Hip Sunday

When I moved to Boston way back when (2000), I envisioned myself enjoying all that the city has to offer. I imagined myself with artsy friends who made lots of art and drank coffee in small coffee shops I'd never heard of, and all my friends from Rhode Island would be jealous of my fabulously artsy life. I imagined myself in the society page of the Globe, smiling in a pretty cocktail dress. No one would know my name, but they'd know I was cooler than them because I was at a hot event.
Then I got here and spent most of my spare time window-shopping and eating in bars.
This weekend, I actually enjoyed all that Boston has to offer. Friday night the Whatever and I had sushi at Super Fusion Cuisine. I cannot say enough good things about Super Fusion Cuisine. I am considering bringing Shakespeare back from the dead, force-feeding him mango rolls while his eyes flick back and forth while observing the wonders of electricity and Asian people owning a business in America, and making him write a sonnet for the glory that is Super Fusion Cuisine. It may be a bitch to put in iambic pentameter. Don't care. Write it, Bard.
Sunday was the day of city living. After the "back to Catholic school" party on Saturday night and the requisite post-party calzone from Natalie's, the Whatever and I slept late, got up and went to the AltWheels festival in Brookline. We saw many electric cars. We even saw cars powered by used vegetable oil and diesel. It was cool, but the science of it escaped me. I just liked sitting in the cars and pretending I was driving.
We then hit the South End open studios. My boss has space on Tremont Street, so we walked around all the different studios in his building. Since we spent the morning moaning and trying to get up the moxie to walk our lazy asses down to 7-Eleven for snacks, we didn't have time to see even a fraction of what Open Studios had to offer. I'd anticipated just showing up to support my really nice boss and making bug-eyes at the prices of different pieces, but some artists had prints I could actually afford. One woman had funky etchings, my favorite being a stylized chicken pushing a stroller full of eggs. One man had medieval prints for fifteen bucks. The Whatever and I wanted to buy something, but we didn't have any cash and it was getting late by the time we needed to decide, so we didn't get anything. But if you're in the area next year, by all means go. It's worth it just to see the gorgeous building. My boss works in 551 Tremont, which is an old theater. You walk through winding steps, narrow hallways and find artists in glorified closets or huge rooms with a view that condo developers have wet dreams about. The artists are all incredibly friendly (taxing as that is) and there's much to look at, even if you don't buy. There was even a sting instrument studio that, as my boss put it, was a picture just waiting to be taken. Deep woods, with the sound of a cello playing through the foyer of the building.
Then, to complete the hip city weekend, we had dinner at Addis. I supported the arts (well, morally, anyway) and had ethnic food.
"I feel so hip," I said to the Whatever as we sipped out Ethiopian drinks. "I love that you enjoy all this cool city stuff."
"Well, it's only cool because you like doing it. You're not doing it just to be cool, are you?"
Maybe that's what I was missing when I moved here-- I was trying to do everything fun that Sex and the City told me was fun. I've found that doing things in the city is a trial and error process-- some of it will be fun, some of it will suck. You just go and hope for the best. And if you hate it, you can always eat at Bennigan's and see a movie at the end of the day.