pubs
Had a fitful and bizarre sleep.
Though I didn’t get through my tasks yesterday either, I had an uncommonly good day. I registered my library card; I found that cafe I’ve been seeking every time I go out for a walk; and generally I felt ready to throw myself into the world. Every little stroll outside the lines seemed to elicit a reward.
Now that I know where the cafe is, I may have a place to retreat to for a few hours. It’s small; it closes at six; it’s cash-only. Yet it’s cozy, it has wi-fi, it’s not overly expensive, and it’s only a few blocks away. This is a good cafe; it’s kind of what I was looking for in the Bay Area, yet never quite found. Good News was cramped, and there was no place to hide. The Breakroom was too loud and too hip and too popular. The other half-dozen places I tried, in SF and Oakland, were just… wrong. The closest I got was The Crepe House, though that was too large, a little too formal, and eventually taken over by less generous management.
I’ve got everything mapped out now. I’ve not really explored Goodnight Blue Monday; still, it’s there and close-by. The cafe is about the same distance, in the same general direction. Barcade is… a bit of a stroll, but it’s not too bad. And that diner in Williamsburg — that was good. That’s not a ridiculous journey either. Pretty soon I may start journeying out; making my mark on the neighborhood.
So there’s one page of rattle. Dum dee dum. I think, as of the last few days, I’ve cleared my head of my immediate neuroses. As much as I want to get down and get honest here, there’s not much more to scrape off my soul. All that’s left is to actually do what I set out for myself.
Having the calendar always open, always ticking over and telling me what I should be up to now — that does help, even if I find myself blowing off the tasks.
So what is it, the… whath? The twenty-sixth. That’s eight days — oh, Saturday. It’s a week from tomorrow, the new-new Doctor Who. I may be more interested in this season than I ever have been in the show. The closest parallel is when the show returned in 2005 — and that is one of the best series in the show’s history, and Eccleston is one of the best Doctors in the run. Yet I wasn’t really invested then.
Before 2005 I had more of a passing interest and curiosity in the show. And then Eccleston had already left the show before I got a handle on him. So in a sense I’ve never had a Doctor, or an era of my own. Tennant was the guy who Eccleston handed off to, and he was… fine. I never bonded with him either, for different reasons, and generally the show’s writing and tone and direction veered off under him. Davies got distracted spinning his plates. And really, I don’t think he put much thought into the show beyond that first season.
Now — okay. I’m invested, and I really like the feel of Moffat’s interpretation of the show. And Matt Smith, he’s going to be “my Doctor”, in the classical sense. This guy is great. It looks like this version of the show is going to inherit everything good about Davies’ — which is plenty, for all the exceptions I might take — and pull it more in line with my own concept of the show. Sort of the Doctor Who I’ve always had in my head while watching all of the other eras. As expectations go, this is a recipe for disappointment. I know this. Still, hey. Excitement.
I may not have as much to write about over the next five years, as far as this show is concerned, if it pans out nearly the way I expect it to. Most of the last five years of jabber was an attempt to make things work in my head, that didn’t quite work in front of my eyes. And hey, that’s what I do; I stretch things out and extrapolate them and make sense of things that don’t quite do it on their own. And what Davies handed out, combined with the previous forty years of nonsense, was flavorful and chewy and inscrutable. So it was fun to play with, if not completely satisfying in its own right. Now maybe I can just watch the show and move on, mentally.
Here’s a note for me, for later — check out WinJournal.