Oy.

This morning I turned in my grades. This afternoon, I had my save the date cards printed. This evening I'm packing up my apartment.

Soooo much transition.

Procrastination

This is fun. Also, that illustration pretty much sums up my diet these days. Yes, it's working great.

Four bad things.

Four reasons that Boston is going down the toilet:

1. Cafe Paradiso in Harvard Square? Closed since last summer.
2. Cafe Graffiti in the North End? Also closed.
3. Filene's ACTUAL Basement? Yep. Closed.
4. Harvard in ALLSTON?

Here is a rather good response to my rant of yesterday.

Ungeduld...

On the subject of dissatisfaction... I'm feeling really antsy for no good reason. Of course, I have papers to write and to grade, exams to prepare and all that, but I'm not feeling stressed about them. I am naturally feeling procrastinatory, but what I really want is to have some totally random, totally surreal, totally weird experience, like I often do when in Europe. Last trip, it was the squatter bar. In my Cologne year, it was so many things... Amsterdam and stumbling around the red light district with Dan, Aachen and the Feuerzangenbowle, that one night I was out with Dan and Crispy and we ended up in some swanky bar doing really sweet shots, (my birthday that year was the underbelly-bad-version of this phenomenon). In Hamburg it was also a lot of nights... any choice of Kiez nights, stumbling to the Fischmarkt at dawn or going to the Golden Pudel the first time, or that night with the white wine and the boys from RLH or, even, translating Red Hot Chili Peppers at 3 in the morning with a totally un-surreal Spießer-boy.

I read about things like Ruby Town and the bizarre-o things that happen there (thanks, Paul, to whom I link quite often) and I wonder why everything here seem to have to be done under the auspices of a university or everything needs to be already established as Important or be, at the very least, easily digestible to be shown as art. I'm no huge art buff, but I do really appreciate the kind of mild discomfort encouraged in the art world I've glimpsed in Germany. The cool thing about it is that you can go and have these surreal experiences without much effort at finding your own surreality. Here even the supposed bastions of the avant-garde aren't even avant-garde any more.

To do something here that gives the same surreal feeling, the same kind of out-of-body feeling, you have to go a little more out of your way, a little more into territories that seem less safe. Maybe I feel this way about Germany because of its unavoidable foreignness. No matter how well I know the place, it's still going to be foreign, barring exceptional circumstances like moving there and staying forever. But even then. But what I mean is that no matter how normal the things I do there would seem in Boston, say, they seem odd because of the inherent foreignness of being there. I mean, I could maybe seek out some underground bar in Chinatown and have that same feeling, but I'm not at all sure it would be safe.

I wonder if it is just this city that is staid and rubber-stamped and whether I'm getting more boring and old because of it.

Or maybe I just need to write my papers and stop whining. Or just go get trashed somewhere weird tonight.

I sometimes (often) miss the "fragmented life in regard to US and Europe" and the kinds of late night emails it inspires. It may be time to run away again soon.

All Growed Up

Well, it's finally official. I've quit my job and am leaving dorm life behind me, almost certainly for good. (Let's just say wild horses couldn't drag me back to the dorms.)

I'm beginning to plan my move, thinking about new furniture, planning a miniature herb garden (in pots) - like these high-tech ones or these slightly lower-tech ones. I'm having Martha Stewart fantasies of beautifully arrayed dinners seasoned with my own produce (aeroponically grown salad greens and seven varieties of basil, oh my!)

I'm also beginning to worry about not being able to afford things like electricity, but that was inevitable.

Many many updates to come.