Author: admin

Turns out you can be pretty hilarious in 140 characters or less.

I’m a downtown sorta gal, if we’re using fifties slang to describe ourselves (and we are, goddamnit). I lived at the same spot near the train station and Shaws for ten years – the entirety of my twenties – but recently I moved to the woods of West Gloucester. Not entirely on purpose – you try finding a goddamn year-round rental in May in this town. You take what you can get, and you like it! I ended up lucking into an adorable tiny house near West Parish school, or “the bones of the new West Parish school” as it were. It’s been… a change. My first day here, a tractor rumbled down my street, loudly, with several SUVs honking maniacally behind it. “This is just life now,” I said out loud, to no one in particular.

In today’s GDT police notes…

The first thing I noticed, of course, was that out here in bumblefuck, I could no longer overhear the coughing of my chain-smoking neighbors, their entire animated conversations from my bedroom window, or their two-hour vocal symphonies calling their feral cats that pooped in our yard home for dinner. It turns out that when you’re 150 feet from the nearest house, there’s far fewer domestic disputes and/or drug transactions you overhear. Of course, that has been replaced by birds. A lot of birds. Birds that start their jibberjabbering at two in the fucking morning. It’s not even close to light out at 2 AM, birds, are you drunk or lost? So either way, earplugs. No net gain there.

Being out in the woods after so long in an urban core (before Gloucester, I lived in downtown Lowell) is honestly kind of weird. I feel like at any given moment, a pack of coyotes, wolves, coywolves, bears, or woods-people are going to show up on my back deck and just maul me. And no one would hear me scream.

I’ve noticed that no one in two weeks has thrown trash in my yard. Nary a Fireball nip bottle has shown up in a potted plant. No stray work gloves, bottles of bleach, empty packs of Virginia Slims, nor individual skis have sullied my driveway or yard. It’s uncanny. But here in the boonies, everyone has land in which to keep their own detritus – mostly in the form of ramshackle falling down sheds, 1985 Dodge Ramchargers, and thousands of empty pots that probably once held flowers but now hold standing water and mosquito larvae.

But the lack of litter and quiet isn’t without its pitfalls. No people means no fun. Downtown has walkability – I could tuck and roll out my front door and hit a couple bars, four pizza places, two chinese restaurants, six nail salons, and five convenience stores within a few blocks. Here? We have, uh, a church, and a variety store like a mile away. Dislike.

It’s not like I forgot car culture existed, as I drive several piece of shit vehicles around Gloucester on any given day (wave, everybody, there’s KT with half a bumper!) – it’s that I honestly can’t get ANYWHERE without a car around here. Except for the variety store, if I want to spend an hour walking to go get a soda and an ice cream. Do they have Keno? I don’t even know. Probably. This is America, after all.

In the end, I miss downtown. I’ll probably be back eventually. Just as long as I don’t end up in Rockport. God, not Rockport.

A friend of a friend opened his stupid facehole the other day and the garbagewater that spilled out was, “Ugh, you live in Gloucester? The schools are so SHITTY there.” It took a lot of effort to not just throw myself on the floor and roll around yelling insults.

The schools aren’t shitty here. They’re not even CLOSE to shitty. Can we just stop with this dumb myth? I admit, that when I first had a baby and knew no one here, I’d heard that the schools were a mess. I believed it because I didn’t really know any better – and I was pregnant during the “pregnancy pact” bullshit. But oh my sweet crap on a cracker, was I wrong.

The singular data point you need to believe me on this was this weekend’s Gloucester Educational Fund arts festival downtown. Lured in by the promise of robotics and my kid’s art, I showed up – and was BLOWN AWAY. I’m a huge supporter of GEF, although my grinding, ceaseless near-poverty precludes me from donating to them all the money I wish I could.

Recycled plastic art. It’s like they know me!

Although it had a ton of amazing arts turnout (including a multitude of bands, and the  EGS Ukulele concert!) what really took the cake for me (because nerd) was the robotics program. As you may know, we here at the Clam were a part of the Great 3D Printer Build last year, where the GEF purchased almost 30 3D printers and we all spent a weekend assembling them and then went delirious at the end from lack of sleep and that fucking clearly stoned guy trying to explain the assembly in a series of aggravating Youtube videos.

Anyway, the HS robotics club had some amazing interactive exhibits that truly showed how above average our Engineering program is. Like, with remote control tanks.

Our assorted Clamchildren, doing what they do (fighting over cool toys).

One of the things Maggie Rosa tracked me down to make sure I saw was the sand installation. “A sandbox with stuff projected on it – interesting!” I thought. UNTIL I SAW IT. The sandbox is two 3d cameras that take real-time height information from the kids making hills and valleys in the sand, sends that info to a laptop, that turns it into a real-live topographical map that is projected back onto the sand via overhead projector. High school students made this! HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS MADE THIS.

They will grow up not thinking this is incredible at all.

The presentation by the robotics kids and teacher Kurt Lichtenwald was pretty dang impressive. It had ping pong balls, homemade guitars, and of course, drones.

Our lives are mostly just drones at this point.

Turns out Gloucester High has one of the top engineering departments in the goddamn state. Kids are getting into WPI with no problems because they’re involved in our engineering programs.

Gloucester’s future is technology. The Clam wholeheartedly believes this (and not just because we’re epic super nerds). We’re doing amazing things, and our kids are going to be rock stars if we play this right. GEF is a huge part of this, as well as handfuls of amazing, dedicated, forward-thinking people. Our kids? They’re gonna be just fine.

And the schools are great. So STFU and enjoy it, instead of complaining.

It’s a short one, I had surgery this week and I’m worn out.