It smells different here...

So I've been back in the city for a little over a month and it is all at once a beautiful and terrifying place. I am trying to take advantage of being in this particular place (and having an income)--this has mostly taken the form of going to events, such as a soccer game and some food-related dinners at the museum. I realize I should have been taking pictures. I've spent a couple of evenings in the last few weeks partaking in glorious meals within the garden. It's nice and it gets me out. I'm trying very hard to not go hermit or in any way replicate the loneliness of the field. It's going moderately well.

Something about living here before makes it feel a little bit like putting on an old shoe everyday. I have adopted all of my old (bad) habits--jaywalking, left side of escalator protocol and etcetera. I used to get annoyed with the morning and evening rush in the underground, but now a more than a decade later, a new layer/source of irritation has emerged. Oh smartphones, how I love and hate thee. There is a very specific sort of crowd behavior that has conditioned people for the peak hours commute. The smartphone has disrupted that significantly. I find myself wanting to shake people, shouting into their faces "you're in a crowd! change the song/send the text/check twitter LATER! p.s. I hate you. Also you are either the epitome of rush-hour conformity or its downfall." But I don't, I just try to be all zen about it and navigate my way through what has become a maze-like space.

I have to say I'm enjoying the city more with a soundtrack. Grocery shopping and walking through campus feels lighter when I can drown it out with my own music. (I know, I know, but still...). I have also found that earbuds are a clever method of avoidance--I'm sorry were you trying to flag me down to answer some political survey? I'm pretending I can't hear you over the bass. The earbuds though brilliant for the auditory are no assistance for the olfactory. There are myriad smells in the city and I can't say I like them all that much. I am already imagining the gulps of air I will take when I step foot on the tarmac back in the high desert in the winter.

Oh yes, and then there is the whole being a professor thing. They call me Professor. It's taking some getting used to. But I like it. A lot. So far I am very impressed with the students and the school. Now that I can get around campus better--city block campus is both helpful and weird--I feel more confident. I've also found some shortcuts through campus which take me by such gems as this phone booth, through some creative landscaping (they were trimming the basil hedge yesterday:good smell), and through the square by the library where I superstitiously pass under the "professor's gate" every day.