Witness

Here's something a person could do if she worked in West Philly and didn't yet have that many friends to go to lunch with: walk across the street in search of food and company at 30th Street Station. However, be forewarned that you will face a minimum of three homeless people scattered about, mumbling to themselves with nearly dead cigarettes smoldering at their fingertips. That's what I did today for lunch. At the same time, the train station is a beautiful building and if you squint and try not to notice the myriad destitute people sleeping toothless on the wooden benches, you can sort of enjoy it. It's the same building where they filmed Witness, one of my favorite movies, if only because of the scene where Harrison Ford dances in the barn with a Quaker woman played by Kelly McGillis to one of the best songs in the world, "Don't Know Much About History" (or whatever the title is).

After work, decided to walk to my next destination, just to see what that would feel like. Crossed the Schuykill on Chestnut and wondered what keeps more people from just jumping into the river. Not that I'm feeling particularly self-destructive, just that it would be slightly exhilarating to hoist yourself up on the rail and leap into the rushing water beneath. Met LM and her boyfriend John at his art opening near Rittenhouse Square. Ran into JR there...He was uncharacteristically (at least in my experience) glib and funny and sort of adorable in his yellow t-shirt, arms all bright with tattoos. I said, When's your next show? He said, February. I said, Oh, so what's that exactly? He said, It's the second month in the year. He's probably dating someone now and it's giving him a little more moxie. Still, I liked him and wondered if we could ever just be friends because he's interesting and talented and funny. Usually, he seems in a hurry to get somewhere else and never seems to remember who I am, but today, he did remember the last time we ran into each other (though I had forgotten). It was on the subway--I was on my way to an interview and he was on his way to work. I must have said something about just wanting to get a job where I could spend most of my time reading blog and doing crosswords because he said something like, Yeah, are you able to do puzzles at your new job?

Have finally figured out how to add my CD collection to my i-pod. I have to resort to this b/c my newest free download thing, Soul Seek, is fucked up and won't let me steal songs. So, can't get any of the Simon and Garfunkel I want at the moment, except for "Celia" which I had saved somewhere else at some point, but cannot get anything else by them or by Paul Simon, my secret boyfriend, my dearest Shortie. I have this urge to run over to C & P's and ask if I can borrow their entire CD collection. I don't know what happened to mine--somewhere along the way, I've lost like 200 CDs, mostly bad stuff like Counting Crows and Madonna, but also some songs I love to sing along with like pretty much every bitch girl song from Exile in Guyville. Help me, Mary, please.