Possibly, I'm Insane

I started the weekend on Thursday night, like I was a young college kid again or something. And I did spend the evening completely surrounded by college kids, it felt like. We went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter at Loew's on the Common, which is nestled in the heart of Boston, surrounded by a multitude of different schools, and I felt very old while I waited in the very long line at the only open Dunkin' Donuts near the theater. And it occurred to me that, to these kids, I am old: They are Harry Potter's target audience, I was the weird one who read them as a "grown-up." (I read them, mostly, while I was in college, so I was their age when I discovered Harry Potter, and probably there is some sort of pretty poetic statement I could make about the full-circle-ness I sense is there, but it seems like a lot of effort so please insert your own here: [____].)

( The Rest of My Weekend (Including Harry Potter 7 Spoilers) )

It is one of those days when it is impossible not to love the city of Boston. The air feels like spring, there's not a cloud in the very, very blue sky, the dogwoods have suddenly exploded into blossom. Everyone has emerged, blinking, from the winter hibernation. The students are sprawled along every grassy area, the Charles is crowded with runners and bikers, and I just whipped my way down Storrow with the windows open. The Red Sox are at Fenway, and people are setting up their hat-selling stands, while the game-goers drift through Kenmore. Traffic is snarled with tourists who have no idea where they're going. 

I always love it here, even when it is the middle of winter and everybody is complaining. And I love it because eventually it gets to be like this, and I can't imagine ever living anywhere else.

I have to file my nails. The silly things grow so quickly. It's really rather a pain. Before I do:

--"Layer Cake" was very good, but made me so jittery that I had to stay up for a while doing nothing before I could get to bed. Seriously, though, how brilliant is Daniel Craig?

--It was intensely humid here for the first time all summer at the beginning of the week, and the air smelled like the sea. I think that is such an unpleasant smell: damp and mildewy, with seaweed and fish and salt. And yet it reminds me of happy beach times, so I can't hate it entirely. I *can* hate that humidity-induced headache that I get when the air gets all heavy like that. 

--The thing I hate most in Boston? Regina Pizzeria. Because it's not that good, and yet the tourists descend upon it in ravenous hoardes and block up Quincy Market and almost run into you, in your nice work clothes, with their greasy pieces of pizza. 

--Today was one of those days when I felt like I would rather have any job in the world than the one I actually have. Don't you love days like that? 

--I am still not entirely sure why we traded for Eric Gagne. In Theo I trust and all that, but did we really need another arm in the bullpen? I mean, I guess we're worried about Okajima and Papelbon's stamina down the stretch (which the Yankees are promising to make interesting). Patrick was saying, though, that it doubtlessly improved the team, and if you can make a move that woud make your team better, why not do it? Of course, then he also said that it was a very Yankee thing to do, making a trade without having any real need for it, just because. Which is probably why I cannot wrap my mind around it.