t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


JAN

24

2002

not much happened during the day other than work, but after work joel came by the office and gave dan (who walked here from the tsh office) and me a ride in his cross country compatible jeep (i've never been in a jeep before!). our destination was to the river gods, a woman owned bar on the outskirts of central square on river street. when we arrived, tim, chris, julie, kimberly (special guest appearance all the way from nyc, via the chinatown bus), dave, and klea were already there, in various states of drinking and eating.

not sure how you could tell this was a woman owned bar, other than the fact that it was better decorated, the windows had lace curtains, and the bathrooms were single unisexed and clean. the waitress, wearing red pants (or was it apricot?), took our orders. they didn't have root beer (not a lot of bars carry the stuff to be quite honest), so i ordered coke (which was actually pepsi, but god knows i can't tell the difference). i also got the thai curry with chicken, which was spicy and the coconut milk sauce gave it a mellow texture, but it was still too light for me.

later eliza joined the fray, followed by elias and rob, finally finished with their work at srm. while one half of the table was having a heated film debate, the other half engaged in more light hearted conversation, such as kimberly's wild nyc living situation and klea's innocuous house break-in and car theft. julie and tim gave rave reviews about jordan's crossing, and i discovered eliza watches alias as well (but she didn't see last weekend's episode because of the golden globes). the topic of gypsies wandering around the woodlands of america also came up in our talks. and it goes without saying, anytime you put a few laid off people together, the conversation naturally gravitates towards some beef about the ex-company. i discovered that tomorrow would be tim's final day at tsh.

occasionally all the smokers would leave the bar and go outside to smoke together, the unhealthy bond of nicotine addiction. chris was the first to leave, and as the evening wore on, more people left, to be replaced by two of klea's friends, colleen and sean. past 9pm the no smoking policy was no longer in effect and the place slowly filled up with cigarette fog (which meant another set of clothes totally saturated with cancer fumes - why can't people smoke incense? at least that stuff smells better). klea and her friend unsuccessfully tried to bribe me to dance on the table. usually i would, but i was feeling kind of fat and didn't want to risk exposure.

approaching midnight, the party finally broke apart, with klea giving dave a ride, while elias and i separated at central square, with him walking to his gf's house and with me taking the t one stop to harvard square so i could catch the bus home. i caught the bus just in time, with a few minutes to spare (otherwise, i would've had to wait about an hour before the next bus came).