Twelve Random Musings

that i'm too lazy to turn into full blogs, but i've never been good at blogging anyway, so what the hell...

• i drink coke when i'm bored - and by coke i mean every carbonated soft drink that's out there. I do not drink it very often, the reason i mention this is cause i'm drinking coke (Mountain Dew) right now, which means i'm bored out of my mind - it's Friday, and i really do not want to do any more work.
  

• Morning is my most favorite part of the day. I like the promise and possibilities it holds, even if the day ends up being as undistinguished and uneventful as any other ordinary day. Still, i find the promise of early morning almost intoxicating, when even the most unlikely event still has a probability of happening.

• Breakfast is my most favorite and perhaps important meal of the day, and i always wake up looking forward to it. Even if it ends up being orange juice and a plain bagel. It hasn't been that long since i started appreciating the joy of something as simple as breakfast, having spent the most part of my “adult” life in self-induced semi-starvation and neglecting such basic needs as food.

• In no particular order: I like apples, peanut butter (and peanuts), bran muffins, cinnamon, crepes, dark chocolate (very dark chocolate, like 85% dark chocolate) and coffee - good coffee, only good coffee, and always freash, preferably brewed and not filtered, the coffee that i make, although occasionally I’ll opt out for starbucks, which leads to…

• I’m a starbucks junky – not because I’m all that crazy about their different kinds of coffees with names that are a foreign language – it's more about the feeling of gratification and self-pampering that every one of their cardboard togo cups holds. i also like the idea of coffee shop culture - long afternoons spent outside some coffee shop (most likely the nearest starbucks) with a good book or a notebook, random encounters and bonding over a cup of coffee between complete strangers... I like the sense of familiarity of seeing the people who frequent that one particular store that i go to and the realization that i'm one of the regulars, especially when i get a free refill or a whole muffin for that matter. This leads to...

• Coffee shops are one of the best places to watch people. People watching is one of the most amusing activities - the better you get at it, the better the stories that you make up to match every face you see, the better the chances in predicting their behavior at any random social situation. I draw comfort from the fact that as random and bizarree human character is, there are certain patterns that can be foreseen, certain behavioural codes, unwritten rules that you intuitively know - and how much in common we all have. Bars are another good place to people watch, although a completely different world with its own, completely different rules - it's amazing to realize that i've learned more about life and people during a year of barhopping when i was in Yerevan, than in the previous five years taken together.
  

• I love cities – or rather the idea of a city, any city. More specifically, downtown. Something about tall buildings and streams of roaring traffic and crowd that makes me feel small, anonymous, almost invisible. I love the feeling of being small next to something so vast and big, I like feeling the weight of those building on my shoulders, i feel safe and hidden in the crowd. i like the noise, smells, sounds - the pace of the city. i wish i worked downtown, since at present moment I ‘m fascinated with downtown Richmond. Funny thing is, although people keep telling me that i will really like Boston, i never had a desire to see it. And still dont. But I'll be moving there in a few months, so we'll see... Cities I’d like to check out in the near and maybe not so near future while I’m in the States - Baltimore, Philadelphia, Charleston, Nawlins at some point, and maybe San Francisco. At some point SF was the top of my list, but lately I'm more drawn to working class, crime-ridden, decaying neighborhoods, which leads to…

• I have a strange and dark fascination with urban decay – as much as i'd like to elaborate on this one, i can't quite explain what it is about things old and rustic that i find attractive, genuine and real...

• Sometimes during my evening walks (and I walk all over the place), when the lights in the windows start coming out, I like looking at the houses and trying picture the people who live there, wondering what their life, or a random moment of their day is like – what they do when they wake up in the morning, how they spend their evenings after they've finished dinner and settled quietly for the night – musings that give me an almost whistful, nostalgic longing, although I know that I’m longing for something I have never had…

• I also like to picture myself in most random and improbable situations and places, trying to imagine different lives that i could have had - trying them on like one would try an outfit... knowing that this one life that i have is way too short for me to experience everything that i wish i could...
  

• Other places that I’d like to see and maybe live in at some point of my life or another: Istanbul (I can’t believe I didn’t go there when I was so close and had a chance); Beirut (for me the symbol of Orient); Tehran, Prague, Budapest and maybe Samarqand… or take that random holiday to Spain and while i'm at it, stop at Lisbon and Morocco on my way...

• I’m still trying to decipher the true and full meaning of decadence…