august 31

one day i'll learn my lesson. one day i'll see a box of pasta that claims to serve eight and not think to myself "i can probably get two meals out of that." and one day i won't have to force that much pasta down to avoid wasting it. but not today. oh god not today.


but at least now i might have the energy to make it through the night. i'm still not used to sleeping without the glory of central air, so it always takes me awhile to fall asleep here. but i also woke up at seven today to go to chinatown to meet dom who was in the city for the day before flying out of laguardia on his way to portugal. getting there proved difficult as well--i was running late so i took the express train even though it didn't stop where i needed to get off thinking it'd be faster to walk back than wait, but the train in front of us couldn't shut its doors, so we were stuck waiting until it could move. and, of course, we were stuck on the inside track at the station i wanted to get off at anyways, unable to get out. and two local trains passed us before we moved on again, just to make sure i knew i had chosen wrong.


i made it eventually, though. and seeing a familiar face was a great relief--especially dom since i hadn't seen him in close to a couple months. we caught up for awhile, then went to buy jonathan franzen's new book (freedom) but it had already sold out by two pm, which marks the first time that's happened to me. but after he left, i had the pleasure of riding my new bike, which eased the pain a bit. of course, i might have underestimated the prevalence of potholes around the city, as well how much they test your balance on a road bike, but it's still a fantastic way to see new york. you actually get to see the scenery, as opposed to subways, and you're not driven into poverty, like with taxis. plus, there are actually a fair amount of bike lanes around brooklyn that make it a little less intimidating.


so i decided to ride to a grocery store down the way and make the aforementioned ridiculous amount of pasta. i also picked up some apple juice (most of which went to washing down that pasta) and strawberries, which i'm still waiting to eat. waiting because my roommate jordan is currently having what sounds like serious discussion with a friend of his in the kitchen that i'm trying not to interrupt. complicating the matter is the fact that jordan is a bit of a neat freak and i haven't done the dishes yet. do i want to be the dirty asshole or the inconsiderate asshole? i haven't figured it out yet. but it's an important decision, because i found out this afternoon (via those--er, these?--darned interwebs) that jordan won a daytime emmy award for composing the music on one life to live, and i always want to be able to say that a friend of mine won a daytime emmy.


that difficulty aside, today has been great for being able to continue adjusting to the idea of not being in chapel hill anymore, which i think i needed. i feel renewed. so tomorrow i'm going to start a job search in ernest. and hopefully find one that i'm not morally opposed to.