Early Start

I had already made broad plans to hang out with E. and Mr. Ass on Sunday but when I awoke super early, I decided that I would just head north and take in a few nostalgic sights before figuring out exactly how and when we would see each other. The first sights were, unsurprisingly, a brief tour of my old high school. I try to avoid the place when the possibility of seeing students is high, and 9-10 in the morning on a Sunday is a pretty good bet (I considered waiting around until 10:45 and going to meeting but, in the end, I couldn't bear to see the stream of kids in barely concealed pajama pants straggling down the hill to the meeting house). Below is a photograph of the barn and horse fields. As a Varsity equestrian I spent a fair amount of my fall and spring around the barn. Next to it is the greenhouse and garden, as a senior I spent a modicum of time there. And in the distance you can see Main Dorm, the dorm that I in which I spent my sophomore through senior years.
Another Main shot. If I weren't so lazy I'd draw little arrows to identify the two windows you could see from this angle that I had....and a third arrow to point in the general direction.
The rink (?) when we practiced. During the fall the cross country boys would always run by during practice. I remember always sitting up a little straighter and hoping that I'd be jumping a hard combination in order to seem impressive. It never seemed to matter.
I actually got out of my car. I usually get scared. I remember my high school years in a mix of fondness and dread. I'd honestly have to say I think they were better than the average high schooler's experience but, perhaps, not as idyllic as some of my fellow classmates'.

Reading

I continue to enjoy reading. I've said it to people but I'm not sure if I've said it here: I wish that reading could be my exercise. I would be fit. F-I-T, fit! Right now I'm readint A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. Here is a passage I just read that I liked (it's written in the first person, from the perspective of a Chinese woman who has come to England in order to learn English in order to help her parents excel in their shoe factory business..and has become the lover of a man 20 years her senior who, usually, is gay): "Home is everything. Home is not sex but also about it. Home is not a delicious meal but it is also about it. Home is not a lighted bedroom but it is also about it." I have long thought about what home is. Recently I found photographs I took to explore that idea. The photographs themselves are not interesting but the memory of my thought process is quite possibly interesting.
Late last week I finished Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, the man has a way of getting inside his characters' heads. This book is simple, perhaps even a 'novella'. It unfolds over the course of a couple's first night together after their wedding in 1961 and has a few flashbacks to their courtship and one fast forward to the man's latter life. I was struck again by how we like, narratively, to think about what could have been different if we only said one additional thing. One syllable and a completely different life would unfold. Good book.
This book, Just Breathe, is a stupid book. It's long and it's dumb and they get together in the end. And the picture on the cover? Has nothing to do with it. The woman get preggers at the opening of the book and stays that way nearly the end, she does not, at any point, stand in front of a beach with a perfect little bikini body. The problem with this whole genre of books, of women with marriages that destruct who then go home again, or to some new place, in order to get their lives together, the problem is that it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that within days, or even a few weeks, of being in this new environment suddenly the guy they crushed on in high school (but never noticed them) falls for them, or some handsome stranger approaches them in a cafe. And they've always left this materialistically sound life that offered them no emotional solace. But so what? I think a book is far more interesting when the marriage that dissolves didn't start out crappy, or that the husband wanted the wife to wear matching sweater sets all the time. And, in this book, the woman is a cartoonist and the author continuously refers to her strip as 'edgy'....there are examples in front of different chapters and, frankly, it's the opposite of edgy...it's dumb. This book is dumb, don't read it unless you're dumb or, well, me and unable to stop yourself.

Serious Jackal Action

Pizza, Then Party

On Saturday I misbehaved. It started with L. coming over with a Pete's Pizza and small bottle of bourbon. The plan, which was quite successful, was to eat the pizza, drink the bourbon and play cards then go to our coworker L., and her roommate S.'s party nearby.
So that happened and then D., L. and I made our way to the party. Where, upon arrival, L. and L. realized they were wearing the same dress shirt! The horror! The similar sense of fashion!
We brought chips and a bottle of wine.
And I took a few photographs of my coworkers.
And my coworkers took a picture or four of L. and me. L., I have been led to believe, has better photographs of very jackal-like behavior.


Thanks for the party L., I hope I you find me too misbehaving.

Slow But Steady

Below you can see my attempt to keep my futon properly together with a belt...there's another belt on the other side. I sent an email on Saturday to the movers requesting some sort of futon bar action and today I spoke with a guy and we scheduled a looky-loo on Wednesday. We'll see how that goes.
Zul.
Though my futon bar search was useless on Saturday, the search for bolts turned out successfully. This was quite happy-making because now I have a desk! My desk! Clearly there still is a lot of clutter going on (I still need to get dressers and bookcases) but my room is beginning to get its shape together and that makes me very pleased.

Day's Planning

Last night, though a Friday, I stayed in and behaved myself. I watched a few episodes of Mad Men, and saw what all the fuss was about. It was a very, very rainy day and night and I was glad to stay dry. Today I woke up with a good number of things on my agenda. First and foremost, go to Home Depot and get a replacement futon bar...actually that would tie with go to Home Depot and get proper bolts for my desk so I can stop using a rubbermaid container and a beach chair as my office space. Well, I went to Home Depot and struck out on both counts. I don't know why I thought they'd have dudes just frothing at the bit to help me cut a piece of wood and drill holes in it...that just wasn't going to happen. And the bolt guy said he didn't have my bolts and suggested I go to a smaller store. Hmmpf. So I did.
This is the Divine Lorraine Hotel. I wish I could have taken a picture of the front, with the 3-10 homeless people hanging out on its stoop but I was driving and these pictures were difficult enough. It really is a beautiful, regal old building. I hope that the delays in its restoration/renovation don't morph into a simple demolition. That would be sad.

What Day?

Some time last week, Monday probably, I took a walk into the beginnings of Center City after work. I am attempting to do this sort of thing (walk somewhere farther than Wawa or Rita's Water Ice) after work each day...this is because I have a ridiculously short commute (we're talking seconds) and since I don't like running, or biking, or stretching in front of people or, basically, any exerting myself physically in front of anyone (there may be a few exceptions, swimming being one of them) I am at risk of becoming properly obese. No one wants that. Except obese people who want company. Anyways. So yeah. This is on Race Street I think, or Arch, I get them confused.

So was this building. Or half building.

Bed

On Saturday evening I put together my bed. Here it is, all put together. Notice all the windows. Cool right? Now, if only the rest of my room and apartment wasn't a crap storm of boxes, desks with no bolts and futons with no bars.

I am so totally jonesing for some kind of food I haven't made for myself that is not pizza or Chinese. Sigh.

Palin Link

Even I can get in on a little Palin linkage...c/o Peter Sagal's blog.

On Saturday I woke up all early and walked to the current location of my car in order to meet gal J. at her home in Roxborough. During my time in Philly I walked past this street corner building all the live long time. It's old school and it's way out of business and I have no doubt that in the next year, maybe two, it will be renovated so that no one will ever know that it supplied fresh meats (or, as you can't see, chickens and eggs). But I like it all not redone...which is funny...since its the last remnant of what the neighborhood once was but this kind of storefront is all over the frickin' place in other locations in Philly. The difference is that these other abandoned storefronts are surrounded by equally sad houses whereas this neighborhood is quite gentrified. At least in a six block radius east and west...ish.

S. and N. came with us on our trek of the day. J. was willing to accompany me on my trip to Ikea. The sole goal of which, for me, was to buy a bed. S. insisted on wearing his train goggles. Yeah, that's his own phrase...sweet.
Once at Ikea, S. also thought it'd be great to get into one of the display beds. I thought that was fine...S. even, of his own volition, took off his shoes...but J. was a little less sure and asked the dude helping me with bed questions. Turns out that if S. was a year older it would not be okay but his well-behaved-ness and youth made it okay.
So I chose a bed frame. I chose it before even getting there. It spoke to me. It was totally the frame for me. Then I got convinced, by my mother (when I called to make sure it made sense to buy all this stuff...frankly with funds given/lent to me by my parents....that I wasn't making a mistake) my mother said I might as well get a box spring as well. It was stressful. Then we had lunch. I ordered a kid's size of mac and cheese and a kids' size of Swedish meatballs. Neither made me very pleased.
Other things, also, didn't make me pleased. Like when I went down to the 'pick up your shit for yourself' warehouse and had to maneuver a full size box spring onto a cart by myself. Yeah. It took me forever. The carts don't have brakes, so I'd have to leverage the heavy ass thing on its edge and every time I treid to move it forward the cart would slip away. This happened nine million times. I saw people walk by the aisle (that I was at the end of) and this included Ikea personnel without even thinking about helping me. Now, of course, fellow customers were under no responsibility to assist me but, really, ugh. So eventually I maneuvered the stupid too narrow and short cart up against a wall in order to scoot the damn boxspring onto the cart. Having achieved this an Ikea dude came up to me and asked me if I needed help. Son of a bitch. He was actually quite nice and helped me get my mattress onto the cart as well but, I"m not going to lie, I could have done my mattress on my own...it was light as a mother effin' penny. The effects of my boxspring/cart efforts were a slight shaking of my arms, a definite exacerbation of my feeling out of control and a general grumpiness (it reminded me of trips to Hannaford in my last year of college...where I'd get entirely overwhelmed by the experience of a grocery store and found myself emotionally shutting down). In the end I checked out successfully, spent a lot of money to get the stuff I just spent a lot of money to buy delivered to the apartment and left. And, oh yes, it rained the entire time. Except walking to my car and driving to Ikea.

Friday Night's All Righ

The nature of my work has many good qualities and many intense qualities. The good qualities include the sheer variety of the work. Every day I'm editing different individuals' writing and that means that every day is somehow different. One of the more intense aspects of the job is the fact that we have a busy season. We have not quite gotten there but every week, for the last two or three weeks, has been more jam packed than the week before. The job is becoming less a 9-5 and more an 8-6 and soon enough it'll be 8-10 with the occasional Saturday. My point is that this Friday, after the move on Monday, movers on Thursday. Oh wait. I haven't shared my moving story yet. Well, look at this pizza and wonder about its context and then go below to see my moving movers story.
Okay. So. I don't have a lot of pals in Philly, especially not the kind that I could ask to help me move a bunch of shit. My shit has been in a storage unit since late July, just sitting, waiting to be remembered. So I sucked it up and hired movers. Artsy fartsy movers (and I mean that in the best way possible). We met at my storage unit, I apologized for my shoddy packing job, secretly swooned over the tall mover and went to work (I had a lot of work to do). When they arrived at my apartment they called me and I walked over to my new place and let them in. I showed them where I wanted the futon mattress (up til then I had been borrowing one of D.'s air mattresses to sleep...and unlike T. and C.'s air mattress, every morning I woke up with my back touching the floor). So I said to the swoon worthy mover, I said, oh yes please put the mattress in the bedroom. Then he asked me where I'd like the frame. And I said in the living room please. And then, walking out of the bedroom and into the living room he paused and something kind of like this:

'So something kind of happened with your futon frame. As we were moving it fell down the elevator shaft and there's no way to get it back." and then with almost no pause "But I see futon bars all the time so I can just find one to replace it for you".

Sigh. I was so busy at work. And he was pretty cute. And tall. And so I wasn't entirely on my game. I managed to ask him how, exactly, the futon bar fell down an elevator shaft and he said that the bar was propped up against the elevator door and when it opened the bar just slipped down and was, you know, gone forever. Then I asked him whether he really saw futon bars everywhere...because I have to tell you, the only futon bars I've ever seen have been, well, connected to my futon. And he was all, yeah I see them everywhere I'll keep your phone number and give you a call when I find one. And I was too flummoxed by his tallness to press the issue...like how long it might be before he finds this magic futon bar? Or, so what am I supposed to do when I buy a bed in two days and the futon can't be properly put together? No, I humored myself a little and just went, okay tall guy you give me a call and then it'll be great.
Now that the story of the stressful-ish arrival of my stuff is complete, I will continue this pizza story. The story isn't actually all that complicated. After work on Friday I invited my coworkers over to the new, super duper awesome deck of my apartment for wine and cards. They came in waves. Hearts was played, briefly. Talks were had and then M., B. and I picked up a pizza from Fairmount Pizza and brought it back to the deck (you just wait for the photographs, it's amazing...the deck).
After that we went to the Green Room bar. I've passed the place a good number of times and always thought that it looked pretty gosh darned sketchy but in that 'well it could be really low key chill inside' or 'it would be really gross and yicky in there'. Our thoughts, at the time, were positive. Yelpers don't like the place but, hey, on a Friday night you could buy a pitcher of cheap beer for ten bucks and sit at the bar. No sketchy or gross men hitting on us, no snotty attitudes. Heck, if we had wanted, we could have had $2 jello shots. Classy? No. Dive bar? No. A possible future hang out with cheap beer prices? Yes.

Laborious Day

While I will be eternally grateful to C. for her well-timed and generous sublet offer, the apartment was never my speed. Too high up, too removed from good voyeurism, too white-carpeted. There were certainly benefits, like how close to center city the place was and the big ass televisions C. left behind for my use. All to say that I am grateful, it was going to be way too overwhelming to find a place to live and start work at the same time and I might have decided to live somewhere farther away from work and that would have been a very bad choice. All to say that on September first I vacated the sublet and got myself partially situated in my new apartment. As did my new roommate D. D. had the help of her parents in the move and afterwards they asked if I'd like to join them for dinner, which I did, so off we went to the very nearby Belgian Cafe. I started with a Unibroue Ephemere Apple.
We shared a bit of smoked trout.
I tried a cup of their yellow tomato gazpacho.
I had a burger with a name, it had cheddar and bacon. And a tiny side of salad. It was cooked appropriately though not overly generous in its size. Their choice of salad instead of fries (which I am sure is a cultural truism of some kind) was interesting and for the best but I wished for a larger portion of salad.
Thanks to D. and her parents for a lovely meal at the end of quite a tiresome day....though stay tuned to a number of far more tiresome days, sigh.

Sunday or Saturday

On Saturday I was getting all my stuff together for the big move. I didn't actually have that much stuff in the apartment, so one part of getting my stuff together was ordering Chinese food and watching Futurama. General Tso's tofu and dumplings from Long River. The dumplings were still delicately wrapped but I found myself not quite as enamored with its meat filling. The tofu was pretty good, could have been a little chewier/crispier kind of.

Lo A While Back

I think it was last Sunday, no, it was two Mondays ago maybe? I don't remember. I think the Olympics were still on but even that is not a sure thing. Whatever the day was I came home from work and started preparation for my always tasty pork shoulder...then realized that due to the switching out of apartment stuff, I was lacking pot holders almost all spices and a few other key ingredients. So I just did what I could do with what I had. Instead of a clove and pepper and vinegar and brown sugar etc paste, I liberally poked garlic all over the shoulder, and laid it on top of a few fresh chopped tomatoes and dried out parsley. The result was quite good, it was nice to see a way to improvise and come up with a new but yummy dinner. I also made goat cheese mashed potatoes.

Barbeque

After all the heavy lifting that J. and I opted out of there was a barbeque out near Villanova (I think technically the area was called 'Bryn Mawr') hosted by C. and M. There was a lot of food. Tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.
Chips and guacamole.
Sausage, steak, hot dogs and grilled chicken. I had a sausage.
A lovely salad with strawberries, dried cranberries, nuts, lettuce and blue cheese.


And fresh ass corn stand corn, grilled.
And brownie cupcake things made with diet coke.
A little bocci ball was played. I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't helped with the move past getting out of the way and then partook in the food to feed the helpers of the move but my childhood friend told me not to feel that way. Thanks C. and M. for the delicious food!