October 13, 2015.

October 10, 2015.

October 9, 2015.

October 7, 2015.

October 6, 2015.

The problem with not having a car is that the benefits are abstract and the drawbacks are very tangible. For example, last winter when Boston got buried in a record-breaking 110 inches of snow, we didn’t have a car to dig out. This was a relief, but it was an intangible relief, something that we appreciated in a very abstract way because it was merely an absence of hassle. Similarly, we didn’t have to deal with the nightmare of finding street parking, or moving to avoid a ticket or towing on street-cleaning days. This year, on the other side of the river in Cambridge, the parking is just as terrifying and our carlessness is just as logical. But while I understand that not having a car makes my life easier, I don’t really feel it.

A winter of buried cars and frozen hair.

In contrast, the hassle of not having a car is very apparent, manifesting for us mostly as inconvenient and often complicated machinations to coordinate schedules with my parents and get ourselves to wherever they have an available car. Of course we very much appreciate having often-available cars near enough for pickup — for free, or the cost of a T-ride. But on the night of this sketch, after a long day of work and a hectic week and weekend of travel, facing four more days of work ahead, the last place I wanted to be was on the highway and the on the T returning my dad’s car to his office.

So I did this sketch of Madison sitting on the T and then promptly fell asleep, missing most of what I would have learned from the NPR podcast we were listening to (shoutout to OnPoint podcasts, which do not usually put me to sleep).

Ordinarily on the train I would sketch other passengers, but there were so few people late at night (when we finally got around to returning the car) that doing so would have crossed into awkward territory. So here you have it: Madison’s shoes.

October 5, 2015.

October 4, 2015.

And so, the daily doodles did indeed become nearly daily, as predicted. But the trips were both great. My only uninspired sketch was from bed in my hotel room after a full day of roundtable brainstorming and a dinner with forty co-workers. It doesn’t really capture the energy of the trip, but by the time I was alone in my room the energy had been drained out of me.

The wedding, at 3pm the afternoon just outside New York City following a red-eye flight into Boston, was exhausting but perfect — the best college reunion since… well, my college reunion four months earlier. Not complaining.

October 1, 2015.

That’s not a bad habit, you argue?

It’s certainly not a vice, but bad habit, I think, is an entirely appropriate descriptor. Bookshelves are most inviting when they occupy the sweet spot between sparse and overwhelming, and ours generally err towards the latter. Rather than a casual event, picking a book off our crowded shelves is an intimidating decision with so many right answers that they all feel like the wrong one.

We are working on it. Slowly. In the meantime, we have two huge wooden bookshelves that facilitate our book hoarding ways. We got them for free online the day after we moved into our tiny North End apartment, where they improbably fit like a glove and served not only as bookshelves but as a pantry. In our new place, with our pantry items stored elsewhere and with two separate book purges behind us, somehow the shelves are still overflowing with unread pages.

They are getting there, though. In our living room the giant shelves now actually accommodate framed prints and postcards, board games, magazines, and a small dish of peanuts, the ratio of books to shelf space gradually reaching a balanced equilibrium. One more purge, perhaps, and they’ll be there.

And then we can start buying books again.

September 29, 2015.