I guess I'm still on a caffeine high or something. Sorry.
Tuesday, December 3, 2002 - 15:51

Yesterday afternoon, after being all mucho tired during class, I went home early, thinking along the way that I'd get into bed and take a nap. But when I got home I wasn't tired. We went out to eat and I had a Coca-Cola (actually like 4 or 5 Coca-Colas, since our waitress was exTREMEly attentive). And then at like 9 I had Mr. Pooh make me some tea, but he unwittingly made caffeinated tea, of which I only drank a little, but when I went to bed my eyes would not stay shut and my mind wouldn't shut down either. I spent a lot of time thinking about the history of popular music from the mid '80s to the mid '90s, and how I fit into the picture and stuff. My eyes finally went to sleep, but I had hundreds of weird, random, silly stupid dreams all night, like one in which there was this baby acting like a dog and chasing cars, but then it got run over by one, and the car started sliding around like the baby body under it was slippery, and we watched it happen and were grossed out, but then when the paramedics came the baby was alive and started kicking its legs, even though its legs were the main part that had been squashed.

Backing up a bit, the reason the waitress was so attentive was because we were there so early, like Jerry Seinfeld's parents early. In order to get to the restaurant a little later, we went to Border's first to get a travel book on Australia, but dammit to hell they didn't have what I wanted. They only had an old person's travel book. So then we were forced to go to the restaurant anyway.

Then today I went to the campus bookstore to look at travel books, but they only had a Let's Go, and I wanted to compare the Let's Go to the Lonely Planet. We had a Lonely Planet in Scotland and it was nice. Plus I'm all used to their format now. But in Europe we had a Let's Go, albeit an old Let's Go, and it was really nice. However, I was a chipper young college student then, and now I'm a wise old grad student, and I don't really want to stay in crappy popular pulsing hostels full of drunk motherfuckers, and Let's Go doesn't give you a lot of information on non-hostel type places to stay, whereas Lonely Planet tells you about hostels, B&Bs, hotels, and other places. So, in conclusion, I'm leaning towards Lonely Planet, but I want to compare it to Let's Go in person before I make a purchase. I guess I'll have to go downtown to buy one.

Which leads me to a nother point: it sucks living out here, out in the boonies, out in the urban sprawlathon, where life is completely car-centric. If you want to go anywhere, you have to go in a car. If we want we can hike over to the strip mall to Costco or Border's or McDonalds or Home Depot (and we could steal a shopping cart to bring back our purchases, like apparently many people do, since there are like hundreds of those stupid things in our apartment complex and in the wetlands), but really you have to drive everywhere.

And Mr. Pooh and I are planning to move back to where we came from (well, Mr. Pooh isn't really from there ... he was born in this state, so he can never *really* be from there [and if you want to make him mad you can tease him about that]) and buy a house, and I can't really decide where I want to live. We could buy a house out of town, which would be nice, and I could have a horse and a barn and no dumb neighbors, but then we'd have to drive everywhere, which I hate. I grew up in town, and we could walk to the grocery store or to school or to town for the Fourth of July parade or to the beach if we were desperate enough (although the beach was pretty far, and if we were going there it was probably pretty hot, which would mean that we would be hot, which would mean the walk would suck), or you could at least ride your bike.

The point is, why would I want to contribute to highway congestion and air pollution and oil dependence and big corporations by living somewhere that I'd have to drive to all the time? There's no way I'll buy some empty land and build a new house on it, so at least I won't have to feel guilty about contributing to urban sprawl, but there are still all these other concerns.

So I'm obviously leaning towards a place in town. But which town? If we move back to my hometown there are a lot of unsavory things that go along with that. Plus, many deep intellectual people have said "You can't go home." And even though I'd like to say to them "Yes I can you pompous motherfuckers" I think maybe the idea of home from 1400 miles away might be a little better than the reality. However, there is a nice lake there, and if I don't have a lake I'll die. Because I'm a Pisces.