Red eyes and bad scones

For some reason "cafes with good pastry" isn't something that's easily queryable. My first pastry treat in Somerville tasted like a wet bisquick concoction. Maybe the bagels are better. No matter, I've thus far arrived in Boston at 5:10AM and made it to my new home for a non-sleeping nap. Red-eye flights seem to always arrive early, giving you more opportunity to be awake at a time when no human should. I recently discovered that the nearest ATM that I can use without a fee is in Hartford, Connecticut (hint to Wells Fargo online ATM locator, that's not nearby.)

My next task is to find a grocery store that is similar to Whole Foods but in walking distance. I don't have any university activities today so I'm not sure what I'll do other than work on a laptop like I did everyday at home back in my old life. Tomorrow there's a general grad school orientation and Thursday is the climactic urban planning orientation when we meet our advisors, each other, and decide on a few classes to take.

I already have visions of running off somewhere for the upcoming three day weekend. Doing that alone would be in bad form, so I'm hoping to make some close friends before the weekend. If that doesn't work out I can stay home and play with the cats, two of three seem friendly. Or I might invest my efforts in new activity groups via Meetup.com. Worst case I'll stand in Davis Square and get confused by the converging six roads and angry drivers. I'm a little cranky; I haven't slept
in a day or so.

I was very well-comed to my new home by a dressed bed and a good book.

Better humors

Today has been nice. Monday has a weird way of disappearing Sunday melancholy, which, according to the dictionary, is another word for the humor black bile, which aptly describes my state of mind yesterday. Tonight I find myself sitting in a writing group called "Shut Up and Write" with a couple friends and strangers. It begs that I write while in fairly good spirits, a useful pursuit that I tend to neglect. I was thinking yesterday as I spewed bile how unfortanate it would be for new readers to come across my blog with me at my worst.

Today is Monday. Next week at this time I'll be crawling into a linened air mattress in my new home, new city, and new state. It's not as dramatic as it sounds. I was born to wander the world and repositioning my home base seems minor. The schooling is more significant.

I don't want any of my friends who read this to think that I leave blithely. It's more that I leave because the next step of my life cannot be here. I want things to go well for me wherever I am, so I don't consider leaving a success. Idealy I would leave with someone; I know I have lots to gain from learning to establish myself in a foreign place, but I would have been happy to forfeit that.

I think someday I will come back to live in a better Bay Area, maybe one where I have the power to make change. Or it may be that love or strife brings me back here; both already have. But I'd better not come back the guy I am now. I'll take the happy side, but the vanity. Insecurity, and imaturity won't fly back.

Social Safety Net

On occasions such as today, when I feel all alone in the world, it would be nice to be able to rely on some kind of social safety net. I think for men it's particularly hard to seek out one's friends for this kind of buffer. I know I feel a lot of guilt and embarrassment when I have to admit that I need company. I want my friends to think of me as strong and independent so that I don't become a burden to them. Interestingly, I do like to play the self pity card a little, since most of my friends are happily paired off, but I have to do it humorously. I know there's nothing that they can do to straighten out my social life other than offer a temporary respite. It's especially difficult because I am about to desert everyone here and they have to be thinking about replacing me with someone else for company.

When I move to Boston I may be able to get a little security from my graduate school. If there are enough people whose company I enjoy then I may be a bit better off than I am here, where I've learned to rely on a handful of people who are in much better social situations than me, namely through marriage or personality attributes.

I'm mainly writing today to play the self-pity card with myself, or you the reader if you exist. There are these Sundays when no more books can be read, no more walks taken, and all I can do is wait for sunset and throw on a Netflix movie. My life shouldn't have to be this way, but my past catches up with me now and again. It's funny how aging really does panic me. There's a ceiling approaching that is forty years old. It's eight years away but I dread the thought of reaching that point and still living in the rooms of houses with other single souls, or worse having resigned to live in a little apartment by myself. For women the forty-year-old mark can be a biological point of defeat, but I think it must affect some men like me similarly, who see it as the deadline for having the type of life we think we are supposed to have. Of course it's easier if you aren't interested in children, but for me it's the loss of the opportunity for young love that is so precious between a couple. There's plenty of time to be old together; I don't want to start old with someone. So wish me eight years of good luck, or a better outlook on life.

Proposed Changes

In moving to Boston and graduate school I have hoped for certain changes in the way that life feels. On a superficial level, I'm looking forward to seasons and a place where the wilds of nature are always encroaching on civilization, whether it be storms or greenery. Inwardly, I yearn to pull off an end to lonliness or at least find myself so stimulated by the culture that any isolation feels part of a process. Here in California my lonliness is stagnant. No one of any significance has penetrated my life here for nearly two years. In fact my one-week tour in the Alps was more socially lubricating than anything I have felt here. I long for a day when I feel acompanied at the start and ends of my days--when physical contact can be reciprocal.

I trust that Boston will provide me many good distractions and reward me a few lifetime friendships. I think months of studying urban planning will refresh my conscience, which has soured from useless endeavors and continual periods of hope and defeat.

Music evades me right now. Dance is not existant. Romance is imaginary. Food and sleep are my only nurishments, except when I chance to travel or converse in foreign tongues. I'm betting on being rescued by academia and one of thirteen original colonies.

Blogin' the interpersonal

I usually keep to me versus me when I discuss the mayhem going about in my head. Lately I've had enough interpersonal agitation that I want to try to hit that pressure valve and hiss away a little compressed air.

I have never thought of myself as good at debating, conflict resolution, or negotiating. I don't have much experience at it, and I consider myself more of a hot-head then a thoughtful interlocutor when I occasionally jump in the ring. I've had a few widely differing frustrations with people lately, but in each case it has to do with their habits or actions that vex me beyond endurance (as Aunt Alice used to say of Uncle Matt :) Interestingly, in each case it has nothing to do with me, I'm not being abused in any way other than suffering the guilt of inaction. What is my obligation to that person and myself? I've always admired those that come out and say what they need to say, but only if they pick the right battles. I know I have to find a way to defend what I believe is right and find the best ways to purvey my opinions. Hell, I'm going into urban planning, it's professionally as vital as personally.

My history with confrontation is the belief that I should stay quiet in the name of tolerance, or out of the fear that I might be wrong, or that morality is simply too subjective to lay claim to any part of it. As I get older and watch my complaisance bite me in the ass one too many times, I realize that I have to confront, debate, and negotiate. Loving people means they pain you, and I'm learning to mull over problems without them neither ulcerating my stomach nor slipping to the back burner. I want to say what I need to say to help my friends or at least to assuage my conscience. I never want to belittle anyone and let my hot-head taint my arguments. It seems that emotions walk a fine line and they have to be heeled.

Contrarily, I get pretty hot-headed when someone confronts me. I'm defensive, denying, and ungracious. Nobody does it very often, but then again I don't have too many close friends, and I don't put out the welcome mat. I always wonder how much my close friends mull me over. As my blog attests, I'm full of uncertainty and missteps. Why don't they confront me more often? Does everyone think I'm sure-footed and trudging up to my neck in goodness? Or do I surround myself with people so similar to me that my faults are too close to theirs to recognize. I mean, seriously, I've sat in front of computer full-time making stupid programs for dot-com companies for ten years. That feels morally wrong on so many levels that it seems unforgivable. I've wasted time, talent, and my twenties. I think I've had one friend who really challenged me to change that. What else? I do nothing in my free time for anyone other than myself and the people I love. Criticize me! I speak cynically, I complain, I show no interest in half the people I meet. I'm a prick! Why doesn't anyone call me on it? I...need to discover meditation, soon.

One day I will work with animals, that's what I'm gonna do--Steven Page, Barenaked Ladies

Or ex-Barenaked Lady, clothed and coked out. If I wrote that song maybe she'd go something like this:

One day I will build a small town, or maybe even two, and I'd put in there a pie shop, that maybe sold one of you.

Pie can be sold and consumed, but you cannot, if we maintain decent morals. I worry that I don't spend enough time finding the stuff that can't be bought. Even this grad school stuff--I bought my way in. I don't know what that means. Do I only interact with those that did the same? Are they all going to be whitish middle class Americans with whom I bond naturally, or will I find people and things wholly unrelated to what I purchased.

I wonder a lot what my days will entail. Will I be bored, lonely, overworked, and underslept? I truly fear those four essential life elements in this upcoming life. The last hasn't crossed paths with me since university #1. My love of moderation might need to stand down for extreme lifestyle adjustment.

Hot times call for stoicism

I complain a lot about hot weather because it displeases me as much as all the people here who complain about the weather in the winter. The ambiguity of that sentence is intentional. The hot days seem to cause things to fall, whether it's a violet pedal onto my book, several walnuts from the backyard tree (suspect squirrel) or the crappy grapefruit that look really good until you cut one open and experience a pH imbalance of plus and minus 7 simultaneously.


Note: Walnuts are apparently inedible until dried. Squirrel must have toaster oven.

Because every day can't be spent in the company of loved ones, I started my day at the coffee shop with my surrogate beloved, croissant and café au lait, and there I studied a little German. I have a whole blog about learning German that I don't maintain well, but I will remark here how fun it is to learn new words in German because they are so easy to remember. Who could forget that dunkel means dark and Himmel means sky? Wait I better verify that...yes, phew. With fun words like that it doesn't even sting to read the immense grammatical sections about the word order of supporting clauses (you actually put the finite verb at the end of a supporting clause rather than second in the sentence as in the main clause, fancy that!) After coffee I made a pit stop at home and then set off across the street to the freeway park (see the urban planning blog) and walked along the Temescal Creek path, which suspiciously has a creek running next to it that was in wetter seasons just a grassy ditch. Either someone turned a hose on upstream or they daylighted the creek--kudos in either case. I raced around the Sunday farmer's market in the DMV parking lot, skipping yummy crêpes and baked pretzels in favor of the basic fruits, vegetables, and tubers that help me shun Trader Joe's packaged produce. Then it was home again for some reading and brief piano instruction, followed by another coffee shop jaunt to try to finish my Spanish language novel, which must be an autobiography, because the story has no flow and isn't interesting.

I don't wonder about my own autobiography being interesting (again ambiguous,) but I do question whether it flows well or not. Let's see... grew up shy kid in the suburbs with underdeveloped social skills but good analytical reasoning. Played piano, soccer, swam, hockey. Went to a boring university one-and-a-half hours from home, got software job during .dot com boom, company was bought by Microsoft so went to Seattle. Learned painful lessons, quit job and traveled, learned a few happy lessons, came home, grew up some more, attempted to escape to Montréal, failed proudly, came home, and now prepares for grad school in Boston. Put a few touchy-feely moments in there and you have a windy waterslide that may burn your lower back.

After coffee house number two I returned home to find myself lightly bored, over-heated, and missing humanity. I sat down and wrote here so that I might get more company out of myself. My essay today is to say something about a hot Sunday afternoon that feels pretty melancholy to me. Maybe if I were at a barbecue with a beer and Reggae music then I would feel o.k. Maybe if I knew where my next emotional meal was coming from I would hop in for a cold shower then nap away 'til sunset. For me heat is hopeless, in California it means dead plants, overanxious recreation that puts more people on the road with A/C instead of in the shade where they belong. I dream, quite literally, of rain at night, or of the guy that kidnapped me and made me draw sketches of all my shoes, the undersides of them. No kidding, I really dreamt that I was being held by someone forcing me to do that last night. And my shoes all look pretty similar from below, so I didn't quite know how to differentiate them. Luckily my parents showed up and we snuck off together and called the authorities. There was a question of whether or not I could go back and retrieve my laptops. Now the day is old, I'm wide awake, stuck in the heat, and there's nowhere left to go.
grapefruit jail

last windup in California

Having returned from one last vacation I have the feeling of winding up the family grandfather clock for one last go of it in California before I emigrate to the island of Academia in Boston. I have about three weeks to get in all the thrills of being back home (for the last seven years) and do all those things I never got around to. I'll be showing off the home state to my cousin and her husband who are visiting for the first time in a week or so. On the agenda is a quick trip to Yosemite, so that I may visit it for the first time as well, and break one of my more ridiculous virginities. I've pretended in the past that having missed Yosemite thus far but having gone to more remote places says something about my personality. The truth is my family was supposed to go visit about twenty years ago but the dishwasher broke, so it's just dumb luck.

The other things I want to do this month have nothing to do with California, except for maybe one last backpacking trip. I had the idea of taking Amtrak up to Mount Shasta for a weekend of wandering around and camping on the lower flanks of the mountain. Maybe next weekend. Mostly I keep thinking about reading, and picking the piano back up, and really learning some more German.

I wonder if I should be lonely, about to uproot myself from the warren and try to join several new communities that will intersect for me in Somerville, MA. I'm abruptly surprised by a dearth of loneliness in my life right now. For an emotion that has been so prevalent in my adult life it ought not to have slipped away without me noticing. Certainly I have no romantic relationship, no emanicipation by way of new friendships, and no new social activities. It is the anticipation of a move, admittedly an escape, that keeps me calm right now. My aneremophobia, or lack of fear of solitude, doesn't comfort me because the pain solitude inflicts is usually what gets me out of the house and into a new adventure. But maybe this time, finally, it's some good old fashioned planning that is going to land me in a place that's good for me.

I've proved reticent when I think about losing the close contact to the friends and family I have here. When I'm in Boston I don't feel far away though. Between texts and cell phones and six-hour cheap nonstop flights, I'm really the villager that moves over a town and visits on his mule every few months. With a notable exception or two, I don't feel that much of a need for physical proximately with my life in California. I mostly expell thought bubbles that try to figure out why I stayed here this year, and whether Boston will be the right match. It's a self-centered approach, and I fear that as I get older and accumulate years of unanswered bachelorhood that I'll harden into a quixotic academic with little tolerance for anything but the heaviest and unhealthiest of romantic and railroad related crushes. Or, like that whence derives quixotic, I'll be busy chasing windmills and tidal generators.

If life is one of vast opportunity, of which mine seems capable, then I am surely wasting my time here in California. If, on the other hand, we are robots of environmental molding, I should be happy that I'll be making one big move after seven years of conservative programming.


Mental note: learn how to use drawing program.

O Saskatoons

You can't compare many things to a purple berry, but a few days on the farm in Southern Alberta comes close. First there's that slightly tart and wild flavor offered by the brisk air and tree-skirted Rockies, whose distinct peaks have more in common with a mouthful of well-worn chompers than a saw blade. Then there's the thrill of having the lovely violeting patches cached everywhere without the threat of thorns or hostile plants; that is the essence of the people I associate with there--genuine goodness all around without the fear of a faux pas invoking harsh defenses. Lastly there is the saskatoon pie, represented in Alberta by the presence of, well, saskatoon pie, with ice cream, preceded by breakfasts of pancakes and weak coffee, lunches of buns with diced ham, and dinners of roast beef, elk stake, salmon or very occasionally my grandma's pierogis, imitated with care but never quite matching the secret touch that she had for the dough.




Alberta is about a family that embodies calm and knows how to leave the wrist watches and cell phones on their bedside tables. It almost makes you beg to be asked a personal question, until you realize you didn't come there to talk about yourself or anyone else. You are there to enjoy ad hoc reunions, reminisce, meet the new toddlers, and admire the volatile weather patterns. You expect to be a little bored, to overeat, and underexcercise, but maybe you'll go climb Turtle mountain this year, or hike to the cabin to join a weener roast in progress.

Alberta is an annual summer respite for me. I like it when my life has changed a lot from year to year, and when I can emit my new qualities and maintain those that are expected of me. I like when I occasionally have the priviledge of showing it all to someone new, or and old friend whose heard the legends of the place.

Alberta is far from completeness for me. I need much more before I could settle there and be content. I doubt I ever will. It is something that I keep in a part of my brain. It's one of my defining characteristics. I think it calms me and reminds me of what a place is worth.