saturday april 26 2003 | 12:28 p.m.
it's just past noon, and it's been raining all morning. the curtains are fastened open, all the lights are off, i'm listening to wilco and burning incense. brad is at work and the roommates were gone up until a couple of minutes ago, but so far they've been relatively quiet, so i can actually relax.
brad got accepted into the architecture masters program, so it's done, he's going for it. and we are finally talking seriously about moving out of this place and getting a car and things which would seem to move us forward. i have no idea what i want out of this city in the time i have left in it, but i guess i need to figure it out. i want out of my neon-lit, government office contract job.
i still have dreams of jumping in a van and driving away with whatever's inside: friend or musical instruments, both, i don't know. but suddenly i'm 24 and my days of van-jumping are receding from sight. i can't choose, so i have to find some kind of compromise. and i know i'm nowhere near it here. how much longer?
they were here on wednesday, playing with bright eyes and arab strap, and i couldn't go see them. i would have liked to meet my old friend in person, but it'll have to keep being e-mails and mixtapes.
being without car is not fun. i am confined to south beach, a trip to the supermarket becomes an odyssey, i have to take the bus downtown and back every day. i actually enjoy taking the bus to and from work. i have to leave early in the morning in case the bus is late, which forces me to be at work early, so i always have time to run to the cafeteria for my morning café con leche and blueberry muffin. i also have two solid half-hours of reading time on the bus, and the six-block walk from the government center to work is actually kind of nice. i pass the downtown public library, the miami art museum, the miami cultural center, and lots of tall buildings and narrow sidewalks. it makes me feel a little less bad when i walk into work.
some dude who's moving out of the complex put a perfectly good record player out with the trash the other day, so brad plucked it out from the assorted junk and brought it home for me. i think all it needs is a stylus, although there are some loose wires poking out from where the stylus should be, and that worries me a bit. but i will fix it up nonetheless, if i can, so i can listen to my moby grape and make-up and slint and tim buckley records again. they've been collecting dust for too long.
