“Kiss me, it’s Beginning to Snow”

After anti-social day spent in room, I went out to dinner with Conrad at Lucky Creation prior to a ride to the airport. This is vaguely reminiscent of the last time I saw him in March of last year when we grabbed lunch at the little grocery store near the bagdad cafe before he drove me off to the airport. He expressed pleasant surprise over some of the food, though the lemon ‘chicken’ is entirely too sweet. I’m surprised my teeth are still in my head. We seem to readily fall into a comfortable low intensity dynamic. A pleasant contrast to my weekend. Pity our interactions are so brief and intermittant. He’ll be leaving for two and a half weeks in Egypt and Tunisia the day I get back to SF. I also feel vaguely guilty about two interactions in a row, spaced 8 months apart, where I’m mooching a ride to the airport. Next time will have to be different.

I am pleased to see that on some terrorism related front we’re evincing sense, in that we no longer have camo-wearing, assault-rifle-toting guards. Got to the gate more than an hour before boarding. Listened to mp3’s on my laptop, noted the distinctly cracked nature of the case of my laptop, poor battered thing that it is. Read more of Nickel and Dimed, which is intellectually unsurprising, but emotionally unsettling all the same. I’ve seen some of the lower income, single mother, etc survival tactics first hand. I’ve seen them done with people who had familial support. And a couple who hadn’t. I was surprised at how well they seemed to be doing, while simultaneously saddened by the conditions they were living in. I haven’t seen most of them in years though, and I still worry a bit about them.

Had one of my more neutral flights, probably in part because I was so drained of emotional energy. Finished Nickel and Dimed. Good book. Strongly recommended to anyone with the least interest in politics, economics, and/or inequality.

Grab the 28X back to cmu, where Jane picks me up and takes me to the phillips house, to which, I am pleased to discover, I still have a key. Don’t need to wake people up. It’s cool that I surprise Brian by being on his couch when he came downstairs. Then I went downstairs and slept on the guest bed, woke up to find Ken sorta staring at me in shockish stuff. Explained the situation, went back to sleep. Seems like the hinge on my laptop is getting even more cracked. Not good.

Talked on the phone with Ro. He’s handling the direct deposit stuff, and I should be getting dd on friday. Yay able to pay the rent and bills. Very happy.

Chatted with Tom for a bit. TV, SSX Tricky, Brian’s Birthday dinner at Fuel & Fuddle. Home where Nat played through a Link to the past in one sitting, one life. (I didn’t stay up for it).

And it started to snow! I made snowballs, and threw them at the porch awning. It made me so happy. It’s the little things, really. And the layer of white on top of everything. It just warms my heart. I need to snap a few pictures of this.