But these criticisms notwithstanding, modern medicine is the accumulation of years and years of human effort to taxonomically observe, understand and explain an enormous set of conditions within a massively complex, underspecified system. To me, this is impressive. Also, they use cool phrases like “the radiolucent lungs” and “ligamentous laxity.”

I’m flying to Europe tomorrow, for a whole bunch of sales meetings. Sleep beckons.

Ettore and Anna at yesterday’s yummy company dinner.

I think I’m probably at a higher level of energy about Ximian and the desktop than I’ve been all year, so that’s nice. Probably part of this is living alone — I’m spending most of my nights doing that leisurely half-work thing, whilst watching a movie or unpacking or whatever. It’s keeping the brain juices flowing, though it does also keep me up till 4 or 5 in the morning, which makes showing up at a respectable hour hard.

Riding my bike along the river Tuesday night.

Yesterday I went down to the RMV and finally got my Massachusetts driving license, after living here a little over seven years. There’s a grace period, right?

…by anyone.

Bicycling is definitely the fastest way to get around Boston; it’s a compact city, and the traffic laws are about as flexible as they get in the US, nothing like Mexico, of course, where Chema taught me that detouring off a bypass against the traffic onto a one-way is just the way things are done, but even so, by American standards, pretty fluid, I mean I was a little scared of the driving when I first moved here. Now I like it, it’s fun. I don’t even think of it as aggressive, which is the word most people use to describe Boston Driving, I just say “fluid.”

Central Square.

Anyway, the point is, even living out here in the country with my chickens and pigs, it only takes about 12 minutes to get to the office on my bike.

My mom in her studio.

My boxes.

The moving itself was quite an ordeal, even though I hired movers, which made me feel a little too much like an adult, or lazy, or maybe the two go hand-in-hand.

The place I’ve moved into, in Washington Square, is nice, a little run-down, but it has a lot of character, and it’s big enough to fit all my stuff, and I live here all alone. What’s bad is that I totally live out of the city now, or technically still in Brookline, but really this feels a little too much like a suburb, and after living in Redmond and Sunnyvale, I told myself I’d never do that again. Calling it a suburb probably conveys the wrong impression, though; I mean, all the houses are different, and I’m a five minute walk from the T, but still I miss having everything I need on my block.

Taylor in my new place.

On the other hand, living alone is giving me some time to myself, and I’m very grateful for that.