2001-06-24
One of those moods..., posted at 4:42 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com The weekend was okay.I was on duty Friday night, and it was stressful as hell. But Saturday was a complete off day. I could have gone to Cedar Point with some members of my staff, but I needed some R&R. I could have gone home , but thought it wasn't worth the 5-hour round trip in order to be home for just a day. Plus, my tire is losing air something fierce, and was worried I'd have a blowout before I could afford to buy new ones. I could have gone to Jake and Anne's (note: if you're really interested in seeing their picture, hit the link and put "babyshower" as the password) baby shower, but Jason couldn't go, and I didn't really want to make the trip and give our gift alone. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of parties when I know only a couple people there. In addition, I was sort of lazy and didn't want to drive anywhere.
Anyhow, I stayed in Lansing. The first part of the day, Erin and I laid out in the sun at Lake Lansing, which is a crummy little lake but the best we've got to offer. It was an okay time - the weather was nice. Still, the 'beach', which was grass, left a lot to be desired compared with the beaches in South Haven. I'm homesick right now, never having been away from my hometown this long during a summer. I'm comparing everything I see to it, apparently.
After the beach, Erin and I parted ways to shower and get ready to go out for the night. Gale came up from Detroit, and Apryl drove up from Ann Arbor. We ended up going to something called the Sun Festival. I figured it'd be some sort of artsy-fartsy festival; it was in Old Town Lansing, and I figured it'd be similar to the very fun Oktoberfest.
It wasn't. It turns out it was basically a wine-tasting gala. I don't like wine - in fact, I grimace even at the smell of many wines - so I wasn't into it. Add into the fact that all the food was expensive and I was starving, plus the rancid smell of cigar smoke wafting through the air (there was some vendor there), and I wasn't having a good time. It was $10 to get into the festival, and if I had known that I would never have gone. Luckily it was only $5 if you weren't drinking wine, but still that had to have been one of the most useless $5 I have spent in a while. I'm really pinching my pennies right now, as I'm between paychecks.
A few other people were hungry, so we ended up going to a Thai restaurant about a block away from the 'festival' that we had seen on the way in. Called Thai Panai, it had seemed like a nice place on the outside. As soon as went in, we could tell it was sort of a dive, but we were still game. However, the place was run by two young-ish teenagers, and it took them 25 minutes to ask us what we wanted, and another 75 minutes to serve us. We were pissed and hungry by the time they came with our food. I left a 60-cent tip. Actually, everyone else was pretty pissed, but I was sort of content because I was enjoying the conversation and knew that getting out of the restaurant quicker meant going back to the festival, which I wasn't enjoying at all. Anyhow, my tofu pad thai was excellent, but I think that's a pretty tough thing to screw up anyway. I want to learn how to make it, because this stuff is incredible.
When we went back to the festival, I was feeling antisocial, so I ended up walking up the riverfront for a bit by myself. I just wasn't in the mood to be out, I guess. I was looking forward to seeing my friends, but the festival was crummy and the river was beautiful. I explored a fish ladder and watched sticks fall over a mini-waterfall. The river reminded me of the Black River in South Haven. Water has a very calming effect on me. I can't say I was depressed, but I was definitely in a melancholy mood.
Gale came out after a bit and we sat on the bench and talked. We both decided we didn't want to be there. The festival was ending, and we wanted to do something more low-key afterwards, like go to the movies. Neither of us had seen "Pearl Harbor" yet. But Apryl and Erin came raring out a short time later, and were both pretty toasted so we ended up going to another bar.
At the bar, Gale and I went next door for coffee because we were both dragging ass and needed caffeine. Yup, I wasn't feeling like much of a party animal tonight. When we returned, Apryl and Erin were sucking on their huge mugs of beer. We sat outside in the cool summer air and enjoyed ourselves. The bar - like much of East Lansing in the summer - was pretty dead. We had hoped karaoke was there, but only on Friday nights is it there during the summer. The conversation rested mainly on benefits and 401k's and HMO's and stuff like that, and I don't understand any of it, so I sat there with a sense of ennui. It wasn't a bad time, just sort of blah. I wish I was into drinking last night, because Erin sometimes isn't, but I just wasn't in the mood last night.
One of the reasons was that I knew that I needed to wake up at 7am this morning for registration, which sucked by the way. Gale spent the night on the couch and we were trying to get Simon's book done, but we both fell asleep instead. Getting up was a chore, and even more disappointing was the fact that Housing got the schedule all screwed up so we didn't actually have to be there this early. On the other hand, registration was fairly low-key and stress-free. Still, it's a long day. I've been going since 7:30am, and it's now 5:15pm. I won't get to sleep until the last bed check is called down at midnight tonight. Midnight, that is, if all goes well.
I've had a lot of inner monologue going on in my head this weekend. I'm not depressed, but I... I don't know. I think I'm a little bit lonely, and thinking about how I'm going to be leaving my friends soon. I'm just starting to recognize a connection and emotion related to it that I haven't in some time. Unfortunately, I don't see anything ever coming of it, and I don't want to risk anything like I did before. Things are still awkward and will never be the same.
And I can't quite believe that there are five more weeks of these freaking camps. I still don't know where I'm going to end up in my job, and I promised Jason I would know by the end of June. I've never even been to Baltimore, yet I think that's where I want to be. I had thought Charlotte was the place for me without seeing it; what will Baltimore be like? I have no time or money to travel and see these places; I put off the job search far too much. Richmond had that visceral connection with me right away - the one I was yearning for from Charlotte - but they have no English positions open.
So, yeah, I guess I'm in one of those moods...