This is the End, Beautiful Friend, the End ...

When I lead off with a lyric from the Doors, you know that this is going to be a good entry. Theoretically, it should be pretty good anyway. After five years and exactly one month, Friday was my last day at HCPro. It was a very strange experience as I’ve only had three “real” jobs since I graduated and both times that I left were under different circumstances.

When I left Mellon, I hated the place and just quit (check out the explanation and the cartoon about this on Wednesday) and at the Journal, I gave my two-week notice and the next day we were bought out and everyone was canned. This was actually the first time that I left a job that I enjoyed for a better one.

The strange thing about last week was that I was getting nostalgic just about every day, as I made sure to hit all three spots I normally went for lunch: the light house and both sides of Deveraux Beach. As I was eating my lunch those days and staring at the ocean, I realized that the life that I have now (predictable) was about to change. For example, if I was still at my job, I could tell you exactly what I was going to be doing a month from today.

Now, I am casting myself off into the great unknown of Needham and Tech Target. Overdramatic? You bet. But the fact is when I walk into my new job on Wednesday, I’m not going to have any idea what I’m doing and what they expect from me. That’s a daunting experience. Forget about my day-to-day responsibilities, I won’t even know where a good place to eat my lunch or which shop has the best subs or where I can go and grab some of the daily essentials. Things like that.

As much as I hated Marblehead (and I mostly hated the people and the overall geographic location) it was almost like a second home to me. I knew that Marblehead Munchies had the top sandwiches in town, Vinnin Square’s Fantasy Island had the best crappy Chinese food, the Indian guy at Richdale’s would some times let me get away with out paying him. BTW, my last day I swung by Richdale’s and said good bye to the Indian dude (the only reason why I’m mentioning this is because I wrote a bit about him in June) and he seemed pretty sad to see me leave.

The strangest thing about this whole experience is that a lot of people seemed pretty sad to see me go. I knew that people at work knew who I was, but I didn’t think that anyone really cared. Like I’ve said on numerous occasions, I purposely didn’t make a lot of tight bonds at work, but I got a lot of nice words from people; pats on the back, job well dones, and good lucks. It was unexpected and I felt awesome.

Like I told Aly on Friday after I left, the feeling that I can compare it to is the last day of school when you and everyone else is rushing around trying to get your lockers clean and stuff picked up so you can move on to summer vacation. The only exception is that I was the only one that’s moving on. Tomorrow people are going to go to work at HCPro and after a while, I’m just going to be a memory.

There are going to be a bunch of people that I’m going to miss from Marblehead, but in the end, it’s time to move on.

You would think that a life change like this would bring upon a wild weekend. That didn’t happen, Friday night Aly and I got a pizza and watched “In the Name of the Father”, which was an awesome movie. Both the writing and the acting were terrific, if you haven’t seen it, I suggest that you go and rent it right now.

Saturday, we went over to Keri and Byrnie’s house and met their new daughter Maeve. She’s a very cool and cute baby; she barely made a fuss at all. Unlike a lot of new parents that we know, Byrnie and Keri were pretty chill about having a newborn in the house. They weren’t negligent or anything, but they weren’t hovering over her. It’s hard to explain, but they held her, fed her, changed her, did all of that stuff, but they weren’t all about the baby. They talked about a lot of other stuff too.

I hope that when Aly and I have a baby and people start to come over and see him/her, we’re not like those obnoxious parents who steer every conversation to the baby and what’s wrong with the baby and how cute the baby is, etc. While expected, it gets boring after a while. After that, we were going to go to Coolidge Corner to check out a movie, but it was absolutely freezing and we didn’t feel like walking, so we watched “Garden State” on HBO.

It was a slower flick than “In the Name of the Father”, but it was still really good. Zack Braff did a hell of a job writing, acting and directing the flick. He was really able to capture the feeling you get when you come home after a long time and you run into a lot of your old friends. The awkwardness, the feeling of being a stranger while being surrounded by people that you’ve known for ever.

Sunday, Aly and I touched up the dining room and the living room and that took a hell of a long time. Like four or five hours worth of painting. Then we went to a restaurant called Dux with her parents and Lauren and Bob. I think Roy had points, so the entire meal was on the house. Anything we wanted to eat. And we fucking ate. Just a gluttonous display of gorging. It was awesome. Beers, martinis, two bottles of wine, I had a gigantic bowl of clam chowder, a Caesar salad, bleu cheese encrusted steak, hashbrowns and dessert. And I wasn’t the only one who ate like that, we all did. It was terrific and just a lot of fun. I think I could get used to eating like that.

Aly was hammered when we came home, so she passed out and I watched “Monster’s Ball”. Aside from seeing Halle Berry naked, I wasn’t that impressed with the flick. It was ok and really, really slow. I didn’t connect with it at all.

Today we’re supposed to finish touching up the other three rooms and then we’re going with a couple of Aly’s friends to the Publick House in Washington Square. That should be really cool.

Oh yeah, if you have a second, check out the two new links on the side of the Room 19 Comics board: Boston Braves Historical Association and the Merry Muses of Caledonia. The first one is the absolute first web site that I've done and I'm actually pretty proud of it. Check it out and let me know what you think. The second one is from Ryan and is a Blog on the Scottish rock scene. He really knows his shit, so you should check it out.