we primed the upstairs hallway and the stairwell, bruce taking over edge duties while i was in charge of rolling. jeff went out to get another 5 gallon bucket of primer when we ran out. afterwards, we primed the bathroom. jeff went out to run errands, leaving us to listen to some live folk music on WERS. eventually we changed the station to oldies station (103.3 FM), and that's when things picked up. "cher!" yelled bruce from the bathroom when "i got you babe" starting playing. it was a weird day, painting indoors, all nice and toasty, while outside through the windows i could see a flurry of snowflakes. the stairwell was awkward, high walls, but i made friends with the ladder. i told bruce i went to tufts (after he made some MIT joke and apologized if i had gone there), and he told me he did some history department teaching between 1994-1996. i told him 1996 was the year i graduated. "i was afraid you'd say that," he said, spoken like someone who's feeling old (don't worry, i get that all the time myself). but i thought it was kind of small-worldism that he and i could've seen each other on campus and never knew it. while we were in the downstairs hallway filling up the nail holes with putty, "ymca" by the village people came on the radio. that when we started talking about can't stop the music, one of the best bad movies ever made. bruce also asked if i'd be interested in painting for another neighbor of ours who's doing some renovation work as well and might need some help sometime in may. after 4.5 hours of painting, bruce and i left, leaving ben to his windows.
i came home, took a shower, made some hot dogs for lunch, went into the backyard to take some photos (scilla spring beauty is the name of that blue perennial, and i only have one surviving sequoia tree left, transplanted to a bigger pot last night), then waited for my food to settle down before getting changed to go outside for a run. originally i had on some shorts, but after getting as far as a few houses down, 
i turned right back around to get changed into some running pants instead. by the time i left the house the temperature went up close to 40 degrees, but it was still very cold from the wind. i had a very strong run, felt like stopping at one point, but willed myself to keep on going. when i finally made it all around, i was so exhausted and relieved i think i almost blacked out. panting, sweating, catching my breath, i recrossed memorial drive and walked back home.
i took another shower and futzed around doing computer stuff (when i really should've done some laundry or maybe cleaned the house, domestic stuff). i got an e-mail from mike telling me he's decided to rent out my guest bedroom for next semester, so now i'll have to find some summer roommates in order to help me pay for parts of my mortgage. around 5pm i got an aim from dan asking me which channel was the red sox game on. the first game of the season, i almost forgot! dan and his friend had snuck out of work early to go home and watch the game. it was just starting, and i reluctantly started watching it on the couch, before i was totally engrossed, red sox pulling out 3 runs in the first inning. i called julie to let her know but i couldn't reach her on the phone. minutes later, mark hickey called me to ask if i was watching the game (he was still trapped at work), i told him yes, he told me he was finally "buying" his house this thursday.
the red sox ended up losing the game in the 9th inning.
my father came by for dinner, bringing food. i cooked up the biryani i bought from trader joe's, and we ate in the living room, watching the news, talking about the war. he left to go pick up my mother and to go home. i spent the rest of the evening uploading past weblog entries into the database, so that a future version of the site will allow users to search through the content.