the world is so much different when you have a friend.

seriously. the other day i was just walking around the streets of baltimore, downtown near inner harbor and not having any fun. basically i was just searching for ways to waste away hours so that the day would be over. i write that to sound like a shitty existence. the skies are darkening as rain clouds roll in and burst upon you in short yet violent spasms. so i just found a comfortable place that i could sit inside of and use my computer and have regular access to water and bathrooms.

after a couple of hours i used my cell phone. it isnt something that i use daily (aside from checking the time as i waste away the hours, and see how painfully slow the world around me is moving), but i am becoming less and less terrified of calling people that i havent seen in a long time, or strangers. this, apparently, is called progress. thanks, barack.

i had been trying to get in touch with my friend ryan harvey, but that wasnt happening. instead i called my friend mike mcguire. mike is a carpenter that i met in miami in 2003, he helped us set (or we helped him) up the convergence space there. creating different rooms and working surfaces and the like. he was a very nice person, and we worked together again in boston or new york, maybe both. but that was the last i saw of him.

enter this trip. i tried to call ryan when i was in st louis visiting with a friend of ours, but ryan didnt answer his phone. mike did. and he was upbeat and happy to hear from me and told me to get in touch with him when my trip lands me in baltimore. cue cellphone. when i called, he didnt answer, so i left probably a dumb sounding sad message full of desperation. he called me back shortly thereafter (i was tempted to let the voicemail pick up this call to gauge what was happening, but my waning phone fear convinced me otherwise).

he was moving a refridgerator from his parents house to his new house and said he could use my help. he told me where his house was and i walked back to my truck to drive over there. it was strange how quickly i went for having no purpose to having direction and a task. i guess thats what friends are for.

i got a little lost finding his house, but probably because i took my own direction instead of his. when i arrived, he was in his house with three ladies and a large refridgerator. it was in the basement and the task at hand was to lift it up the steps and have it live on the main floor. i knocked on the window and someone came to let me in. this person turned out to be italian. with her was ila, another italian, and mikes sister. once inside we wrested the plastic and metal monstrosity up the stairs and then had a beer.

mike showed me around the house, introduced me to the folks there and we kept on as if the last five years were time warped and folded over so that they actually happened, but our interaction is similar to us seeing one another just yesterday. eventually his sister left and i found that these two italians were part of the house, so i made more of an effort to talk to them and listen. they have very good english and are very talkative.

something that has always impressed me is that european people that learn english as a second language often have a better command of the language than people who grow up in the united states. i dont know if is that they have free university to understand more words and their applications or if it is just the way they learned. these two ladies, i beleive, are just way smarter than me and thats why they are better.

but i love it when they try to explain a word that they cannot recall or cannot think of the proper english word and use something else. or when i say something that they may not understand or something that is decidedly united statesian that makes them laugh. my face hurts from smiling so much. like when i said "geez" the other day they responded with a chorus of "geez's" as if it were the funniest thing ever. i like being around people from different cultures.

anyway, tangential (which is really just a lack of focus.)

the house that we were in was not livable yet, so we closed up there and walked over to the apartment, about a block away where mike and eliza live until the house is ready. ila is visiting from boston. there, ila and eliza made some food (risotta soup, i guess) while mike tidied up the place and i marveled at the surrounding/did what i can to aid in the cleanup.

the apartment is like a basement i guess, but a commercial space basement. the kitchen has a broken refridgerator that is used for storage and the stove is an outdoor grill with a one-burner attachment. the shower was just a bathtub that was tucked in a corner of the living room without any walls or adornments, i thought that it was just for show until i was told otherwise. mikes room is part of the living room, like a studio, but it is very large. then there is a shop and off of that is eliza's room and the toilet.

we ate some dinner there and had a few more drinks, and just chatted. it was an awesome way to find myself after feeling a bit despondent just hours earlier. i slept on the couch that night. i love the way this life works out most of the time.

for some reason i didnt sleep long. i am not entirely sure why, but around 6:30a i was up and needed to work my way through the labyrinthine space to find the bathroom and after that i laid down again but couldnt sleep. so i gathered a few things and went for a walk around the neighborhood. eventually i found myself at a nice little diner that reminded me of "the vita" in portland. i sat there and had a cup of coffee and read my book.

mike called while i was there and invited me to come to the farmers market with them. i walked on back and the four of us hopped in his truck to visit the market, where they have many friends. it was nice there, i walked around a few times and had some samples, bought an apple. then we went back to the house to start working. this is the first time i have really done work (and this isnt /really/ work) in months. i was happy to help out, even if i didnt bring much to the table.

mike showed us all tasks to do and how to do them, we got on it and he went for supplies. we spent much of the day in that space. eventually ryan came to visit there, and that was nice. he was having a show later in the day and invited us to come to it. i had already planned on it, ila and eliza wanted to come with. mike had to stay behind to work. the show was a matinee with four or five bands. we got there on time, which in the world of folk/punk/rock shows means early.

the three of us walked arond the inner harbor area, just where i was the previous day feeling a bit down, but now with two people with me and one of them ablet o explain what the places were, it was wonderful. it was pouring rain, which was uncomfortable, but we managed a decent walk around the harbor and back to the show. we showed up a half hour late and ryan was also just getting there, the first act had only recently started.

there were two acts and then ryan, whom i havent seen play live in years. before he went on he asked me which songs he should play but he didnt remember all the words tot he ones i wanted and i couldnt remember very many of them. he played pretty well, it was the first time i had seen him plug in and that was strange. but it was more like a real venue, not someones house. after him we stayed for two more acts. the three of us hadnt really eaten at all that day and mike had pizza for us back at the house. so we piled back into my home and drove back to mikes.

there we met another character in this baltimore play. her name is valentina and whe is from venezuela. and it was great. ila and eliza speak italian, spanish, french (i am pretty sure), and english - maybe more. valentina speaks spanish, portugese, italian, and english - again, maybe more. mike speaks english, spanish and is learning italian. i speak english. i felt a bit out of place, especially when they were all talking to each other in various languages. ask in italian answer in spanish or english, or vice versa. i enjoyed it but it kept me out of the loop a fair amount.

we worked on the house some more in preparation for the night. it was going to be the first night that people slept in the house. so we got much of the "easy" work done and then cleaned up. i went and got some beer and we also had sangria. the five of us had a cheers and starting hanging out. shortly another italian person came over, mossimo is what i heard his name to be. with him was his friend amy, she was born int he united states. so the room was dominated by three italians, three united statesians, and one venezualen.

ila suggested we play a game called "salad bowl" where each person writes a phrase or word on a sheet of paper and the paper and folded and put into a bowl. two teams were formed, each team had to choose randomly fromt he bowl and one person had to get her teammates to guess the exact phrase on the paper. it was progressively harder. the first round you could use any words except the exact ones in the phrase. the second round was charades and the third round you could just say one word and the team would have to guess the phrase from just one word.

you repeat the same phrases so it is as much memory as it is guessing and explaining. it was fun and got us all involved more. some of the phrases were in spanish or british english and sometimes the non-u.s. folks had trouble understanding the phrases. it was fun, my team with mike and ila ended up winning 20-19. well fought, tough game. afterwards mossimo and amy left and we hung out for a little while longer before turning in ourselves.

really, it has just been amazing. these people i have met are very nice and funny people. again, i am struck by the luck i have with the people that filter through my life. i feel so lucky. and its days like these that remind me how much i love my life.