we are never quite as close as we are led to understand

Counting Crows is coming out with a new album in March - and it's about time, considering that 'Hard Candy' came out over four years ago. If you are a Counting Crows fan, check out their website (www.countingcrows.com). They've put up two of the singles off the new album for free download; I haven't listened to '1492' yet, but I'm playing 'When I Dream of Michelangelo' on repeat. I don't know what Adam Duritz's affinity for Michelangelo is - he used the 'I dream of Michelangelo' line in 'Angels of the Silences' a decade or so ago, but this song is much sadder and slower. I recommend checking it out!

Let's check out what has happened in the past couple of days, shall we? I worked all day Thursday, and then had an impromptu dinner with Sean, who conveniently sits down the hall from me (if you can consider a path between cubicles to be a 'hall'). We went to Fiesta del Mar, and got carded for margaritas by a waiter who clearly didn't believe that we were over 21, even though I'm 26 and I believe Sean is either 23 or 24. To be fair, I was wearing a Stanford sweatshirt, and Sean looks so young that he was actually carded for an R-rated movie this summer (which means he looks younger than 17), but it's weird how often I am asked for ID. I suppose I should be glad, but given that part of me wants to at least look like a grownup, it's sometimes irritating.

Yesterday, I scraped through work, even though my heart wasn't in it, and then left to drive up to Berkeley for dinner with John and Jessica. Nothing particularly disastrous happened, which was surprising given that I usually have a bad adventure anytime I go north - granted, the directions I got from Google Maps left out a crucial step that almost took me on a 25-mile detour, but I recovered at the last possible moment before going through a tunnel that would have dumped me into the farther-flung reaches of the East Bay. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant that serves more traditional fare, rather than just sushi and teriyaki. This meant some sun-dried calamari that was the equivalent of fish jerky, a rice ball wrapped around salty salmon, various grilled vegetables, and chicken in various sauces/marinades. I was a huge fan of the rice ball, a moderate fan of the fish jerky and the chicken, and a vegetable eater under duress (they were actually quite tasty, but I'm anti-vegetable out of principle). After dinner, we stopped for ice cream at an overpriced but delicious ice cream shop, before going back to their house and watching 'Superbad'.

A few observations from the night:

1) I'm too spoiled by work - since I had a delicious custom-made sandwich at work (turkey, bacon, avocado, sprouts, pesto, and pepperjack cheese on dutch crunch bread, then toasted Quiznos-style), and had turned down the opportunity to have that cafe's homemade ice cream for dessert, the ice cream that I paid several dollars for seemed unnecessarily expensive, even though it was fantastic. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to fend for myself in the normal world, where there are no cafes spitting out lavish, organic, perfectly prepared breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for free.

2) Michael Cera is the best kid to come out of Hollywood in quite some time. While I'm not sure that I would classify 'Superbad' as the best comedy of our generation, Michael Cera is adorable, and is great at being funny in an extremely awkward way. Also, the kid who played McLovin was awesome.

3) On a much more personal note, I left Berkeley last night thinking about how strange it is that one can sometimes slip effortlessly into a past persona. While my friendships with most people have evolved, changed, or dissolved over the course of my life, there are certain key relationships in which everything always seems to stay the same. With my parents and my brother, the familiarity is comforting. With Katie, it's electrifying, because it's gratifying to know that there is someone out there with whom I will always have a connection, regardless of how long we go without talking to each other (or how long I have to wait for her to send me her wedding photos!). With John, not everything is the same, which is a good thing - but the way I act when I'm around him is not the way that I see myself in general anymore. I end up leaving confused because I don't know whether to feel sadness that I'm no longer like that, happiness because I've changed and therefore 'grown', or regret because John (and most of the other people I've been close to over the past few years) is no longer an integral part of where my life is going.

Part of what I was feeling was annoyance - I think I'm more critical when I'm around him, which has always been one of my key traits but is something that I'm attempting to mellow out, but when I'm around him I revert to some of the more caustic commentary that I used to express in classes and dorm rooms. Or maybe I just think that I'm more critical - it's quite possible that I haven't changed in that respect at all, although I've gotten better at stifling the urge to criticize at work.

Another part of what I was feeling was nostalgia - you simply can't spend as much time together for the greater part of three years as what John and I spent together without developing an amazing base of shared history. The memories from that time range from fantastic to difficult to absurd, but they're turning into frayed and faded tapestries on the walls of my mind. Revisiting them is fun, and hanging out with John gives me a chance to shake the dust out of them, but usually they just serve as backdrop, only remembered when I'm triggered by the sight of a raccoon or the sound of the songs that were popular when I was in college.

But, the biggest part of what I'm feeling right now is fear - while the transition from college to work wasn't easy at the time, in retrospect it was almost like I slipped from Stanford to my current employer without really having to reevaluate my life, goals, etc. This lack of reevaluation is why I find myself in my current position, since I desperately need to spend some time figuring out what to do with my life - but it also made it easy for me to feel comfortable, even when I was overworked and depressed. My relationships sort of just came along for the ride - I stayed in touch, with greater or lesser success, with many of the people who stayed in the area, and picked up several new friends at work, but I did a horrible job of keeping in touch with people who moved away, perhaps with the immaturity that comes from believing that life is endless and that there will always be time to reconnect.

Now, though, I've placed myself in a position where I have to reevaluate my life, take steps to stay in touch with people (since I won't have friends in Iowa), and simultaneously finish writing my novel, and I've given up my steady paycheck in the bargain. Don't get my wrong, I'm excited, and I know that if I didn't do this I would always regret it - but just because something is the right thing to do doesn't make it comfortable. And my fears and insecurities are fueled by the remnants of the past, even if the lessons from that past are what will enable me to succeed in the future.

Okay, this post is getting too melodramatic even for my tastes, so I should go to bed. It also comes perilously close to violating my cardinal rule for blogging: 'thou shalt not blog about thine thoughts in regard to someone else, unless those emotions are overwhelmingly positive'. However, my emotions in regards to old friends aren't driven by current events; they're the aching melancholy of memory. My fear of the future is current, but it can't be understood without the context of the past, and now that I've spent an hour writing this, I don't really feel like editing for content. Instead, I'm going to go to bed!