looking up
I dropped by the Central Library downtown on my bike ride home from work yesterday—actually my second time to do so in as many days, because on Monday I had spaced that they aren't open on Mondays currently, and found the front doors shut and locked. I did notice the signs on the doors that read MASKS REQUIRED REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION STATUS. And my only editorial comment about that is: I respect it.
When I returned yesterday, I was truly surprised and delighted to find that they were no longer doing curbside pickup, as they had been doing since last summer (August specifically, it appears), although that was only at select locations, not including what had previously been my default neighborhood library on Capitol Hill. So, in the meantime, my location has been the downtown Central Library. Anyway, I'm really digressing here: I was able to walk right inside! This had me very excited, although being it was just a stop on the way home, I did not spend much time inside and thus did not get a chance to admire that building's unparalleled interior and architectural design. It's nice to know I can again now, though!
How long has this now been the case, anyway, I wonder? Holy shit, they've been reopened since June 21—three weeks ago! Damn, am I behind the times. Is the Capitol Hill brand open now, then? Look at that, they are indeed, since this past Sunday! That's all of four days for that one. But, I guess I can finally start selecting Capitol Hill as my pickup branch for holds. Although, honestly—and I can't believe it's literally taken me five years to figure this out—Capitol Hill branch is quite a bit further out of the way on my way home from work than the Central Library is, making the two-stop trip home via Capitol Hill 3.5 miles versus all of 2.9 miles when I stop by the Central Library. That's more than half a mile difference! Okay to be fair, according to Google Maps, the time difference is all of six minutes, but hey, time is money!
I'm just thrilled the libraries are reopened again. What I picked up yesterday was the Deluxe Edition box set of Prince's 1987 album Sign 'O' the Times, in my opinion his second-best album, so I'm very excited. I always make a playlist of tracks from the albums I listened to the most at the end of every year, and 2021 is going to be full of songs that are now quite old, between more than one Prince deluxe set I've checked out of the library and ripped to my iTunes; my having done the same with virtually the entire Queen catalog just a couple of weeks ago; and my finally moving forward with purchasing the rest of the Pat Benatar albums I still don't have (which the library doesn't have so those ones I have been buying on iTunes). So far, the only actually-new albums I have gotten are Bo Burnham's Inside (the Songs) and Garbage's No Gods No Monsters, although I will also soon be getting a posthumous new release from Prince, as well as Lil Nas X's long anticipated full album debut.
Anyway, as chance would have it, Ivan was walking down 15th Avenue the very moment I reached our building's parking garage on my bike, so I stopped my AirPods and chatted with him for a minute. This was when I found out the place he interviewed at yesterday has already given him a job offer contingent on a background check; it's at Foss Home and Village in North Seattle, where he said he'd be working in "post-acute care," if I remember the term correctly. It's on 130th, so he'd almost certainly have to take two buses to get there, although taking the #5 from downtown shouldn't be that huge a deal. The Northgate Link Light Rail Extension opens October 2, but unfortunately that still stops short of that destination by like 25 blocks, so he won't be able to take light rail all the way there. Bummer.
That's just one job offer; I won't be surprised if he gets others. I'm feeling pretty confident now that, once he's taken this coming weekend to visit another friend in Portland, he'll be officially moved back in with us on an indefinite basis. I already told him the other day I expect he'll get bored and move somewhere else after another year or so; he laughed and said, "What makes you say that, Matthew?" I said, "Established history."
Speaking of interviews, Shobhit had one himself yesterday, at Trader Joe's. He didn't seem to think it went very well. Another bummer. I had been thinking about how in retail in particular, it should not be that hard to find another job, what with places struggling to hire people right now. I suppose I didn't take into account how many people actually do want to work at Trader Joe's; I suspect they aren't as challenged by looking for staff as other place. Then again, one might assume the same of PCC, and PCC is having the same issue. Shobhit would much rather get a job at the office than in a store, and he did apply for a Project Management position, but he didn't make it to the follow-up interview stage. I wasn't as surprised by that, as it was in a department that had literally nothing to do with any of Shobhit's experience in either retail or project management, but, it still can't hurt to apply.
Shobhit had his Project Management class last night, which basically precluded any time spent watching a movie or anything with Ivan as we had done the previous two nights. I did have some nice, lively chitchat with Ivan right after I got inside after getting home from work, and I made chai for all three of us again, but for the most part I spent the rest of the evening in the bedroom—doing nothing of note, really. I should have captioned some photos on Flickr but I just didn't feel like it. Once Shobhit's class was done at 8:00, we did finally start season four of The Expanse on Prime video, and we watched two episodes before I went to bed. Ivan was out for much of that; my best guess is he's either going for walks (as I know he likes to do) or perhaps getting coffee or something with someone he met on Grindr.
Something did occur to me yesterday, actually triggered by thinking about how I hadn't seen my neighbor, Alexa, since we went to the Seattle Asian Art Museum over Pride Weekend, which was two and a half weeks ago. We exchanged a few texts about catching up this weekend. And what occurred to me is this: I now have more friends regularly in my social orbit than I've had in several years. I'd say this is largely due to both Laney and Ivan coincidentally returning to Washington within days of each other (Laney plans to go traveling again in October, but we already have six more days of scheduled activity between now and then), but then add that to my most recently-made friend Tracy, met through work early last year; and of course the aforementioned Alexa, who has been our neighbor the entire 13 years we've lived in the Braeburn but we became the friends we are now only over the past year. So, between Alexa and Tracy, I have functionally two new friends I spend a lot of time with just within the past year (who says you can't make new friends in your forties!), and although now that I've known Ivan seven years he's actually transitioning into the status of "longtime friend," he hasn't been around for two full years. So that's basically three people either added or returned after a pretty long hiatus; and even Laney is back around after a six-month absence (our several virtual Happy Hours during her travels notwithstanding: it's still incomparable to the time we're spending together this summer).
I almost brought up Gabriel and Lea in this discussion, except I would say they're a unique and separate case. After all, once we established regular time spent over FaceTime either doing "Movie Drafts" or literally watching movies, we were engaged in some form of socializing on a more frequent, or at least consistent, basis than we had on average before the pandemic even hit. Danielle, my oldest friend (we met at the age of 11), is the only one with whom time spent together remains way too infrequent. We still need to get together to watch Contagion and compare notes between that and her experience as a nurse. Hey, maybe she should come up to my place to do that now that Ivan is here, since he is also a nurse and can offer some insights of his own!
Anyway. When Ivan last lived with us, through all of 2017, he and I went to movies fairly frequently; I'm sure we will again. And just yesterday Tracy mentioned that she'd love to see movies with me too. Between the two of them, and occasionally Shobhit as well, I'm looking at having someone to join me for movies more frequently than I've had in many years again. Things are looking up!
[posted 12:28 pm]