GayProf Starts from Zero

Greetings from Boston. I spent the past couple of desperate days trying to find a place to live. During that time, the stress added some silvery strands to my hair and I might have questioned if the cosmos still loved me. Panic began to creep into my thoughts after the first few days of seeing the bad, the worse, and the ugly in apartments. At times, I also wondered about my wisdom for going through all of this hassle for a single year appointment. Today, however, I am satisfied that the goddess still thinks kindly of me and remain excited about Boston.

Consider me triumphant in my quest to obtain an apartment. While not absolutely perfect (but what is?), my new loft-style apartment should more than satisfy my needs for the next year. Cut out of an old Victorian-era house, it’s a good size attic apartment. My new digs has a functioning bathroom, one of those stove-deals (I should really learn to use that at some point), and a couple of window AC units. With no fee and utilities included, I consider myself darn grateful. Thank you, cosmos! My faith is restored – though I warn you it will likely wavier again when I am in the middle of moving all of my crap across the U.S.

I learned some important things in my search for a greater-Boston-area apartment:

Advertisements that say “steps” to the T can actually mean up to 3/4 mile. While I grant that 3/4 mile does require one to perform the action of stepping, I am not sure I would consider that distance to fall under the term “steps.”

Taking an entire week to search for an apartment really would not have been time lost.

People in Boston can be exceptionally nice. Yeah, I know, the gruff, abrupt folk run around the city as well. All through the past few days, though, many, many people really went out of their way to offer help.

Landlords have a wide-range of interpretations about the meaning of the following words: studio, charming, one bedroom, efficiency, and clean.

The really, really, really cool apartments rent within the first hour of being posted on Craigslist. I hate, btw, the person who ended up with the nifty one-bedroom across the street from Davis Square. Whoever you are, consider yourself on my Nixon-type list.

No amount of money saved makes a 6:15am flight seem like a good idea.

A 6:15am flight feels like an even worse idea if a tropical storm from the previous night cancels said flight.

When one does not know about this same flight’s cancellation until after arriving at the airport, one can think of an astounding number curse words even after getting only four hours of sleep. Guess what happened to me this morning?

Paying a fee for an agent might not have been a horrible idea given I had little idea of what I was doing.

Boston has a substantially higher ratio of male beauty than Texas, but less than New Mexico.

Speaking of starting over, Lorraine and DaNator both asked about the ring/river deal in the previous entry's comments. I try not to allow subjects surrounding liar ex (who told many lies) to dominate the blog unless relevant to some other discussion. Believe me, I have enough gravitas to fill the blog without drawing on my extreme stupidity for wasting eight years with somebody so mediocre. Besides, liar ex (who told many lies) crosses my mind less and less each day.

Since they asked, though, I did carry out my decision to pitch my wedding band into the Rio Grande a few weeks ago. Because of an unusual amount of rain in Albuquerque, the river had a good amount of water. The ring made a satisfying “sploosh” sound as it hit the river. I am confident that its role in sustaining life in New Mexico will easily erase the negative energy vested in the ring.

Of course, the act of tossing the ring brought up a mix of feelings. As I have mentioned, some good memories still exist. Not every moment of those eight years, obviously, involved heartache – only the last year -- and maybe the first year -- well, that third year wasn't so great -- Hmm, that marriage sucked.

As I stood ready to toss the ring, though, I also thought about how much fun it must have been to be mean to me. The decisions that liar ex (who told many lies) made while ending the relationship showed a sleazy, selfish, cowardly inner character. I also thought about my own absurdity of taking this middling individual’s claims of having “evolved” beyond me seriously (Yes, he really said that).

I thought about one of our last conversations where his depraved indifference to my feelings became painfully clear. Liar ex (who told many lies) told me that I really didn’t have anything to complain about because it wasn’t like he was physically beating me (Yes, he really said that). Even now, I am dumbfounded by his ability to rationalize his actions in this way.

Liar ex (who told many lies) might have found another man as dumb as me to love him, but he sealed himself into always being my liar ex (who told many lies). Always. I can only hope that I will never become such a negative memory for somebody else.

I recognize that I failed to protect myself or demand to be treated in a way that I deserved. Instead, I set the bar extremely low by only asking that liar ex (who told many lies) provide a basic sense of stability and security. In the end, he could not even deliver that.

Now I am just glad that I only had to live with him for eight years. He has to live with himself for the rest of his life. I consider myself lucky in comparison. I would probably recommend avoiding being in physical proximity to him when all that bad karma he accrued decides to return to him. The karmic balance, it seems to me, has a special disdain for those who toss away positive energy, such as love, to pursue their own selfish agendas.

Tossing the ring reminded me also of my own gratefulness about starting my life over basically at zero in Boston. I am moving to a new city, have a new place to live, and an exciting fellowship opportunity for the year. I plan to fully enjoy my new-found freedom.



After that, who knows? I still have my job in Texas for the year after, but will also be keeping an eye on the job advertisements that will start appearing in late August. This year, though, should answer many of GayProf’s questions about his own life’s new directions. Does he want to live in a urban area like Boston? Or a quiet college community like Eastern Texas? What new fashion trends will he adopt?What types of new goals does he have for his research? Will he ever find those old glory short-shorts?

All of these questions and many more will be answered in the ongoing saga of The Center of Gravitas. Stay tuned.