April 10th, 2000 at 11 PM

On the occasion of productivity  

quick recap of recent events

wake up at 11, take a shower, check the email, get something for breakfast. make tea. check email. visit some blogs. head next door to look for erik. chill with him for a while, watching comedy central, smoking cigarettes, sipping fresh coffee, playing the sims. chat and joke for a while. take the usual lap around the block. head back home, get the mail, make a sandwich,  call someone, drive somewhere and buy groceries, do dishes, surf the web, walk with siblings when they get home, start making dinner for the family, drink a glass of wine, serve dinner, chat about nothing, help alyssa with homework, work on website, post blog entry, make smoothies, clean up something, hang with erik for a couple of hours, talking about computers or people or education or comedy, go home, make a snack, sit on the computer, send instant messages, go to bed at 3:30.

wake up and do it again. its a good life, actually. i enjoy it.

On Thursday I made this really yummy meal for the fam: chicken, sausage  and vegetable jumbalaya served with black beans, tomato and mozzarella garlic focaccia bread, and fried banana. So, needless to say, cooking continues to be satisfying.

Virgil drove down on Friday and we got some coffee and did some preliminary design work on the site I'm building for his band Equitone. Now that I finally finished my home page redesign, i'm ready to put some time into it.

Jonah convinced me to drive up to Boston for a Friday night on the town, so I did. We met up on B.U. campus, hit a liquor store in Kenmore Square, and Jonah bought picked up some Vodka and some cans of an energy drink  called Red Bull, went back to his apartment in Allston, stuffed some ice cubes in a Schweppes bottle, and mixed up a surprisingly tasty batch of beverage. Jonah strapped on his backpack containing additional mixing supplies. I strapped on my camera and my gray and navy striped sweater and my hoodie. Harvard Ave was packed, as it should be on a spring Friday. We visited my friend Andrea, then walked up toward Washington Street where we sat on a grassy hill. We swung through Cleveland Circle, walking and laughing and getting a bit tipsy. We had all kinds of shit to catch up on, in between talk of plans and apartment renting and so on. We kept climbing up hills in Brookline, cutting through people's yards. I think we were playing catch with the Schweppes bottle.

At the top of Brookline we hung out in the Summit Ave Park for about an hour, playing on the swings, having one of those satisfying rambling talks that you can only have with someone who you know pretty well but you want to know better.  The sojourn was disrupted, however, by the following events:

At approximately 3 am, a police cruiser pulls up along the iron fence surrounding the park, and the lady cop yells out to us, asking what we're doing. We tell her that we're just sitting, talking. She leaves the engine running and climbs out of the car, tells us to keep our hands where she can see them, and calls for backup. She walks around the fence while we remain motionless with our palms facing outward. I'm standing next to Jonah, who's sitting on a bench, next to the Schweppes bottle and some cigarettes. The vodka bottle waits on the ground, next to the backpack and my sweatshirt. She asks us if we have been playing with spray paint. We say no.

The woman takes our identification and writes down our social security numbers. A second cruiser pulls up, and moments later, a big cop paddy wagon van. Two male officers join the lady cop. One has a flashlight, and begins exploring us and our belongings. They take turns asking questions like "Where do you live?" and "Have you ever been arrested before?" Jonah explains that he was taken down to the station once, but then allowed to leave. He was never officially arrested, as far as he knows. "Why were you taken in?", the bald officer asks. "For staying in a park past midnight," he replies, truthfully.

Then out of nowhere, baldy asks us if we've been doing whippits. Why? I have no idea. I quickly respond "No", but I almost crack up because the question is so random and unprovoked. I zone out for a moment, trying to determine objectively whether I'm as sober as I think I am. Why would baldy ask about nitrous? I am standing motionless and erect, and at the same time speaking confidently with clear sentences, so I decide that I'm perfectly fine and that, quite simply, Jonah and I have some dumb cops on our hands.

The policewoman asks the other officers, "What are whippits?"

So Jonah decides to speak up and explain it to her, using terms like "balloon", "nitrous oxide", "laughing gas", "cracker", "cartridge", and "whip cream". She says, "Oh." As an afterthought, Jonah adds, "But we haven't been doing any." Meanwhile, baldy checks out our liter of vodka and the small  Schweppes bottle. 

They frisk us, and give back our licenses. Surprisingly, we aren't carrying guns. They say a little something about Brookline law, and suggest that we find somewhere else to sit around.  That's about all they come up with. They tell us to pack up our stuff. But before we go, Baldy tells me to empty out the Schweppes bottle. We keep the big bottle of vodka, but dump out the liquid in the plastic Schweppes bottle.

Saturday I hung out in the city for a while. It was beautiful, but I slept a lot. Back here in Plymouth, I went to Huckleberry's Chicken House with my lovely family. Jeremy and I saw High Fidelity, and laughed loudly at the music-oriented jokes. I'm not 30 yet, but the movie touched me in the way it should, I guess. It was entertaining, and well-done.

Sunday I brooded over my redesign and felt pathetic. But I finally got it done. Now I'm tip-top.