saturday

I'm over in the St. Paul student center while Shannon does some zoo club activity. We are going to look at two apartments this afternoon and time would have been too tight if I had stayed at home. I brought a book, the laptop and knitting so I can fill my time very well. I like having options in case I find myself in a mood. I'm struck by the quiet and the differences here from my undergrad experience. Being on campus is fun and strange because I feel both old and young. I can blend in but I wonder if that makes me pathetic. I feel very alienated from 18 year olds so I hope I don't look like I'm a slave to youth culture or anything.

There are numerous couch and chair filled areas, some with tables, some without. I'm currently in a little alcove down the hall from the bowling alley where there is a tv on the wall playing "Tombstone" on TNT. One lone guy is laid out watching the movie. The St. Paul campus is much more laid back than Minneapolis. It's noon on a Saturday and no one is around, really. People probably study in the libraries or in their homes or all over the city. It's strange because I went to such a small school in the middle of nowhere. Some kids studied at the laundry mat, but most of us stayed on campus either in dorms or common buildings.

At the time I was there 95-99, I don't think there was wireless anywhere. Definately not in the dorms, but maybe in the academic buildings. I didn't have a laptop, just an old Mac classic for the first year for writing papers and playing Tetris. We still had keys to unlock the main doors of the dorms and our student IDs used our social security numbers. Second and third year it began to change. The doors got electric keys, the IDs got random numbers. There were still computer labs in the dorms though. When I went back for reunion in 2005, they were gone and wireless was available everywhere.

A familiar looking actor is beating the crap out of someone on "Tombstone". I think it's one of the Bridges, the guy who was in "The Big Lebowski". It's hard to say because there are crazy moustaches in the movie. Val Kilmer has one but he's easy to identify. Now it's on to a commercial. I have high hopes about these apartments today, even though we said we would stop looking since the snow will start flying any day now. Neither have a fenced in yard, but then are both on the St. Paul campus bus route. One is actually owned by our current landlord. When he called me back, I felt a bit foolish, but it might end up well. He can't complain that we need to give 45 days notice on our current place, but it's his stupid rule. We might be able to transfer our deposit from one place to the next. But I'm getting ahead of myself, we haven't even seen either place yet.

One last bit about knitting. Turns out my EZ baby sweater has hit a snag. I realized that it was just too big. I reread the sparse directions, I consulted "Knitting from the top down" and I figured it out. I had cast on 28 stitches under each arm when EZ really just wanted me to cast on 14 each sleeve for a total of 28. I ripped back to the arms and am plugging away.