so it is past 1 am, and i cannot sleep. so i am listening to a bit of music and i figured I would write and update folks on what is going on here in st. louis. yeah. i am in saint louis. it was named after a saint, and as far as I can tell someone named laclead came here and landed on the river here near the arch, a little north of it actually, probably a french guy, so maybe i should boycott him, like bill o-reilly.

so what is this town like? when i got here, the first cab driver told me that the people were very friendly. believing this to be true, i made sure to make eye contact with people on the street and say hello, which was fine, except what he means by nice is that everyone who you say hello to will either ask you for money or a cigarette. I am pretty used to that, having lived in boston adn chicago for awhile where people always want these things, but the thing about here is that they are so nice they seem to just do away with things like politeness. when i say hello, people just blurt things at me. i crossed the street today and i saw an old woman, relatively nicely dressed, not indigent by the looks of her. i said hello and she responded “you got a quarter?” yeah, thats a real nice person. seriously, without fail, when i am nice to someone they ask for something. luckily i never carry cash, so people never get money… i hope the day never comes when homeless people have credit card machines– i will be out of excuses.

so what is it like, travelling and being in a city where you don’t know anyone and you live in a hotel and have nothing to do? well. if i were smart, i would just work a million hours, but this project is limited to 40 hours a week, so which i easily do by Thusday around 7, even if i leave every day by 6:30. I don’t take lunches as there is no good food in teh cafeteria, so 830 to 630 is a pretty solid day. anyhow, here’s a recap of what i’ve been doing.

monday i got here at 930. i worked hard and did my orientation at the job site and left work around 530 because I had some accenture business to take care of. I was at the hotel by 630, and then i walked to a place near downtown called mosaic, which claimed to have modern food. i thought that might mean vegetarian friendly, so I went in. they had some good stuff, but when they said moderrn they meant tiny, expensive portions. I dropped 50 bucks for a beer, a salad (read: a small hunk of goat cheese, three thin apple slices and about half afistful of fancy lettuce), herb gnocci (read: 6 asparagus tips and some weirdo potatoes that tasted like raw dough), and “lemon grass ice cream with poppy seed cake”, which was about a half a scoop of ice cream and two cubic inch squares of cake. it was all delicious, but still, it was not awesome. the service there was great, so i reccomend it nonetheless. the cute waitress called a cab for me (i did not want to walk back) and I got a laclead taxi, which is my preferred company. they are good, and all the drivers are nice.

tuesday i worked 8 until 730 with a half hour lunch. I got a salad. after work I went to a neighborhood called Soulard. I ate at a chinese place which must have been like 99% takeout, because it was totally empty except me. it was tasty. then I went to another bar because it was still too early to go home, an dI had a beer while I watched the cardinals play the padres. another cab home. home is the marriot courtyard, for the record. it is not a great hotel and there is no restaurant here, but it is super close to work.

today is wednesday. i left work at 630, got back to the hotel and put on my jogging paraphenalia. my jogging paraphenalia consists of grey new balance shoes, a red bathing suit, and an undershirt that was graffittied at a party at my boston apartment. I ran west, to forest park, which was beautiful. st. louis u was on the way there, it was always beautiful. then I got to Wash U, which is west of Forest Park. In the quad they had a musical perrformance, some classical stuff, which I watched for awhile, but then I kept on running until I accidently and luckily found delmar loop, which had a great record store, a stupid restaurant where I got a veggie burger, and a coffee shop where an old jewish guy quizzed me about bob dylan’s various faith conversions. he was pleased that i knew he started a jew, became christian and made bad music, and went back to being a jew and making great music. the guy had the biggest star of david tattoo I have ever seen, which granted is not many, but his was huge, completely wrapping around his upper arm. He pointed it out to me about seven times in the course of the “conversation,” each time saying something to the effect of “i’m jewish you know, did you see my tattoo?” he also liked that i knew who suzanne somers was because the girl at the coffee shop was named susanna and he could not remember the “really famous comedienne named susanna”.. granted, her name is not susanna, but he did not care. I also knew some other stupid trivia about television that he was psyched on, but he got angry when I said berkeley was too full of hippies to make it a good place to live (we were discussing its merits versus boston). I did not want to talk to that guy, but he insisted. man. that guy was a talker. the girls at the coffee shop were wonderful. they let me use their phone and phone book to call yet anotehr cab to come back to the hotel and they shared my rolled-eyes and sighs while i suffered through the awkward conversation with the old guy.

so basically, when you are travelling and don’t know anyone, all you do is work, go out to eat, and take cabs. lots and lots of cabs. finally, my cab driver today was named omar and he was awesome. I hope I get him again sometime, which I am sure is not too impossible.

tomorrow I will be at work in 7 hours, hopefully, and then work 10 hours or so, go to the airport, and get home by 11pm, I hope. anyhow.

thanks to all those who read and commented in the past few days. i hope this entry wasn’t too long-winded, but I had a lot to catch up on.

the coffee follows the candle and the monkeys fingers melt to the typewriters.