What I've been doing (instead of blogging):

Writing
Reading
Annotating
Dining
Dating
Hiking
Brewing Coffee
Taking Pictures
Talking to Friends
Planning my Summer
Budgeting
Being Patient
Smiling
Listening to Spoon
Cooking

I promise I'll have something coherent for you after the 6th.

Flying Solo Part II

I had a good time. But I feel like I cheated because another coworker showed up halfway through the show. But I went, and I had a decent time even before she showed up, and Matt was happy I was there. Plus I made plans with the two of them on Thursday. I would consider the night fairly successful.

Perhaps I'll be less anxious next time...

Flying Solo Part I

If you know me well, this may come as a shock. Prepare.

In certain social situations where I only know one or two people, and they know a million other people and are not going to be able to spend much time with me other than a few moments, I am painfully shy. I try my best to avoid these situations by inviting friends along. But tonight it looks like I'm on my own. It's good for me, I know, but I'm uncharacteristically nervous all the same. And if I hadn't promised my coworker I'd see his band, I'd be snuggling under my covers with The Office as we speak, not freaking out about what jeans I'm wearing, if I'll be able to find a parking spot, or if I'll be able to hug a corner fast enough without being stranded in the middle of an empty dance floor. Doesn't sound like me, does it?

I'd like to say I'm going to take a stand tonight and make everything different, be bold and go talk to people I find interesting, and end up meeting friends. But I've gone out with these aspirations before and come home alone with a Starbuck's hot cocoa for comfort. I don't need to meet a million people, but it would be nice. We'll see.

Update to follow post-show.

I appreciate this. A lot.

Too Soon

My sincerest apologies to Beantown today. I unwittingly evoked the winter monster upon us again with my corny and badly-written ode to spring yesterday. I paid for it this morning, walking to the bus stop as slush fell on me, having lost my umbrella.

Remind me to hail the first snowfall and maybe we'll get a week more of autumn.

Spring

There's something that happens when the weather turns warmer: everyone seems to have new springs in their steps, the cafes and restaurants fill up, people drive faster with their windows down and their radios louder. We don't have to hide anymore, from the weather. We have been released from our salt-choked prison and can once again see the sun. Every summer, just as we forget how bitter it can be in the middle of January, we face a similar surprise at the first warm day of spring. Oh, we say, I remember.

And in this memory, we throw open the windows, let light into our homes, and try to forget how it will be dark and freezing again in just 8 months' time.

Information Age v Age of Privacy

With the development of sites like Twitter and Facebook, where you can literally update the world on your whereabouts and condition every thirty seconds if you have that much time on your hands, it's no surprise that people have become a lot more public with their private lives. I'm quite guilty of this myself, obviously - I just updated my Twitter, Facebook, Dailybooth, Frappr Map, and am metablogging right now this very second.

But since I began working at the call center I realized that the mentality of this "get it now" information age has made people assume that anyone can access anything at any time. Case in point: Almost daily, I'll get calls from people who want me to pull up their appointment time, look them up by birthdate, and tell them how much they weighed on their last checkup. Most back down when I tell them I'm only the switchboard operator, but some get huffy. "Why can't you look me up?" They ask. "Don't you know everything?"

On the other end of the spectrum, we have patients calling our answering service refusing to give us any more information than a sketchy spelling of their last names, undoubtably sending the poor medical receptionists into confusion. I know these people are probably different than the people who blab their every bathroom break on Twitter, but it's still an interesting disconnect. I'm supposed to know everything and, at the same time, nothing.

When someone complains that I don't know their information, I always want to ask themif they really want me to have it: I'm a temp with virtually no medical background who would probably only use Joe Shmoe's health history as inspiration for short fiction. But I don't. I apologize and wonder if I will show up later on Joe's Twitter: "Annoyed that no one knows anything about me."

At least I'm not shopping online for sex toys with his credit card.