The title is true, but I didn’t ride the train after dark tonight, I caught a cab. I don’t know where Nichol’s Park is, but I’m not afraid of it. I don’t like walking past schools at night though, there’s something eerie about a deserted schoolyard, full of shadows, darkness and silence. It’s like the school undergoes a transformation as soon as night sets in, a perfidious metamorphosis… there’s some malevolence that lies dormant in the bright light of day. Maybe this notion has just come about from reading that book “The Gathering”. That was creepy. But then again, you couldn’t walk past South High at night because that was where the bad kids hung out, and the gangs, and the drug dealers etc, and I think someone got beaten to death there once. Or it might have been an animal. Or maybe I made that up in my head.
I met up with Maria after work today. We had dinner with Chong wen (I really don’t know how to spell her name) and Sherry (I don’t know how to spell her name either, so I’m pretty much typing phonetically). They had some amazing stories. Chong Wen is working for New York City College, lecturing in music and doing research on the side into the psychology of music and musicians, and also performing in concerts all around the world. She’s perfoming here on Saturday so hopefully I get to go and see her play (she’s a pianist). It was the first time Maria had seen Chong Wen & Sherry in 11 years, as that is how long Chong Wen has been in New York. But apparently none of them look any different. That’s amazing… 11 years! I think people who knew me 11 years ago wouldn’t recognise me now, but I guess that’s a bit different seeing as I’m only 22. But to think, that none of them changed very much from their 20s to their 30s…
Well. I’m almost 23. That’s scary.
Mum’s birthday first. She’s … hahah I can’t even remember how old she is. 50-something. Why does age stop being so easy to remember as you get older? I can remember Ro’s or Lauren’s age instantly, but ask me mum or dad’s and I falter and sometimes have to do the whole “2006 – 1954… oh was that the year mum was born???” So it’s mum’s birthday tomorrow. I got her: PJs (because winter is closing in on us… Now is the winter of our discontent “oh no! Run!”), an art book, a cd (simon & garfunkel because she’s always going on about how she used to have a simon & garfunkel cd but it went missing. Every few months or so you’ll be asked, “Do you have my simon & garfunkel cd? It’s gone missing.” “No mum, I’ve never had your simon & garfunkel cd.”), some new lights for the deck. I couldn’t afford anything more. So i’ve got to wake everyone up early tomorrow morning because I’m the one that leaves earliest, and we have to do the whole presents and birthday thing before I leave. I’m sure they’ll all be really impressed when I give them a wake up call at 5:30am.
Hopefully I can get some more work done tomorrow than I did today. Bloody meetings. I could care less about annual profit margins and market shares. Oooh if this was 1984 I’d probably be sent for re-education.