tonight my new city feels eerily like my old city.

but i should qualify that by admitting that I am typing these words from a Starbucks (in Somerville). I tried the independent coffee place across the street but it was extremely unfriendly and the pool table noise was getting to me. I didn’t know where else to go.

And I can’t go back to the place where I am temporarily dwelling because it’s gotten a little strange with the woman who owns the house. She gets easily irked if I leave a light on in the bathroom after I leave for work.

She was very upset with me when I did not turn off the outdoor driveway light which has a motion sensor that automatically turns on. And I made the huge mistake of thinking it automatically turned off.

But then the more cataclysmic event happened 2 mornings ago. I was walking down the stairs that connect the kitchen to my dwelling in the basement. And I stepped on a white plastic bag that was lying on the stairs and I felt the crunching sound of  something ceramic breaking… and it turned out to be a ceramic bowl. My host was devastated. Tears came flooding down. I knew I had done something terrible and I could sense irreparable.

She had found this ceramic bowl in a Mexican village and had planned on giving it as a surprise to a very special friend. I didn’t know what to say.

It reminded of a similar feeling I had 19 years ago when I lived in Seattle.  I had left the door slightly ajar and my new housemate’s dog went scurrying out the door. And it took 12 hours before the poor dog was found. maybe the worst 12 hours of my life.

But this incident was more finite. It was futile to offer to pay for the bowl because it was irreplaceable. And I don’t think she had any plans to return to that village in Mexico.

Eventually, after many many apologies and “I feel terrible” utterances, she asked if I was OK because I could easily have fallen down the stairs.

So I can’t go back there tonight, until I know she is asleep.

I’ll give it another 1/2 hour.