October 31st, 2000, 9:57 PM

i awoke at 5:45 this morning, and went to bickfords with most of the Souther's Marsh Golf Course extended family. always a good time. they feel like family now, so i must be comfortable with my job.

and the rain continued, until the evening.

after work, after a nap, i bought the new albums from pj harvey, u2, and outkast at the local gigantic mall. Massachusetts has  been wet for two days. inside, hundreds and hundreds of children, escorted by their parents, moved from shop to shop kiosk to kiosk soliciting treats ghost face and mermaid and hobo and buzz lightyear nearly trampled underfoot, me in my black coat accessorized with a blue/gray scarf. way corporate, but i enjoy a sea of people more than the average homeboy. halloween back home in the neighborhood was better, with familiar faces painted unfamiliar asking for candy. i snapped photos and handed out kit-kats and 3 musketeers while cooking porky chops, noodles, and squash, listening to my albums. all treats, no trick, as the pictures show.

my closest friend of many years, joshua, is home from phoenix for a few weeks. this is outstanding. the world makes much better sense when he's around, and often i forget that. i picked him up from the airport in providence on monday, and we've caught up on everything, drunk a lot of coffee, done a lot of walking. while waiting to pick up my sister last wednesday, josh and i sat on the swings at hedge school. leaves and kids on bikes in the parking lot. that thick fall smell. the bikes caught me offguard, remembering BMX culture, the joy of exploring suburbia on two wheels.

i made a big pot of chilli that night, to be eaten the next evening.
chili tastes better once it's had a quiet night in the fridge.

this past friday, after I finished work, Joshua and I hopped in his dad's ford pickup and drove up to boston for drinks and party hopping with nikki, jonas jonah, ryan, dan, and tamara. it wasn't too cold. everyone was glad to see josh. at a college costume party i found myself seizing control of the stereo, spinning blues explosion, lemonheads, lauryn hill, men at work, elastica, and other random tracks from their challenging library of disks. girlies dancing. josh started getting all drinky, and we almost left him at the party. i smoked a bunch of cigarettes. we went to my favorite bar in allston, Our House, but it was packed with people. i sat on the front steps of the boys' apartment building, talking to jonas and tamara about politics and relationships, whispering to jonah about thoughts and people, drinking a screwdriver. i slept well, until a mind-squashing alarm of beeping and buzzing nearly made my head explode.

i skipped work that morning. josh, nikki and i ate a healthy breakfast.
he told me that they held hands under the table.

there have been moments of doubt this month. i'm not always sure why i spread myself across the internet in this way. i'm ready for larger plans.

saturday and sunday, josh and i got sick and watched movies. my friend brittany joined us on sunday. we ate leftover chilli and chicken soup. 

went to a show with steve on friday the 20th: sunny day real estate, with opening acts tugboat annie and euphone. sunny day wailed something emotionally wicked, enjoyable despite the hard dancing emo kids in front of us. they played new stuff and all of my old favorites. the artists had all requested no smoking. i had already eaten a falafel, sat in traffic for forty minutes tryna get into cambridge, listening to muziq's royal astronomy on my cars BITCHIN SOUND SYSTEM. tugboat annie wasn't my usual bag, but i dug their punk pop performance. euphone was an enticing funky post-rock jazzventure, comprised of  the guitarist from 5ive style, an incredible drummer, and guitar-keyboard and bass guys who also played with sunny day. very good. 

it was back to boston on sunday morning, to visit with bonnie and nicole, coffee lunch and the Head of the Charles crew race on the river. we talked up the good old days. bonnie and i didn't spend enough time together to really get talking, but it's always great to see her. what a shock it can be, to chat casually with someone about old times and after a double take remember how much you were once in love with them.

i trained beneath the streets of boston, my signature style, listening to radiohead's kid A. it made more sense there then it does when i'm out mowing grass on the golf course for hours and hours. i've spent a lot of time listening to that album during october. and a lot of other great albums, too, which i've been meaning to review somewhere, in a deluxe Now Playing list. no time. but there on the T, camera in hand, headphones on ears, everything was in its right place. 

i cook dinner four nights a week. sometimes while i'm eating, listening to mom and dad and alyssa talk, i discover that i'm annoyed. how childish of me. exhausted after a long day, or energetic after a long day, i have little tolerance for chit-chat, questions i know the answers to, talk for talk's sake, ignorant curiosity. sometimes i want to live alone. often, i'm sure i couldn't handle it for long.

the month began warm, leaves falling but not yet crunchy.
cider, and pie, and other cosy crap i've mentioned before, bountiful.

i'm not happy about my friends blowing coke.

i watched all the presidential debates, and tried to keep informed.
i started reading Fahrenheit 451, but i think it fell under my bed.

friday nights with mike, kevin, stef and erik are always a good time. we went out to pizzeria uno's early this month, and i had a drink and some pasta.

i had dinner with my sister at sam diego's a couple of weeks ago, and we talked straight about friendships and school and parents, the ground we have in common despite our eight year differential, gender difference, and somewhat conflicting tastes in music. she likes BOY BANDS. ha. it felt good to talk to her, really talk. we're often in the same place, thanks to our senses of humor, but i don't always have time to put in the effort to Communicate with her.

the best weekend ever was friday the 13th to sunday the 15th, when i did so much great stuff in a short time. i worked two 11 hour days. after friday's work i showered and drove to falmouth, waiting in traffic at the borne bridge for a full hour, blasting music. I had coffee, and i was OD-ing on this sack of dum-dum lollipops, riding the brake, singing along with bjork, when this kid flew between the cars on a skateboard. i laughed. on his way back, i handed him a lollipop. he seemed pleased, but it was dark so who knows how he really felt about it. in falmouth i spent hours with robyn, my favorite girl, and we cruised and ate food at the peking palace and the trajectory was one we'd followed before: ever-loving hilarity smack talk that evolves through a couple of beers into 150 proof empathy punctuated with words that touch upon big ideas too overwhelming to really get into, and music, and observations, and she gave me a handful of gypsum ganked from the white sand dunes of new mexico. we need each other, sometimes.

saturday's work day was silly fun. i slept late, then flew over the cranberry bogs and golf course and neighborhood in a helicopter. after work i changed lickety split and joined my employers/coworkers and their wives/fiances for a fancy dinner in fancy clubhouse. never felt so comfortable with a group of people so soon. we talked about the course, about web stuff, about people. all the guys ordered prime rib. my red wine and blueberry cobbler kept me afloat all the way to Boston. 

where i partied at the house of jonas and jonah, meeting friends, talking intelligently and confident, drinking good beer, talking to a girl i hadn't seen in years about her plans, my plans. talking to yelener about the web. watching radiohead on television in total awe. exchanging deep smiles with hannah, and dan too. strolled and spoke with jonah

jonah, tamara, nikki and i drove downtown for dim sum on sunday afternoon, after i slept a few hours on the couch and took a walk through the park, listening to jurassic 5. the food was yummy. after a picture and hugs goodbye, i trained to newbury comics and met steve, who use dhis discount to save me money on 8 CDs. we walked all the way back to allston along the sunlit charles river, talking music, friends, plans and web junk, bumping into andrew, lounging with Lin around the apartment before grabbing sandwiches in the darkness at angora cafe on comm. laughter. 

and i drove home, realizing that a whole side of myself only comes out in the city, and that that side is alive and well. and writing it all down now, i'm feeling great about this month, about things i've learned and remembered during the past 31 days. now, i'm debating about whether or not to move out to LA to live with andrew, a confounding cool proposition

give me something good to eat.