but it felt weird to be still in my street clothes. at 7:00 i heard the alarm go off and saw deanna stumble into the bathroom, the shower running. i said good bye to john and then left with some instructions on how to get to the nearest subway stop. naturally i got lost, 
walked in the wrong direction before digging the NFT guide from my pocket and reorienting myself. i hopped onto the R train (deep breath, hoping i was riding in the right direction) and a few stops later i was at canal street. the morning sun bathed chinatown in a golden glow as i fastwalked to the fungwah bus depot, bought a ticket ($15), and got onto the bus. on this thursday morning the 8:00 bus was less than half full. i took off my jacket, leaned my seat back, and went to sleep.
i was more than happy to sleep through the 4 hour bus ride back to boston (my bladder was empty, i didn't need a bathroom break), but when we stopped at a roy rogers, my curiousity got the better of me and i got off the bus to get something to eat, having never been at a roy rogers before. i was trying to figure out what their speciality was and seemed to gravitate towards the fried chicken meal. "sorry, we're only serving breakfast meals at this time," the woman behind the desk told me. "our fryer cook just came in too," she added, rolling her eyes in disgust, as if he was perpetually late. "okay," i said, rocking on the back of my heels, staring at the menu above her head. "i'll get the roast beef sandwich then," i told her, "with fries and a coke." back on the bus i ate all the fries and sipped at the coke. 15 minutes later i was ready for the sandwich, which turned out to be pretty good. 15 minutes later i was back asleep, the container of coke pressed into my jacket so it wouldn't spill.
it's almost as if i had an internal alarm clock connected to some sort of homing beacon, but i woke up a few miles before we arrived in south station, boston. funny, but i was actually disappointed to be back home, i sort of wished the bus could drive on for a few more hours so i could continue sleeping uninterrupted. once we arrived, i made a beeline to the subway station and rode the red line back to cambridge.
packages were waiting for me at home. my health insurance finally went through and a packet of documents awaited my return. elsewhere, a stack of netflix dvd's. the first order of business was getting cleaned up though. although i probably could've taken a shower at john and deanna's place, i didn't bring a towel and figured i could rough it. i now realize roughing it isn't my forte. i wasn't feeling particularly fresh and was glad to take a hot shower, change out of my dirty clothes. when i got out of the bathroom, i replied to e-mails while calling my hospital to make an appointment at the travel clinic. turns out MGH is all booked up for the month of february, but the woman suggested a few other places i could try. i got mt.auburn hospital and left a message, and was able to get an appointment at new england medical for february 17th. "don't i have to wait 4 weeks between booster shots?" i asked the woman. "to be honest, i just book the appointments, i don't know the details, but i've seen people come in a day before their trip to get shots and they've been fine," she told me. so my vaccination appointment for the time being is all set. now all i have to worry about are my taxes.
at 2:30 i drove to logan airport to pick up my parents (after checking that their flight wasn't delayed due to the rain). for some reason central parking was completely filled, and i had to spiral all the way down to the bottom floor to find a spot (there was actually quite a few empty spots, it was just near the exit, so not many people know about it). they arrived, we picked up their luggage, then left the airport. i got a ride home before my parents drove themselves back to belmont.
at 6:00 i went to the harvard museum lecture series, the guest speaker was the author of "reef madness", the story of louis and alexander agassiz (of harvard university and cambridge fame) versus charles darwin and the debate concerning how coral reefs are formed. julie was supposed to come with me and originally she seemed more interested in the topic than i was but she backed out at the last minute despite my efforts to persuade her. the author looked like a poor man's pierce brosnan (without the british accent) and unlike past speakers, he was operating commando and didn't have a set of slides. for the first 10 minutes it was actually kind of boring and i started to look for ways to leave early, or at least position myself in such a way to allow the person sitting in front of me to eclipse my face with his head so i could close my eyes and go to sleep. fortunately the lecture picked up and it turned out to be really interesting, one of the better lectures i've attended. i saw that mother with her little boy from last week. he has the feral-look of home-schooling, wild eyes, unkept hair, and hand-me-down clothing. i noticed she was knitting but upon closer observation it was the little boy who was knitting!
once i returned to my place, julie came by to pick me up so we could get some dinner and a movie. she had a pair of kendall cinema passes that were to expire this weekend so she had to use them up. we had dinner at pho lemongrass near the garment district. while julie raved about how great the food was, i found it okay but didn't knock me off my feet. after dinner we went to the theatre, were we found parking right outside. that should've been a clue that something wasn't quite right, and when we got to the entrance, signs taped to the door informed us the theatre was closed for tonight because they had no water pressure due to a water main break a few blocks away (that meant none of the bathrooms would be working).
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we came back to my place where we watched the end of game 4 of the ALCS, the first game where the red sox started to come back against the yankees. that was followed by ER, before julie went home.