Archive for January, 2009
I never thought I’d say this…
…but I really wish we’d gone to Starbucks instead.
I honestly am having a hard time believing that in 2009 a nation-wide coffee chain can put such ridiculous restrictions on Internet access as Panera does. Ivona and I wanted to get out of the house and do some reading and I wanted to get some website work done, including setting up a site on my web host for Maury. After paying for overpriced coffee and 20-30 minutes of time online, which was spent frustratingly hitting the refresh button because the connection constantly dropped or timed out, I got another login screen.
“We are sorry: An error has occurred. You have consumed all on-line peak period time available. Please retry later.”
Maybe it’s the weather
I think I used to be a much more passionate person. I used to care more about a lot of things. I used to get excited and worked up and interested. I feel like I’ve stagnated a lot in the past few years, maybe even since starting college, and I’m hoping I can get back to where I used to be.
Ivona said tonight that she likes when I write blog entries because it’s like a window to my inner thoughts that I don’t normally vocalize or go out of my way to share. I realized that’s largely true, and not necessarily because I don’t want to share things with her, but when I don’t write it’s almost like I don’t even think about things too deeply, or analyze my own feelings. Writing is the only way I know how to figure things out, of being truly introspective. The only time I really felt like that without having to write to get at it was when I was living in France; being in a place where you don’t really speak the language at first forces you to be pretty introspective. Oddly enough, I did some of my best writing (the non-introspective kind) when I was there. It’s part of the reason I want to go back so badly.
Liveblogging TJ’s wine and cheese party
I wanted to give this email posting a shot from my phone, so I thought I’d do a live post from T.J.’s wine and cheese party.
I’m surprised how many people showed up considering it’s between semesters, but this place is pretty packed, and there’s some decent wine to choose from. This one douche insisted we do it as a blind taste test, but that went out the window when T.J. realized he’d spend all night covering the bottles with copy paper instead of enjoying his own party. Ivona almost got in an argument with some dude because she misheard him calling the cheese we brought sheep cheese. She heard cheap. Hilarity ensued.
Social life (revised: first drunk post wooo!)
I’ll preface this post with the disclaimer that I’m just a little drunk, and I blame Alex for that entirely.
Tonight I got out of my rut of social inactvity – my buddy T.J. was supposed to do that last weekend with his wine and cheese party, but it was delayed until tomorrow due to snow, so my only human contact for the last week was Ivona. Don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty ok with me, and I’ve enjoyed watching episode after episode of The Office while she’s been at work, but I realized today how much I’ve missed varied social interaction this past month; it was great to meet new people in a new environment, although I’ll admit it takes some warming up to new surroundings for me. Alex has probably noticed this more than anyone, but I think in the past couple years I’ve become increasingly uptight, and it really helps me unwind to go out and have a few drinks and relax a little bit. I don’t mean to say I need a couple drinks to relax and talk with people, but it helps. (I’M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC I SWEAR.)
Kicking things off
Well, what can I say. Yet another blog.
I’m a little uninspired right now, probably due to the fact that I’m between semesters at UMass and I’ve been sitting around doing absolutely nothing lately, except for looking at job listings for writers for a half hour at a time before becoming hopelessly depressed and writing death threats to the high school teacher who encouraged me to become a writer. At least the death threats will be well-written?
Anyway, I’m planning on forcing myself to write at least a little bit each day, preferably more than one post. One of the results of that plan will inevitably be that not all of the posts will be A+ material. I plan on writing about everything going on in my life and making this a sort of public journal, but I’m digging out some old notebooks with material I’ve put together over the years and I’m hoping to go back to some of my inspired notes and expanding on them and putting them up here. So there might be some short pieces of fiction, or vignettes, or little portraits of some random thought I had. A sentence I come across might send me off in a new direction or tangent, and I’m looking forward to tapping into my creative juices again. I always call myself a writer, but the reality is I just don’t write enough.
I’ll probably start tomorrow with a review of what’s been happening with Ivona and me lately to get any friends and family who are behind on the news caught up. Since I don’t expect this blog to be packed with people any time soon, welcome to those of you I’ve sent the link to to check it out. Thanks for stopping by.
