The best kind of outing [Sunday 10]

I write this before it's 10.30, going to bed early today to catch up on sleep. For the last hour or so I've been watching The Office with roommates BB and PK, PK went to bed a few minutes ago. PK and BB both have holiday tomorrow for veterans day -- SM and I don't. They're taking it easy this evening the great outcome from that for me is that I get the bathroom all to myself in the morning tomorrow. Also wrote the previous piece while watching The Office. I'm not ashamed of it or whatever.

Got a light dinner of leftovers and nuts. I should have had more, but lunch (ish) was way too heavy for my regular dietary needs (ore on that later). Watched the movie Andhadhun with roommates PK and SM and friend-of-house J. It's such a great movie, I'm always caught off guard by what's coming next no matter how many times I watch it. This was my third viewing, and it ages well. This has been the only movie where me having read the plot has actually made my movie-watching experience better. Recommend you do the same if you've not watched the movie yet.

Talked to NG for over an hour in the evening. I got my bike back from work finally, the brakes are really really lose and I don't feel comfortable riding the bike too far from home. Got back in the red line and just loaded on the train (and then the 89 bus) from work. Called NG at Davis and talked to him all the way back home and for an hour until after that. He's going to Nepal in Dec. and so are PL and SB. Roommate SM is going to Nepal in the same timeframe too. I'm the only one who's going two months later. Sigh. I'll be alone and all by myself, no good but hopefully there will be opportunities to travel etcetera.

At work everything was closed so I tapped in, went to our space, got my bike, put it on the regular elevator (unlike the last time, if you will remember there's a post about it when they made me put it in the freight elevator which was also someone's office). Listened to the Gastropod podcast all this time and ohh man for some reason everything felt. Walked from work to Park Street, great timing this time of the year everyone was out and about the light was just right with sun just setting on the horizon at half past four. Took a couple of photos and walked in real slow to absorb the scenery and the people. So many people walking that I never see, we barely see anyone besides people in our houses and works because we're so caught up with our own issues and problems that we don't acknowledge and understand that other people exist too and perhaps they have interesting things happening in their lives to and the ways their lives are complicated could be so ridiculously different from ours because their circumstances and experiences and backgrounds are so different from ours. We understand all of that, I'm sure but we don't remind ourselves of that every day because once you get into a routine where everything is pre-planned and it doesn't involve chance encounters with random people everyone else just becomes a background character instead of the vibrant exciting entities that they deserve to be. I guess what I'm saying is, I saw a bunch of weird people cute people awesome people sad people during the walk and wish that happened more often maybe even on a daily basis.

Walked to work from Lady M where I got a really good (and expensive ooof) red-bean cake. Friend SBK has recommended the place several times and so have other people but i'd never had the chance to figure out where it was or what it was all about. While shopping at TJ MAX got message from the DC gang who had gotten a large plate of fancy desserts. That got me into a dessert mood and Lady M was right there. I'd definitely get it once every few months, even if only as a reward to myself. Really glad it costs what it costs because it's too rich if it's cheaper aka more affordable and it would be gross to eat more than a slice at a time. The walk from Lady M to work was quite pleasant, saw so many people with their Canada Goose jackets, families, grandparents, cute women all walking chilling having fun, no particular rush to go anywhere particular. Seriously thought about stopping at Santouka Ramen before heading back but the cake reallly filled me up -- I wonder what the crazy filling is -- and the wait must have been at least 45 minutes this Sunday evening. Realized that today's outing was a really good idea.

At TJ MAX, walked around two floors checking everything though there wasn't anything that I needed. Wanted to reward myself because I hadn't been out shopping all by myself in a while, 'twas so relaxing. Got myself a nice muffler and a casava chip. The muffler is great, not sure about the Casava chip. It's understandable why potato is the best tuber if this is the best they can do, but also it wasn't as well spiced as it could have been so whoo knows. Called the DC gang, they were busy with their desserts so figured I'd have to eat something fun too and thus lady M.

Got off at the Copley Green line accidentally instead of Hynes, walked to the Hynes TJ MAX through Copley. There was a Nepali tchotchke stall outside the church, that was fundraising for some school in Kathmandu. Didn't buy anything there because, number 1, quite overpriced when everyone I know is going to be back from Nepal in a month, and number 2, I get no choice in the quality of those products and my guess is that they're not so great. Anyway, took a picture of this and sent to friends. Thinking it might inspire SBK for fundraising for various schools etcetera. Hadn't been in that area on a weekend all by myself in quite a long time, I had a great time seeing all those beautiful people out in the open.

Got up on time but had a pretty unproductive morning. Did my regular crunches, as well as pushups in the morning because this week the number's increasing by 20% and wanted to give the body some time to recover until tomorrow evening. After a lot of thinking and overthinking and lazing about, decided that going to work to get back bike made more sense than going to C-town to get groceries. If I was going to go to work, might as well walk around Newbury and TJ MAXX and see if they had something fun happening. Was going to leave at 11.30-ish but got distracted in a conversation with BB and R and ended up going an hour/hour-and-half later, but it was some good conversation about their holiday plans, what they were up to this weekend, and giving BB trouble for not staying in touch with his half sister.

As I write this, it's taken me 25 minutes and Im only reasonably early to bed instead of being excitingly unreasonably so. I'll get up early tomorrow, take a bath get some writing done and thinking about modifying the daily schedule to put in extra stuff I've been thinking about. Also I may have discovered the TKP column I could post in. Gonna be off for now, bye.