i stopped working at 7am. i couldn't continue any longer, my brain was fried. i was tired but the excitement from the novelty of pulling an all-nighter kept me awake. it's daytime! did i go to sleep? no i didn't! hooray! high-five! i went through the house taking photos, so i could memorialize the last remaining hours of single living. i opened up the blinds to let the morning light into the house, a rarity in these parts. i went to the living room window to look outside. bright, silent, cold. i watched some morning television and snacked on a tarty gala apple. suddenly i felt it, like the floor dropping below me. i was afraid of going to sleep in my bedroom because i wouldn't hear the doorbell when fedex arrived, so i covered myself with some couch pillows and fell asleep in the living room sometime after 9am. i'd been awake for a full 24 hour.

i woke up at noon to the sound of someone at the door. it took a few seconds before i realized who it was and jumped off the couch to catch the delivery guy before he left. that's when i noticed he had already slipped the package through the mail slot, no signature required. 3 hours of sleep and i was back at work.

i left the house for about an hour in the afternoon, went to pier 1 import in porter square searching for some rugs. i found a cheap little $5 number and bought it. holding the rug in one hand while riding back, the wind ripped the bag right out of my kungfu grip while i was on the road. i pulled a haphazard illegal u-turn to retrieve it before a car ran it over. but at home, i realized what a mistake i made. a $5 rug is about the size of a dish cloth. to be returned! i paid a visit to the garden before returning home a second time.

i finally got word that my new roommate would arrive at 9pm, and some of his coworkers were going to go pick him up. they didn't actually get to my place until 10pm. it was a bit disconcerting when i saw him for the first time, a person speaking chinese who doesn't look chinese (i'm narrow-minded like that). i almost wanted to break out the english. after his coworkers left, we started to brake the ice. i gave him the care package i'd prepared for him: a charlie card for riding the T, a shaws supermarket card for working those discount groceries, a street map of cambridge/somerville (my father got it from the real estate office), and an MBTA routing map (which i picked up from MGH). he asked if he could boil some water, i assumed to make some tea. from one of his bags he pulled out something which at first i thought was a corner of a piece of soap or maybe a cube of lard but it was actually a chunk of very hard and very sour cheese. i graciously accepted the gift even though i got the runs an hour later (the lactose intolerant empire strikes back).*

as for me? less than 3 hours of sleep and i'm back up again, on my way to logan airport to catch a plane to newark, new jersey. despite the fact that it's a business trip, i'm still treating it as an adventure. you had me at "free HBO in every room." i just hope i got all that cheese out of my system.