There is no there here either

Here is the nice thing about the Swine Flu. For the first time in my life my obsessive compulsiveness will come in handy. Now I can wash my hands repeatedly and everyone will think that I am just taking extra precautions as opposed to, you know, trying to get rid of the dirt that never seems to wash off. I knew that if I stuck with it long enough eventually it would be proved to be perfectly rational behavior.

It has been a rather long week and I still have one more day in the office to go. It is strange as to just how busy I am seeing that I really don’t do much. I mean, it is not like I am out at the bars every night. In fact, the degree that I go out now compared to when I lived in Kansas City is astounding. I haven’t even made it out to play trivia in weeks. Yet every night seems to be packed even all I seem to do is talk to Kim, watch tv and write. Admittedly, those are some of my favorite things in the world and I look forward to them every day but it is just odd in that they seem to take up the majority of my life.

I guess part of the reason is just the weird area in which I live. Wilmington is just a strange town. For being the largest city in the state and having a rather decent sized downtown there just doesn’t seem to be much to do. I’m sure there is and I just haven’t found it but I still find it odd that I barely pass any fast food restaurants on my way home. Everything that I would like to do always seems to be a fifteen minute drive away and that takes a lot of the fun out of things.

If there is anything that I miss about Kansas City in terms of the town itself it is the fact that I lived in quite possibly the most convenient location possible. I was blocks away from restaurants and bars. Two music clubs that featured national acts were within walking distance. A grocery store was directly across the street. On consecutive nights I could walk to a bar to play trivia and hang out with great friends. The main high end shopping district was a mile away. The only thing that wasn’t within walking distance from my apartment was a Target and a Best Buy. Other than that I could do pretty much anything I wanted without ever having to get into my car.

I guess what I miss is that convenience. I am already planning my list of things to do this weekend because now when I go out it is more of an excursion. I need to know where I am going and what I am going to pick up when I get there because of the time it will take. I have to optimize my trip and on a Saturday I have no desire to be optimizing anything. All I want to do is turn my brain off and just live in the moment. I’m hoping that I will find a way to accomplish that while living here but it has turned into a bigger challenge than I had anticipated.