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another wasted day I sounded rather bitter yesterday and some of that less than positive mood carried over into today. Not having to go to class also gave me more time to wallow in that stay away from me mood, which was not a good thing. In fact I let the entire day pass me by without doing much of anything. I truly need my vacation and anyone that knows me well would say the same thing. At the very least I need something to free my mind of the routine that seems to be bogging me down. Part of me realizes that all is not lost and I know that I'll be able to relax soon. Sometimes I forget though and that seems to be what happened yesterday. One more week to go and then I'll be the foreigner again. I'll be the stranger in what for me will be a strange land. I can't wait. ... I want to say one more thing about the personality sucker at work. I've worked with this person for over three years now, so one would think that I would be used to his behavior and usually I am. There are however those nights when I just wish that he would drop off the face of the planet. I also want to mention that my brother went to grade school with him and even then he said that he was a dork. Okay, maybe that didn't help my cause, but I know that I'm not the only person who has a low tolerance for his behavior. ... Thankfully I got out of the house tonight to eat dinner with Jen. She was still a little puzzled and or hurt when I left her party so early a few weeks back and wanted to spend some time with me. A couple of hours with her was a good primer to the rest of the night. I could laugh again and even vent a little. In my two years back in school she is one of two people that I've kept in contact with outside of the school setting which doesn't surprise me that much. As I keep saying as much I enjoy being on campus, I still feel that there is a boundary that separates me from most of the other students and age would be one of them. Kevin is a year or so younger than me and Jen graduated which in some ways also makes a person older. She escaped from the artificial world of school. Jen and I met up at a restaurant close to where I spent my grade school years in Milwaukee. It felt strange to be in that part of the city again. I can't say what had changed, but driving where I used to walk always as an odd effect on me. Naturally everything seems much closer together by car than on foot. As soon as I stepped out of my car, I heard a female voice call my name. It was Jen. She was standing on the other side of the street waiting for me. As to how long she was there, I don't know. I didn't ask as we walked into the restaurant. The restaurant itself was nothing fancy. It was a local Mexican restaurant with an almost overbearing attempt at trying to be authentic in its decor. Plastic red peppers and piped in Mexican music does not make me feel as though I've crossed the border. I found it to be humorous though and so did Jen. What was even more odd was the fact that there was live music coming from the bar portion of the restaurant that completely clashed with Mexican stuff. Someone was belting out Mustang Sally and both of us immediately said that it was The Commitments. Jen had picked the place for one very special reason. On Wednesday and Thursday nights a bucket full of crab legs is the special and that was good enough for her. I found the idea of a Mexican place serving crab legs to be a bit odd but someone later said that in Baja Mexico seafood is all that they have to eat since very little can grow there. I guess that that makes sense. I was there for the company and not the food. The two of us ate and talked about movies and life in general. At one point I tried to explain why I liked to travel so much, but I don't think that it came out very clear.
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