This evening I was reacquainted with an activity I hadn't done in some time, which is reading a book on the train, kind of buzzed.  I read most of On the Road like that, and many Vonnegut books.  I haven't done any drunken reading in quite some time.  But it makes the commute go that much quicker.  Today's book was The Sirens of Titan.  I finished Slapstick a few days ago, and that put me in the mood for more Vonnegut.  I found Slapstick generally wonderful,  with some great passages on love and loneliness.  And I'm quite enjoying The Sirens of Titan.  I'm a big fan of Vonnegut's more linear, traditional novel-type books.

So I'm sitting here at my computer, listening to music, eating Skittles. I'm very pleased with how many red skittles I'm encountering.
I'm writing this now, under mild influence of wine.  Specifically because it'll be a tad bit more open than I usually let myself be. Red wine does that.  So here are some thoughts that would probably embarrass me or at least make me uncomfortable, if confronted with them later:
    On Saturday night, I went to Great Lakes with Jed.  Jed stopped by to see Kathy first, for what I was told would be around 5-10 minutes.  About 50 minutes later, Jed finally showed up.  About two hours later, Jed's friend Rachel showed up, with her friend Joanna, visiting from Boston.  She seemed nice enough. At one point Jed and rachel went to the bar to get cigarettes, leaving me to sit and chat with Joanna. Normally, being left with a complete stranger like that would make me uncomfortable.  But I figured it was the perfect time to brush up on my casual conversation skills.  So we talked.  About 6 minutes later, Joanna exclaimed "You are the hardest person I've ever tried to have a conversation with!"  Later, while I was in the bathroom, she asked Rachel and Jed "Why did you leave me with him?  All he talks about is cheese!"
I've decided that from now on I'm going to dot things purely for my own amusement.

The cd playing right now is Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea.  I borrowed it from Caryn.  It's a staple at Great Lakes and/or the Boat.  That's where I heard it first. I was itching to hear it while I was on the subway, but the batteries in my cd player ran out.  So I sort of sang it to myself.  The first song, "The King of Carrot Flowers, Part One," is the current favorite.  It's very short, but oh so nice.  There's a line in it that hit me for the first time today, on the walk home, that goes "this is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you."  The important distinction of the word "could" really struck me tonight.  it's an entirely different way of thinking about something than I'm used to. There's a nice sort of hind-sighted pragmatism to it, but in a really warm way that doesn't diminish the emotional impact.  Really a nice balance.  So i've just been thinking about that.  The difference between "i knew I loved you," and "i knew i could love you."  It's seems full of more promise and optimism.  Maybe because it's less definitive.  I don't know. the one word seems to make the rest of the sentence more important, like there's much more to say.

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