Addendum to Parentheses Day

Some things about being grown up are actually quite fun, like confiscating people's beer at the hostel. Which is maybe mean but we do explain the policy at check-in. I'm not usually one for power tripping, but I thought I'd be, you know, 25 or something before I got to do that.

Parentheses Day! (yay!)

I think the most annoying part of being an adult is having to keep track of money. (There are other annoying things, too- like complete legal culpability from now until I die) I was going over my spending for the last 2 months and I'm only spending $20/week on groceries (thank you, endless supply of free food at work) but then I realized I was spending another $19 (on average) at restaurants. How is that possible? I eat out like never! Also where are all of these clothes I keep buying? I am only in student loan debt, not credit card debt or anything, but it's sad that if I only kept from buying clothes and accessories this month (what did I even buy? Shoes and a jacket? Why did I buy a jacket in California in spring when I already have jackets?) I would have $88 to spend on art supplies. Right now I'm playing with all of the additives for acrylic paint that make it incredibly more cool. No one knows whether acrylic lasts longer or less long than oil paints because acrylics were invented in the late 1950s. Thank you, the late 1950s!

I thought I had a new hobby.

The lost and found at the hostel is kind of awesome. It gets full really fast because it is just 2 rubbermaid bins and people are forever leaving behind their pants and shoes and shampoo. So, after 3 weeks/whenever it overflows we take the oldest stuff to goodwill. But, the tiny things we never take out because someone might call us and ask about their headlamp that they left in California and it doesn't take too much space. I decided, though, when someone found a locked combination lock, that after a month I would claim it as my own because it seems like a useful and slightly frustrating hobby- just turning it to all the numbers I can think of on the theory that someday I will be in tune enough with the original owner that the combination will come to my fingertips and I will have a useful tool in place of my hobby. It is a really nice lock, sleek and black with gold wheels and I could buy my own for $5 but that is not the point. However, this would be a more long term hobby with a lock with more than a thousand possible combinations.

I'm getting good at cello again! I don't know how children become proficient at instruments because personally I was 18 before I could practice for more than an hour per week. I haved loved the cello since I was 11 years old but I think it might be coming together now, and I'm leaving the beginner phase and becoming an intermediate cellist. I've been buying and downloading pieces and teaching myself them, and I'm pretty good at it. My favorite right now is Bach's prelude to his cello sonatas. I think that might be the most purely beautiful piece ever written. It's not evocative; it's just beautiful. I am also trying to learn celtic music which is going okay. It sounds lame because I am classically trained and I can;t get the real rhythm but the music is so good that I think it still sounds nice.

Yeah, I practice like 2 hours a day or something. I should maybe minor in music. I have a crush on the music department itself.

Hostel

Today at the hostel we have a girlscout troop. They look tiny, not like I remember my troop being, but aside from that they make me really nostalgic. I miss having a safe structure for exploration, a literal handbook as blueprint for my moral code.

They look so awkward, though. Were we that ill at ease with ourselves when we were 9? I'm sure I never was.