nothing better to do

so i'm sitting at work with nothing to do. fairly normal occurrence, really. see, i have one of those positions where what i do is vital to the operation of the company but they can never predict when it is, exactly, that they are going to need me to do it. and if they need it done and i'm not here, there is a problem. so i spend a lot of time sitting around. like now.

i went to gcc for homecoming a few weekends ago, and it was awesome. it was refreshing to drive in a big city that isn't laid out like a gigantic checkerboard. i had forgotten how much i absolutely love pittsburgh - the old neighborhoods, the crazy streets, the bridges, the restaurants, the rivers. the city truly has it's own unique culture. so often cities end up just being loosely connected confederations of separate cultural elements that just happen to be located in the same general area. but not pittsburgh. it is a city of people unified around steelers football, bad weather, refusal to use the verb to be, iron city beer, and a shared history of turn of the century opulence combined with blue-collar labor in the steel mills. the city has not only managed to transcend typical ethnic and cultural separations without losing the individual elements that make those different groups interesting, but it has taken the best of those elements and interwoven them into the shared culture of the city itself. and it is so rare to find a group of people who have so much pride in their city. you don't have people from all over the country living there for jobs. they are born and bred in the steel city, and they are proud of it. i love that about the city. when you are there, you can just feel the culture of the city surrounding you. it's like you can breathe it in. i would probably move there if it wasn't so cold in the winter.

i had a fantastic time at homecoming. i'm so glad i went. it was the first time i'd seen most of my friends since we graduated. i spent friday night on a band bus and at a high school football game (this is what happens when all of your friends are music ed majors). i was at the college all day saturday. it was funny being back, because it definitely did not feel like i've been gone over a year. i talked to one of my professors for awhile, and he was very encouraging about my grad school venture including where i'm looking at applying, which was really great. i was able to catch up with a few of the kids who are still there. i realized that i only had two or three friends left there, which was strange. i didn't go into pew, but somehow i think it hasn't changed much. i spent saturday night and sunday morning hanging out with people in pittsburgh, and, consequently, driving around like a bat out of hell because i was trying to follow kevin all over the city. and he drives like a loon. i think i ran at least two stoplights, and jess and i saw our lives flash before our eyes when i had to cut across two lanes of traffic and immediately merge onto the highway because kevin decided at the very last second that he didn't really want to take the exit after all. sunday morning, dustin and i named ourselves Official Planners and Exalted Czars of the Music Major Cruise. i think it's actually going to happen, which is awesome.