For 18 years I grew up living just outside of Boston.  Then I went to college, worked on a cruise ship and moved to Salt Lake City.  needless to say, since high school I have spent less and less time around the Boston Area.  I was never great with getting around in Boston, there are few people who really are (my father happens to be one of those people).  I knew how to get from home to the places that I frequented, though generally I got around places west of Boston better than Boston itself.

So, here I am, back for a week visiting family and in town before my sister’s graduation.  What has happened?  Well, my brother now has an apartment in Boston and this is where it all started.  Ironically, the first time that I ever went to his apartment I didn’t have any issues getting there or getting back home.  For having never been there before, I was pretty impressed with myself.  Of course, the second time that I dropped him off at his place, I got totally turned around and messed up.  not sure entirely what happened, but when I finally found some landmarks that I knew I managed to get myself home.

Now cut to today.  My great aunt (that is my grandmother’s sister on my mother’s side) took me out for dinner at a relatively new restaurant in the Legacy Place shopping center.  This is in Dedham which is essentially south of Boston and Newton (where my family lives).  Well, getting out there was simple, and really, if I had just gone back the way that I had come, the return trip would not have been such an adventure.  Instead, I figured that I would take a different route home that I probably should have been able to navigate, but seeing as I haven’t been down that way in years and it was dark, well it didn’t turn out so well.  I pretty much ended up in Boston as opposed to Newton and the trip probably took an extra 25 minutes.  At least my aunt and I had a good laugh about it.

Normally I can navigate pretty well, but I think that I have some kind of block with regards to the Boston area.  I can do Newton and west and I can do New Hampshire and Maine and Utah (which is a breeze).  I am generally pretty decent with new places and can often find my way once I have been someplace once.  I just can’t seem to figure out the major city right next to where I grew up.  So strange.

Always an adventure, that is for sure.

When is it that we get to the point where this is the thing to do when you want to meet with friends or have a meeting of sorts?  It just seems that relatively recently I have been running into friends to catch up with and the thought seems to go right to “why don’t we meet for coffee?”  When does that become the thing to do.  I mean, I don’t really remember what we did in high school, but I know that we didn’t go sit around the coffee shop to hang out.

The other day I went to meet a friend for coffee (and lunch) and we ended up sitting around the coffee shop all afternoon.  This is probably not even something that I would have done when I was in college and yet it is something that I would do now.  Then, last night I was chatting with another friend who I haven’t seen in quite a while and the first suggestion of something to do, a place to meet to catch up was over coffee.

I suppose there are people who do things like go to lunch as opposed to coffee, but on the other hand I guess there aren’t that many things to do that put you in an environment where you can just chat with someone.  It is interesting that meeting people usually involves food of sorts and for most people it is over coffee.  What is it about the atmosphere in a good coffee shop that makes it ideal, or is it the coffee itself?  Maybe Jen from Daily Demitasse can or has answered this question.  Is the coffee shop the original social networking site?

I am kind of backlogged with posts.  We overlooked the fact that Bloggerstock fell on Memorial Day for those of us living in the USA.  It isn’t actually Memorial Day anymore as I write this, but I thought that I should get it down while the idea was fresh.  So, it is a belated Memorial Day post, and forgive me if I use the wrong tenses when referring to things in this post as I am probably not really thinking about it in relation to when it will actually be posted.

After catching up with a friend for the better part of the afternoon on Memorial Day I headed home and flipped on the television.  Of the programs that were worth watching, all of them were war related.  It made sense.  Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember those who gave their lives for our country.  Most countries in the world have similar national holidays.  It is probably the most honorable of all the national holidays that we have in the USA, and yet by many it is probably one more that gets overlooked or thought of as just another day off from school.

The men an women that we commemorate on on this day deserve our respect as do all the men and women currently in the service of the nation.  They fought and are fighting to preserve the ideals that make up our way of life.  They are there no matter what the threat, be it war or natural disaster.  They are certainly brave and giving souls.

However, when I sit and really think about it, I always come back to the question of why.  Why do we humans have to wreak such terrible conflicts across the globe?  Why do we, for whatever reason, always think that we are better than the next person?  What makes “us” right and “them” wrong?  I mean, when you really think about it, the people who are “right” are really just the people with the best fighting force, the people who “win.”  How is it that in reality the side with the bigger and better army and weapons is the side that is right?  Obviously in any conflict, both parties THINK they are right, otherwise there wouldn’t be a conflict.  Thus, why?

Then of course you have the people who are anti-war, the pacifists, the people who just generally disagree with the government, the people who seek peaceful solutions, and a whole host of other groups.  They all think they are right.  The “peaceful protester” thinks that his methods are better than the “normal protester” or the riotous crowd.  And of course that there is just the seeds of conflict among people who may actually be “fighting” for ultimately the same cause.

It doesn’t really matter who you are, I think that we are all guilty of thinking that we are in the right and someone else is in the wrong.  Sure, there are probably time when this is true, however, there are most likely times that we have been in arguments or fights with people where both sides could equally justify their position as right.  There are few things outside of math and science that actually have a clear right and wrong answer.  Our day-to-day assessments of right and wrong are based on the moral code that we each live by.  However, my moral code is not exactly the same as anyone else’s yet there are many people who would tell me that my morals are wrong.  What makes your moral code better or more “right” than mine?

Why can’t we really just accept that everyone is an individual and that we cannot all fit in the same mold?  I guess really I just find it unfortunate that we have such a need for a holiday like Memorial Day.  While we should always remember and honor those who gave their lives in our defense, I would hope that some day in the future we will be able to stop adding names to the list of people to commemorate.

Have you ever been the recipient of a “drunk-dialed” phone call?  I can’t say that I ever had been drunk-dialed before last night, well I suppose it really was yesterday morning.  I was just sitting watching Star Wars when my ass started to vibrate.  I had totally forgotten that I was kinda sitting on my phone.

In my past experience, when I have been called after midnight by people that I know t is usually because something is wrong.  In some ways I kind of dread answering late night phone calls from people I know because it sucks to get bad news when you are half asleep.  At least tonight I wasn’t asleep, but when I saw the name come up on the screen, the first thing I thought was “Oh crap, she must be in trouble.”  Is the fact that this is my gut reaction a bad thing?  let me put it this way, if she had been in trouble I would have been happy to help if I could, even I had been asleep.

Thankfully, there was no crisis, though this particular friend always kinda sounds like something is wrong, mostly due to her quiet and seemingly unsure inflections.  I don’t think that being drunk really helped her.  It was a good thing that I was actually away when I took the call though because she started talking to me in Spanish, which I know enough of to understand her basic Spanish (she is not a Spanish speaker).  I was a little confused at first, but since I recognized her voice, it clicked pretty fast.

Considering that my friend was drunk enough to know that she wouldn’t remember our conversation tomorrow, we actually had a coherent conversation.  She even apologised for calling so late, and wanted to know if she woke me up.  Of course she had to tell me that I was first person in her address book on her phone on account of my name.  It happens to me a lot, I am either first or last (or close to last).  We also talked about what we were doing for the summer.  I didn’t know that she was working up at Yellowstone, that is cool.  I would love to get up there at some point to visit the park.

The conversation really made me wonder what it is about being drunk that motivates people to whip out their phones and start calling people.  I mean, what did we do before everyone had a cell phone?  I bet there were a lot fewer instances of drunk dialing then.  Now, today, we know that for the most part, we won’t wake up the whole house if we call someone’s cell phone.  Although, if we really know that when we are drunk is a whole different story.  Why do people think it is fun?

Personally, if you are going to hold an intelligent conversation like I had, then it isn’t a big deal, it was nice to catch up, even if I will be the only one who remembers.  On the other hand though, if you are just going call for the sake of calling, what is the point?  I mean, it isn’t quite the same as prank calling people.  Maybe the drunk party thinks it is, who knows?  I bet most people who drunk-dial don’t remember why they thought it was a good idea the next day, so it is probably a moot point in asking.  Whatever.

Morals of story: If you call me late at night I am going to assume something is wrong and be mentally preparing to help you however I can if you ask.  Secondly, to my friend who called, you helped make my night, it was pretty boring before the phone rang.  I am glad we talked even if you won’t remember.

Last night I was catching up on shows that had piled up on the DVR.  It happens pretty regularly especially when we get into hang, focus and tech weeks at the theatre. So, after watching the Ugly Betty episodes and the Project Runways we got to the Episodes of House. I believe that it was the second to last episode of House where he was treating a blogger who blogged pretty much everything about her life and even asked her followers for advice.

One of the interesting ideas that this blogger mentioned was that she felt like it was easier to connect with her followers than it was to connect with people in person. She said that she found it easier to be honest and to really speak her mind on her blog than it was to do that with even her husband. It really made me wonder how many people find this to be the case, and how many people blog for this reason.

I work in a profession that really is all about interpersonal relationships. Even behind the scenes, everything we do in theatre is about communicating with other people (especially the audience). So I don’t usually feel like I have issues connecting with people. I don’t claim to have zillions of friends, but I have plenty of friends who I know in person and I also have a contingent of friends who I only know via the internets. I don’t feel like I divulge any more or personal information with the friends that I have made online.

Personally, I don’t think that a relationship formed entirely online, no matter how well you get to “know” someone online, do you really know them? There are plenty of people who I have “known” for a good while in an online way, but I think that it would really make for a much stronger relationship to know some of these people in person. It begs the question, does meeting someone in person change how you relate to them when you go back to your online relationship?

It was also suggested that “real” privacy is a modern idea. In that years ago when people lived in small towns and not in cities, everyone knew pretty much everything that was going on in the town. There are still alcoves where this still happens like in small departments in schools or in summer camps or the small towns that still exist. The concept of privacy though is what makes blogging hard for some people to understand. We put a lot of ourself on display every time we post even if we are not writing about our lives. Why?

Some people just like to have a creative outlet for posting poetry or short stories. Some people actually do blog about everything that happens in their lives. Some people blog to share their art, photos or opinions. All of these things though, show some insight into the personal aspects of a person’s life. Why are we fascinated with sharing this with the world or whoever stops by?

We are social creatures. Maybe we need more connections and more public lives than what we actually live today. Maybe we seek these connections in the online world because we don’t get enough of them in our day-to-day lives. I certainly don’t have the answers, I just know that I enjoy blogging and finding things that move me to write about them.