I am ever-fascinated by the mystique that seems to surround New York City, and the obnoxious obsession with its own greatness that pervades feelings and writings about the place. Of course, a local paper should probably be something of a cheerleader for its hometown, even if that local paper is the New York Times. So I can't be too annoyed by this article. That said, I really have to take issue with a few specific examples of that obsession.
For one, the way that many, include this article's authors, totally exaggerate the "rude New Yorker" reputation. Actually, I've always been pleasantly surprised by the willingness of New Yorkers to stop and help someone find their way. I visited New York twice before I lived there, and both times, as I found myself on a street corner trying to plot my course on a subway map, had people stop and ask me if I needed help finding my way.
I made a point of doing it while I lived there, because I was so happy to have that myth dispelled for me when I was a tourist. Funny thing is, I got asked for directions all the time - literally, every day - at the beginning, when I was fairly clueless myself. As time went on and I got pretty good at it, fewer people asked me. Perhaps New York doesn't harden your soul so much as your face.
And sure, I've had rude cab drivers, but more often I've experienced the (sometimes annoyingly insistent) friendliness of cabbies who actually want to know about me and to talk about their day. Maybe that's because I started the small talk. Maybe New York just isn't actually exempt from the Golden Rule.
So many times I've wanted to shout "YES it's OK to love living in New York! I just don't, AND THAT'S OK TOO."
I can't figure out if New Yorkers have to tell themselves and the world that they're unique and rude and tough in order to gird themselves to put up with the craziness, or if they really want to believe it. Or if they hear "I don't like living here" as "I am weaker than you and/or less able to appreciate the wonders of this city" because the culture of the city mandates it or because a lot of them would otherwise have to admit that they don't actually like living there either.
It's not just "the sinking realization of what an alienating place the city can be, especially for those who are not wealthy or who do not have a pre-existing network of friends." It's not that "the subway maze seems indecipherable." It's the obsession with money, and the need to spend lots and lots of it to live in a non-shitty apartment in a relatively safe and interesting neighborhood within an hour's subway trip of anything worthwhile (like, um, your job).
It's that it's much easier to eat out and go shopping than to get away from traffic and see the stars at night, and I've realized that my priorities are the other way around. It's that that realization doesn't make me weak, but that the New York Times wants you to think it does.
An interesting thing happened when I decided to move to Vermont from New York: a lot of people I talked to got a faraway look in their eyes and spoke wistfully about how great that sounded. Some of them have families and friends and lives settled enough that staying is just easier than leaving. Many have great jobs that are only in NYC. And I totally respect that; I miss the organization I worked for in the city, and one of my major hesitations about going to grad school is that many of the jobs that would be appealing and available afterward are there and nowhere else. We all have to set our own priorities and find ways balance them, despite it often being logistically and emotionally difficult.
And, yes, before anyone gets too pissed off at me, I know perfectly well that many people - good, friendly, interesting people - completely love it there and have wonderful lives and friends and really sincerely can't imagine wanting to live anywhere else. And I'm happy for them.
I just get tired of insisting that I didn't get chewed up and spit out. I just didn't like it. You might hate living in Brattleboro, VT. That's fine. That's why both places exist and are populated (the latter with many transplants from the former, actually).
While this whole thing probably sounds like a defensive tantrum, it's really intended only to offer another perspective that you won't get from that article. My perspective is that, nope, the city didn't fit me; it was always an XXL t-shirt on a small frame, and a grimy-yet-incredibly-overpriced one at that. But actually it wasn't as mean and intimidating as they apparently would have you believe.
It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
i strongly suggest protective head gear
Soon I shall post rapturous odes to the glory of living alone in my wonderful new apartment... but not yet (I can actually hear your sigh of relief).
(I would like to take this moment, however, to speak rapturously of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream, which I happen to be dripping onto the keyboard right now. O! How it dost steal my heart and enlarge my ass.)
(I would like to take this moment, however, to speak rapturously of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream, which I happen to be dripping onto the keyboard right now. O! How it dost steal my heart and enlarge my ass.)
Today I just want to say that on the way to meet The Linguist for a lovely dinner in Greenfield tonight, I pulled up short before turning a corner in order to give a cyclist the right of way. As he looked back, I realized it was one of my favorite folk singers, who happens to live locally. I didn't really come close to hitting him, and the silly man wasn't wearing a helmet, but that didn't stop me from feeling just slightly more startled than I otherwise might in such a situation.
It's like the time I worked up the courage to take my violin to a local session, planning to hide in the back, and ended up stuck in the middle next to a) one of the most attractive men in my community, on whom I have the kind of crush that makes you feel completely stupid every time you're in the presence of the other person, which is both fun and really annoying now that I'm not in 6th grade anymore, and b) one of the best composers and performers of traditional music, um, anywhere. And my violin bridge spontaneously snapped in half while I was trying to adjust the tuning and the pieces went shooting through the air just past Mr. Incredible Musician's head, and I thought to myself, gee, wouldn't it be fun to be forever known as the person who BLINDED Keith Murphy by (very accidentally, but still) stabbing him in the eyeball with a piece of my instrument?
I think I'd much rather stab myself in the eyeball with a piece of my instrument.
It's not that I have it in for musicians or that I'm particularly prone to almost causing bodily harm to musicians I admire. It's just that there are more musicians around here than you can shake a stick at, whatever that phrase actually means, so you're bound to nearly run one over sooner or later. You didn't know that music could be a contact sport, did you?
It's like the time I worked up the courage to take my violin to a local session, planning to hide in the back, and ended up stuck in the middle next to a) one of the most attractive men in my community, on whom I have the kind of crush that makes you feel completely stupid every time you're in the presence of the other person, which is both fun and really annoying now that I'm not in 6th grade anymore, and b) one of the best composers and performers of traditional music, um, anywhere. And my violin bridge spontaneously snapped in half while I was trying to adjust the tuning and the pieces went shooting through the air just past Mr. Incredible Musician's head, and I thought to myself, gee, wouldn't it be fun to be forever known as the person who BLINDED Keith Murphy by (very accidentally, but still) stabbing him in the eyeball with a piece of my instrument?
I think I'd much rather stab myself in the eyeball with a piece of my instrument.
It's not that I have it in for musicians or that I'm particularly prone to almost causing bodily harm to musicians I admire. It's just that there are more musicians around here than you can shake a stick at, whatever that phrase actually means, so you're bound to nearly run one over sooner or later. You didn't know that music could be a contact sport, did you?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
this blog is going to the dogs. don't worry, it will come back.
The best part of yesterday was having so many people show up to help me move that it took only a couple of hours, which is really far less than I deserve. I love my community. The contra dancing community (+ Ben) moving company really should give it a go. We're damn good at this. I had the whole afternoon and evening to unpack and move things around and start to get the place settled.
The worst part of yesterday was realizing that I actually had to say goodbye to The Dog, who is going to Maine today with his actual owner. It's a very good thing, since I'm not living there anymore, the house is pretty empty without my furniture, and he'll love being in Maine with his (human) mama and lots of space to run around. But to give you an idea, I'm almost crying right now at the memory of saying goodbye to him.
Conclusion: I really love my new apartment. And I really, really miss The Dog.
The worst part of yesterday was realizing that I actually had to say goodbye to The Dog, who is going to Maine today with his actual owner. It's a very good thing, since I'm not living there anymore, the house is pretty empty without my furniture, and he'll love being in Maine with his (human) mama and lots of space to run around. But to give you an idea, I'm almost crying right now at the memory of saying goodbye to him.
Conclusion: I really love my new apartment. And I really, really miss The Dog.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
sweet and cuddly except sometimes not (not an autobiography)
My housemate went to Maine to work on a farm this summer, allowing me to wallow just a little bit more in the fantasy that The Dog actually belongs to me. And perhaps letting me gain a little bit of perspective just in time to soften the blow of the upcoming massive separation anxiety I am sure to feel starting next weekend, when I no longer live here and can't live in that fantasy world anymore (nor, because of the rules of my new apartment, can I turn the fantasy into reality by getting a dog of my own, darn it).
While he doesn't hesitate to wake me up in the middle of the night to remind me that I'm a lousy human who continuously fails to do things like stop the thunderstorms or pet him 24 hours a day, we've generally been getting along very well. We go for walks once or twice a day, aka "who will attack us this time?" excursions that are getting a little old, in my opinion, though they do keep us on our toes.
See, The Dog is one of those Very Large breeds, or mix of breeds more accurately, that look scary to people and intimidating to other animals. Little do they know that all he really wants in life is people to pet him and walk him and generally love him ALL THE TIME. That almost any time you hear him growl or bark in our house, it's his way of saying "Hey! Remember how you were going to pay attention to me now?" He is a young adult male pit bull/boxer mix, and those are breeds that love their people (sometimes more than we can handle). And like to dominate other dogs, particularly male dogs.
And we live in a town where there are a LOT of other dogs, including a lot of other large dogs. For reasons that confound me - maybe they watched Lassie too much as kids - a lot of my neighbors seem to dislike keeping their dog on a leash, even when walking down the sidewalk on my street, one of the busiest in town. This is very sweet and happy-go-lucky and all, until my pit bull decides to eat your chihuahua because he thought it was a one of those organic fair trade dog treats they sell at the Co-op.
I admit that this is somewhat hypocritical of me, because The Dog can somewhat regularly be found wandering innocently around the front of our house with no leash, though he knows perfectly well he's not supposed to (oh, don't give me that anthropomorphizing stuff; look into his eyes - he knows). See, we let him out back to pee, and since we live on a hill that's at approximately a 90-degree angle from the road, there's no possibility of building a fence to keep him out there. He knows he's supposed to bark from the back door, but sometimes he wanders around and waits at the front door instead. My biggest fear is that he'll run into the street, followed closely by the fear that someone will get nervous about seeing a pit bull wandering around and call the cops.
Which is what I feel a bit like doing every time we're out walking and we go by a house with a dog running free, and I have to hold my breath and pray that they don't take an interest each other (after all, the other dog might try to defend its rightful territory while The Dog would counter with the old "But I peed on your lawn just this morning" argument, and then the gloves are off). The same applies when we're walking the paths through the woods nearby and pass by people walking their dogs off-leash. I'm guilty of it too, especially on the mountain trails where keeping him on the leash is a recipe for me to get pulled down a mountain much more quickly than I'd like to go (though I am clearly capable of falling on my ass without his help, too). But in the last four days we've gone on five walks, and on each of those walks we have had nerve-wracking encounters with other dogs.
I don't want to give you the wrong impression here. Most of the time he's fine. Most smaller dogs are afraid of him, and he usually just sort of looks over their heads with a facial expression that says "I would almost notice you, if only you weren't such a tiny, insignificant speck." I have to wonder about the little dogs (like the one we met tonight) that jump right at him; either they have a very over-inflated sense of self-importance, or they're actually just flinging themselves toward his mouth on the assumption that that's where they're about to end up anyway, so might as well make it quick.
Many larger dogs aren't a problem either. He likes a friendly butt-sniff as much as the next guy, and likes the ladies enough to make me wonder sometimes if his neuterer did a complete job. But then there's the shepherd trotting along after its owner's bicycle on the opposite side of the street yesterday who merrily jogged out into traffic to come meet us (I think it was going to be a friendly meeting, actually, but I'd rather you not get hit by a car for it, thank you). And the collie we met in the woods the other day, where I could tell things were not looking good just from the way their tails sprung higher and higher up into the air the closer we got. Luckily I had him on a leash and the collie's owner grabbed his dog around the neck and pulled him away as they lunged at each other's faces.
Of course, ten seconds later you'd have never known that he'd just tried to bite another dog's head off. Lunge-chomp-done. Maybe that's better than current human methods of conflict resolution. Our species does things much more slowly, and with far more expensive and complicated weaponry. And we hold grudges much longer. But I don't have the option of putting Dick Cheney on a leash (believe me, I'd take it), so I have to do what I can to help keep order in the little corner of the world that I have some say in. All I ask is that others do the same.
While he doesn't hesitate to wake me up in the middle of the night to remind me that I'm a lousy human who continuously fails to do things like stop the thunderstorms or pet him 24 hours a day, we've generally been getting along very well. We go for walks once or twice a day, aka "who will attack us this time?" excursions that are getting a little old, in my opinion, though they do keep us on our toes.
See, The Dog is one of those Very Large breeds, or mix of breeds more accurately, that look scary to people and intimidating to other animals. Little do they know that all he really wants in life is people to pet him and walk him and generally love him ALL THE TIME. That almost any time you hear him growl or bark in our house, it's his way of saying "Hey! Remember how you were going to pay attention to me now?" He is a young adult male pit bull/boxer mix, and those are breeds that love their people (sometimes more than we can handle). And like to dominate other dogs, particularly male dogs.
And we live in a town where there are a LOT of other dogs, including a lot of other large dogs. For reasons that confound me - maybe they watched Lassie too much as kids - a lot of my neighbors seem to dislike keeping their dog on a leash, even when walking down the sidewalk on my street, one of the busiest in town. This is very sweet and happy-go-lucky and all, until my pit bull decides to eat your chihuahua because he thought it was a one of those organic fair trade dog treats they sell at the Co-op.
I admit that this is somewhat hypocritical of me, because The Dog can somewhat regularly be found wandering innocently around the front of our house with no leash, though he knows perfectly well he's not supposed to (oh, don't give me that anthropomorphizing stuff; look into his eyes - he knows). See, we let him out back to pee, and since we live on a hill that's at approximately a 90-degree angle from the road, there's no possibility of building a fence to keep him out there. He knows he's supposed to bark from the back door, but sometimes he wanders around and waits at the front door instead. My biggest fear is that he'll run into the street, followed closely by the fear that someone will get nervous about seeing a pit bull wandering around and call the cops.
Which is what I feel a bit like doing every time we're out walking and we go by a house with a dog running free, and I have to hold my breath and pray that they don't take an interest each other (after all, the other dog might try to defend its rightful territory while The Dog would counter with the old "But I peed on your lawn just this morning" argument, and then the gloves are off). The same applies when we're walking the paths through the woods nearby and pass by people walking their dogs off-leash. I'm guilty of it too, especially on the mountain trails where keeping him on the leash is a recipe for me to get pulled down a mountain much more quickly than I'd like to go (though I am clearly capable of falling on my ass without his help, too). But in the last four days we've gone on five walks, and on each of those walks we have had nerve-wracking encounters with other dogs.
I don't want to give you the wrong impression here. Most of the time he's fine. Most smaller dogs are afraid of him, and he usually just sort of looks over their heads with a facial expression that says "I would almost notice you, if only you weren't such a tiny, insignificant speck." I have to wonder about the little dogs (like the one we met tonight) that jump right at him; either they have a very over-inflated sense of self-importance, or they're actually just flinging themselves toward his mouth on the assumption that that's where they're about to end up anyway, so might as well make it quick.
Many larger dogs aren't a problem either. He likes a friendly butt-sniff as much as the next guy, and likes the ladies enough to make me wonder sometimes if his neuterer did a complete job. But then there's the shepherd trotting along after its owner's bicycle on the opposite side of the street yesterday who merrily jogged out into traffic to come meet us (I think it was going to be a friendly meeting, actually, but I'd rather you not get hit by a car for it, thank you). And the collie we met in the woods the other day, where I could tell things were not looking good just from the way their tails sprung higher and higher up into the air the closer we got. Luckily I had him on a leash and the collie's owner grabbed his dog around the neck and pulled him away as they lunged at each other's faces.
Of course, ten seconds later you'd have never known that he'd just tried to bite another dog's head off. Lunge-chomp-done. Maybe that's better than current human methods of conflict resolution. Our species does things much more slowly, and with far more expensive and complicated weaponry. And we hold grudges much longer. But I don't have the option of putting Dick Cheney on a leash (believe me, I'd take it), so I have to do what I can to help keep order in the little corner of the world that I have some say in. All I ask is that others do the same.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
purposefully cryptic*
Highlights of the whirlwind Miami trip earlier this week:
- the beach
- speaking Spanish
- delicious handmade pasta (at Spiga, for those of you heading to South Beach for a meal anytime soon)
- watching storm clouds go the other direction, for once
- the beach, early in the morning, empty except for me
- starting the day with real espresso, made by a real Italian guy, in a tiny little Italian cafe, where all the other customers were (really!) Italian.
- eating lunch and reading the newspaper cover to cover at News Cafe (from which Gianni Versace was walking home when he got shot, says my friend Ben) and watching the fancy people go by
- coming home
Lowlights:
- the task I was actually sent there to do, which luckily went OK
- coming back to the hotel, turning on the news, and having the shit scared out of me after the fact
- the Miami Beach version of a good time, which appears to involve lots of money, tiny bikinis, fake tans, nightclubs, and clothing boutiques... none of which interests me, in case you wondered
- the sunburn on my upper lip. Not the lower one, just the upper. How do I do these things? Clearly I carefully covered my lower lip and then stared up into the sun.
- the airport shuttle driver, who said he supported Hillary Clinton and is dismayed that "now they want to paint the White House black." To which I said "yup, and I think it would be one of the best things to ever happen to this country." He changed the subject and started telling me about his Shih Tzu puppies.
I'm tempted to start speculating in print here about why I volunteer for things that might suck. OK, more accurately, I've been speculating for the last five or 10 minutes, then hit the "delete" button. It doesn't it really matter. I do it, I'll keep doing it, and I don't believe in harboring regrets.
But sometimes the things that might suck really do.
*I really can't get more specific, sorry.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
the universe having fun
On Tuesday morning I looked at my boss and said "wow, it's been quite a week... Oh crap, it's only Tuesday."
Part of the problem is that the craziness started on Sunday, when the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival suddenly found itself in the path of a severe thunderstorm that I can only assume was of right-wing conservative suburban origins, given it's apparently strong desire to blow away all us New England folk music hippies. The festival folks are calling it (erroneously, I'm fairly sure) a tornado; my lay-meteorologist brother thinks it was a derecho; I just thought it was a great thunderstorm, except I was worried about the safety of festival-goers (rightly, from what I've since seen on YouTube - people holding up tents by bracing themselves against the tall metal tent poles. Um... tall metal poles? Lightning? Guys?).
Of course, it was easier for me to stay calm - not only did I grow up with (and now actually really miss) that weather, but I was in the dance tent, which stayed upright and dry - if not quiet - under the golf-ball-sized hail. At least, until the over-saturated ground stopped accepting the water pouring down on it - a nearby town reported .93 inches of rain in ten minutes. Ten minutes! - and the whole place flash-flooded, sending water up over the edge of the 3-inch platform dance floor. And the power got knocked out. Of course, what do contra dancers do under such circumstances? A few people grab brooms to fight the water out, the band goes to the middle of the hall, and everybody waltzes (as opposed to contra dancing, which requires a caller with a microphone).
That worked until they advised everyone to get out because two of the big tents had already blown down, and oh by the way DON'T TOUCH THE METAL POLES. Um, yeah, time to go. And, due to trees down on the road to the interstate, it only took me 3.5 hours to make the usually-two-hour trip home. The back roads through the Berkshires are lovely this time of year. Trust me. I've now seen most of them.
Sunday should have warned me about the rest of the week; I may have just stayed home in bed had I properly read the signs. Monday brought some crazy stories from the previous Friday (when I wasn't in the office), trying to find a way to get some very important items couriered from Vermont to Florida ($4000!!) and a surprise last-minute trip to Springfield, MA to pick up the surprise last-minute candidate for Dean of Students (who I loved, yay!). Tuesday brought the request from high-ups in my organization that I be the courier to Florida (no, they're not paying me $4000; that's sort of the point of sending me)... on Thursday.
It's surprisingly easy to make arrangements to fly to and stay in Miami on less than 48 hours notice. And surprisingly easy to cancel them and make them all over again, when it turns out a day later that I actually needed to go this coming Monday, instead of Thursday. I'd actually alread checked into my flight, and assumed that the airline would take this opportunity (since they don't seem to miss one these days) to financially eviscerate me for my "mistake," but no. I called, they canceled it, I called Expedia, and they actually offered me a way to cancel and rebook with no change fee, which they totally did not have to do. The universe is smiling.
The last couple days of the week didn't really match up to the first few (thank God). Now it's Saturday morning and I'm sorting through stacks of CDs that I am going to get rid of (did you hear that, world? I'm getting rid of things. Not a lot of things. But still. I'm actually doing a pre-move purge, aren't you proud? Sarah, this means you).
I'm really just trying to stay awake - it's 10am and I just returned from spending the night on top of a mountain. Adventure Man, in one of his many wonderful outing schemes, loves to go stargazing, and keeps an eye on the moon cycles and cloud cover forecasts. So, we headed up Putney Mountain last evening, hiking the mile or so to the top right at sunset, spread out our sleeping bags, and urged the clouds (and the distant lightning occasionally reflecting off of them) to go back from whence they were coming. We didn't have much success at first, but after dozing off for a couple hours I woke up looking at a blanket of stars over my head. When Adventure Man woke up he exponentially increased my knowledge of constellations, and we just marveled at the view of the Milky Way and the nearly constant shooting stars seemingly just above our faces.
Oh, and I nearly forgot the guy playing the saxophone. After we'd been on the mountain maybe 45 minutes, I saw light flashing off the trees near us. Being fairly sure that I hadn't done any hits of acid before our outing, I looked around and around for signs of other humans, and sure enough after a few minutes a young man came out of the woods on the trail we'd climbed, and as he passed us to find another flat sleeping spot he called back over his shoulder "will it bother you guys if I play some saxophone?" Resisting the urge to ask him how good a saxophonist he is, we said "sure" and proceeded to be serenaded to sleep by what I can only call New Age saxophone. Of all things.
It's not the most rested way to start a weekend, but it's pretty spiritually refreshing. Which I needed, to keep packing through the weekend and be ready fly to Miami bright and early on Monday. Once I'm back I'll just be holding my breath until Move Day, happily just a week and a half away. I just hope that these are really the only things that happen in the next two weeks. Since the last week seemed to last about a month.
Part of the problem is that the craziness started on Sunday, when the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival suddenly found itself in the path of a severe thunderstorm that I can only assume was of right-wing conservative suburban origins, given it's apparently strong desire to blow away all us New England folk music hippies. The festival folks are calling it (erroneously, I'm fairly sure) a tornado; my lay-meteorologist brother thinks it was a derecho; I just thought it was a great thunderstorm, except I was worried about the safety of festival-goers (rightly, from what I've since seen on YouTube - people holding up tents by bracing themselves against the tall metal tent poles. Um... tall metal poles? Lightning? Guys?).
Of course, it was easier for me to stay calm - not only did I grow up with (and now actually really miss) that weather, but I was in the dance tent, which stayed upright and dry - if not quiet - under the golf-ball-sized hail. At least, until the over-saturated ground stopped accepting the water pouring down on it - a nearby town reported .93 inches of rain in ten minutes. Ten minutes! - and the whole place flash-flooded, sending water up over the edge of the 3-inch platform dance floor. And the power got knocked out. Of course, what do contra dancers do under such circumstances? A few people grab brooms to fight the water out, the band goes to the middle of the hall, and everybody waltzes (as opposed to contra dancing, which requires a caller with a microphone).
That worked until they advised everyone to get out because two of the big tents had already blown down, and oh by the way DON'T TOUCH THE METAL POLES. Um, yeah, time to go. And, due to trees down on the road to the interstate, it only took me 3.5 hours to make the usually-two-hour trip home. The back roads through the Berkshires are lovely this time of year. Trust me. I've now seen most of them.
Sunday should have warned me about the rest of the week; I may have just stayed home in bed had I properly read the signs. Monday brought some crazy stories from the previous Friday (when I wasn't in the office), trying to find a way to get some very important items couriered from Vermont to Florida ($4000!!) and a surprise last-minute trip to Springfield, MA to pick up the surprise last-minute candidate for Dean of Students (who I loved, yay!). Tuesday brought the request from high-ups in my organization that I be the courier to Florida (no, they're not paying me $4000; that's sort of the point of sending me)... on Thursday.
It's surprisingly easy to make arrangements to fly to and stay in Miami on less than 48 hours notice. And surprisingly easy to cancel them and make them all over again, when it turns out a day later that I actually needed to go this coming Monday, instead of Thursday. I'd actually alread checked into my flight, and assumed that the airline would take this opportunity (since they don't seem to miss one these days) to financially eviscerate me for my "mistake," but no. I called, they canceled it, I called Expedia, and they actually offered me a way to cancel and rebook with no change fee, which they totally did not have to do. The universe is smiling.
The last couple days of the week didn't really match up to the first few (thank God). Now it's Saturday morning and I'm sorting through stacks of CDs that I am going to get rid of (did you hear that, world? I'm getting rid of things. Not a lot of things. But still. I'm actually doing a pre-move purge, aren't you proud? Sarah, this means you).
I'm really just trying to stay awake - it's 10am and I just returned from spending the night on top of a mountain. Adventure Man, in one of his many wonderful outing schemes, loves to go stargazing, and keeps an eye on the moon cycles and cloud cover forecasts. So, we headed up Putney Mountain last evening, hiking the mile or so to the top right at sunset, spread out our sleeping bags, and urged the clouds (and the distant lightning occasionally reflecting off of them) to go back from whence they were coming. We didn't have much success at first, but after dozing off for a couple hours I woke up looking at a blanket of stars over my head. When Adventure Man woke up he exponentially increased my knowledge of constellations, and we just marveled at the view of the Milky Way and the nearly constant shooting stars seemingly just above our faces.
Oh, and I nearly forgot the guy playing the saxophone. After we'd been on the mountain maybe 45 minutes, I saw light flashing off the trees near us. Being fairly sure that I hadn't done any hits of acid before our outing, I looked around and around for signs of other humans, and sure enough after a few minutes a young man came out of the woods on the trail we'd climbed, and as he passed us to find another flat sleeping spot he called back over his shoulder "will it bother you guys if I play some saxophone?" Resisting the urge to ask him how good a saxophonist he is, we said "sure" and proceeded to be serenaded to sleep by what I can only call New Age saxophone. Of all things.
It's not the most rested way to start a weekend, but it's pretty spiritually refreshing. Which I needed, to keep packing through the weekend and be ready fly to Miami bright and early on Monday. Once I'm back I'll just be holding my breath until Move Day, happily just a week and a half away. I just hope that these are really the only things that happen in the next two weeks. Since the last week seemed to last about a month.
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