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It is quiet in Brookline tonight amidst what looks like a blizzard. This is partly because I unplugged my faulty disk drive from the pile of cables inside of the desktop computer. At least a blizzard that is what it looked like for the past hour as I fended my way through the snow from Inman Square to try to pull the PT cruiser into my newly rented parking spot. The spot is a good fifteen minute walk away and I have only successfully parked in it three times so far. I finalized it on Thursday night as I was panicked to find a space for March. The owner of the space was an eccentric man named Dan and he was speaking with me on the telephone as I was spinning around a parking lot near Ski Market to rent a snowboard for the ski trip this weekend to explain to me how far he thought the space might be. Dan was giving me the first shot among the eight calls he had received from his craigslist posting because I called him first at 10:30 PM the night before and because my name was also Dan. I figured that when it comes to Brookline parking, especially after having an awful night prior learning about the Thursday street cleaning rules in Allston that even if the space was in a remote farming village in Malaysia I would take it. I would have gone directly to meet Dan but he was on a mission to Toys R Us that he would later explain to me so I had to wait until 10:30 PM before I could rendezvous with him to review the parking spot.

Unfortunately Ski Market does not rent or sell snowboards. They directed me downstairs to the underground where they deal with the dregs of the society interested in sports, clothing, and general culture surrounding skating. When I arrived in the basement below Ski Market I entered what appeared to be a non sequitur scene from one of my dreams. The room smelled musty of the funk from unwashed cotton hooded sweatshirts. On one side of the basement room two twenty five year old kids with colored hair and skater gear were sitting in a mock beaten living room watching skating videos. Behind them was a room about the size of a basketball court filled with home fashioned wooden ramps where a skateboarder was rolling up and down with a helmet on.

Behind the counter a heavily pierced muscular but overweight man was standing with headphones on in front of a large sleeping dog while another man behind the counter was talking intently on his cellular phone about a deal that was going down. I tried to gain the attention of either of them for a minute without any extensive verbal nudges but I finally gave the one with the headphones on a verbal cue that I was interested in being served. I probably didn't look like their kind of customer when I asked them if they rented snowboards. Their answer was a firm no because they had just had a sale that they run every year to sell all of the snowboard rentals as used snowboards and thus they no longer were keeping any snowboards in stock. This might seem like a normal thing to do but at the moment there is a blizzard outside in Boston and it is likely to continue to generate plenty of snow around here until mid-April. So I went back upstairs to rent skis at the Ski Market instead. All of this was totally avoidable since last year when our ski trip fell apart due to bad conditions and a bed/flimsy piece of wet foam on the floor by the area where the wet ski boots were stored, that was unsleepable for Robert, we had been given vouchers for Sugarloaf including a lift ticket and a rental at the mountain. They had expired but Robert used his when he arrived.

So I had loaded the car with downhill skis for the night and dropped off Sarah when I arrived at Dan, the eccentric man with the parking spaces house. I realized immediately that I was in another country and would need to bring a source of water and supplies for a three day hike every time I wanted to go to my car, but I had to put the car somewhere for the night, and I could use the exercise walking back. It took me over two hours to return home to the apartment because I both needed to talk to Dan about everything and then had to hike home. Dan is an interesting person. He claims to be one of the few people on his street who is not a doctor or a very successful software person. He grew up in the house where he now lives.

Dan and his wife are artists who put on plays to raise money for women and children in the Boston area affected with AIDS. Their house would probably fall down if all of the collected items inside of it were removed but they provide a full store of interesting items. Upon entering the house I was introduced to the lovely black and white hallway. In this hallway they have collected items from any part of their lives that are only black and white. This includes stuffed animal zebras, prison uniforms, dice, frightening white faced clowns, album covers, and a host of other items. I would have taken a picture of it if I had the camera with me. At the end of the hall is the kitchen where a small speckled Dachshund (Weiner dog) lies in wait for you to approach and then barks behind a piece of plywood that separates the kitchen from the black and white hallway.

Dan is considering writing a book on plastic figurines. He has become an avid collector of figurines and began to introduce me to his collection. It took me a while to realize that a figurine is basically what I would call an action figure. His trip to Toys R Us was to acquire some new figurines since he likes to buy them in the box at prices below $10 when they are marked down by the stores. He was very interested in the fact that they have begun packaging heroes along with villains in single bundles and showed me his Spiderman and Doc Octopus bundled set. He also found it interesting that sometimes the manufacturers will sell the same figurine but with different heads. He found two versions of the same Wolverine, one where he looks human and the other where he appears to be wearing a mask. He also was fond of a group of figurines that were children dressed for Halloween as the cast of Sponge Bob.

Dan was also nice enough to explain to me how the parking situation works in his driveway. He has room for three parkers and his car. His car actually blocks all three parkers into the driveway so it is better if the parker is looking to leave later in the morning or enter earlier in the evening. Dan is happy to monitor the driveway and he will avoid parking people in until 2:30 AM by watching to see if everyone is in. The driveway in the winter becomes exceedingly difficult to back out of so his recommendation to me was to back into it down the steep hill and then cut the car to the left in reverse around the other cars. He claims there is a grotto in the yard that parkers are welcome to use and that if I don't have a place to garden that he and his wife would be happy to give us space in their yard to create our own garden. I didn't see much room for either a grotto or a garden but it isn't spring yet so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

So tonight I went to park my car after coming home from Improv and distributing the post cards to everyone in my class to advertise the show we are doing on the Sunday March 20th and Sunday April 3rd (7 PM reserve tickets in advance at improvboston.com and don't come late or you will lose your seat). As I tried to reach Dan’s street the PT Cruiser started slipping and sliding as it tried to mount the hill to reach the parking space. I backed it out then drove around Brookline looking for another route to the top of the hill but finally gave in and parked on Alton Place a few steps from 50 St. Paul since I may as well have a convenient parking space if they are going to give me a $50 ticket. I do feel at the moment like I am gambling with house money because last Wednesday night, the one from the big fiasco of driving around Allston looking for a space, I didn’t actually get a ticket. Maybe I'll get lucky again?