saturday january 05 2002    |    3:08 a.m.

i was talking to this girl i work with today ( well, yesterday now, since it's well past midnight ), answering her questions, the usual english degree blah blah no teaching blah blah log cabin / olivetti / financially independent blah blah ( i left out the log cabin / olivetti part, that's just for your benefit: on a day-to-day basis, i try to curb the blatant snottery ). so she asks me "what have you written?" and if i played baseball, i might say it hit me like a curveball. i don't, but i can still say that i stood there looking blankly like an idiot and not knowing what to say.

because i haven't written anything since graduating. i've written e-mails, letters, cards, and even notes-to-self or words or phrases or occasionally complete sentences, but nothing you'd call substantial, and definitely nothing you'd call writing.

what the hell do i do, anyway? when i'm not working or talking smack about what i should be doing? i read. and i sleep. and i pine. i'm not kidding. i don't even watch ally mcbeal anymore ( the reruns hit a bad season, and i've been closing often at work, so . . . ).

i e-mailed a kenyon friend the other day and told him i was reading more than i ever did at school. that might not be completely true ( in fact, ok, i know it's not ), but i'm reading with more interest and more urgently, and that's a fact. i need it in a way i didn't when it was expected of me. it's more than force of habit, too: it's bodily need. i get seriously cranky if i don't have a ( project ) book i'm in the middle of. although i tend to get seriously cranky if even breathed at when reading a book i'm in the middle of. but i'm just going on and on for nothing now.

today i had an unexpectedly good break at work. it's gotten cold in miami -- cold for miami: we're in the lower 40s, so it's officially sweater-and-coat weather. ( yay! ) so for my hour break i got a nice warm cappucino from the café and braved the darkness and cold of my usual bench outside the north entrance, lit a cigarette, and saw caféboy with his own, freshly lit, standing by the bench across from mine.

i "met" caféboy unofficially a few days ago when he rung up my extra-caffeinated latte and told me the un-employee-discounted price without looking and i very bitchily ( i really really didn't mean to, but sometimes my mouth acts independently of my brain ) said "uhhhh, i work here." so of course he was embarrassed and i felt like an asshole ( which i unintentionally was ) and somehow then the tone totally changed for the better and that got us kind of chatting.

back to tonight. i said "hi, [ caféboy ]!" and he came and sat with me on my bench and we smoked cigarettes and talked and froze for the whole hour of our break. i like him because he's completely unpretentious and has nothing to front, and because he likes slc punk and phish and led zeppelin's experimental india sessions, and because he explained indian scales to me ( 36 notes to our 12! ), and because blah blah blah that i heard in that hour. but here's why i really like him and, dammit, want to be his friend:

when i asked him what he thinks coworker-people do when they disappear on their breaks, he shrugged and said, "i usually just go to my car and listen to music for an hour."

when he was explaining the 36-note scale to me, and i asked him to illustrate it for me somehow, he said "well, just imagine a note subdivided into three. they would sound slightly out of tune to us."

know what i mean?

maybe i shouldn't give up on miami just yet. maybe there actually are people to meet out here, even if it's brutally hard.

watch me never coincide with him again though. bleh. another potential blues-lifter down the drain.

expect the worst, hope for the best. that's my own cheesy mantra à la "dance like nobody's watching" et cetera. i like to be pleasantly surprised and brought out of my jaded surliness.

to( day )morrow i am taking a trip to the public library to get myself some books. hell yes. this is a big outing for me, kids. i'm salivating over the list of possible and suggestive books i just made for tomorrow. and maybe i will deposit my checks in the bank.

then sunday work again and monday the p.o. to mail out that poor patient dude's figgs demo tapes and money order for sean tillmann curios ( yes! i worked curios into an entry! a lifetime goal achieved! heh ) and bassplayer-matt's holiday package.

cell phone update: i have games on my phone. so screw radiation: the real hazard is that i am becoming addicted to snake. that's like low-fi on a mad pretentious tip, as joel might say were i to channel him.