As mentioned, I’ve got a new job. It’s literally about a mile from my house. This is both good and bad. Or, well, not bad, but–

The Good

I can walk home from work. In theory, to work, as well, although I haven’t yet done this.

I TA for an Intro to Asian Religions class (long story) before work two days a week (although I’m probably not going to be attending those days as often, now that the semester is in-swing), and for a while, due to Boston traffic and wanting to both a) perform my duties as a TA and b) attend the job on-time my first few weeks, I would take a Lyft from campus to work (I know, I know…). While this cost me some money, it did mean I was never late. So, yay.

It also meant that I got to have a nice stroll home. There’s a great park on the way, featuring lots of dog-owner meetups and children screaming on a very cool and new playground. There are other walkers, too.

Also a brewery. Yes. A brewery is on my walk home.

(I have not yet gone to the brewery on the walk home due to various circumstances including house guests, but we’ve been to the brewery a few times and it’s quite nice.)

So, these are good things. It also means that on days like today, where I had things to do at home basically right up to the wire, I can get here in ten minutes by bike. In under ten minutes. It’s a little insane, as per…

The Weird. No, Different.

It’s a mile.

We live outside of Boston a fair ways and so almost all of my rides to or from anywhere take a while. Even just to get to Allston is about four-ish miles. Davis Square? Twenty-five minues or so. My old commute was a solid eight and a half, going the fast way, and for that I would budget about an hour. Needless to say, this whole ten-minutes thing is confusing.

It makes the bike feel much more like simply “transportation.” If I’m going to campus (say), an eleven/twelve-mile ride feels like a ride, you know? I notice things about the bike. Whether it’s shifting right or not. Or if I’m out of shape (usually). But a mile? I mean, I’m barely even on the thing!

So maybe I’ll walk more. Or should. It’s technically a better “work out” for the time, but I also think working out is dumb. I also like riding my bike a lot. Even if this isn’t really “riding.”

Anyway, all of which is to say I like the new job. And going from a forty-to-fifty minute commute down to a ten-minute commute is literally hours back into my life. And that’s pretty great, at the end of the day.