Starting right from where we left off. What was it? Six hours ago? Something like that.

I did as I had indicated previously. Took the next available bus to Boulder, and at 1900, I was roaming what seemed a rather subdued Pearl Street, just after sundown. Stopped briefly at the t-shirt store (you know the one), amused myself by reading the various captions. Decided there was nothing I would buy here at this point, and proceeded on to the Boulder Bookstore.

I wandered immediately down to the bottom, underground floor. I was planning to get two specific O'Reilly books: the DHTML and the Javascript book (I forget which animals they each have). I strangely seem to have found my niche at work in an area where I'm not very knowledgable, and that wasn't on my resume. It just sort of happened that way. I believe that if I read both of the said books from cover to cover, my time on the job would be both significantly more enjoyable and more efficient. Bumbling around in the dark, scanning web pages, or even borrowing a co-worker's O'Reilly book to look something up from time to time just isn't the same as spending a solid weekend or two absorbing the material, with no pressure to get anything done. Just learning time.

Unfortunately, the store had neither. Disappointing. In fact, I found it strange that in a store with multiple floors, their selection of O'Reilly books in general was much poorer that that of a typical Barnes and Noble. I'd rather support a local business, but how can they expect people to patronize them when there are zillions of shelves in the computer section filled with crap, and only a few little O'Reilly books scattered here and there? :(

I suppose that's one argument for shopping online. If you're looking for something slightly less mainstream, searching multiple websites would be a hell of a lot easier than going across town. I still prefer the immediacy of buying things over the counter in meatspace whenever possible. Oh well... On with the story!

After giving up on finding what I had come looking for, I wandered randomly around the store for a while. Through the scifi/fantasy section. I decided I already have enough unfinished books in those categories. Finish reading them before adding more to my queue.

Went to the poetry section, mostly because it was right next to the scifi/fantasy. Couldn't really find much to relate to. It's not that I don't like poetry; I do. I'm just so clueless about where to even start when it comes to reading it. I mean, there's all these authors, so which one do you look at? I tried grabbing a book with a "Recommended" tag under it, by T.S. Elliot. Read this great acclaimed author for a couple minutes, and decided that in order to really form any kind of true appreciation, much less finish one of the damn verses, one would have to spend more time than could reasonably be spent while sitting in a bookstore, taking a cursory glance at the work.

I guess that's one argument for going to school. You go to class, and get someone who can give some pointers about this stuff. Maybe I just got bitter about the whole thing cause I was in the wrong classes. The wrong school. The wrong major? I dunno.

So I continue my random trek through the bookstore (and yes, believe it or not, this rambling actually does contain more than just "adventures in the bookstore". lol. I've barely even gotten started...) Find myself in the section with all sorts of wacky religous books, meditation, shaman, yoga videos, and that sort of stuff. And there's this guy with an accent, sitting at a table with other people around it. He's giving some sort of talk about the body, the mind, how the body needs to be at unity with the mind, or something like that. I listened for a few minutes, and moved on.

Looked at some of the books in the inspiration section. One of them that I happened to pick up and start reading, really just grabbed me. Eternal Echoes, by John O'Donohue. I'm not normally a person who reads this sort of books, but there was something about this one. The rhythmic, hypnotic style prose, and what he said just made me want to read more. Maybe the New Age-ish atmosphere of Boulder was infecting my mind. On a whim, I purchased it.

After exiting the bookstore, I realized I was getting hungry. I attempted to make my way into an old haunt: The Subway downstairs, just east of Broadway. Unfortunately, it was closed for business, so I continued along. As I walked, something that would cause the course of my evening to change caught my eye.

Big, bright, and bold. A poster, plastered on the board. "MATERIAL WORLD" Now that phrase sounds might familiar, doesn't it? Beneath it, an image depicting exactly what I would associate with those words. I looked closer. A dance party. Saturday, March 18. "Wait a sec? That's today!" The Boulder Theater. "Only a block away." 9pm-2am. "Just over an hour before it starts."

For some irrational reason, I knew I wanted to go. Of course, many logistical problems existed. 1) Transportation. The last bus leaves at 11:10. How would I get home afterwards? 2) I wasn't exactly dressed to impress. 3) This book under my arm. I don't want to be carrying it around the whole time. What do I do with it?

The first problem, I just decided to say, "To hell with it." If necessary, I wouldn't be above sleeping on a bench somewhere and catching the first bus in the morning. Or, I could call a Taxi. If feeling truly energetic, I could walk, although the idea of walking for miles at odd hours of the night didn't exactly appeal.

Still, I knew I wanted to go. A rhetro 80s thing. This just seems to be the month for rhetro 80s-ism.

The second problem. Ok, so I wasn't exactly going be a chick magnet. I can deal with that. While a certain one of my New Year's Resolutions was obviously more or less at the back of my mind here, that wouldn't be the primary purpose. I wanted to hear the music. And even if not one of them would give me the time of day, the idea of seeing members of the opposite gender clad in garments designed to look like an artist I once held a certain fetish for, it would still be worth going. :)

In truth, I was also wanting to find a way to get my mind off of...

There was no question. I was going. I decided to deal with the problem of my encumbering book by finding a place to temporarily hide it. After looking around for a while, I found a nice bush surrounding someone's yard, and the chances of them coming to prune their shrubs on a Saturday night were sufficiently low that I decided it would be safe to leave it there for a few hours.

Still aware that I was hungry, and having a half hour left before the fun was to begin, I found a pizza place that was still open, and got myself a nice tasty piece of pepperoni red and some pepsi. Still hungry, I got a refill and ordered the last piece of cheese. The guy behind the counter had been extra friendly and helpful in procuring me a seat, and since I hadn't put anything in the tip jar the first time (I don't normally tip at places like that) I stuck a buck in, ate my second piece, and, my stomach satisfied, I left the establishment.

Still 15 minutes to kill, I wandered into the record store, looked around, listened to some headphones, passed the time. I didn't want to buy anything, because a) so soon after the rambling I just made hours ago, what kind of hypocrite would I be, and b) I didn't want to have to stash more junk under some unsuspecting resident's bush.

Time was near, I went to the theater, bought my ticket, and waited for the doors to open.

Swap full. To be continued...