like a child misses its blanket

that's right, i went there. sometimes i get bored, lonely, and really miss the hell out of everyone back home. i'm also beginning to realize i'll have to get used to being broke again. that's alright; i don't miss work. but at the end of the day, what am i doing? spending time i do have and money i don't have on extensive training for some other job with the hope that some other job will be something i can live on that is worth doing. maybe even enjoyable. but i have absolutely no idea what that is. they must tell you after you're done with your first year, because all the upper level students seem to be having a great time, and they don't seem like they're all geared to work at [insert big firm here]. i couldn't even name you a law firm if you asked. probably won't matter for me anyway. still can't really think of anything that gets me real excited. well, nothing people pay for anyway. if anyone comes across a job listing for dicking around, getting fucked up and/or listening to music, please send word posthaste. i'm not afraid to admit that i've been avoiding "the real world" (both the concept and television show) for a long time, and i don't feel like changing that. for all of its bullshit hassles, said world also offers some access to comfortable life otherwise unavailable. what were my values again? i guess no one really sits down and makes a list, but i sure as hell don't know what i expect out of life, leading to profound difficulty in accomplishing it. jesus, what am i, 19? time to quit whining and act right.
there are better things to focus on. i still have two beers in the fridge. and some jalapeno chips my sister got me - isn't she the best? and blogger didn't ask for and reject my password like it has for weeks. i saw a bunch of apartments today. they were all doable with some minor annoyances. no closet in one. few that were bigger than i need with awkward space. gonna go see another one tomorrow too. everyone out here wants first and last months rent with a security deposit, and there is always some application fee, probably a pet fee, it just goes on and on. chi-towners, is it like that there? either way, i've had a tough time shaking the notion that i should have moved to chicago. wait, i was gonna quit whining. turns out drive-by truckers are fantastic, and i missed seeing them in philly by like a month. d'oh. they get "best use of three guitars" award. and i was even a little less late on the uptake with them. maybe in five years i too can be listening to the latest and the greatest. my view on all that right now is that such efforts require listening to vast amounts of absolute excrement and praising it endlessly, while the true gems just get lumped in with all the rest. i think i'll still prefer coming in late in the game rather than convince myself i like something. most of that has to be life contextual anyway. i find it interesting that i moved to a real big city and now a bunch of stuff i'm getting into has a sort of country feel to it. reactionary?
so i wrote the above yesterday and never finished. i went to go hang out with a couple of people from my section at school. they both seemed like good people and my suspicions were confirmed, and that's always a plus. spent most of the evening drinking super classy whiskey. not classy like rich and rare (c'mon, it's in a square bottle! of course it's classy!), but classy like glenphroaig and macallan. yeah. the dude had an amazing apartment in center city, and we all had a good time. went to nodding head for a little while and had the porter, very hoppy, reminds me of founders porter. delicious. then we were heading to another unspecified bar, and we went the wrong way entirely, wandered back around, and then it was almost closing time and they wanted a two dollar cover. we said fuck that and i waited like 20 minutes for my bus to show, but it came. and i rode on it. and some elderly veteran got on and also rode, and enlivened things by speaking at me in a rapid pace and difficult dialect. i think he was giving me a rundown on the various hospitals in the city, and then a lot about war. he looked like he knew what he was talking about. nice guy, but a random encounter nonetheless. had a separate random encounter on the way down to the middle of town as well while on the trolley. there was a young lady talking to the driver for like the first five minutes i was on, then she sat down by me and began a discussion. she was doing her masters in historical preservation at penn, seemed like a nice girl, pretty cute. heart of the conversation (her) "what are you headed to center city for?" "oh, just hangin' out with some buddies, gonna get some drinks and take it easy, how 'bout you?" "i'm headed to an A.A. meeting; they have them on campus but there aren't any tonight and i need to find a new community". so that's cool for her, i'm glad she has a grip on something that was a problem in her life. but i wasn't about to be like, hey, you should uh, ya know, fall off the wagon with us. i've had a couple strange and interesting encounters on public transit already, but what sticks out about this one is that i totally saw this girl today. someone was biking past me coming from the other way while i was walking (checking off block one hundred and thirteen for the day or so, we'll get to that) and this person was like "hello!" in a pleasant and earnest tone one typically reserves for people one is favorably acquainted with. i turned and offered a puzzled but friendly hey! back, and turned soon enough to see that, sure enough, girl from trolley yesterday. my sister and her man both say that's how west philly works (well, i haven't told them about this encounter, but they've mentioned it before). i guess you just see the same people, or at least notice the same people who lend themselves to noticing in some way. for an egregious example, there was this guy walking on penn campus with a HUGE ASS SNAKE wrapped around him and i did a double take, but ben was just like, oh yeah, that guy. yeah, he's around. and a snake is around him. i see...
so today i got up at a reasonable time to go see yet another apartment. it was really nice, actually a bi-level one bedroom, great location, affordable enough. nothing not to like. but for some reason i couldn't get excited about it. i still don't know why, it was perfectly fine in every respect. so i walked all the way back to where i'm staying, probably roughly 37 blocks. i flopped down on the couch, gave my sister the rundown on the place, and she was like, well, sounds perfect. in the end i had to admit she was right, but i sat around like a little bitch for a couple hours until she got me to get up and go with her to what she refers to as "the worst liquor store ever". i went along thinking it couldn't possibly be the worst one ever, but it is actually probably in the running. fuck that place. like many liquor stores, all of the merchandise is behind the counter, so you have to ask for what you would like. my sister: "i would like a fifth of stoli please" clerk: "huh?" sis: "stoli?" clerk "what?" sis: "bottle of stoli..." (there is one on display, it isn't like they don't have it) clerk: "bottle of who?" sis: "stoli..." clerk "stoliCHNAYA!? (with side-to-side head bob)" sis: "yes please" present clerk to clerk in storage area: "bottle of stoli" seriously, what the fuck? after all that, and besides, who ever calls it stolichnaya? or is it just stolichnaya if you're the customer and not the co-worker? are these the rules? the sequence is even better if you are aware that my sister took two years of russian and retained it pretty damn well for not having much practice opportunity, and i would be willing to bet the clerk has roughly two years fewer experience in russian language classes. going out on a limb, here. and before you judge my sister for buying vodka, know that it went to great use. she makes an incredible lemonade beverage which includes freshly squeezed lemon juice, fresh mint, and both regular and vanilla stoli. damn good.
anyway, this trip to the liquor store of doom was enough to get my juices flowing to inspire me to walk all the way back to turn in the rental app at the place i looked at today. i could have taken the trolley most of the way, but i'm running out of septa tokens and i'm cheap. so i walked down there. thought about calling to make sure the landlady was still gonna be there and so forth, but i just had a feeling things would be kosher. i felt she wanted to rent to me specifically. so i just went. nice stroll, really great weather for it. took about an hour or so, rang the doorbell, no response. called her phone, no answer. but then she walked up to the door so that she could tell me she had just rented the place. awesome. so i walked all the way back to west philly again. but then i got to go to a bbq with some nice penn grad students and ben. i think he and i were the only ones not fitting that bill, but no problem, there are some real solid folks in that bunch of whom i am very fond. as are the cats. i worry that they are cheating on me with greta and want her to be their owner. i already had to make sure she didn't walk off with them when she visited them last week.
speaking of the cats, when i came home one of them ran up to greet me and was extremely vocal. after properly greeting him and not seeing the other one i started to wonder, but i just figured he was asleep someplace under something. the one i had seen followed me around meowing incessantly, however, and i could hear the other one meowing as well, but didn't see him; he sounded kinda far off. i did some meowing of my own, expecting kitty #2 to show, but no luck. i heard some weird scratching and a somewhat despairing meow, at which point i decided to investigate. lo and behold there was a closed door in the apartment which he was behind and when i opened it he shot out like a bullet, only to turn around 20 feet later to rub on my leg. oh, los gatos. constant love and amusement.
let's see, in other news... uh... well, you know the other post where i talked about potato chip connoisseurship? i've pursued that. today i had the opportunity to partake of the incredibly intriguing philly cheesesteak chips. they were actually very unique and quite tasty. they didn't really taste like a cheesesteak, but what else could? on the other hand, they didn't not taste of cheesesteak. truly a unique flavor sensation. seek it out. i also had the unexpected and welcome opportunity to check out the 'old bay' flavor this evening, at the courtesy of my sister (see, she is good to me. for real. maybe someday i'll be a lawyer and she'll be an academic and i can show her a good time.) anyway, for those of you who aren't from the east coast (oh yeah, that would be anyone reading this), old bay is the seasoning that they put on everything out here. especially like seasoned fries and seafood. i guess the best way to describe it would be "it's a little bit spicy, but delicious". i don't know what all is in it, but i dig it. you can buy big ass shakers of it like any other spice out here, and i reckon that when i grow up and get a place i will get one of these shakers. but not one of the shakers proper. you know, shakers, like quakers. they have those here. or at least they used to? although after a googling of the issue i would like to check out these shakers too. and while we are on shakers, does anyone know if shakey's pizza from south park bears any relation to reality? for no good reason, i'm gonna skip that google and leave it up to you. and then you should tell me. please?
and now for some sad news that no one reading this cares about. clutch's next tour is all opening for coheed and cambria. what the fuck. that's a statement, not a question. what the fuck. i find it difficult to communicate how lame and off-base this truly is. if the world was not a fallen place clutch would only play tours with two sets and no opener. but to have THEM being the opener? that hasn't happened since the alternating headlining nights with COC if i'm not mistaken. good show though, in GR clutch was headlining. the c! finished summer tour yesterday in new york. i guess i theoretically could have gone. i have no one but myself to blame on that one. i haven't really begun to comprehend how close i am to that place yet. the concept intimidates the shit out of me. i haven't ever been, and i feel like i already know i couldn't handle that shit. i think that if one is unfamiliar with the experience of anxiety and agorophobia one must merely come from the midwest and then hang out in new york for a while. aw hell, i'm ramblin' again.
this one goes out to my mother, she made the sweetest facebook friend request denial ever the other day... well, a while ago. but it needs to be acknowledged in the blogosphere. yeah, i went there. i used that neologism. i do this. i be he. and law school. i do that too. but i don't be them.