- where to go to college
- what to major in
- changing my major
- choosing theatre arts as the alternate major
- sending my resumé to the firm at which i work
- living on campus my sophomore year at last minute
- living at argyle house with ex-best friend my senior year
- deciding not to live with said ex-best friend
- breaking up with The Ex
- deciding to live on the far end of town with no car
- deciding to move to the current apartment in which i reside the following year
- buying a car
- deciding to move out early and move in with my friend jason in burnsville...
that said, internet shopping really might be the greatest gift technology has bestowed upon me. it's a pretty anonymous method of doing my research. unfortunately, it's kind of hard to get a feel for the true majesty of a home when all you have is a pixillated 2" x 3" picture of the living room. this means that in order to find the place i want to buy, i'm going to have to deal with some of the pushiest salespeople: realtors.
maybe i can just keep renting until i inherit someone else's house.
***
yesterday was a monumental day for me. it was the fourth of july. historically, that's the day america gained its independence. and historically, it's one of my favorite holidays. something about the fourth of july always makes me feel good, even though i used to spend the majority of my independence days marching in parades in a silly heavy wool marching band uniform. i'm not the kind of person who would describe himself as particularly patriotic, but the timing of the fourth of july pretty much always agrees with me. for some people, it's a great excuse to begin drinking at 10 in the morning, and for other people, parades are just rockin. for me, it's just good timing. it's a day off of work, and it's a day that largely has no purpose, at least until sunset when fireworks begin. most people don't do much on the fourth of july, and i am no exception. this is why yesterday was so monumental.
as i might have mentioned, i've spent a lot of my free time (and by a lot i pretty much mean all of it) avoiding my apartment. that has been cause for some considerable discord within my sanity, but it's no better than going home and being so uncomfortable that i pace around my room for hours. so you see, lately, it's been kind of a no-win situation for me. yesterday was different, sort of. i got up and, as usual, felt as if i needed to be somewhere else doing something, so i jumped in the car, topped off my tank, and washed off my windshield. 80 miles per hour plus six hours' worth of bugs equals much more damage than my pathetic wipers can deal with, and there were actually so many bugs on there that my car smelled of old dead trout. NOT appealing in any way. anyhow, after that little pit stop, i headed in the direction of uptown so i could begin the neighborhood scoping and the grabbing of flyers. it's not the internet, but at least i can still avoid salespeople this way. after an hour or so of doing that, i had nothing and i was bored. note to self: house shopping isn't really going to be that fun.
i returned home. and i stayed there. for hours. as a matter of fact, i stayed at home yesterday until i left again for the fireworks at about 8:30. that's probably the most time i've allowed myself to live here without being asleep or having company over. it wasn't any more comfortable, though, and i certainly felt good about leaving when i left, but perhaps it's a start. i'm going to have to learn a little tolerance if i need to last another month and a half.
there's something else i should explain about myself. I DO NOT CALL PEOPLE. nobody on earth hates the phone as much as i do. there are some caveats to this rule, of course; if i told someone i was going to call at eight, i wouldn't give it a second thought. however, if someone leaves me a voicemail, i don't ever feel incredibly compelled to return it. and i certainly don't call people out of the blue. add to that the fact that most people who might have called me weren't even aware that i was in town, and you've got the perfect recipe for a boring evening. what can i say? making plans, it's not my forte. or even my mezzo-piano.
i figured that i know enough people in minneapolis by now that i can pretty much go just about anywhere and i'll see someone i know. this almost invariably never fails me. grocery shopping, target, spyhouse, theatres, restaurants, random street corners, and just about any other place i would ever want to go are always at least populated by one person i know. sometimes many. there really isn't much else to do on a fourth of july besides watching fireworks, and pretty much everyone in town goes to the stone arch bridge to do so. it wasn't going to be that hard to find someone i knew and tag along, right?
ha. right, yes. there are a lot of people who i have come into contact with at some point or another since i moved here who i do not know well enough to have a casual conversation but am nevertheless familiar with enough to say hello or at least wave. and ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE WERE ON THE BRIDGE. i should add that nobody who i actually knew was anywhere to be found for the first couple runs i did back and forth. i found myself fabricating the most ridiculous scenarios to get out of the awkward conversations in which i kept finding myself. "yes, you see, i have friends who i was going to meet on the other side of the bridge, but none of them appear to be answering their cell phones. it's quite possible that they were overrun by a herd of mastodons, or that perhaps they no longer wish to be my friend. however, i must find them before 9:12 to ascertain this or we might have a serious problem, so i must continue on. nice to see you, my friend. perhaps i'll give you a call sometime." yeah, right. i even faked receiving a phone call to get out of one conversation.
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