Ode To Star Market (2002)

This was a poem that I wrote in 2002 about the insanity that is the Porter Square shopping center parking lot. It's chaos all the time. The poem, such as it is (I'm no poet) had an original title of Ode to Star Market (How I Did Not Get Sushi Last Night And Made This Up In The Car On The Way Home).

Ode To Porter Square Star Market

Star sells sushi a la carte, that's why I'm bound to go there

Otherwise I stay away from Supermarket Nightmare 

Homeward bound this dusk from GiantSuckingSound.com

A big enormous yen for sushi hit me like a bomb

"Do I dare?" I asked myself, approaching Porter Square

This time of night, without a doubt, a monster lurks in there

Writhing, ugly, slow and crass, a teeming steel and rubber clot

Evil, angry...what, you ask? The friggin' Porter parking lot!

Dreams of maki and wasabi danced around my hungry head

I steeled my nerve and gripped the wheel and gunned it straight ahead

"I am going to park this car," with all the grit that I could muster

(Note to self: Never heed your inner Colonel Custer)

I took a breath; I'm all alone and no one had my back

Angry lady almost rammed me with her giant Cadillac

I should have bailed then and there, but damn! I wanted sticky rice!

If not for that I'd not have risked my sanity to sacrifice

I chanced another round in hopes a space would open up

Saw Soccer Mom in Minivan flip off Dude in Pick-up Truck

Chick in Audi terror-stricken, Man in Beemer idled

Warning signals from myself, "You're getting homicidal"

Abort! Abandon Porter Square! Forget about the snapper!"

Oaf in Camry! Taurus Loser! Subaru Brake-Tapper!

I finally made it out and home, to contemplate my foolishness

How much did I want that fish, and how much did I need that stress?

You may also like: Boston. Because F**k You.

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Cah Wahz: Tales From a Boston Driver

Visitors marvel at how often we talk about traffic. The fact is, navigating in and around Boston takes a special kind of grit, and way more than a puny map. Boston sucks the joy out of car ownership. Making it home at a reasonable hour is an accomplishment, and yeah, we wanna talk about it. Don't be mad. Imagine the entire Dunks-torqued citizenry collectively compiling a series. How I Survived My Commute Today, Nobody In History Has Ever Parked A Car Anywhere Near Harvard Yard, Asshole and other titles, all of which are generally quite rude. Maybe "just pave over those cow paths" wasn't the best strategy for city planning.

September is where you earn it

Trucks and SUVs overloaded with students and their stunned kin. Jesus take the wheel. Those people will sooner sprout wings and take flight before they get where they're going on the first (or 10th) try. Prepare to observe synchro birdfinger horn feuds all up Comm Ave and Harvard Square forget about Allston Rock City as residents and interlopers clash. Tripled parked U-hauls and Ryders,  traffic circles become parking lots, and regular reports of the day's Storrowing. Try to remember a time in September when a truck didn't get stuck under a  bridge on Storrow.

 

You Can't Get There From Anywhere

My personal story goes like this: My then-boyfriend and I moved to Boston in the early 90s after college. Flummoxed by the seemingly inexplicable one way streets, traffic circles, scant signs and dead ends, we mounted a self-imposed seminar on Getting Around Boston. We would get our maps (which is a very old-school way to start a sentence) and set up destination-based challenges. We'd simulate the gauntlet for a variety of trips. These were practical recon excursions. "OK," we'd say. "Right now we are at home (Inman Square in Somerville). How do we get to the Prudential Center."  And so forth. Our skills would be put to the test in the real world, but only at quiet times. During the day it's too chaotic. So we'd wake pre-dawn, and get out there when the only other cars on the road are bread trucks and cabs.


"Is this Comm Ave? I think this is Mass Ave! Wait, was that our right turn? You can only go left here, WHAT THE F....?" One night I swear I turned right at three Dunkin Donuts' in a row and ended up at the corner of Tremont and Tremont.

"There's Big Ben, kids! Parliament!"

 Do you know they change the name of the road you're on sometimes here? Sometimes it changes back after a few miles. 

Did you know that it's possible to have a dead-end, one-way street? Nod to Steven Wright...and no wonder...he lives here.

Did you know that the compass points -- North, South, East and West -- can exist in some sort of hazy in-between space like those random thoughts you have when you're half awake or half asleep and don't know what day it even is?

Death grip on the wheel at 10 & 2. One way streets, traffic circles, dead ends. Blink, and you miss a vitally important sign the size of a greeting card, and now you have to drive out to the airport in order to get back to downtown.

Lest you think, oh, but that was before GPS technology got really good. Sure. It's a theory. Try it out. Have fun!

Parking Wars

There's also the problem of parking. Even if you reach your destination, my friend, you still have to park. The question, "where did you park?" never even comes up in other places, but here that's an ice breaker. Some years ago, I wrote a poem about giving up and just going home. 

Ode to Star Market

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