I really hate the bullet point in my last entry, but removing it now seems like cheating.

It seems like I am going to accept a full-time position at the company for which I am currently temping. This is either part of my comfortable, steady segue into mediocrity, or a smart way to bide my time until I can see more of the face of my true desires. It is probably a bit of both - like the road less traveled, it will become part of my mythology, changing its meaning as I tell about it at different points in my life.

Last weekend I returned to the Pioneer Valley for the first time since last summer. It was good to be there because I was seeing friends who are important to me and make me feel loved and accepted. Otherwise, the area instills a low-grade panic in me. I have come a long way from there to this current stagnation. I don't want to go back, but I want to feel the way I felt when I was there. I flirted with the idea of moving into the apartment upstairs from my friends, getting a job at one of hte colleges, and experimenting with that being "enough". Back in the city, I wonder how to make these choices. If I am baseless, formless, on what should I base and form my decisions? I feel a strong urge to be normal for a while, but my idea of normal is vague at best. I want to take this job, get an apartment, take some deep breaths, and stop worrying.

I went to the library today and stocked up on books and CDs. Now I am transferring the music to iTunes, where it will live forever! This seems amazing to me. Free things still look magical - "owning" these songs cannot be this easy. Got some things I'd been wanting for a while: Lucinda Williams, Wilco, The White Stripes, Sufjan Stevens, Prince, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, and Bettye LaVette.

The weather has gotten beautiful, warm, sunny. Yesterday I walked up to the reservoir at Cleveland Circle, walked around it dodging dogs, BU runners, old ladies feeding the ducks, and pensive alterna-boys reading while walking. I sat under a tree and let the no-see-ems bite me while I whittled away at a crossword puzzle and finished up an article on magic from the New Yorker. It was a good afternoon. I look forward to getting more sun, wearing fewer clothes, and feeling my mood thaw along with the ground. Friday my parents will come for an overnight visit. I am occupied with thinking of places for us to go and things for us to eat. At times, this is a pleasant occupation, at others it is anxiety-ridden. I fear the exposure of my life, its limitations and preoccupations.