I am still living with your ghost, lonely and dreaming of the West Coast.

how's this for ridiculous: at school, most of what I wrote was about Pittsburgh. almost everything set in Pittsburgh or the vicinity, everything about what it's like and what it means to be from where I'm from. (maybe because at school, everyone thought I was from Philly no matter how many times I told them - it was like being from nowhere at all, after a while.)

and now I'm home, in the middle of the Appalachians again, and all I want to write about is...California, a state in which I've spent a grand total of five days. all I want to read about too, between Kerouac and rereading Moneyball again (I wonder how many people are fascinated with Beat writers and baseball statistics simultaneously, to the point where they seem to be connected? not many, probably).

it's a little stupid. I am following two baseball teams from the Bay Area (or trying, anyway, while keeping up with the Pirates and Sox, not to mention hockey); making a playlist entitled "going to California"; wondering how realistic it is to plan to live in San Francisco at some point if at all possible. wondering how I could handle being that far away, if 3,000 miles is any different than 600. wondering when I can get back to the Pacific Ocean because I need that shit in my life as soon as I can get it.

on top of it all, every time I see Fenway Park on TV I miss Boston to the point of physical pain. it's weird things I miss about Boston. Fenway on game nights, of course, and all the places I can lie in the grass and read and write. the random spots on campus, Boston Common. the fact that I can take a fucking train to a fucking beach. tall buildings, looking out my window from fourteen floors up instead of two. sidewalks. places where I can be by myself, or at least not bothered, being easily accessible. other things I don't miss at all, but almost none of those have to do with the city itself.

I feel like wandering. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen right now, except I don't know what it is. I'm in a minor writing lull - that is, what I want to say isn't coming as easily - which always makes me kinda restless. sometimes when I'm not writing, I feel like I need a change elsewhere in my life to get me moving.