A Little More About Life in Raleigh
I was mostly offline (except for my phone, which is limited in the sites it can access) for the last two days. It seems an eternity without my sweet, sweet internets! I’m in a cafe borrowing wifi to catch up on everything, upload pictures, etc. Here’s a view of what I’m seeing right this very second:
It’s really rainy out today, and the big news is that I’ve finally found a place to live. Yay! It’s a 6 month lease, too, so if I hate the part of town, come into a lot of money, decide I need to get back to Boston, get recruited to a foreign land, I’m not stuck in a year-long lease. I decided to take a place that is slightly out of the middle of town. The cool center of things is 5 minutes further than it would be if I’d done my normal thing of going with the hipper areas of town. But the last two times I’ve done that, I haven’t been as happy as I’d like to be. This place is quiet, wooded, and on a lake. I have a screened in porch that I know my cats will adore. And for the 650 sq ft (that’s NOT including the porch and outdoor storage closet), I’ll be paying $620 a month. What a deal! I move in on December 12th.
My first trip back to Boston is in a week (for Kristopher’s bday), and I’m going back again for New Year’s Eve. I know that once the new year starts, I will be starting to work and won’t have as much time to take off like this, so I might as well travel while the getting’s good!
This was written yesterday at Christopher’s house, where there is an extremely weak connection to some neighbor, but it wasn’t strong enough to get this posted: The last few days have been pretty interesting. I spent quite a bit of time at Helios Coffee House. It’s a great place to get coffee, food, and free wifi, and on Wednesday nights, they have a (really good) DJ and serve wine. It was quite a scene. I even approached a knitting circle (stitch ‘n’ bitch) and got their opinions about where to live in Raleigh. Hopefully, I can find the sock Anna got me started on so I can join next week. Last night, I met Christopher there, and we headed to Chapel Hill (of UNC fame) to see Dat Politics (“French Electronic Pop”), which was hard to comprehend when I was told about it. And it’s just as hard to describe. The gig was in this extremely groovy space. It’s a bookstore by day, but instead of having rows of books, then are on high shelves that line the room. On one side, there is a diner counter which serves food during that day. At night, the entire place becomes a venue for gigs. When we got there, another great DJ was spinning (how are there so many here?).
The kitchen was closed, but there was an Asian fusion place next door where we picked up some food that we brought back into the gig venue. The opening act was impossible to describe. It was just one woman who began by playing a guitar, but the guitar was fed through a synth so it sounded like a banjo. Her first song was mundane, boring. I thought, “oh no”, but then the whole thing went off in all directions. This plain jane of a woman has a thousand voices, a wicked sense of humor with her lyrics and musical gestures, and considerable skill in creating electronic dance beats on her laptop. The most amusing lyric was something along the lines of “I’m free of hygenic responsibility”.
Normally, I’d add more pictures and links to things, but I’ve been at this cafe for a few hours, and I’m HONGRY, and there’s leftover Indian in the fridge at Christopher’s house!
By the way, have you JP people seen Steve Garfield’s latest upload of old JP home movies? Facinating stuff!
