Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary

The weekend didn't begin well. On Friday, I noticed steam wafting up from my the hood of my car. I was in Nashua at the time and wondered if I'd make it back to Andover. I did, and took my car to Sam's for him to diagnose the problem. I figured I'd run out of transmission fluid or something like that. Nope, turns out I had not one, but two, leaks. The first was an oil leak, which he fixed for about a hundred dollars. The second was a transmission fluid leak, which he did not fix, thankfully, because it was a four hundred dollar job. "It's a slow leak", he said, "but you need to attend to it down the road." Well down the road, I thought. I'm not exactly raking in the bucks.

I watched The Gospel According To Saint Matthew later that night. Been wanting to see it for a couple of years. Who wouldn't want to see an Italian-Neo realist-homosexual-atheist-Marxist's take on Jesus? Despite what you may think, given that pedigree, Pasolini imbued the film with more passion, truth, and transcendence than most other films I've seen depicting Jesus. The cinematography is breathtaking! The soundtrack features Mozart and Beethoven and the spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" is peppered throughout the film. It's uncertain who sang it, sounded a little like Nina Simone, but whoever it was, pulled it off beautifully. If you have Netflix, you can see this movie on Watch Instantly.

Yesterday was ok, but frustrating on the whole. I got my car inspected earlier in the day, and from there I ventured down to Union Square to visit Spira and Janelle, who were exhibiting their wares, in the local craft fair. Took me about a half hour to get there. A shit load of traffic and a ton of lights were the culprits. The trip, ordinarily, should have taken about ten minutes.

Somehow, in the heart of Union Square, I managed to find a parking spot. About twenty feet away, there were tables and booths set up. Ah, this must be where the fair is, I thought. I took a look around -- no Spira and Janelle. Then I spied a sign stating more vendors were downstairs in The Precinct. Once downstairs, I snaked my way through the various rooms filled with people and still no sign of my friends. I asked a vendor if there was another craft fair going on. "No, this is it", he replied.

I called Janelle. She informed me she was on the other side of Union Square. I walked over and met up with her, Spira, and Foley, who had arrived there in a similar manner that I did. I hung out for a while and got back to my car before the meter ran out. It only took me twenty minutes to get home.

Got together with Mara later on. A frustrating experience that I don't want to get into. And, upon my arrival home, a couple of other frustrating experiences, one of which involved having no Internet.

You make the best of things, though. I've been trying to be more proactive in my life and, soon, I hope, my experiences will be more fruitful, carry more weight. Ahead, I see significant changes in the works. The old regime is crumbling, time to make way for the new.