ph33r me, 4 i ramble on ur frENDS lizt
I used to think (a) all cities were like New York City, and (b) I hated cities. Now I've lived in other cities enough to know that I was wrong on both counts.
I've still a little scared of NYC though--it's the biggest and baddest of the ones I've seen, with the least comprehensible mass transit system. However, after spending the past two days there (well, there and Hoboken), I started (err...continued) to warm up to it. As always, wandering directionlessly around a place for a couple hours (in search of a bookstore--any bookstore) does wonders for your sense of direction. It finally sank in for me how rectangular NYC is. All you have to do is count. Amazing.
I spent brunch yesterday with Whitney Wood and ER--who had spent New Years in Brooklyn partying with hipsters ("There's no future in hipsterdom," says WW. "You ask them what they are doing with their lives; they say 'oh, I'm doing graphic design for this ad campaign.' They're all sellouts.") Then I met up with an old friend of mine who moved out of town towards the end of middle school but who has been a great emergency contact since then.
What I mean is that, since he's a close, trusted friend with whom I communicate pretty much entirely on-line and who lives totally outside my social world, he's a great person to depend on comfort and advice when things get weird in life. And vice versa. I spent a lot of high school trying to talk him out of hopeless unrequited love. He came through for me during some bizarreness freshman year, and was some key moral support last fall when I was ground into dirt by unrequited love myself.
So we meet up in NYC and try to find a bookstore but end up on an odyssey through the rain that takes us to M&M World. Katie says it best: "mmmm, M is for Merchandise!" It's pretty disgusting. You know those sweaters that you can get for your small dog? You can get one of those. Except it has a face on it: the same face as the red M&M from that marketing campaign we all know and love.
It's right across from the Hersheys Time Square Store. I'm sure the rivalry is of...um...Cajal/Golgi proportions.
I'm a little disappointed that that's the only rivalry that I can think of right now. "Abstruse." Damn. At least unthevert should be happy if she reads that....
Anyway, we talked about his life and worries, which parallel a lot of my life and worries, but his is more problematic. Then we talked about science--he does a lot of science. Like, real science. Particle physics. And when we finally got our asses into a bookstore, I deliriously (from walking-for-hours induced exhaustion--I'm out of shape) told him about arguments for and against property dualism.
Then--this was unexpected, coming from him--he told me how much I should read Anna Karenina, because it apparently is so good at picking out, in language, key details of life. Especially about life and love. Such sensative men, we are.
Anyway, it was sweet. Then I met up with Katie, SAW HOBOKEN FOR THE FIRST TIME OMG!!
Honestly, it was a nice place.
I don't know why I'm writing all this; I'm too tired to really know what I'm writing any more.
Anyway, tomorrow I head back up to Providence again for the night, water some plants, try to update a Diplomacy map by exploiting CIT access again, then the next morning bus over to Boston to get the ride with Piotr up to Maine for a week of skiing with a crew from high school. That should be interesting, as that crowd has had time to diverge a bit in lifestyle and ideas etc. but remain a collection of intense folk. Evacuee Nick will be there. So should Alpha Man. So should whatsisface--he used to comment here a lot. I forget the name I gave him. Let's call him Hal.
I probably should be worrying about all the cash I burn going up and down the East Coast. But dang--I think travel is probably the best thing to spend money on, if I've got any around. Anyway, I'll try not to think about that.
brain...failing...eyes...close...snore...hands.......bsdgbb,jb
I've still a little scared of NYC though--it's the biggest and baddest of the ones I've seen, with the least comprehensible mass transit system. However, after spending the past two days there (well, there and Hoboken), I started (err...continued) to warm up to it. As always, wandering directionlessly around a place for a couple hours (in search of a bookstore--any bookstore) does wonders for your sense of direction. It finally sank in for me how rectangular NYC is. All you have to do is count. Amazing.
I spent brunch yesterday with Whitney Wood and ER--who had spent New Years in Brooklyn partying with hipsters ("There's no future in hipsterdom," says WW. "You ask them what they are doing with their lives; they say 'oh, I'm doing graphic design for this ad campaign.' They're all sellouts.") Then I met up with an old friend of mine who moved out of town towards the end of middle school but who has been a great emergency contact since then.
What I mean is that, since he's a close, trusted friend with whom I communicate pretty much entirely on-line and who lives totally outside my social world, he's a great person to depend on comfort and advice when things get weird in life. And vice versa. I spent a lot of high school trying to talk him out of hopeless unrequited love. He came through for me during some bizarreness freshman year, and was some key moral support last fall when I was ground into dirt by unrequited love myself.
So we meet up in NYC and try to find a bookstore but end up on an odyssey through the rain that takes us to M&M World. Katie says it best: "mmmm, M is for Merchandise!" It's pretty disgusting. You know those sweaters that you can get for your small dog? You can get one of those. Except it has a face on it: the same face as the red M&M from that marketing campaign we all know and love.
It's right across from the Hersheys Time Square Store. I'm sure the rivalry is of...um...Cajal/Golgi proportions.
I'm a little disappointed that that's the only rivalry that I can think of right now. "Abstruse." Damn. At least unthevert should be happy if she reads that....
Anyway, we talked about his life and worries, which parallel a lot of my life and worries, but his is more problematic. Then we talked about science--he does a lot of science. Like, real science. Particle physics. And when we finally got our asses into a bookstore, I deliriously (from walking-for-hours induced exhaustion--I'm out of shape) told him about arguments for and against property dualism.
Then--this was unexpected, coming from him--he told me how much I should read Anna Karenina, because it apparently is so good at picking out, in language, key details of life. Especially about life and love. Such sensative men, we are.
Anyway, it was sweet. Then I met up with Katie, SAW HOBOKEN FOR THE FIRST TIME OMG!!
Honestly, it was a nice place.
I don't know why I'm writing all this; I'm too tired to really know what I'm writing any more.
Anyway, tomorrow I head back up to Providence again for the night, water some plants, try to update a Diplomacy map by exploiting CIT access again, then the next morning bus over to Boston to get the ride with Piotr up to Maine for a week of skiing with a crew from high school. That should be interesting, as that crowd has had time to diverge a bit in lifestyle and ideas etc. but remain a collection of intense folk. Evacuee Nick will be there. So should Alpha Man. So should whatsisface--he used to comment here a lot. I forget the name I gave him. Let's call him Hal.
I probably should be worrying about all the cash I burn going up and down the East Coast. But dang--I think travel is probably the best thing to spend money on, if I've got any around. Anyway, I'll try not to think about that.
brain...failing...eyes...close...snore...hands.......bsdgbb,jb