, this had been the point of conversation between us several topics before Aditi had arrived, but was absolutely the best to engage Aditi— it was simple, general, and novel. And also allowed me to engage on territory with which I was familiar.
    Aditi turned to me and leaned in slightly. Her eyes flashed from Shauhin to me in a way that suggested a respectful but earnest interest. Too much of either would have been overwhelming. I opened up my belt bag, extracted my passport and placed it on the table before her. She picked it up and flipped through it slowly, looking at every page, reacting appropriately to the informational sections and the early ‘stamps’ (pictures of myself with the lights) and the plethora of real stamps in my more recent trips.
    We didn’t dwell on the topic of lighthouses too long. She kept the conversation moving quickly and naturally. I told her my favorite Hindi joke. She poked fun at Shauhin. At one point, I was curious about her level of intimacy with Shauhin so I alluded to Shauhin’s lyrical composition skills. Rather than shy away, with a red face Shauhin recalled the saga with Chloe, and the rhymes pertaining to her feet.
    “Salem. How was it?” Aditi cut in the moment the prior topic slid from its vertex of novelty.
    “It was great,” I said. “Very pretty.”
    “We went to the House of the Seven Gables. Which was referenced in a Hawthorne book. Do you know Hawthorne? He was like a… he wrote books. He’s a great American novelist. And the tour guide asked if anyone had read the book and this guy was the only one to raise his hand.”
    Aditi gave a half smile and looked at me. “I’m not surprised. Zach looks like an English professor. It’s the grey jacket.”
    I was suddenly really glad I brought the jacket.
    “And the glasses.”
    I was suddenly really glad I didn’t wear contacts.
    Embarrassed, I shrugged and glanced away. “I do like reading.”
    We continued on. Shauhin is texting buddies with Aditi’s mother. Aditi does not like that. Aditi is taking a class on how to make anything— she made a shelf. A shelf isn’t everything, but it’s certainly a subset. Shauhin wants to visit Aditi in Mumbai. He also stated that a woman should get married by 33 so she could have kids. Aditi did not like that either. For the most part, I watched their banter, injecting an opinion or question or joke or thought or comment as I saw fit.
    “I like this guy. This guy is funny.” Aditi said to Shauhin, pointing at me. “He cuts in with jokes left and right. Zach, do you want to be my new best friend? I’m sick of Shauhin. Just rate my singing on a scale of 1 to 10. Say it’s a 12 and the position is yours.”
    There are videos of people cutting grass with a scythe, or newspaper boys throwing the morning headlines perfectly through the crack in a gate from the saddle of a bike. People performing mundane tasks so incredibly well it breaks into the territory of the fascinating. This is how Aditi’s ability to run a conversation was. Fluid, adaptive, elegant, inclusive. For the evening I was privy to a genuine prodigy of chatter, an orchestrator of human conversation. It was obvious she was good at it. But she made me feel good at it, and that is the highest compliment I can bestow on someone in this field.
    Of course, eventually it was Aditi that decided it was time for her to take exit, and Shauhin and I rose to follow her out. She hugged Shauhin on the street outside, and I prepared for an awkward handshake.
    “Sorry, I don’t like handshakes.” She said, gently wrapping an arm around me instead. We left in different directions.
    “She’s pretty cool, isn’t she.” Shauhin mused as we raised our pace to fight the cold of the night. With long steps and zipped jackets, we beat back the cold.

Friday, October 24th

    “Behold, the half tuck!” I displayed the perfect curation of my khakis’ relationship with my shirt.
    “Woah!” Shauhin feigned excitement. “Very impressive. What a stylish man. Actually, you’ve looked pretty good every day. You have some solid outfits.”
    “Thanks, I take full credit.” My friend Nanh tells me what to wear. But she wasn’t here. So I figured I ought to take credit on her behalf.
    Once again, Shauhin made his signature breakfast, and once again it was delicious. He claimed the secret was the Italian seasoning, but I was pretty sure it was the massive amount of butter. Regardless, it’s tough to ever complain about scrambled eggs.
    We didn’t have too much planned for today. The idea of visiting Walden Pond arose, but after doing some clock math we decided it didn’t make too much sense. Eventually, we settled on the Freedom Trail.
    A good trip is a balance between doing unique, highly personal things (lighthouses, The House of the Seven Gables) and generic, canonical things (the Freedom Trail.) Obviously you want to do the things that are most applicable to you, but you also don’t want to leave the city feeling like you skipped the most famous parts that everyone will ask about. The Freedom Trail isn’t something I’m particularly interested in. Revolutionary history isn’t exactly my cup of tea. But I also didn’t want to leave Boston without touching on it.
    The weather was nice, and I brought a light jacket. I’m not going to detail the trail. The places were crowded with people, and we didn’t much want to shell out for tickets to go inside the buildings. The general consensus was that while the buildings were historically significant, they just didn’t have enough gables.
    “Wait a second,” I said at one point. “This is all just Paul Revere stuff.”
    “Paul Revere and Sam Adams,” Shauhin corrected me. “Now smile for the selfy with the Paul Reverse statue.”
    I gave a hearty grimace.
    Copp’s Hill was our official ending to the trail, where we found the Boston Harbor light’s first keeper’s grave. Given that it was our dozenth cemetery of the day, our meandering was a little burnt out, and very quickly we elected to abandon Freedom in favor of Food.

    We were in the North End, so Caffe Vittoria was the obvious choice. We ordered cappuccinos and limoncello cake. The cappuccinos had a nice creme brulee on them, and I immediately picked up my cup.
    “STOP!” Shauhin interjected. “You gotta take a picture.”
    “Phew. That could have been bad.” I took a picture.

    I burned the last of my rail pass on a trip to Newbury Street, an area of Boston that not only Shauhin and Ashley but my friend Yan had also recommended I check out. It quickly became one of my favorite parts of the city. The street was wide, and the buildings were pushed back with elegant facades. Newbury Street felt was the heart of the city as I had seen it– people popped in and out of shops and followed the flow of traffic down the sidewalk. To walk its length felt like a productive episode in existing within a human society, and my social battery recharged a little. I spotted a well regarded vegetarian ramen place.
    “I don’t have the arteries for ramen again,” Shauhin said, reading my mind.
    We went to a bookstore instead. Overburdened with books, I elected not to purchase anything, but Shauhin picked up something by an Iranian author.
    “This is a famous bookstore,” he said. “Don’t forget the name of this bookstore.”
    “Of course not,” I said. “I could never forget the name of this bookstore with such an iconic name.”
    After so much walking, it was time for more food, and Vietnamese seemed a reasonable play. The banh mi store around the corner had good reviews.
    “Tôi muốn... một chiếc bánh mì chay,” I said hesitantly, hoping my accent was intelligible.
    She pointed to the tofu. “Với đậu hũ?”
    Relieved, I nodded excitedly. “Vâng, vâng, với đậu hũ.”

    Over the summer I had gone with some friends to a Vietnamese restaurant near home. I had ordered my vegetarian pho in Vietnamese, and everyone was quite impressed. My dish was the first out, and was beef pho with extra pieces of beef on top. Everyone got quite a kick out of that, but I’d never felt more embarrassed in my adult life. Since then, I’d been a bit nervous to use Vietnamese in public.
    At this point we’d covered most of Boston proper, so Shauhin and I returned to Cambridge so he could study a bit. I read on the couch, and took a late nap, waking up hungry. Leaving Shauhin to focus on his schoolwork, I went to Central Square alone, where I had a bowl of ramen and an Allagash. Upon returning, Shauhin emerged from his den, and we watched Lonely Island music videos until eleven, when we both retired.

Saturday, October 25th

    Unfortunately, Shauhin’s Big Breakfast was not on the menu today, as I had procured tickets to a Fall Foliage Brunch Cruise, four capital letters. So at the time when Shauhin normally would have been cracking eggs and I would have been trying extremely hard not to pull the wrong switch on the toaster to watch the power go out, we instead set sail for the sails, and walked across town to the harbor district.
    Even though we brought out heavy coats for the wind on the water, it was a chilly walk, and I requested we stop for coffee. I ordered a spiced pear latte off the seasonal menu. Frankly, I have no idea what spiced pear should taste like as coffee. My drink was just a jumble of sweet flavors. Shauhin ordered black coffee. Probably to prove he was cooler than me.
    We boarded the boat at Rowes Wharf and found an empty bench on the top deck, while every other passenger nestled into the cozy, autumnally decorated cabin below. I should point out that that is also where all the food was, and after a few minutes of us shivering upstairs we went down to fill a plate.

    The nourishment was palatable, as Millard Fillmore spoke before his death. I had some kind of apple tart, a spinach and cheese pastry, scrambled eggs, potato, yogurt, and some berries. I added a slice of pineapple because buffets demand weird combinations of food. Shauhin had similar. Shauhin went back for seconds, but I wasn’t too interested in that. I didn’t realize it, but Boston’s airport is right on the harbor. I was duty bound to watch planes pass right overhead.

    We got our first bit of the advertised fall foliage while passing Spectacle Island, and a few people wandered up from the warmth of the cabin to take pictures. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too interested in the foliage. I was on this boat to look at lighthouses, namely the legendary Boston Harbor lighthouse, on one of the last islands in the harbor archipelago. The expected navigation was to start at the Long Island Head light, then pass the Boston Harbor light, and with any luck, the Grave lighthouse or Minot’s Ledge. But I was unsure if we’d go out that far.
    We arrived at Long Island Head lighthouse. The loudspeaker crackled.

    “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Long Island Head lighthouse. We will be turning around now.”
    Shauhin spent the remainder of the trip trying to keep me from murdering the captain.
    It was hard (but not impossible) to be mad, however, with a grey couple from Kansas City on the deck with us.
    “Woo! It’s chilly up here!” they announced their arrival to the two women on the bow. “Do you want us to take a photo of you two?”
    “No thanks, I think we’re good.” one of them replied politely.
    “Alright, well, if you change your mind give us a holler. My wife take a mean photograph.”
    A Boston family arrived shortly after, and took a selfy on the bow. You could tell they were a Boston family, partially because the dad was wearing shorts in 35 degree weather, and also his Northeastern Huskies hoodie.
    “Ayyo, go Huskers!” the Kansas City man chuckled. “Putter here!” he held out a fist. Awkwardly, the Boston man tapped it. “Where ya from?”
    “Boston,” he said, confused, and went back below deck.
    The Kansas City man turned to me. “Now, he didn’t seem very excited to meet a fellow Husker. Or was it just me?”
    His wife chimed in. “Musta gotten that shirt at the secondhand store!”
    I gave a polite smile.
    I was still mad about Boston Harbor Light, but getting a nice view of the Nantucket Lightship was a fantastic consolation prize. I explained the lightship lore to Shauhin, and we took some photos.

    They let us off the boat after two hours of mostly wasting time in the harbor, and at once Shauhin and I made for Harvard Square. My enthusiasm for Near Eastern archaeology made the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East an extremely attractive candidate for visitation, but naturally, it was closed today. So we went to the runner up across the street, an anthropology museum focusing heavily on native cultures.
    As an enthusiast for empire, I’ve never been deeply interested in pre-colonial North America as I have with European and Asian histories. Naturally, I’ve had my fascinations, growing up. The Klamath and the Huron decorated my thoughts sporadically in elementary school, and in high school I had a deep and inexplicable desire to learn to speak some Dogrib. In college I had also spent some time working in a lab for paleo Texas cultures. But overall I wouldn’t consider myself a native culture enthusiast. But unlike my Near Eastern museum, it was open, and I had a nice time wandering the exhibits.
    I was deeply impressed with Harvard’s commitment to repatriation. That’s always been a tough thing for me to think about– should a foreign museum house ever relics? Generally, I like the idea of needing to go to Lebanon to see Phoenician artifacts, for example– it makes the trip more meaningful for me personally, and also keeps the artifacts closer to the descendant people. So it seems like wins across the board. But on the other hand, not everyone can afford a trip to a far off country, and sometimes the country is deeply unstable. There are many near eastern relics that would have been destroyed had they been left in their original country. So I suspect that true optimization is somewhere in the middle– perhaps a home base, but a loan program, especially when things are getting dangerous around town.
    I passed two girls looking over an exhibit. “I don’t know what the difference is between a shard an a sherd,” one of them said.
    My blood froze. This was my moment. This was the culmination of my archaeology degree– a muscle I rarely got to flex. I opened my mouth and shut it a few times, debating both sides. I could explain it, sure, but would I be accused of mansplaining? These women came to the museum to look at cool artifacts, not have strange men tell them things. They could always google if they were truly curious.
    After a solid ten minutes of thinking, which was entirely too long to be natural, I cleared my throat.
    “Um, FYI– a shard is from glass, and a sherd is from pottery.”
    One of them gave a big grin. “Thank you so much!”
    I mumbled something incoherently and found a different part of the museum to look at things in.
    “You wanna go check out the exhibit down the hall? There’s dinosaurs.” Shauhin said after he found me.
    “Sure.”
    We rushed for the dinosaurs. I have a healthy respect for paleontology. The dinosaurs were very cool, but I was more interested in the ancient mammals. I found it titillating that some of these ancient mammals simply did not have common names, just Latin taxonomical ones. It made them feel extra obscure, and I always like things that hide on the fringes.

    There is a limit to museums, and that limit is further limited by preceding boat trips that don’t pass the Boston Harbor lighthouse. So with aching feet we headed back for Kendall Square, and I relieved my soreness with a long nap.
    I was more hungry than Shauhin was by dinnertime, so he let me pick the spot. My vote was for Veggie Galaxy, a 1950s diner themed restaurant with an exclusively vegetarian menu. Shauhin didn’t seem particularly excited. Few people are when the restaurant advertises an absence of meat. He warned me that reviews were mixed, but I figured it was worth the exploration.
    Central Square was popping, as it was the weekend before Halloween, and many people were dressed up in outfits that almost certainly did not keep them warm. The comparison with empty Kendall Square was night and day, or in this case, night and night– which actually doesn’t make sense, but the point stands. Kendall Square was basically empty, and tonight, Central Square felt like Cambridge’s answer to a bar district.
    Veggie Galaxy is styled after a retro midcentury diner, and honors the tradition with an annoyingly large menu. They did a fantastic job of representing the greatest hits, however, many items on the menu were foods I have not tasted in half a decade. Eventually, I settled on (seitan) chicken and waffles with jalapeno maple syrup and an appetizer of buffalo cauliflower. Shauhin ordered (seitan) chicken parm.

    The food was incredible. Shauhin kept commenting on how eerily similar the seitan was to real chicken, which made me proud. My dad and brother have made similar comments before regarding Trader Joe’s seitan chicken, and it’s nice to hear acknowledgement that the meat substitution technology is absolutely there. We wolfed down the food, and I made a mental note to figure out how to make this at home.
    Because it was my final night in Boston, I dragged Shauhin along to a local Cambridge brewery a fifteen minute walk away, the Lamplighter. I’d chosen it for its pumpkin ale on the menu. Shauhin and I ordered a round of it. Pumpkin ales are an art– too little pumpkin and it’s not a pumpkin ale. Too much and it tastes artificial, tacky, and rather gross. The Lamplighter pumpkin ale, named David S. Pumpkins in tribute to some SNL sketch I’m too young to understand, was more on the subdued side, but it still had a pleasant enough current of spices, and was highly drinkable. I ordered a second round, while Shauhin deviated to the Oktoberfest.

    “You don’t want an Oktoberfest?” Shauhin prodded, aware of my disorder that makes me required to consume every seasonal product I can find.
    “Every brewery north of the Mason Dixon line makes an Oktoberfest,” I replied, waving my jack’o’lantern glass at him. “But pumpkin ales are rare, and a drinkable one is even more rare.” There’d be no guilting me in my decision.
    Shauhin later admitted that the Oktoberfest wasn’t good anyway.
    At midnight I closed the tab, climbed into my puffer jacket, and we began the long walk home through the quiet streets of Cambridge, both of us resigned to the return to routine that tomorrow would bring. The orange glow of the Lamplighter behind us, a final anti-lighthouse expelling me from the harbor of a week’s rest, back into the world.