I've never figured out whether it's best to respond to blog feedback via the feedback window or a shiny new blog entry. Thus far i've responded strictly through the feedback button, but everytime I do so I've considered the new blog entry thing, which is what I'm doing now. Does anyone even care? Anyway, in response to Luna's feedback... the "not a single friend" comment was reflective of my situation a year ago.. having lived in Cleveland for only two weeks and legitimately not having a single friend, in the sense of a person you could call up and say "hey dude, wanna go the record store, drink a bottle of whisky, and then piss the rest of the day away running around the city?" to. I worked with people. And I lived with people. But neither were friends in any sense of the word, unfortunately.

In context of Boston, however, where I've resided for five years... the path which led me to my lonely state the other night was quite different. I returned from friendless / loveless Cleveland in June and found myself surrounded by a ton of friends and feeling very loved. I might argue that last summer was one of the most fun times of my life. I had enough cash saved up to put off working for a few months, spent time with my friends taking trips and going out, and spent the rest of my time doing the same and more with Marissa. Every day and every night had meaning to me. I embraced every minute to make up for all of the lonely days that I spent in Cleveland. Fast forward to winter. While I still enjoy my friends immensly, I've gotten used to having them around again. I certainly don't take them for granted, but it's become commonplace. Marissa's out of the picture and I've found myself with a much larger amount of free time than I had grown accustomed to. I spent those summer and fall months on the high side of being optimistic and I am now having a really hard time getting used to what I suppose is normalcy. Maybe the lesson is that the optimists will eventually end up hurt. But I still have a hard time believing that living pessimistically and being pleasantly surprised from time to time is the way to go. I can't help but wonder if I'd reached the mountain top and am now forced to head back down, despite desperately wanting to enjoy the view for awhile. Forever, if possible.

I guess nothing is ever certain.. except my incessant rambling. --

Every once in awhile, usually in what I feel like are the tumultuous times in my life.. I go back and look at my old weblogs and journals to remind myself of exactly what was going on in my life in years previous. Usually it's just a straight trip down memory lane and nothing more. But this time it seems to be something more:

1/29/01: " I am pretty sure I am at some sort of turning point in my life or something... one of those times that leaves you forever changed. Yipee. Bring on the epiphany, I'm tired of waiting. Unfortunately (for me) these changes are usually sparked by things happening that I am not too fond of. Be prepared for a little run of un-happy posts."

1/21/02: "After two full weeks here in Atlanta i'm starting to feel a bit lonely. Besides my new roomate i do not have a single friend down here, and although i was craving the solitude prior to me moving down here, i'm starting to wish that from time to time there was at least the option to hangout with people. The grass is always greener, i suppose."

1/28/03: "I don't really know for sure why all of my bitterness comes pouring out when I sit down at this damn keyboard lately. But I do know that it probably doesn't make for interesting reading."
---

Granted, I've been known to embarassingly spill my guts about stupid things on in.circles in my weaker moments. Glancing at the rest of the year's entrys, though, show that my weaker moments usually come in fairly random order. What the fuck is it about the end of January that makes life suck so horribly?

Tonight, while drinking coffee and eating stale lemon-glazed cake at Espresso Royale I realized that here in the city that I've come to call home that I am no more or less alone then I was last year in a new city... without a single friend... sitting at a coffee house and reading by myself.

I also realized that chapter 13 of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is quite possibly the most amazing piece of romantic literature that I've ever had the pleasure of reading:

"If this was how it was then this was how it was. But there was no law that made him say he liked it. I did not know that I could ever feel what I have felt, he thought." --

I think I want to move to Atlanta. I have a possible lead on a job there and just the thought of it working out fills my heart with happiness. I spent six months living there two years ago and remember it being possibly the best time of my life. I was happy, even though I had very little to be happy with. I had no friends. I didn't know where to go or what to do with my time. So I idled it away. I took drives. I sat on my porch and played guitar or read a book. Every little stupid thing I did with my spare time was an adventure. And it was mostly by myself... and still had meaning. I fell asleep content with myself and my actions every night. Since I've returned from Cleveland about 7 months ago I've spent nearly all of my time trying to create meaning out of something that was completely reliant on someone else. I can't for the life of me figure out how just a year and a half can allow for that kind of 180 degree turn.

I know that changing the scenery doesn't change who you are. No matter what physical location you are in, the person you are remains the same. But I think the bitter coldness of this place has begun to wear me down. The bitter things I've witnessed from people that supposedly cared about me has taken this once thick skin and sanded it down to just tendons and exposed muscle. While I know that no physical location is devoid of cruelty... whether it be Boston, suburban Jersey, Cleveland, Atlanta, or any other place I might find myself on this little journey of mine... I can't help but feeling that something is terribly amiss in this part of the world i'm currently in and that resting my head in an apartment on a side street in between Huntingon and Columbus Ave's in Boston is just not a right fit for me anymore. --

After tooling around with it for a little bit, and some last minute additions... here is a list of my favorite songs of the year that proceeded 2004 (in the order I first heard them throughout the year):

crooked fingers - you can never leave
the notwist - this room (the us release was in 2003, so I guess this one's in on a technicality)
microphones - solar system
exploding hearts - sleeping aides and razor blades
cursive - a gentleman caller
the rapture - olio
earlimart - we drink on the job
death cab for cutie - the sound of settling
the shins - kissing the lipless
decembrists - the bachelor and the bride
constantines - young lions
cex - the strong suit
m83 - be wild
the unicorns - ghost mountain
sufjan stevens - for the widows in paradise; for the fatherless in ypsilanti
broken social scene - kc accidental
dizzee rascal - i luv u*

I'm trying to put these tracks together on a CD comp to hand out to friends, etc... but deciding how to setup the track listing is insanely difficult. Suggestions?*

I want to play music again. In front of people. *

Food.

For the most part, that is what the best parts of my fairly relaxing weekend consisted of. The usually disappointing Vinny Testa's and never-disappointing late night Tiger Lily on Friday. Eggs benedict, chocolate french toast with almonds, and two hour cups of coffee with Marissa on Saturday and Sunday mornings, respectively at The Clairmont Cafe' and Brassiere Jo. Most of my other meals consisted of leftovers from the previously mentioned, aside from my Sunday night fast food indulgence of the Taco Bell variety.

Now that I think about it. The best parts of my weekend had nothing to do with the food at all.

It was a good weekend, all said. I feel rested. And relaxed. And happy. And poised to take on what's thrown at me... good, bad, or indifferent. *

I've been so distracted and so frustrated with my channels of hearing new music lately that I resorted to taking shortcuts. My method? Plugging through Pitchfork's top 50 list and exploring the things I've never had a chance to hear otherwise. Sufjan Stevens? Broken Social Scene? M83? Yes, yes, and hellz yes. While I idled away my time in between pricey meals perfecting the art of Mario Kart Double Dash blue motherfucking sparks I was incessantly listening to these three records and kicking myself for not having heard them sooner. Is it lame that I had to refer to the likes of Pitchfork to satisfy my need for the latest and greatest new music? Maybe, but at this point I just don't care.*

Apparently my last semester of classes have started and very obviously I don't care. It's the second week already and I haven't even bought a notebook yet, nevermind the actual textbooks for the classes. The fact that I'm in my fifth year of college is absurd. The fact that it was my choice to choose a five year program is even more absurd. My mind is on everything in the world but school right now. And I'm ok with that. I've spent way too many years caring too much about my scholastic performance. I need a break. --

Just when things were relatively easy here at work, I had to go and make them more difficult. I've remained fairly busy and never too insanely stressed just filling out website addition / subtraction requests for the past 5 months or so. "Chris, can you take down page X?" "Chris, that image on page Y is a bit fuzzy, can you regenerate it and add the attached copy?" Simple. Easy. No problems or worries. Fulfilling these requests in a pseudo-timely manner insured that people were never too upset at the response time and that I consistently appeared to be busy enough to not have to take on additional work.

That's when my stupid big fat mouth had to open up and request to "take on additional responsibility and expand on the scope of my job." So now I'm looking down at the two-page list of things I need to complete before the beginning of our biggest trade show in April and want to punch myself in the face. But hey, I guess at least I know I'll have a job until April... and the rent will get paid... and the bling-bling will get blingier. With things looking the way they are, I guess job security's not the worst thing in the world to have on your side.

In sharp contrast to the above I spent my entire Tuesday sitting on my ass. Or laying with my ass kinda turned to the side in a fetal-ish position. Either way, I made like Garfield, watching an insane amount of television, eating takeout and delivery food for two of my three meals, and thinking about not much more than whether I felt like listening to M83 or The Frames. Marissa joined in on the laziness, which was certainly welcome. Lounging around is a whole lot more fun when you've got someone equally as enamored with the idea as you are. Enamored, I've always liked that word.

If you live in the Northeast I hope you're keeping warm... as hard as that might seem. Suggestions: Grab coffee with someone who is coffee-companion material. Pick up yourself a book and get the coffee anyway if you can't find that companion. Wear scarves and make sure you know the best way from point A to point B, allowing for as little 'outside time' as possible. And last but not least, don't waste your time reading the ramblings of a caffeine-driven almost 23 year old fool. Cheers! --

"Toot-toot!" That's the sound of my own horn being.. umm... tooted by myself. Tooting your own horn is a sure-fire way to find something to regret later I suppose, but regardless, I'd like my tooting to be noted throughout this vast virtual world that I am becoming re-acquainted with now that I am back on the 9-5. Why all of this tooting, you ask? Just little things. Little things like how incredible my new computer speakers sound while playing 'Mississauga Theme' by Girls Are Short or 'The Strong Suit' by Cex, or the fact that coming back to a dirty, gray, loud city can bring a wider smile to my face than the quiet and clean suburbs, the way two beers at the local bar on what would've been an otherwise boring evening can lead to a happily sleepless night, the fact that my boss handed me the belated Christmas gift of a mix CD filled with the likes of The Constantines, Bob Dylan, and The Rapture. Not even the freezing rain pounding down on my bare face could take the spring out of my step this morning. Why not? Maybe just being happy to be alive is enough sometimes. --

2003, the year consisting of the tail end my 21st and first half of my 22nd years on this planet is officially over, and I'd say that it ended fittingly: four Bud Lights (one on the PATH), one glass of Pinot Grigio, one shot of of Southern Comfort and Lime, three Sierra Nevadas, one Red Bull and Vodka, five gin and tonics, one rum and Coke, and two Sapporos. 18 drinks in the course of one, extremely dizzying Manhattan evening. In addition to it being the end of the year, it also marked the end of my three week bender in which I intoxicated myself just about every single evening. No real reason in particular, just a lot of free time on my hands and possibly a need to make up for all of those weekend evenings I spent working this past fall. At any rate, the bender's over and the year is over. 2004 will find me graduating, moving to God knows where, taking a job somewhere, purchasing an automobile, and essentially starting the next phase of my life. Nothing else is certain, but I'm hoping that the new year brings a slightly less tumultuous time for me. I could do without the car wrecks, burning apartments, knife-point stick ups and ... well, living in Cleveland. So 2004, what the fuck you got? My stomach, liver, and heart might be a bit battered at present... but I promise that they will soon heal, and then, biatch, you're going fuckin' down!