2004-07-07 - 1:39 a.m.

Saturday was a walk to Southie.

It also spelled the end for Peetie. That poor pedometring bastard. When the Roommate and I walked to West Roxbury all the way from Somerville a few weeks ago, and Peetie told us we had gone like 7.8 miles, we were like, okay. But Somerville to Southie is not 1.4 miles, especially entering by the length of A Street to Broadway from South Station, and I don't care if Peetie is transparent pretty blue plastic and can tell me the time too. It hurts, Peetie, but it's over, Peetie, and you will be missed.

In Southie, the Roommate and I got a beer the second we got there ($3.75 for a lukewarm Bud draft in the first place we tried, with a real Irish bartender no less, and so of course he proclaimed $7.50 with a straight face), and we got some food and beers at the Beer Garden a little later, and we even hung out on the beach for a few before walking to Copley and ultimately heading home.

Sunday started off great--the Roommate and I T�d it to West Roxbury, and I had all of my stupid clothes that need special washing attention crammed into my gumbi backpack that I�ve had since high school so I could wash them individually in a nice washing machine where people don�t bleach hundreds of tiny towel-rags and which doesn�t need quarters to work.

Family stuff happened there--stuff that was funny but you�d kind of had to have been there to get why. Different rules, definitely, and I�m always afraid that for years I�ve been doing something that people don�t appreciate but that at the same time for years nobody has bothered to tell me. I mean, that�s one of my overlaying fears about life in general (and please, tell me!), but that fear is definitely amplified when I�m at the parents�. But I had a good time and played some wiffle ball with the Roommate and my brother and even forced a playoff for home run derby champion against my uncle Ralphie (he won).

The best part, as always, involved food and alcohol. The food was excellent--potato salad and cheeseburgers (unlike myself, my brother hung around the house when he was in college, thereby picking up on grill tips that would be lost on me), and the fun part was when the Roommate and I were sitting at the little picnic table in the little back yard with my ma and my aunt T, and my ma glanced at the four (!) empty cans of Bud betwixt the Roommate and myself and very non-dissapprovingly encouraged us toget another beer--relax. Her invitation echoed in my mind each of the seventeen times I went to grab two more ice cold Buds (from the red metal Coleman cooler they�ve had since before I was born). The Roommate got uncharacteristically silly, too, which was very fun.

My Brother dropped us off in Coolidge as the fireworks were being shot into the sky, and we ran to catch the C just in time, and blazed underneath the city despite the gathering crowds.

�Till we hit Government Center. See, there�s a shittle-bus now. For the next year or more. Replacing a train ride that I always found very pleasant. It�s supposed to take fifteen minutes. (The train ride it is replacing at its heaviest and worst never topped ten.) There are about eleven million reasons why I really, really, really hate this stupid shuttle bus, but I ended up really raging it when we took this one home. The whole point of the T is that it�s not going to be stuck in traffic--it�s on track lines that cars and trucks don�t use. We would have been from Government Center to Lechmere in ten minutes. We were on that shuttle bus, which changed routes for the millionth time and ended up going through the North End and Charlestown to Bunker Hill C.C., for no less than three quarters of an hour, and I wouldn�t be surprised if our little journey took more than an hour. An hour. We sat in traffic for twenty minutes, staring at the station we were to be dropped off at, and did not move one inch. Twenty minutes. I watched the 88 bus, which would have taken us home, drive away, and waved at it. I don�t think I�ve been more mad at anything in my entire life. I�m not even kidding. I have never felt so much prolonged and helpless rage in my entire life.

The thing that sucks is that I kind of do take a little bit of stock in first days--birthdays and New Year�s Day. I�ve found them to be quite tone setting. That bus incident, among a few other things that were different than last year, kinda suggested to me that the party�s over and it�s going to be a year of hardship and working harder and waiting longer for the same result. Not working hard towards a goal--just working hard. I dunno--maybe I�m an idiot for letting a couple of things essentially ruin what was an otherwise great day spent with people who love me. I probably am.

On Monday the Roommate and I made, with Julianne this time, our third trip to Devlin�s in four days--it was raining and we had just missed the bus to Davis so we got a pitcher of Pabst to drink while we waited for the next one (bus, that is), which we also missed. But that was fine--we had one very achievable goal and had the whole day to do it, and on the third day in a three day weekend, because they are so very rare for me I guess, I never feel like I have to rush to get to the next thing, which is quite contrary to my entire day-to-day belief system. If I can say hey, don�t worry, we got all day to do this and it�s the one thing we have to do all day and everything else is gravy, and mean it, that�s pretty good for me.

We got our tickets for Fahrenheit 9/11 a few hours early and headed to Charlie�s. I had the lobstermelt and I will have it again (it�s cheap). I finished my beer on schedule (re: before the girls) and went down to the avant-garde music store (where I can get, if I want, everything Sun-Ra ever put out and that�s about it, and where there is at least one Incredible String Band disc in each of the nebulous category sections throughout the tiny basement store). I picked out an Azalia Snail album while I waited for the proprietor to finish a phone call, and then asked him for a couple of recommendations. I left with the Snail disc and an album by a band called Elfish Presley (and they sing songs about the forest and magic pens--it sounded like a good idea at the time) and an excellent CD by Joshua Burkett, so I made out like a dextrous paladin there.

The Michael Moore movie was excellent and a huge downer. Huge. There�s been enough discussion about it and I don�t think I have anything further to contribute so I�ll keep my thoughts to myself I guess except for to say that I really love Michael Moore and if anything I�m glad he didn�t let me down and that I�m amazed that he was able to handle such a charged subject with tact and restraint (with the exception of the exceeding amount of time he gave to the bereaved mother, and that�s been covered enough elsewhere as well). The other thing is that I�m not mister currents event guy, and although nothing that came out in the film was new news to me, it was nice to see it in what was for me an overview.

I demanded a beer after seeing that (oh, and the folks behind us not only ate popcorn through the film--they went out during the course of the movie to get popcorn and then munched away--hello?? It�s a documentary--the footage you�re watching really happened--it�s not a special effect.).

We parted ways with Julianne and rented the first six episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm because I needed to see something funny after that and had never seen the show before, but I had heard it was funny.

It is a funny show, but very disturbing too. The whole time, I was thinking is this me? Not as fun and escape-y as I had hoped, but it was a good show and I watched all the episodes. I topped it off with the last two tacky Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy BBC episodes from 1981 I had been saving, which might have been the best time possible to use them up.