Welcome to the Drollhouse

I'm on TV!

More accurately, my reflection scoffs at me from its place on the 19" MGA across the whitewashed room. At the bottom of the screen, my legs are cartoonishly long and thick in my ratty jeans. The toes of yesterday's dress socks face each other, their blackness in sharp contrast to the iBook on my lap. If I had a choice, a Padres game or The Price is Right, even a Saved By the Bell rerun, would stare back at me in place of my reflection, but the cable guy is tied up for the rest of the month and even the major networks don't agree with this old piece of junk.

To my right, a perfect Maine day taunts me through the blinds. Green and red leaves hug branches relentlessly, a trashbag grave in their not-too-distant future. Two kids, probably future yoga instructors or garage band drummers, fly by on bicycles. A new world awaits, the city I've been invoking for months to steal me away from the callousness of the suburbs. If I had a choice, I'd be out there exploring, looking for pub I'll spend countless Friday nights in, the consignment shop that will help furnish my first house, the used record store that will redefine my collection. Or at the very least, I'd be at work, counting down the minutes to said exploration.

Alas, I sit as I have every evening of my short Maine life, reclined in a La-Z-Boy, listening to John Cale and Kanye West and Sinead O'Connor, anyone who will keep me company through an ailment that could only be brought on by a move north in autumn. Just a cold, sure, but one that's essentially postponed my introduction to Portland.

My first impressions of Portland, pre-sickness, were overwhelmingly positive. Bars with 80 taps and plentiful seating. An eight-minute drive to work through the densest of rush hours. Ocean views you can't seem to escape traveling north, south, east, or west. SIx-dollar playoff baseball tickets.

That's right, six-dollar playoff baseball tickets. Soon enough...