Baltimore

I arrived in Baltimore on Thursday.

In many ways, I still can't believe that I'm here, that I'm doing this, it seems like something someone else would do. Someone else who I know, would know, would like and in some ways envy, but nonetheless, someone not me. I don't do these things. I always have a plan. I always know, at least vaguely, what comes next.

High school. College. Graduate school. Career.

I just never thought that "career" would turn into "quit job and move across country with no job lined up and hope for the best." You can't gain anything without taking a chance, at least so I've been told by the people who would know better than I do, but that doesn't mean it's not terrifying. This is someone else in my body, someone more daring, someone completely okay with leaving all things familiar for Things Unknown.

We're told this is what we're supposed to do. Movies, television, books, they all say that the twenties are for discovering who you are, what you want, and where you're going. Travel. Live in the city. You have the rest of your life for uneventful suburban living. You can always go back to school. Take the risks now, while you don't have to take care of children, spouses, parents, when no one else is counting on you except for yourself.

Though that self is a pretty big 'one' if you want my opinion.

I'm not sure what I think of Baltimore. The first thing I was shown was the fact that the restaurant menus are huge. When I got in Thursday night, Brian took me to the Broadway Diner on Kane and Eastern. It has a little bit of everything, is open 24 hours, and the air conditioning works in a way that would make Freescale's look like it's running a sauna. The menu is a good ten pages. Maybe even more than that. And it boasts everything from French toast to cob salad, BLT melts, sirloin, pasta alfredo, chicken fajitas, and crab cakes, and according to Brian he hasn't yet had anything bad. I should also note that the diner has pretty good fresh brewed iced tea.

It took me some time to decide but I settled on a shepherd's pie which was pretty decent.

The next day we met a friend of his for lunch somewhere the name of which I can't remember, but it's basically a local version of something like an Applebee's with Ravens decorations everywhere and "purple Fridays" where all the waitresses wear Ravens jerseys. Aside from the large menus, something else I've learned is that Baltimore is crazy about its football. Anyway, this place also had a huge menu, several pages of burgers and sports food.

I'm also trying to figure out if the Ravens and the Patriots have a rivalry, in which case I could be in some trouble as far as the football season is concerned. Of course, it seems that everyone hates the Patriots except for Pats fans these days, which I still think is just silly.

Saturday I drove to New Carrollton to get the metro into DC where I met up with another of Brian's friends and saw David Sedaris. Jen said he wasn't very good in person, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Maybe she saw him on an off night. We were going to have dinner at a sushi/Japanese place afterward, but it was passing 10 and I didn't want to drive back at midnight (it took some time to get back to where I'd parked) on the chance I got lost. Which I did. I was running low on gas and had a full bladder and I got lost. But it all worked out okay. I found my way again and am proud of myself for it. It pays to pay attention and I'm glad Brian drove me around a little bit pointing things out.

It's been warm here, the temperature drifting around 90 with a healthy dose of humidity. I don't mind the humidity really. It's supposed to get down to the low sixties -- as the high-- by the middle of the week. Really. It's supposed to drop about thirty degrees in a day. Weird.

The time change has been hard. I think it's because it's hard to adjust when there's nothing you're doing the next day: nothing to get up for, no reason to go to bed. No time. The only reason time has been existing for me is so I can watch baseball. You know, root for my D'Backs, root for my Bo'Sox.

When it hits the 60s as the high I'll start looking for jobs, sending out resumes, we'll see what happens, fingers crossed.

But that's a way off for now.