Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Movietime
It's another overcast and relatively cool day for July in Philly. I played with the idea of pulling an all-nighter last night, just for the hell of it, but I ultimately decided against it around 6 in the morning. So, as one might guess, I slept in until 3pm this afternoon. The day is totally lost, which I'm only slightly bitter about.
For the past half-hour, I've been catching-up on washing dishes. And for some reason I got to thinking about Cherise, and about how I still harbor some bitterness from flying all the way out to San Diego in order to spend only 8 hours on Valentine's Day with Cherise, and how all I got at the end of the day was a weak kiss on the lips -- the kind of kiss that a grandmother would give to her grandchild. It was total bullshit. But I realize that I needed that in order to feel convinced that, despite anything Cherise says or does, she simply does not love me. And I need to move on from her. For the most part, I've done that. But on occasions like the one just now, while washing the dishes, that bitterness bubbles to the surface. It's as much anger directed toward her -- for having strung me along for so long, for not having the dignity to admit her lack of love for me and thus for not having the courage to end our relationship years ago; as much as it's anger also directed at myself -- at my own ignorance, self-imposed much of the time, that allowed me to continue in an unfulfilling and fruitless relationship, all for the love of a body and an image. Oh well, it's all part of living and learning, I guess.
Recently Cherise will periodically "poke" me on facebook, but I always remove the "poke" instead of responding to it. If she has something to say to me, she can write it in an email or pick-up the phone and call me. If she merely wants to provoke the attention of a guy who fucked her for four years, then she's wasting her time. I'm much more interested in the girls that I know now and any girl that I may meet tomorrow.
Well, that's all the venting that I'm gonna do today. It was on my mind, so I figured that I would spill it out here. And, you know what, I feel better for getting it out.
As a postscript, the title to this post refers to the fact that I'm gonna watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in just a little bit. I hope its good.
For the past half-hour, I've been catching-up on washing dishes. And for some reason I got to thinking about Cherise, and about how I still harbor some bitterness from flying all the way out to San Diego in order to spend only 8 hours on Valentine's Day with Cherise, and how all I got at the end of the day was a weak kiss on the lips -- the kind of kiss that a grandmother would give to her grandchild. It was total bullshit. But I realize that I needed that in order to feel convinced that, despite anything Cherise says or does, she simply does not love me. And I need to move on from her. For the most part, I've done that. But on occasions like the one just now, while washing the dishes, that bitterness bubbles to the surface. It's as much anger directed toward her -- for having strung me along for so long, for not having the dignity to admit her lack of love for me and thus for not having the courage to end our relationship years ago; as much as it's anger also directed at myself -- at my own ignorance, self-imposed much of the time, that allowed me to continue in an unfulfilling and fruitless relationship, all for the love of a body and an image. Oh well, it's all part of living and learning, I guess.
Recently Cherise will periodically "poke" me on facebook, but I always remove the "poke" instead of responding to it. If she has something to say to me, she can write it in an email or pick-up the phone and call me. If she merely wants to provoke the attention of a guy who fucked her for four years, then she's wasting her time. I'm much more interested in the girls that I know now and any girl that I may meet tomorrow.
Well, that's all the venting that I'm gonna do today. It was on my mind, so I figured that I would spill it out here. And, you know what, I feel better for getting it out.
As a postscript, the title to this post refers to the fact that I'm gonna watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in just a little bit. I hope its good.
Red, red wine
Last night I finished the book "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. It was a good book about American and British expatriates in Paris who decide to take a trip to Pamplona, Spain for las fiestas sanfermines, or more popularly, the running of the bulls. Much of the book's action took place in cafes and bars. For that reason, when Julie suggested that we go out for Center City Sips tonight, I told her that I wanted to go to a Hemingway-esque place. We settled on Caribou Cafe, on Walnut Street between 11th & 12th. If you've never been there, the place does a very nice job of recreating a typical Parisian bistro, down to the wicker chairs and "black cat" posters. I drank three red sangrias there. After the first one, I told the waitress to bring the next one without any ice; I knew what I was there for. From Caribou, we walked up Walnut to Rum Bar, where we met Wagner and the girl he's been dating for a couple months, Adrianna. They were there with several of Adrianna's ballerina friends. I drank two red wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, I think. After that I was feeling "pretty tight" (to use a phrase from "The Sun Also Rises"). So, after talking politics and law school with Maggie, an attractive 25 year-old girl who was friends with Adrianna, I suggested to Julie that we take a walk to the park. In Rittenhouse, we found a comfortable spot on the grass to lay down and look up at the one star visible in the city's nighttime sky. It was pretty relaxing. A little while later Wagner and Adrianna found us and we all stood up to talk. Adrianna showed us her two tattoos; I showed-off mine. Those guys took off and Julie and I came back to my place to hang out while I warmed up some spaghetti for dinner. I finished it off with a nice salad of greens, tomatoes, dried cranberries, and crumbled goat cheese. Now, since walking Julie home and then returning back to the double-deuce & Spruce earlier, I've been wasting time on the internet all night long. Only now did I decide to post something on the blog. Although I'm vaguely tired, I'm not in the mood to go to bed. That may not make any sense, but I guess I'm in an obscurely restless mood tonight. With coffee earlier today and a lot of wine later in the evening, along with meeting friends, I felt a bit like Jake Barnes, the protagonist in "The Sun Also Rises." It was a good night.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Overcast
It's overcast and cool in Philly today. I vaguely remember waking up earlier this morning to a healthy rainshower, heard through the windows I leave open for most of the spring-summer-fall. That was probably around 8 or 9am, the time that most everyone else was getting ready and on their way to work. I rolled over in bed and fell back to sleep.
I just got done reading a chapter of "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. I sat in the reclining chair near the living-room window. For some reason there was an occasional smell of peaches, but not the smell from the actual fruit, it was the smell you'd associate with the peaches-and-cream flavor of Quaker oatmeal. I enjoyed the smell, despite being perplexed at its unknown source.
This past weekend was pretty good. Being temporarily unemployed (or, as my friend Julie calls it: "funemployed"), I decided to take advantage of the free time and take a trip that I haven't done for well over half a decade (as my friend Corey reminded me last week): south to DC and Baltimore. On Friday late afternoon, I walked to 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak heading to DC. It was a two-hour ride that was pretty pleasant. Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore, I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. She was on her way from her Central Park apartment to visit her parents in Phoenix, Maryland, about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, on their multiacre property; she needed to recharge in the peace and quiet of the countryside. We wished each other a nice weekend as she got off the train at Baltimore.
Arriving in Union Station in DC, I was very impressed with the size, architecture, and quality of shops in the station. Philly's 30th Street Station has amazing architecture, but does not come anywhere close to rivaling Union Station's commercial appeal. Mike eventually met me in the food court, where I was eating some rice and bourbon chicken for dinner.
We took the metro to U Street, our destination for the night. We went to Marvin's, Saint-Etas, Gate 54, and Black Cat. My favorite spot, by far, was Gate 54. It had the feeling of an old World War I bunker, complete with street signs and war paraphernalia on the walls. The fact that it was underground and dimly lit gave it a sense of coziness. And the dj really set things right by playing a lot of Motown before eventually transitioning to some old school, jazz-influenced hip-hop. The whole scene brought me back to my early days in Philly, and my favorite spot of all-time: Soma, which no longer exists. I may be going back to DC more frequently, if for no other reason than to soak up the positive, nostalgic vibe that I get at Gate 54.
Saturday, Mike and I went to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. Then, after stopping back at his place shortly, we hit the road to Baltimore. After patiently hunting down a parking spot near the corner of Charles and Chase streets, we walked to the Metro Art Gallery, where Evan's brother Ryan was playing a gig with his band, Rain the Shining. Mike and I had only missed two songs by the time we got there. The gig was part of the larger event: Artscape. Walking to the gallery, there were tons of artists' booths and displays, and tons of pedestrians crowding Charles Street, which was blocked-off to traffic. The weather was clear and low-humidity; it was perfect.
After the show, we got a jerk chicken dinner from a food vendor under a tent. Then, we drove to Bourbon Street, a club on Guilford Street in Baltimore. We hung out there for the rest of the night, on the roofdeck. I talked to several people over the course of the night. At one point an attractive girl, whose name I later got to be Alexa, walked by, so I waved at her, she said I was "hot," so I waved her over to me, she came directly up to me and we spontaneously exchanged a warm hug; she gave me her phone number without me even asking, and she told me to meet her later at some bar in Towson.
Despite the invitation, and our initial plan to do late-night in Baltimore, Mike and I decided to take the plunge and just drive back to Philly right then, at around 3 in the morning. We drove north up Charles Street, passing through Loyola College (prompting me to send a late-night text to Jess Lauria), and eventually getting on to 695, then on to 95-North. We stopped once at a rest stop to get a large coffee, our fuel to make it the rest of the way back to the double-deuce & Spruce. We finally arrived at around 5am. But I couldn't fall asleep for at least a couple hours, probably because of the caffeine still coursing through my veins.
The rest of the weekend was typical: coffee at La Colombe, hanging out in Rittenhouse Square, going to church at St. Patrick's (Mike joined me for that). So that's that. Now my sleep schedule is still messed up, but I'm trying to get back on track. It was a good weekend and thus totally worth it.
I just got done reading a chapter of "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. I sat in the reclining chair near the living-room window. For some reason there was an occasional smell of peaches, but not the smell from the actual fruit, it was the smell you'd associate with the peaches-and-cream flavor of Quaker oatmeal. I enjoyed the smell, despite being perplexed at its unknown source.
This past weekend was pretty good. Being temporarily unemployed (or, as my friend Julie calls it: "funemployed"), I decided to take advantage of the free time and take a trip that I haven't done for well over half a decade (as my friend Corey reminded me last week): south to DC and Baltimore. On Friday late afternoon, I walked to 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak heading to DC. It was a two-hour ride that was pretty pleasant. Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore, I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. She was on her way from her Central Park apartment to visit her parents in Phoenix, Maryland, about 45 minutes north of Baltimore, on their multiacre property; she needed to recharge in the peace and quiet of the countryside. We wished each other a nice weekend as she got off the train at Baltimore.
Arriving in Union Station in DC, I was very impressed with the size, architecture, and quality of shops in the station. Philly's 30th Street Station has amazing architecture, but does not come anywhere close to rivaling Union Station's commercial appeal. Mike eventually met me in the food court, where I was eating some rice and bourbon chicken for dinner.
We took the metro to U Street, our destination for the night. We went to Marvin's, Saint-Etas, Gate 54, and Black Cat. My favorite spot, by far, was Gate 54. It had the feeling of an old World War I bunker, complete with street signs and war paraphernalia on the walls. The fact that it was underground and dimly lit gave it a sense of coziness. And the dj really set things right by playing a lot of Motown before eventually transitioning to some old school, jazz-influenced hip-hop. The whole scene brought me back to my early days in Philly, and my favorite spot of all-time: Soma, which no longer exists. I may be going back to DC more frequently, if for no other reason than to soak up the positive, nostalgic vibe that I get at Gate 54.
Saturday, Mike and I went to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. Then, after stopping back at his place shortly, we hit the road to Baltimore. After patiently hunting down a parking spot near the corner of Charles and Chase streets, we walked to the Metro Art Gallery, where Evan's brother Ryan was playing a gig with his band, Rain the Shining. Mike and I had only missed two songs by the time we got there. The gig was part of the larger event: Artscape. Walking to the gallery, there were tons of artists' booths and displays, and tons of pedestrians crowding Charles Street, which was blocked-off to traffic. The weather was clear and low-humidity; it was perfect.
After the show, we got a jerk chicken dinner from a food vendor under a tent. Then, we drove to Bourbon Street, a club on Guilford Street in Baltimore. We hung out there for the rest of the night, on the roofdeck. I talked to several people over the course of the night. At one point an attractive girl, whose name I later got to be Alexa, walked by, so I waved at her, she said I was "hot," so I waved her over to me, she came directly up to me and we spontaneously exchanged a warm hug; she gave me her phone number without me even asking, and she told me to meet her later at some bar in Towson.
Despite the invitation, and our initial plan to do late-night in Baltimore, Mike and I decided to take the plunge and just drive back to Philly right then, at around 3 in the morning. We drove north up Charles Street, passing through Loyola College (prompting me to send a late-night text to Jess Lauria), and eventually getting on to 695, then on to 95-North. We stopped once at a rest stop to get a large coffee, our fuel to make it the rest of the way back to the double-deuce & Spruce. We finally arrived at around 5am. But I couldn't fall asleep for at least a couple hours, probably because of the caffeine still coursing through my veins.
The rest of the weekend was typical: coffee at La Colombe, hanging out in Rittenhouse Square, going to church at St. Patrick's (Mike joined me for that). So that's that. Now my sleep schedule is still messed up, but I'm trying to get back on track. It was a good weekend and thus totally worth it.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Injuries -- new and old
I hurt my back playing tennis with Priscilla about a month ago. It still hasn't healed completely. When I went in for my yearly physical exam with the doctor a couple weeks ago, I mentioned it to the doctor. He told me it was probably a pulled ligament or muscle in my lower back. He gave me a worksheet with some lumbar stretching exercises, which I have still yet to do. A side effect of the back injury is that I haven't gone to the gym more than a couple times in the past month. So I've lost a few pounds of muscle that I would normally have maintained. I've resolved to start going to the gym on a regular basis again, in spite of the back. If I have to do a lighter work-out, it's still better than nothing.
Another side effect of the back injury is that I haven't played tennis since the evening that I hurt it. I had started getting pretty good, finally learning how to serve and developing a pretty good back-hand stroke with a little bit of back-spin on it. Not playing has also, I believe, affected the dynamic of spending time with Priscilla; before hurting my back, we were playing about once a week. It was a nice way to spend time together and have fun, especially doing something that's an important part of her life. There are deeper issues affecting our dynamic, but I'm aware of the fact that not playing tennis has been a loss. Oh well, I do believe that things happen for a reason. In the end I just pray to God that my back eventually heals completely, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Finally, since I've now resurrected this blog, I've felt a strange compulsion to express this final thought -- apparently picking-up where I had left off several months ago -- I'm really pleased that my short relationship with Diana came to an end. The reaction of her friend, Yadira, even more than Diana's own reaction, exposed to me the truth that I would not want to be part of that circle. It simply wasn't meant to be, and I accept that unequivocally. I expect that they would say the same thing about me, and that's just fine with me. I wish Diana the best, but I'm content to leave that experience behind as a lesson learned: be slow, cautious, and methodical when starting a relationship with a girl, even if it means being conservative about expressing my feelings, until time passes and the relationship solidifies over the course of shared experiences.
Enough said for today . . . I hope you enjoy the video below for "Panic Switch." I heard the song on Radio 104.5 not too long ago, and I pumped up the volume and bass to enjoy it.
Another side effect of the back injury is that I haven't played tennis since the evening that I hurt it. I had started getting pretty good, finally learning how to serve and developing a pretty good back-hand stroke with a little bit of back-spin on it. Not playing has also, I believe, affected the dynamic of spending time with Priscilla; before hurting my back, we were playing about once a week. It was a nice way to spend time together and have fun, especially doing something that's an important part of her life. There are deeper issues affecting our dynamic, but I'm aware of the fact that not playing tennis has been a loss. Oh well, I do believe that things happen for a reason. In the end I just pray to God that my back eventually heals completely, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Finally, since I've now resurrected this blog, I've felt a strange compulsion to express this final thought -- apparently picking-up where I had left off several months ago -- I'm really pleased that my short relationship with Diana came to an end. The reaction of her friend, Yadira, even more than Diana's own reaction, exposed to me the truth that I would not want to be part of that circle. It simply wasn't meant to be, and I accept that unequivocally. I expect that they would say the same thing about me, and that's just fine with me. I wish Diana the best, but I'm content to leave that experience behind as a lesson learned: be slow, cautious, and methodical when starting a relationship with a girl, even if it means being conservative about expressing my feelings, until time passes and the relationship solidifies over the course of shared experiences.
Enough said for today . . . I hope you enjoy the video below for "Panic Switch." I heard the song on Radio 104.5 not too long ago, and I pumped up the volume and bass to enjoy it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Panic Switch
This is one of my favorite new songs, "Panic Switch" by Silversun Pickups. It has a really cool vibe, somehow it conveys smug self-pity while simultaneously conveying a certain rebellious coolness. That probably doesn't make any sense to you, but that's my best attempt at describing what I get from the song.
Also, I love the video because of the drummer. I think the drumming in the song is really good. And (as the comments on Youtube note), the drummer looks like Animal from the Muppet Show.
Enjoy:
Also, I love the video because of the drummer. I think the drumming in the song is really good. And (as the comments on Youtube note), the drummer looks like Animal from the Muppet Show.
Enjoy:
Email to Pito
A couple days ago I called every single legal staffing agency in the city. Yesterday I had a registration interview with one of them. And a guy at another agency told me that he has a couple projects slated to begin in early August, although he gives preference to people who have previously been employed through his agency. I'm hooked back in to unemployment compensation, and having already called in my first claim, I should receive my first payment by this coming Monday. Today I went in for a visit to PLA; it always makes me feel good to be received so well by so many people; I don't think there's any better place for that than PLA, so it was really nice. To take advantage of the free time, I'm very likely heading down to DC tomorrow to hang out with Mike from Gettysburg, then going to Ellicott City / Baltimore on Saturday to finally see Evan's house. As Corey reminded me, it's been well over half a decade since I've been down that way, so I'm definitely overdue for a trip, considering the number of times that Mike and Evan have each visited me here in Philly. I may take you up on the pool offer some time after that. I hope things are going well in Newark and Levittown. In the meantime, stay healthy and consider doing something off the beaten path this weekend, it would be good for you.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Facebook status update
One of my favorite groups, Los Amigos Invisibles, is performing at World Cafe Live tomorrow at 8pm. I'm going with some amigos, you should bring your amigos, and we'll see the Amigos! http://
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Email to Pito
Well, about an hour after that last email I sent to you, one of the associates came down to tell us that the case had settled, which of course meant that the project was over. And then last week I got the email that my score was not high enough on the FSOT. I was surprised, but not shocked: the competition is much higher with so many people flocking to recession-proof government jobs. I'm not sure if I'll even bother to request the score breakdown, but I imagine it was my honesty on the biographical section (e.g., I don't volunteer, I don't usually stay late at work, I haven't taken courses to improve my skills) that brought down my score just low enough. Oh well. I'm not too disappointed because I was lukewarm about the idea when I really let myself think about it; the effect on the future of my personal life was a real consideration weighing against the idea. Getting pinkeye a couple nights ago has kept me from going out at all, including to the gym. So I'm trying to clean my apartment, which I'm convinced I'm allergic to, with all the cat hair, mold, etc. Everything else is pretty good, though, so despite the vague depression of being home all the time, it's all good in the hood.
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