Back In The Saddle Again?
Two months have passed since I last even thought about penning something here.
What brings me back? The need to open up again, I guess. That, and I saw someone post something on a seemingly-abandoned LiveJournal account to say they hadn't up and died lately. I figured some people deserved the same of me, a little note to say that no, I hadn't disappeared off the face of the earth.
Though sometimes, it feels like it.
It's been a lonely two months. Work's been the classic status quo, the eight-to-five-thirty-and-sometimes-earlier-or-later thing. The problem is that sometimes, it feels like the only thing. I realized that this weekend, as I was talking with a friend, how most of my stories are work-related lately. Sure, my line of work lends itself to more entertaining happenings than the average desk job...but I don't want to come off like work is all I know and my only passion. With all respect, it's definitely not. And I've seen the result of what happens when someone's work is their passion. I don't want to go down that road.
And those stories are what bridge the weekends, where I hope and hope that something's going to happen, but I end up spending Saturday night at my computer, wishing I were somewhere else.
That's not to say that all I've done in the last two months is work. I've managed to get out some. Liam, Anne and I met up one afternoon on the Harvard University campus, then journeyed to Newbury Street, browsed through a closing Brooks Brothers store and then enjoyed mojitos and margaritas at the Cactus Club. The night ended with drinks and conversation at the Living Room on Atlantic Ave, and pizza at Pizzeria Regina in the North End. I also managed to catch up with Kara for a showing of "Brokeback Mountain" at the Bedford theater one night. The movie was good, a great story, but far more female nudity than male (not that I have a problem with that, but they'd been playing this as the gay-cowboy flick for so long, you'd have expected the contrary) and it seemed like some events took forever and a half to set up. We chuckled our way through a few scenes, admittedly immaturely, but overall it wasn't a disappointment. There was the night that some of the old Bedford RPI crowd reconvened when Kate Worden stopped by NH for a week before her first real tour of duty started. That amounted to dinner at Piccola's on Elm Street, and a few hours of playing Scene It? at Sarah Pattee's apartment until something like two in the morning (on a Wednesday, no less).
But you can easily make a lot out of a couple good nights, because there's nothing to be made of anything else. Most weekends, I'd just cross my fingers that there was something exciting going on, or I'd make a phone call, but people were out of town or already committed to something or whatever the case may be. The end result was another night at home alone, parents sleeping on the couch downstairs. There was the weekend we lost power at the house on a Friday night, which drove me insane because when I wanted so desperately to hang out with people, instead I was helping fire up the generator and feeling isolated from anyone I might talk to. There was the night when I was hoping to ask this girl I'd met on a date, and that day it seemed like everything possible was lining up to make it happen...and then, while we chatted, she referenced her boyfriend and I knew not to go any further. The low point was about two weeks ago, when my parents were going out for dinner with some friends and I had no plans to do anything. In a fit of masochism, I took off for the card store to get a birthday card for my sister, though mostly because the weekend before, I'd gotten a birthday card for my dad there and hoped I'd run into the same sales girl, who'd been cutely curled up behind the counter reading a book when I arrived to pay for the card, possibly the first customer she'd had in an hour. I didn't, of course, and so I drove home thinking to myself that it was just another night of being alone with nowhere better to be. For a while, I stood in the kitchen, holding Chloe, looking out the window into the night, talking to the kitten as if she had any clue of what was going on. And then, around 9:30pm, my cell phone rang. It was one of my best friends, on a weekend road trip of her own, but not having a particularly good time either. We talked, and talked. My parents got home, and we were still talking. And around 7:30 the next morning, my phone rang again, as she was going home early just to escape the uncomfortable situation she found herself in. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe fate had kept me home...if I'd gone to a movie or something, I wouldn't have been there when she needed someone to talk to.
Since then, it's been a little more upbeat. Last weekend, I met Liam at his office in Natick, then followed him home to Somerset, where we made mojitos and fooled with his computer for a bit. Sunday, we hit the Wrentham outlets and ate pizza afterward while watching an episode of "The Sopranos" (a first for me, since we don't get HBO here). And then this weekend, I went to visit my friend in Connecticut. We ended up taking a road trip out to Binghamton, New York, where we shopped around at the Wegman's grocery store/mall there and then went looking for bubble tea near the Binghamton University campus (of course, with everyone gone for Easter, the bubble tea place was closed, too). It was just a perfect weekend, the weather just right for a drive, and we both needed to get out of our respective scenes. The last few months have been hard for her, and she needed a little company.
So right now, for a change, I'm smiling. Smiling because things these last two weekends have been so much more uplifting than before. At the same time, I couldn't help but wish the weekends could be a little longer when they're like this. As I said to my parents when I got home this morning, as long as no one around here wants to do anything, I'm more than content to take a drive to Mass or to Connecticut. There's so much more to do, even if it's just sitting on the couch (or an IKEA armchair) watching TV with someone. It's better than sitting here alone.
On the not-so-bright side, there has been a bit of tragedy. As I've said before, our devoted cat, Patches, had been diagnosed with diabetes. Toward the end of February, his battle came to an end. He was fourteen years old. Of course, looking to fill the emptiness in the house, my parents and sister brought home a new arrival, an angora kitten we named Chloe. Chloe is a sweetheart, and while I don't entirely buy into reincarnation, in some ways I've wondered if Patches' spirit nestled itself in Chloe the day they found her.
That's how life goes in these parts. Day to day, week to week, and just when things seemed at their lowest, things changed again. In the last two weeks, I've visited three of my best friends. In the last two weeks, I've been happier than I've been in a while. I think there's a pretty clear correlation.
What brings me back? The need to open up again, I guess. That, and I saw someone post something on a seemingly-abandoned LiveJournal account to say they hadn't up and died lately. I figured some people deserved the same of me, a little note to say that no, I hadn't disappeared off the face of the earth.
Though sometimes, it feels like it.
It's been a lonely two months. Work's been the classic status quo, the eight-to-five-thirty-and-sometimes-earlier-or-later thing. The problem is that sometimes, it feels like the only thing. I realized that this weekend, as I was talking with a friend, how most of my stories are work-related lately. Sure, my line of work lends itself to more entertaining happenings than the average desk job...but I don't want to come off like work is all I know and my only passion. With all respect, it's definitely not. And I've seen the result of what happens when someone's work is their passion. I don't want to go down that road.
And those stories are what bridge the weekends, where I hope and hope that something's going to happen, but I end up spending Saturday night at my computer, wishing I were somewhere else.
That's not to say that all I've done in the last two months is work. I've managed to get out some. Liam, Anne and I met up one afternoon on the Harvard University campus, then journeyed to Newbury Street, browsed through a closing Brooks Brothers store and then enjoyed mojitos and margaritas at the Cactus Club. The night ended with drinks and conversation at the Living Room on Atlantic Ave, and pizza at Pizzeria Regina in the North End. I also managed to catch up with Kara for a showing of "Brokeback Mountain" at the Bedford theater one night. The movie was good, a great story, but far more female nudity than male (not that I have a problem with that, but they'd been playing this as the gay-cowboy flick for so long, you'd have expected the contrary) and it seemed like some events took forever and a half to set up. We chuckled our way through a few scenes, admittedly immaturely, but overall it wasn't a disappointment. There was the night that some of the old Bedford RPI crowd reconvened when Kate Worden stopped by NH for a week before her first real tour of duty started. That amounted to dinner at Piccola's on Elm Street, and a few hours of playing Scene It? at Sarah Pattee's apartment until something like two in the morning (on a Wednesday, no less).
But you can easily make a lot out of a couple good nights, because there's nothing to be made of anything else. Most weekends, I'd just cross my fingers that there was something exciting going on, or I'd make a phone call, but people were out of town or already committed to something or whatever the case may be. The end result was another night at home alone, parents sleeping on the couch downstairs. There was the weekend we lost power at the house on a Friday night, which drove me insane because when I wanted so desperately to hang out with people, instead I was helping fire up the generator and feeling isolated from anyone I might talk to. There was the night when I was hoping to ask this girl I'd met on a date, and that day it seemed like everything possible was lining up to make it happen...and then, while we chatted, she referenced her boyfriend and I knew not to go any further. The low point was about two weeks ago, when my parents were going out for dinner with some friends and I had no plans to do anything. In a fit of masochism, I took off for the card store to get a birthday card for my sister, though mostly because the weekend before, I'd gotten a birthday card for my dad there and hoped I'd run into the same sales girl, who'd been cutely curled up behind the counter reading a book when I arrived to pay for the card, possibly the first customer she'd had in an hour. I didn't, of course, and so I drove home thinking to myself that it was just another night of being alone with nowhere better to be. For a while, I stood in the kitchen, holding Chloe, looking out the window into the night, talking to the kitten as if she had any clue of what was going on. And then, around 9:30pm, my cell phone rang. It was one of my best friends, on a weekend road trip of her own, but not having a particularly good time either. We talked, and talked. My parents got home, and we were still talking. And around 7:30 the next morning, my phone rang again, as she was going home early just to escape the uncomfortable situation she found herself in. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe fate had kept me home...if I'd gone to a movie or something, I wouldn't have been there when she needed someone to talk to.
Since then, it's been a little more upbeat. Last weekend, I met Liam at his office in Natick, then followed him home to Somerset, where we made mojitos and fooled with his computer for a bit. Sunday, we hit the Wrentham outlets and ate pizza afterward while watching an episode of "The Sopranos" (a first for me, since we don't get HBO here). And then this weekend, I went to visit my friend in Connecticut. We ended up taking a road trip out to Binghamton, New York, where we shopped around at the Wegman's grocery store/mall there and then went looking for bubble tea near the Binghamton University campus (of course, with everyone gone for Easter, the bubble tea place was closed, too). It was just a perfect weekend, the weather just right for a drive, and we both needed to get out of our respective scenes. The last few months have been hard for her, and she needed a little company.
So right now, for a change, I'm smiling. Smiling because things these last two weekends have been so much more uplifting than before. At the same time, I couldn't help but wish the weekends could be a little longer when they're like this. As I said to my parents when I got home this morning, as long as no one around here wants to do anything, I'm more than content to take a drive to Mass or to Connecticut. There's so much more to do, even if it's just sitting on the couch (or an IKEA armchair) watching TV with someone. It's better than sitting here alone.
On the not-so-bright side, there has been a bit of tragedy. As I've said before, our devoted cat, Patches, had been diagnosed with diabetes. Toward the end of February, his battle came to an end. He was fourteen years old. Of course, looking to fill the emptiness in the house, my parents and sister brought home a new arrival, an angora kitten we named Chloe. Chloe is a sweetheart, and while I don't entirely buy into reincarnation, in some ways I've wondered if Patches' spirit nestled itself in Chloe the day they found her.
That's how life goes in these parts. Day to day, week to week, and just when things seemed at their lowest, things changed again. In the last two weeks, I've visited three of my best friends. In the last two weeks, I've been happier than I've been in a while. I think there's a pretty clear correlation.