lazy night, and alone.

before i left work, i thought i wanted to be around people tonight. i was ready for a nice, comfortable, two- or three-person dinner of sushi or burritos or whatever. but my friends were busy, and i'm kind of glad, because when i finally got home i realized that this is what i need. no loud music, no chatter, no company. just me, and an easy dinner, and my computer, and a book. maybe some CSI, if it's on tonight.

we had mega super duper cable in my previous apartment. not only did we get almost every channel available, but the movie channels were on demand, which meant that movies and sex and the city could be played at the touch of a button. i think i watched three or four hours of tv every night in that place. i didn't want to cook, because the kitchen was so dull and crappy and (usually) stinky. my roommates kind of sucked, so i didn't want to talk with them. it was far from almost all my friends, so i didn't go out on impulse. it was winter, and i wasn't about to go trudging around the neighborhood shivering. so i just sat. on my bed. and watched tv. all. the. time. i think about it now, when i'm surrounded by friends a busride away, when my roommates are wonderful, when my apartment has a beautiful kitchen and tons of common space, when i only get four channels clearly, when i'm rarely alone. what a sad existence that was. how did i tolerate it for so long? i suppose the tv was dulling my brain.

my internet wasn't working this weekend. i didn't really feel it because i was at the ambush clinic and settling my old apartment on saturday and cooking all day sunday. but over the weekend, in the times that i was home, i read a book and a half. i read pretty fast, but i haven't been devouring books the way i used to. now, i find myself rereading a lot more often than picking up new books. i've been trying to read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius for a couple of years now. i get through chapter three or so, and then i leave it alone. since starting it for yet another time, i've read four other books. in other circumstances, that might be a sign that it's a crappy book and i shouldn't waste my time with it. but i don't think that's the case. maybe books are just standing in for tv, and i'm reading things i don't really have to concentrate on. it's mindless, like a teen movie. nora roberts instead of freddie prinze jr. who's to say which is a better use of time?

i guess i turn to mindless forms of entertainment when the rest of my day (read: work) is stressful. for a while, work really sucked. now, it just sort of sucks. the stress level has decreased a bit now that our board books are in for printing and there isn't a mad dash of last-minute editing and writing to do. the next couple of weeks should be relatively calm, and i should be able to get out of the office by six-ish every night, i hope. in a couple of weeks, on the 18th, i'll be flying out to istanbul for our annual network meeting. although istanbul is incredible, and there'll be some time to see it (again), i know the meeting will be a stressball of suits and errand-running and photocopying and more last-minute changes and lots of typing up minutes. after 10 or so days in istanbul i'm flying to athens for four days of vacation. i haven't found a place to stay yet, because i haven't decided what i want to see. four days isn't really enough time to go island-hopping, but hopefully i can hit up at least one of the closer islands for a day. i have one weekend off in nyc, and then the next weekend i'm going to middle-of-nowhere ohio for the poultry days tournament, with a team i've never played with before. don't get me wrong, these trips will all be pretty fun. but i know that back-to-back traveling like this will get exhausting. maybe if i could just teleport and avoid all the flying crap it'd be easier. hey, all you inventors out there, get a'working on that.

today in slate there was an article on north korea (here). have other people been saying this? have i just not been paying attention? where are the US's liberation forces now? i read things like this, i hear what's happening in parts of central asia, and i wonder, really, how do powerful men sleep at night? i complain about iranian women having to wear a veil, but everything--everything--pales in comparison to uniform, ruthless, demented repression. if you haven't heard me rant about turkmenistan yet, don't worry. you will.

do you know that, every year, 2 million people die from tuberculosis? tuberculosis. it's fully, perfectly, wonderfully curable. there is a well-researched, easy, and relatively inexpensive treatment strategy that has been preached by the WHO for a while now. i don't know anyone who's ever gotten TB. it's not a first-world disease anymore. but it's the leading cause of death for people with HIV/AIDS--not because their immune systems are shot, but because they just can't afford the medicine. it's a ridiculous epidemic in russian prisons, and when you can't pay for treatment, that means a death sentence for even petty crimes. there's no moral to this story. it's just true. it's just fucking true.

loneliness, television, internet, books, work, travels, north korea, oppressive madmen, health. i think that's enough for one night, don't you?