"All the people here in Boston, in New England generally, are very on-grounded, literally and figuratively" - I thought. "They study, work, drink alcohol, have endless conversation about nothing, and that's kind of all their lives. I will climb higher and look on them from the above. Literally and figuratively."
Yesterday was that kind of day when everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong. Initially, I planned to do a lot and spend a very productive day, as a result I ruined everything and even more. I stayed for an overnight at the library because of, again, the number of things I had to do. I was doing homework for my College English 2 course, which I am taking for a millionth time, and was really nervous about the climb I planned to do on the sunrise and promised to report to my friend so she could know I'm alive. I wrote the responses for discussion board and started the to essays I had to write for the past week, at the same time researching any information in the Internet about urban climbing and chasing cranes. A lot of new things were learnt. As turned out, the term "rooftopping" was first mentioned in the source dated 15 August 2003 (thanks wordspy.com), in Ninjalicious's "Journal: Blackout Exploration". I, indeed, found something I was looking for, particularly what chasing cranes looks like from the first person's eyes (somebody filmed the entire thing on his GoPro and posted to YouTube); and what consequences can I expect if I am caught. A guy I recently met and chatted with on Instagram, Noah Kingston, wrote me an entire article on how dangerous it all is and how I can be put to jail for two years for trespassing, or at least fall to my death. It seemed like everything around told me "Don't do it". Loneliness, with a really rare exception, is an awful thing. In my case right now, nobody says, "In case of what, I am with you." Maybe not physically, at least in mind - that would be much more than I need. For now though, I can easily live a day not saying a word.
I researched a lot, and learned a lot of useful stuff. I was not sure if I would chase the 2° difficulty level object before even being on the 1°, but at least I would explore it. The night was dark and it was calling. As you have, hopefully, already guessed, the 1° difficulty level object was the roof of SquashBusters, Inc. at Northeastern, particularly its edge where the letters reading "BADGER & ROSEN SQUASHBUSTERS CENTER AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY" are, and the 2° level was a crane on the site of former 1383 Boylston street. There used to be an ugly old yellow one-story building, with a big black banner on it, which read "These are the faces of Fenway. This is where we work. This is where we play. This is where we live.". Below that long banner there were some photos of Fenway area, some good, some not. The building was traingle-shaped if looking from above, and on its front angle, if approaching from Park Dr, there was a porch, and on its side to your left there was an ACE TICKET store (former 184 Brookline avenue). But that store was very small, the purpose of the rest of the building is not known to me, most likely it was kinda-abandoned. I'm glad they demolished it and started building a skyscraper, because, firstly, skyscraper is beautiful, and secondly, the construction site is welcoming. Very welcoming.
The series of misfortunate events started when I was leaving the library; the staff at info dest refused to keep my longboard for a couple hours, telling me something like that it was not their business. Ba dam tss! The plan with express-cranechasing failed. Almost. There was a hope that I could leave my board somewhere on ground level where nobody would find it in case of what. How naive! As I approached Boylston street, I saw the crane. I saw the blindingly white winking lamp, which called "Climb up here and touch me!" I came closer. It was a very attractive site with nobody present (in my visibility) and no surveillance cameras either. I could not miss such chance. It is just way too easy. But not today. As I was riding away from it on my longboard on Peterborough street, the first rays of sun were rising from above the horizon. "Blue hour!" - I thought. I took my smartphone to take a picture of such beauty. I noticed the time was 4:56. With a single swipe I opened the camera application, and only thing I could do was to take a picture, to never see it. I did not notice the cone on the asphalt. Where did the cone only came from? There are no fur trees on Peterborough! Next moment I was in the air, to meet asphalt with my knees and palms. And with a smartphone in one of them. For some time I was just lying on the asphalt in pain. Then the pain turned into very unpleasant feeling in my knees and palms. I picked up a smartphone. Totally damaged. Its screen was cracked totally, with some red, green and blue lines on it, turning on and off. I landed one of my palm on it, so it even bended a little. I picked it up, picked a cone and went to pick a longboard which was already far behind. I went toward the University, crying. It wasn't much of a pain, it was a thousand-dollar smartphone. I did not have money. A thought came to my mind, how the minute ago everything was totally fine an going as planned, but now so many great things are ruined. Really great. I was walking on the Peterborough, then turned right at Seventh Day Adventist Church on Jersey. I was pronouncing my thoughts out loud. "I don't have money." "I don't have a thousand bucks" . I went to the library. The first lights of the new day were starting to brighten the sky, but did not yet touch the streets of a city. As passing through Emerald Necklace of Back Bay Fens, I stopped at the point before the bridge and gazed on the water, on the sky red from the rising Sun, on the Prudential tower behind the bushes, and questioned out loud "Why? Why this happened to me? Where am I going to take $1000 for a new smartphone? What am I going to tell Mom?" Although the worst was behind, the rest of the series of misfortunate events were still ahead. It was a pity such an expensive thing was broken. It was a pity all the photos and videos were most likely lost irretrievably. It was a pity the plan with Squashbusters Center would not be turned to life that morning. It also was a pity I tore my jeans on the knees, but a little less. As passing Museum of Fine Arts Promenade, still crying and afraid if somebody will see, I tried to think logically and forget about the pain in my knees and in palms a little. I was thinking what exactly happened during the last month (20 days actually), which is the time period from my last iPhoto backup. Yes, 20 days since the day I destroyed my laptop by spilling milk on it. Exactly 20 days, since I did it in those early morning hours. I was trying to remember what photos were lost. Interestingly, I only regretted my selfies on a green couch in the library. My best photos were actually backed up on Instagram (every day I post the best photo of the day there), and the rest were pretty grey and nothing outstanding, or as I thought I couldn't remember but there actually were some worthy ones. I also thought that I didn't cry for a while, and that for a guy of my age it's pretty natural (sarcastically, earlier that night I had to read a blog post for my assignment, of a guy who cried and had a hysterics over his website being plagiarized and his poetry stolen, "My Story: My First Plagiarism Battle by Jonathan Bailey (a man who hosts a very good website about the topic, www.plagiarismtoday.com) (2005)). When I reached Huntington Avenue and turned my head to see the red flower near the entrance to the museum, I sobbed, remembering the picture I took of it. That picture was on Instagram but the others, which as I thought were lost, weren't. I thought about the fact that I am dependent on photos and videos and that it is very terrible to live without a camera (preferrably a good one), unable to picture or film anything. But is it a bad addiction to always being able to document your life and your memories on a paper or a hard drive?
Back at the library I checked the working hours of Apple Store - the very first place I will have to go to. Opens at eleven. Damn! They usually open at ten, but it was Sunday. I reserved the next available appointment for Monday at noon thirty - nothing closer. If they will refuse to check me upon a walk-in today, I will have to wait until tomorrow. For now the only reasonable thing I could do was to take a nap until then.
I hobbled up to the third floor using the stairs. It was even more painful to bend my knees now then it was after I fell. An assistant who came to me asked if I needed a bandage, I said I was good. I only said that I wanted to know if my phone was reparable or not. After seeing his face, I concluded - it hardly is. I mentioned that the most important thing were the pictures and videos on the phone, and he persuaded me that they are also hardly backed up, because he couldn't see any photos at all on the percentage chart for the information backed up on my Apple account.
After that, the day of useless wandering around started. I went all the way back to the library (fortunately, despite the pain in my knees, I could still ride a skateboard, which fastened the process, but not for a long time). At the library I downloaded the program for memory backup directly from smartphone, made sure the computer did not even recognize the connected device, screw the whole thing, went back to Apple Store to see another assistant, this time female, who told me the same thing - that the phone is most likely unrepearable, but I could give it away and get a brand new one for as low as $350. She recommended me some stores which offered to scan the motherboard and make an attempt to withdrawal the data from it directly (however the store was only open from Monday to Friday), so I went back to the University; on my way through Prudential center I stopped at two kiosks which did the smartphone repair; the guy at the first one said they only replaced screens; and the guy at the second one, who actually helped me and did something, is worth mentioning.
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Money withdrawal
InstaMeet
This single day, even just ten hours of it, helped me realized how I was really bounded to my smartphone. But is it a bad thing? I thought logically: I do not have an addiction, like the most. Instead, I just used the smartphone a lot because it helped me to do a lot of things (not just watch kittens on YouTube), so now of course I felt somewhat uncomfortable without it. But it was nothing like that narcotic hangover my Mom once had when the mobile carrier put down the Internet for a couple hours for technical reasons.
I completed the day pretty smooth, back at the University Library, which is my second home (actually first) completing the assignments I have to submit online by midnight. I was late with the weekly quiz for Health Issues of Environmental Problems, but I hope they will either take a single point off or won't notice at all. As I figured out, I only lost the photos I took that misfortunate nightish-morningish hours yesterday, of the construction site and of the sky above Peterborough street at Blue Hour - the last photo my old iPhone 6 Plus ever made a second before its death. It is still a minor los of data, but not actually something to even worry about. Today is Monday, 25 of April, and the Sun is on the zenith. Monday is supposed to be the worst day, but I know that mine was just yesterday. There is never another storm right after a storm. My friend probably thinks that either I'm dead or held by police. I promised to send her the rooftop photos yesterday. Well, I'm guessing it's time to let her know things are not that bad, but almost.
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