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i had lunch today at o'sullivan's with my former roommate mike. although we've communicated (mostly to coordinate the delivery of his mail, which still sometimes show up at my place), i haven't seen him since the summer when he graduated from law school and moved out. the table we had was kind of a poor choice (on my part): close to the drafty door and against an non-insulated fake wood-paneling wall, so at times it felt like we were eating outside in the freezing cold. i ordered my usual, the black & blue burger with a rootbeer. we talked about traveling, he told me he went to phuket for a relaxing vacation last summer for a week. we also chatted about sports, specifically basketball. i confessed my disdain for the current incarnation of the boston celtics, and since mike had been following the NBA more than i have, he filled in me on which players are now on which new teams.

coming back from a quick visit at the supermarket, i ran into my upstairs neighbor steve. although we're very friendly, we rarely talk because our schedules or so different and we almost never run into each other. earlier he was jumpstarting his car with the help of another neighbor when his battery died. he asked if i was working. "no, not really," i told him. he tilted his head and smiled, like he was about to say something ironic. "well, i'm going to be losing my job in 2 months." turns out the london-based company he works for is closing their boston office due to poor profits. he found out the bad news last week while having dinner with the company execs in london. he didn't seem too worried although we both agreed there wouldn't be any exterior home renovation work this year. he also told me that the guy he'd been seeing is going to move in with him, although he might rent out his place this summer since he'll be at martha's vineyard. i told him about my southeast asia trip, and he seemed more excited that i was, and told me he might be able to find some maps from his workplace that he could give me.

i grabbed a few gallons of milk at the white hen pantry and delivered it to the cafe (where my aunt was manning the store), before heading back to belmont to return my parents' car. with the approaching snowstorm, i didn't want to have to deal with digging out the car tomorrow or worried that it might be hit by a snowplow on these narrow cambridge streets. the empty house felt weird. although i lived there most of my childhood (and a little bit beyond into my young adult life), there wasn't any trace of me left now. maybe some old clothes in the closet, maybe a few errant mails, but that was it. although i still consider belmont my home, who i am, and most importantly all my junk, is in cambridge. in order to get back, i walked to my old 73 bus stop, which was a trip down memory lane.

purely out of whim i wandered to the harvard book store. i used to hate that place and i think i still do, but there isn't a lot of bookstores left in harvard square. wordsworth used to be my favorite before they went out of business. now i get most of my books through amazon.com. i don't like the harvard book store because it's so cramped and there's that whole used books section in the basement which i find gross for some reason. not that i don't buy used books (i make a pilgrimage to the strand whenever i go down to NYC), but the vibe at this place doesn't appeal to me. after a suitable amount of browsing, i cut across the harvard campus, admiring the ice formations on the walkways, including the icy loop (i saw some last year too). i'd love to find an icy donut one of these days.

i "watched" whale rider, if you can call it that. i've seen the movie before so i knew it's a tearjerker, but for some reason tonight i just went nuts. you know in that scene where the little girl makes her special speech on stage? oh my god, before we even got to that scene, i was already crying. and then when we got there, uncontrollable sobbing. "this...is...so...sad..." i said to myself as i got off the couch to get some tissue. i think i have to stop the hormone treatment, it's making me moody like nobody's business. after it was all over though, i felt kind of cathartic.

the next event was the hot bath. the irony didn't escape me: it's freezing snowing outside and here i am taking a hot bath. literature: a copy of detail magazine. i stopped subscribing a few months ago but they kept on sending me issues, until one day i got a bill asking me to pay up. that's funny, because i never agreed to reup my subscription, i hate that magazine! i was only reading it because i already finished the latest issue of entertainment weekly which arrived yesterday. also: i practiced holding my breath underwater. i wonder if it's possible to drown in the bathtub? once i had that thought i stopped practicing.

after the bath, i made dinner, a pair of hot dogs again with a can of ginger ale along with half a cantaloupe. i was thinking about going outside later tonight to get some photos of the snowstorm, but baby, it's cold out there!