2002-04-21 - 12:50 p.m.

Wow, okay, 33 days, and I'm finally updating. Sorry about how long it's been. My computer has been in various levels of dead since I moved, but it is finally sort of working, and this entry will exist as long as I remember to save a lot, so if it dies again, I won't lose everything.

So anyway, I am in Boston. Finally. It happened. Took me over a year longer than I initially planned, but I am finally living in Boston, and I LOVE IT. This place is so much better than Rockport. My roommate, Mike, is a pretty cool guy, and he's almost never here, so I don't have a chance to get sick of him, even if it would have taken longer than it took me to get sick of Joe. But yeah, Mike spends five or six nights a week at his girlfriend Meg's house, and comes home on those days for like an hour to get two days' worth of clothes before leaving again. It's great.

Now, what to tell you about. I'm not really sure. Things are great, and I love my apartment, but I can't think of which things that have happened over the past month or so I should tell you about, so instead I'm going to just start from now, like nothing of interest happened over the past month, even though that's not true, and I'll probably think of things to tell you about eventually.

So yesterday, I had a few things planned. 1) Go to Rent-A-Center, pay for a few weeks of having furniture in my room. 2) Go to the Bayside Expo Center and buy a cheap computer. 3) Get a haircut. 4) Go watch "Gypsy" performed by the Suffolk University Theater for the third and last time. 5) Do my best after the show to not be such a shy little bitch, and flirt with Molly K. (that's right, there's a third Molly), one of the actresses in the play.

If only it were all so easy.

First, I was woken up at almost 7 AM by my bed shaking, like someone was lightly trying to wake me up. I found it very strange, and in my half-awake daze, attributed it to jetliners flying overhead, as they do all the time, even though that had never made my bed shake before. Not until later on did I find out that it was an earthquake. Call me crazy for not thinking of that immediately, but I've never felt an earthquake before, so how would I know? Fortunately, once I figured out it was just a jet, I went back to sleep. If I'd thought it was an earthquake, I probably would have found it far too interesting to sleep again.

Next, the Rent-A-Center is really quite difficult to find. See, technically, it's in Chelsea, which, like most of the Boston area, is full of poorly marked roads going off in totally random directions. So it's very hard to find. I found it the first time, when I got the furniture, but only after getting incredibly lost and walking for about two hours. That day, because I was stupid enough to ask other people for directions, I had managed to walk for about three and a half hours straight, while if I'd taken my own directions, it would have been about one. So yesterday, I had to find something that I only managed to find the first time by getting really lost. I managed to find it yesterday by getting sort of lost, but it took me quite a while. Okay, so that story sucks.

I decided against going to the Bayside Expo Center, since I decided to go when my computer wasn't working at all. Since now it's working some of the time, I decided to save my money.

The haircut was one of the most interesting parts of the day, though. It seems like when I'm not looking for them, I see basic, unisex barber shops everywhere. Granted, there are more high-priced beauty salons than cheaper, simpler barber shops, but I know I've seen them. So of course, when I'm looking for them, I can't find them. Finally I ran across a place that looked like it would be fairly expensive, but wasn't too busy, and I gave up and went inside. I was greated by Etienne, whose friends call him Stephen. He had short, black hair, a tight white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his upper arms. He was thirty-something years old, and had small, oval glasses and a weird smile.

Before it even started, he asked me where I was from. I said "East Boston," because that's where I live now. He looked at me, surprised, and said, "Oh! I thought you were a tourist, with your camera and all," gesturing to what I then realized did look a lot like a camera case, but was actually the leather carrying case for my portable CD player. I laughed and explained it, and we walked over to the sink so he could wash my hair. "So, are you on vacation?" he asked. "No," I replied, "I just don't have to work on Saturdays." "Oh, no, I meant like, from school," he said. Everyone in this town assumes I'm in college, I thought. "No, I'm not a student." He stopped washing my hair, looked at me quizzically, and said "How old are you?" "I'm twenty." "HA! I've been all wrong about you today," he said. "First I thought you were a tourist, then I thought you were fourteen or something. I should just stop guessing." Then we moved over to the chair, and he started cutting my hair. "Your hair is very fine," he told me. "Do you blow dry it?" When I told him I didn't, he said, "You should. It'll make it look like it has more volume. When I'm done I'll show you how." So now I know how to blow dry my hair so it appears to have more volume.

As the conversation continued, he got into the fact that he just got his computer a year ago, and had never had one before. He's still learning how to use it, but uses ICQ and things like that to talk to a lot of people from Europe and such. He doesn't really know how to use ICQ very well yet, though. At one point, when I said something that basically any sane person would agree with, but some stupid person he was talking to didn't, Etienne told me, "You know, you and I think a lot alike. I bet if we got to know each other we could be really good friends." I chuckled nervously and said, "Maybe." Why does this guy want to be my friend? I wondered. I have done nothing to show that I would be interested in being his friend. He's just a guy who's cutting my hair. He's considerably older than me. He's... kinda creepy, too. But I try to continue with the conversation, as the last person you want to offend is the guy who decides what you're going to look like for the next month or so. After a bit, he was trying to get me to come over his house sometime and teach him how to use ICQ better. Now, first of all, I'm not sure I know much about ICQ that I could teach this guy, and second, I really don't know that I want to go to his place. I'm getting a really odd vibe from this guy.

By the end of the haircut, after I'd figured out this guy was most definitely hitting on me, he gave me his card, with his home phone number and email address written on the back. And now, I'm not sure what I should do. On the one hand, he's a creepy old guy who's hitting on me, so my instinct is to run far far away. On the other hand, he's pretty good with my hair, and my Nice Guy impulses are driving me to not just blow this guy off, if only so I'm not a complete asshole. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to go the frightened asshole route, and not contact this person. Because he's a creepy old guy who's hitting on me.

So, after finishing with the haircut, I still had a few hours before the play. I thought about going to a movie, but couldn't find a theater. Again, I see them all the time when I'm not planning to go, and remember where a lot are now that I'm not looking for them, but when I was, I couldn't find one. Finally I made my way to the Kendall Square Cinema. By the time I got there, I wasn't planning to go to the movie then, just trying to find out when it would be so I could go today. Because it's the only theater I've seen that's still playing "Amelie," which I've been wanting to see for a long time, but never had a chance. In fact, I was going to try to see if Molly K. would want to come with me, but either way, I am going to see this movie today.

Then it was on to the play, which was even more fun this time, because I finally got to look for the small little nuances that make it such a great show, instead of just focusing on the foreground. Sometimes, the people in the back, who don't expect anyone to be watching them, can really make a good show great. Having some of the major players from the Palace cast (they had two casts for the show that played on different nights) sitting directly behind me and catching things, too, made it even better. It was so fun, as it's been every time I've gone.

Finally, after the play, it was my chance to try to talk to Molly K. After the play, the cast members always seem to go congregate outside (because about 85% of them smoke, and the rest seem to all have family or friends in the audience every night), so I stand around outside to talk to Mike and hang out with his crowd of people, who I really like, and who I hope don't think I'm annoying for hanging out outside the show each night. With my luck, they do, and my attempts to make friends with these cool theater types will have failed simply because I tried to hard. ugh. Then again, I have a tendency to overanalyse everything, so it's probably fine. Maybe. blah. Anyway, back to Molly. I utterly failed to do anything. Not because of my problem of being a shy little bitch, mind you, simply because there were some judges in the audience during the show, and they had to go talk to them and strike the set immediately afterwards, so after they all finished their cigarettes, they headed back inside for an uncertain, but really long, period of time, and I headed home. Meaning later tonight, I will be going to see "Amelie" by myself, and the only way I have to contact Molly K. is through Mike D., who is cool, so he might help me, but I still hate relying on someone else like that. And hopefully, the other girl in the play, who seems to think I'm gay and Mike (who actually is gay) and I are together figures out that isn't true, or at least doesn't manage to make Molly think that. Or my chances may be seriously hindered.

If I have a chance at all, that is. That still has yet to be determined.