and after six milligrams, we're talking again

I walked to Harvard Square tonight.  I listened to I'm Wide Awake It's Morning on the way, from Old Soul Song to Land Locked Blues.  It felt right.  When I got to the Square, I sat down in Veggie Planet and ordered a Vegan Peanut Curry.  When I tried to say that I wanted a table, my voice came out as a croak, and I had to repeat myself.  The usual crew wasn't there tonight, as much as I was hoping they would be.  I wanted Nice Smile Girl to offer me chili sauce without my asking, or Curtsey Girl to act kind though I've done nothing in particular to make me deserve it.  Instead, a bunch of strangers were there listening to rap on the kitchen radio.  I paid for my curry and went to Dado to sit in a more familiar feeling environment.  It was 7:23 PM.  I know because I checked the time on my cell phone before I walked in.  Dark Haired Difficult To Converse With Because Our Accents Are So Disparate Girl was there.  As I walked in, she came around from behind the counter and unceremoniously said they were closed.  I looked surprised and said I thought they closed at 8:00 PM.  She said something I didn't quite catch.  The upshot was that they were indeed closed; and the utter lack of other patrons backed up the claim beyond my ability to refute it.  I frowned, stared through my fogged up glasses, and went back out into the street.  A few minutes found me ordering a large cappuccino and a blueberry scone in Peet's.  The gentleman behind the counter had a lip ring and a nose ring, and the portions of his hair furthest from his head were bleach-blond.

As I paid he asked, "How was your day?"  Maybe I was just caught off guard, but it made me feel like this stranger was a good friend, and I wished I could answer with my usual, positive, "Excellent, how're you doin'?"  Instead I admitted that it was merely okay.  And really, it was.  I've had much worse days, but I've had much better ones too.  This one was depressing, but not so much that I couldn't smile a bit when our Strangers' Conversation invariably turned to the weather, as they always do.  I explained that I was glad I'd worn massive boots.  

I think I regret renting this apartment.  I will be moving in September.  It's too expensive for the benefits it affords me.  For a drunk, it might offer its proximity to a variety of bars and pubs.  For someone who had friends in Boston, it might provide regular, easy access to the T.  For me... it merely presents these things as possibilities, shrugging and losing interest as I continue to take little advantage of them.  

I don't think I'm going to save any money this year.  I can blame that on rent, but I can also just blame it on the reality of our culture.  There's so many things to pay for.  So many expenses.  Lately I've thought a lot about consumerism, living in a spartan manner, and the financial restraints put on me (and everyone else) by the reality we live in.  I pay for parking, food, housing, electricity, heat, internet, cable, the ability to stay fit, auto insurance, health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, renters insurance, cellular service, gas, T fare.  I buy a vacuum cleaner, couch, pots and pans, dresser, desk, nightstand, carpet, dishes, scarves, hats, gloves, shoes, jeans, shirts, CDs, video games, movies, books, and things I can't even remember, yet there's always more things on the horizon that need purchasing.  How can this be?  How can a human continually accumulate objects?  I'm one person, and I have 600 square feet devoted to the body sitting inside the one square foot it occupies at any given time.  There is furniture in the next room, its value all wrapped up in the four or five instances in which another human being has entered this space and needed somewhere to sit.  If five people other people have sat on that couch, that means that every time another human's ass has touched the cushions, that validates roughly $200 of spending.  Everything is caught up in eventualities and possible necessities.  Do I need a vacuum cleaner in my apartment twenty four hours a day?  No.  I need it for an hour every two weeks.  I want to strip my life down to the things that I use regularly.  To the things that, in this society, I actually need to function as the person I've become.  Clothes.  A bed.  A computer.  Music.  But I can't, because my friends are important to me, and that imposes social constraints on what I can and cannot shed.  

If only they were here, with me, in the city, so we could take advantage of the benefits of living here.  As it stands, were it not for its proximity to my job, I might as well not even live in this place.  I could live anywhere around Boston for all the benefit I derive from being here.  And it'd be a lot cheaper too.  

From now until September, I'm in limbo.  Not moving forward, not moving back.  If there's a reason why I took a long, rainy, snowy walk to Harvard Square tonight, that's it.

Just open fire when you hit the shore

Today I was reassigned out of our Product group and back into Services. "Back into" is really an odd description of the move, as I was never really there to begin with. There's a possibility that I may stay in Product - I don't know, as both the head of the Product group and the head of the Services group are out of the office - and was only notified of this by the lead architect on the project, as he had something he needed me to do. Odd.

Lunch was a slice of pizza from Pinocchio's. Good, as always, though it was chilly enough outside that it was cold by the time I got it back to the office. I didn't really feel like eating much more than that. After work, we played a round of Ricochet Robots, which I just barely won. Having a brain that's good at spacial relationships doesn't do you much good when you're playing against a bunch of people who're built the same way, perhaps even more acutely.

Dinner? Why, the three C's, of course. Cheese, crackers, and carrots. What more do you need? I wasn't particularly hungry anyway. Ever since I was sick, I've been having big meals to make up for it. (I think there were several days where all I had was some liquid and a piece of bread.)

I listened to Tom Waits all morning just because it was that sort of day. Mellow, and sort of messed up. On the way home, I listened to most of an album of Explosions in the Sky. I couldn't figure out what was wrong for the longest time - then I realized that my footfalls weren't matching up with the music at all. I was wearing boots, and so every time I put my foot down it sounded like a bass drum in my ears. When I finally got the timing down the album improved dramatically as a snowy, cold soundtrack to the walk home.

Didn't know it was a devil town

We were planning on going to a showing of the first episode of Twin Peaks at the Brattle Theater tonight.  It was at 9:00 PM.  I was informed sometime in the afternoon that it was actually at 9:45 PM.  Everyone else decided to go anyway, I decided that was a tad too late for me on a night like this, when I expect to be in bed by 10:30 PM so I can hit the gym in the morning.  I ended up sticking around at work until 8:00 PM, working on some stuff that I couldn't do during company time because it's not high enough priority.  I needed to make consistent the portraits of our executive board that go on our website.  Right down, they're all from different photo shoots, so they have different lighting and different background colors.  I decided to fix the damn things and color correct them in Photoshop so that they'd all be identical.  Just the sort of work I love doing, for some reason.  It's more like fun than work, somehow.  

At 8:00 PM, J gave me a call and said that he, K, and his older sister just got to Harvard Square and were wandering around, looking for something to do to kill time.  They were going to go to the Starbucks on Church Street.  I told them to hit Dado instead.  The dude with his rasta-hat was there.  He undercharged me for a lemon scone: $1.18 instead of $2.25.  I even called him on it and said, "I thought those were more than that."  He replied, slowly, "... you don't want it?"  I let him ring it up and enjoyed it.  J ordered a hot chocolate.  It looked delicious.  

After a while, J's younger sister also showed up, and one of his older sister's friends.  We went to Charlie's Kitchen, because the latter was hungry.  I was apprehensive about the place, as I'd never been there before, and the only thing I'd ever heard about it was that The Hair Lady went there for breakfast sometime in the morning.  Usually during that time you want to get out of the place, as it apparently starts to smell.  I enunciated my apprehension, and J's older sister said, "What... because of all the hipsters?"  I was confused.  Needless to say, when we went inside I understood.  The place was full of pseudo-indie kids and people with dark glasses.  They were playing Radiohead's In Rainbows when we walked in, and the album looped twice.  The first song the juke-box played was The White Stripes' The Hardest Button To Button.  Tom Waits featured prominently in the track list thereafter.  J ordered waffle fries and I ate $1.00 worth.  J's older sister had brought a tupperware of vegetarian stir fry she made for their younger sister.  I tried some - it was great.  Sauce made with crushed red pepper, chunky peanut butter, and some other stuff I can't remember.  

After Charlie's, we left to go back to the Brattle Theater at 9:30 PM or so.  I took my leave of everyone at the door, though I don't think they realized I was going, and everyone but J and K had already gone inside by the time I waved.  I walked back to the T in the center of the Square, and the uber-modern turnstiles refused to read my Charlie Card the first two times.  When I got on the train, the doors behind me opened and closed roughly six times over the next couple minutes before the train finally pulled away.  

Brush the snow from your hair

Tonight I went out for a walk in the snow.  I took the T to Harvard Sq. and walked around with all the other dark coated, scarved people.  Cambridge has put up all its Christmas lights (it did the Tuesday before Thanksgiving), and so everything was lit up like a holiday.  On my way in, it was snowing enough that I was thoroughly dusted by the time I stomped my boots in The Garage.  I tried to go to Veggie Planet - they were having some private function for Club Passim, and were only accepting orders for take out.  Eating outside wasn't really on the menu, so I tromped across the Square and sat down in Le's with its 95% Asian crowd.  The waitress made me feel out of place, and it was glorious.  I ordered summer rolls, Pho Chay, and tea and loved every bite and sip, though afterwards I felt rather full.  As I sat there, I re-read some of the lines I've written in my notebook.  The good ones are still good, the bad ones are still bad.  It's nice to see that hasn't changed; too often everything melds back towards mediocrity when aged.  After dinner I walked around the Square a few times, trying to decide if I really wanted coffee.  If I could have found someplace to buy some, I may have had something to keep my hands toasty on the walk home.  Peets was closed.  Dado was closed.  Dado on Mass Ave. closes at 6:00 PM every night, apparently.  The Starbucks on Church I habitually ignore.  I walked home back down Massachusetts Avenue feeling the cold on my face, and there was practically no one out.  A car would pass occasionally, driving five to ten miles per hour slower than usual, though whatever snow had fallen on the roads had already been turned to liquid.  

Earlier today I sang along to Bright Eyes, The Decemberists, Feist, Radiohead, Silversun Pickups, Spoon, The Strokes, and Voxtrot while I did laundry and cleaned my apartment.  The place looks better.  It's funny how when you move into a space, some things take up residence in inconvenient places.  I took the opportunity to move my CDs across the apartment and to organize the mess that is the cable modem/router and their various cords.  Both make more sense now.  As usual, my electric guitar continues to migrate around the apartment.  

This morning I shaved my beard, such as it was.  Side burns and soul patch have stayed.  To me, I look about ten years younger.  So continues the ever-changing facial hair/hair styles of The Joy Boys.  

Wanderlust

So when I went to school, I chose a practical career. Granted, it's one I enjoy.

There's some things that go along with that, though. Ten hour work days, commutes, being tied down, steady income, thankfulness for eventless weekends, mumbling in the kitchen at 7:30 pm trying to figure out what to throw together to eat, alarm clocks, getting ready for work in the morning, trying to find time to get some errands done, having errands and calling them such, buying clothes at least in part so that you'll be presentable at your company, having a company and describing yourself as working at such, using the term coworkers and forgetting about the social meaning of a bunch of people laboring together for the man.

I'm twenty four years old.

If I were to quit this job and all the things mentioned in that paragraph, leave this place and disappear for two years, when I came back I'd be twenty six. I'd still be a baby. This, really, has me wondering what I ought to do with those two years, since I seem to have them. A few options:

1. Go back to school for more computer science and software engineering.
2. Go back to music school.
3. Go back to art school.
4. Go volunteer somewhere.
5. Go get a job somewhere I don't really speak the language (Japan being a prime candidate, seeing as I'm at least already learning the language).

There are problems. I don't have a portfolio or anything of any sort for #2 and #3. For the others, well, so maybe those are the main problems. They're also the most fun sounding. All five, honestly, sound great. I enjoy what I'm up to, but I often wish that I had more control over what I do with my time. School would be good for that.

It's a matter of feeling like I'm accomplishing something in my time off. This works best if I have more time off, or am in a position where I can't help but learn something when at rest (re: Nihon).

I feel sort of like something has to give, soon.