magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

got up early. called charrette. it's going to cost me about $45 to print my two 20"x30" files on mylar. i don't really have any other choice. i drove down to the beb. printed the text files i need to include with my final presentation. put the image files on a zip disk. drove over to charrette. they told me it would be about half an hour.

i went back home. called anne's office for directions. called nikki (i sent a message to her cellphone last night saying that i was probably coming to boston today, she emailed me this morning and asked if she could come back to providence with me to drop her risd application off in person). went to the bank. stopped for bagels. then back to charrette.

the traffic light at the corner of point street and eddy street was out. bad omen. (although traffic seems to flow more smoothly through that intersection without the light, odd considering that most providence divers don't seem to understand regular four-way stops.) and sure enough, the power was out at charrette.

"i had just put yr zip in the computer to queue up the files."

and not only hadn't they been plotted. but now my zip was stuck in the machine. i decided to sit and wait. with any luck the power would come back on soon, and i could still get to boston by noon. i waited forty-five minutes. the printer tech managed to get my zip disk out of the machine with a pair of pliers. i decided that i'd drive out to boston and find somewhere to print it there.

stopped back at home. called anne's office again. related my story. said i'd be a bit late. called charrette on my way out the door just to make sure their power hadn't come back on. "actually, it came on right after you left."

figured i'd be better off knowing it was printed before heading out to boston, and so asked them to start the print and drove back down there. when i got there i was told that my files were producing errors and might be corrupted. "but let me just try one more thing." and it worked.

got my prints. hopped in garth's car. and i was off.

i don't think i mention the torrential rain. (garth: is torrential a word? / bean: yes, it's the adjectival form of torrent. / garth: is adjectival a word? / bean: yes, it's the adjectival form of adjective.) rain, rain, rain. i love rain. but it makes driving a little more difficult. still made it to boston in a reasonable amount of time. i was late, but not too late.

however, as soon as i left the highway i got hopelessly lost. and you can't easily backtrack in boston because all the streets are one-way. i drove in circles for about half an hour. finally found a pay phone, and standing in the rain called anne's office again. turns out that i had gotten on the right road off of the highway, but in the wrong direction.

got new directions from where i was. they seemed to make perfect sense. until i started driving again. and got lost again. decided i had no recourse but to buy a map. found out i wasn't too far off at this point. i had passed the road that i wanted a few times, but the sign must have been bent or something.

got to anne's office. had to park a few blocks away and walk in the rain. trimmed my drawings. they were just finishing photographing them, and then anne was rushing off to pick up one of her kids for something.

walked back to garth's car. pulled the map back out and tried to figure out the quickest way to nikki's dorm, for which i only had a street address. got a little lost on the way there, but not nearly as bad. when i found the right stretch of street i figured i could park anywhere and just walk. i was already soaked. pulled over in the first parking space i came to. dropped a few quarters in the meter.

turns out i was right in front of (or behind, the entrance is away from the street side) nikki's dorm. of course i still had to stand in the rain for a good ten minutes before she came down to open the door.

she had found out that the admissions office would not be open, and so had changed her plans to come down on monday. i hung out and talked for a bit though. then got some food. a late lunch for me, early dinner for her.

headed back to providence. still raining. and ran into some heavy traffic on the way back. but it was pleasant enough. i asked myself during the drive why i don't come to boston more often. "oh yeah. that's right. it's 'cause i'm always in studio." it was a nice idea while it lasted though.

and i was pretty exhausted when i got home. vegged in front of the tv for a bit before going to bed relatively early.