the Best Laid Plans...

I just got on the Amtrak in Hudson, en route to New York City, and just BROKE into a train car. Another guy and I were looking for seats, so we just kept going down the train and then there was a locked door, and we both went, "oh, what the hell?" and unlocked it, and found ourselves in an empty car. So here I am, furtively typing, waiting to be forced back to another car to share a seat with an old biddy socialite or a surly businessman. Until then, though, my view of the river is perfect. Gosh, I miss this place (the Hudson River Valley, not NYC).

I actually wasn't supposed to be in the area at all. I was supposed to be flying into Newark tonight from Indianapolis--but, because I hate living a simple life (untrue), here's what happened. I was in Boston last week, and was supposed to return to Indi for 3 days of class, then fly to Newark this week. But I got some manner of horrible flu and was so tired and wobbly on Sunday that I just knew that flying wouldn't work. So my saintlike friend and hostess drove me from the 'burbs of Boston to outside Albany, where I got to spend three days with my saintlike aunt and uncle. It was actually awesome, especially since after 24 hours there I was able to eat again and felt less fuzzy. (I don't know if it was fever or what, but I was having difficulty concentrating and focusing over the weekend. Another reason why flying from Boston to Chicago to Indi on Superbowl Sunday would have been asking for trouble.)

Tomorrow I have four PhD interviews (at the same place) that I am slightly prepared for but am mostly panicked about, and then I get to spend all day Friday in NYC. If anything, this visit has reinforced why I miss this part of the state/country. I miss my family, I miss being close to my college friends, I miss Amtrak, I miss bodies of water, and I even miss the bustle of a bigger city.

So send me scholarly vibes for tomorrow! I'm going to listen to some Amanda Palmer now and type up my interview questions. Over the past few days I've read The Help, read an Agatha Christie, and almost finished a Brother Cadfael mystery. Didn't miss art history too much. Oh, and watched 3 episodes of The West Wing (Season 1) this morning with my uncle. Greatest TV show ever? I think so. This post is all over the place. Blame it on the fever, I guess.

Porch Tales

I spent a large part of the afternoon on my grandmother’s porch. I am a big fan of porches, probably in part because my parents don’t really have one, at least not one to sit on. They are good communal gathering places, but also perfect for reading a book and being slothlike. My sister and I had just finished a rousing game of badminton and retreated to the porch to split a Pepsi and cool off. (I’m not kidding about the rousing part—we play some sort of made up badminton version without nets, or scoring, where you can hit off a bounce and serve however you want. Extra kudos for jumping, knocking things out of trees, especially graceful or dramatic arm movements, or stomping through pachysandra to get to the birdie. Also, my sister’s badminton “intimidation face” is not to be missed.)

Anyway, we sat on the porch, as we have innumerable times before. Since it faces the street, which is moderately trafficked, you can get in some good people watching. We didn’t see any crimes, ala Rear Window, but we did start making up stories about the people who were driving by. It turned silly fast. For instance:

--A truck filled with dining room furniture and five guys drives by: “The guys just graduated from JCC [which is the local community college] and they are getting an apartment. Only two of them are moving in, the rest of their buddies are just there to help. Once they are through moving in today, they will order pizza and have a beer and watch Fight Club.” (I started to say they would watch “the fights,” and then realized that it is no longer 1910 and people do not go to or watch “the fights” anymore, but I still got mocked for the Fight Club switch, especially since I ended up saying “the fights…Club.” Sigh.)
--Older couple in blue station wagon: “adorable grandparents go watch their grandson’s soccer game. No, baseball game, since it’s not the fall.”
--Sedate looking elderly woman in immaculate car: “That woman is drunk.”
--Younger skinny guy in blue car: “Musician on the way to a gig. It is his mom’s car, so he’s being especially careful.”
--Younger skinny guy in blue car, returning from the other direction with a child in the backseat: “Musician on the way home from picking up his cousin/sister/niece/daughter from school. It is his mom’s car, so he’s being especially careful.”
--A man bicycling by, wearing a tie-dye shirt, a fedora and tiny shorts: “Well, he is probably high.”
--Woman in blue car with loud muffler: “Her muffler needs to be fixed, but she doesn’t have enough money to do so. She will have to sell drugs/sell her body/sell Avon/work extra hours to pay for it. Also, she might be pregnant but she doesn’t know it yet.”
--Older couple in red car: “They just moved here from Wichita. They’re not sure what to make of it yet, but they like the lake a lot.”
--A red truck with a flatbed attached, followed closely by another car: “The man in the truck stole it from the woman in the car, and she is chasing him to get back the flatbed. She doesn’t care if he keeps the truck. It was her ex-husband’s. They just finalized their divorce yesterday, and she cleaned him out, which he deserved because he was a total cheater. The only thing he had left was the truck, but he left it at her house so he could go out and drink away his sorrows. He still hasn’t returned from the bars, and now his truck is gone too.” (My sister the English Major told me that this was needlessly complicated.)

After awhile, my grandmother came out to sit with us and got caught up in the act. We speculated about her neighbors, most of who have moved in within the last five years, so we don’t really know any of them. So now, the woman in the little white house and who never opens her shades is probably allergic to sunlight (or is a vampire!) The people in the tan house are hard to pin down because they come and go so much, and there seem to be about three generations moving in and out, so we conjectured about who was related to whom. The people in the gray duplex also keep their shades drawn, but maybe because they are participating in something illicit. The boy across the street’s backpack was too loose for him and kept hitting him in the backside, which can’t have been comfortable for him. A man returned with groceries, for his wife who will not go out in the sun. And so on.

In short: a perfect, sunny, giggle-filled afternoon.

Travelogue: Vacation Day 7

I told my cousin a few days ago that I feel slightly hypocritical, because even though I have moved away from NYC, I still feel justified in judging tourists, especially when they stop in front of me with their maps and pointing fingers. Although she said that I would always be a NYer, I felt a bit like a tourist myself today, since I took some pictures on Wall St and various other points along the way (I'll load some on here sometime!). But I figured, I didn't take pictures when I lived here, so why not? And I wanted to document the St Patrick's Date Day.

Date Night started when one of my very good college friends moved here last April. When we were both working fulltime it was usually something where we'd do something pretty chilled out on Friday nights--movies or hanging out, usually with 5 Guys (Burgers and Fries) involved. She was "sick" today (and what are "sick" days for, if not 60 degree St Patrick's Days?? Really) and so we had an extended day o' fun together. And fun it was! She lives on Wall St, and I've gotta say that I think that area is my most favorite part of Manhattan. The winding streets, cool little pubs, closeness to water (I didn't realize how much I miss and crave and need and love bodies of water until I moved to the Midwest), and just the old feel to it are so fun--it makes me want to wander about and explore. We did wander a bit, and then took the train up to the Upper East Side, where we waded through some parade crowds, got a hot dog and a knish from a vender, and did some people-watching before going into the Frick.

I have a personal fondness for the Brooklyn Museum, but I think the Frick is my favorite museum here. It's so calming and subtly gorgeous and there is so much to LOOK at! Well, it's usually calm, but today was accompanied by bagpipe-ing out the window, which was actually a pretty great touch. My hawt date and I each picked out which painting we would live in if we could--we both picked Turner's, of course; mine was this and hers was this. Their guest exhibit was a show on Rembrandt, his followers, and their etchings, which was a good time. We went outside, did some parade watching, meandered through Central Park to get frozen yogurt, wandered back for more parade watching, took a rush hour train (with 19474561981 other people) back to Wall St, wandered some more, went over to South St Seaport, and then went to (where else?) 5 Guys for dinner. I haven't been eating meat that much lately, but for some reason a burger just hit the spot tonight. We hung out in her apartment for a bit, and then I headed back to Bk, where this exchange happened on the subway:

Woman next to me, bumping my arm accidentally: Oh, I'm sorry!
Me: No problem!
Woman, reaching into her purse: Here, would you like a peppermint?
Me: I'm ok, actually. Thanks though!
Woman, musingly: Green-striped peppermints for a green-themed day! And tomorrow I'll probably be green at the gills. I don't know why I'm celebrating this, I'm only a fourth Irish.
Me: I'm not Irish at all, but sometimes it's nice to pretend.
Woman: I'm not sure who Duncan McClannahan was or really how we're related, but I am celebrating for him tonight!
Me: Sounds like a good plan. Oop, this is my stop! Have a wonderful evening!
Woman: And the same to you!

Who says NYers are grumpy? Not me. Just don't get me started on tourists...

Travelogue: Vacation Days 5 6

I had forgotten how weird NYC makes me feel. It's liberating to be among so many people, with such great people watching. It makes me feel like I can do anything, and no one will care, or notice, which is sort of nice. But at the same time it's very isolating. That's something about living here that I don't miss, the fact that you sometimes just feel like a statistic and not a person. But hell, grad school is isolating too, and this spring break is turning out to be exactly what I needed to break the February-March funk that I always seem to find myself in.

That introspectiveness out of the way, I am in my pajamas, watching TV, and just consumed some red velvet cake for breakfast. Hello spring break! I do have to get through some reading today (of course), but it could be a lot worse. I spent most of yesterday at the Met, which was as usual a fun time. They redid their maps! (gripping stuff, I know.) There was a cool guest exhibit on guitars, AND, best of all, I went through their American Art visual storage and completely dorked out texting some friends in my Gilded Age class. The American Wing has been under construction since I've lived here, and it will be for the rest of this year. It was surreal to see a row of John Singer Sargent's full-length, gorgeously rendered, atmospheric portraits while they are behind a wall of glass, with people hammering and drilling around them. But I SAW them! I realized how wonderful Eakins is in person and how Homer rocks in everything he did. Even better was that one of my friends was simultaneously at the Art Institute in Chicago, so we kept texting each other pictures and things like "I <3 Homer". That's why art kids are cool, my friends.

After the Met, I wandered around Union Square and then got off in downtown Brooklyn to get a bubble tea and wandered around a bit more. My cousin and I got home at the same time and she ordered our favorite Thai food from our amazing Thai place--ginger noodles with tofu and vegetables, vegetarian spring rolls, and calimari. My cousin, who is always a rockstar, stopped by Lord's Bakery on her way home and got a slice of chocolate buttercream for herself and a slice of red velvet for me. Which I finished up for breakfast. Thanks Melis!

So today will probably be low key--I was going to hit another museum, but I've got plenty of time, and admittedly I'm a little art history-ed out. Tonight I'm going to dinner with Melis and my Wall St William Smith friend to Lincoln Center to see Lucia di Lammermoor. I actually don't know that much about the plot (I know she goes mad, but that's all I've got). I'm excited because we are in one of those boxes on like the sixth balcony, so hopefully we can see, and because I have been on a Joan Sutherland kick ever since her death in October, and this was her role. This duet is stupendous. And while I'm not expecting Sutherland-level greatness, I am excited to spend time with those two lovely ladies and get some opera-on.

PS if you are curious about more Brooklyn musings, after I graduated from college I moved here for a year, slept on my cousin's couch, had two odd jobs, interned at a museum, and participated in some shenanigans. Check it all out here.

Travelogue: Transition, Day 4

Last year when I was working at a bookstore in Brooklyn, I was chatting to one of my coworkers (as you do in retail) and he asked, "is there anything that makes you cry that you don’t think makes most people cry? Like, certain things that aren’t really sad, but trigger something for you?"

And the answer, of course, is yes. I suspect we all have things like that. (For me--certain works of art, especially Vermeer paintings, the end bits of some operas, certain letters and emails, and every single Pixar movie.)

I then asked him if he had anything that made him cry and he wasn’t sure why. He thought for a bit, and said that if he had been outside of New York City for the weekend or something and was on the Amtrak back into the city, the first look at the skyline, particularly at night, would make him cry. Despite being Brooklyn born and bred, he said he forgot how miraculous that view of Manhattan is until approaching it from the Amtrak.

Tonight, as I took the Amtrak into the city, I understood.

Even better than that view, though, was the people watching I got in on the subway. NYC, whatever one can say about it, is not dull, and I could use some not dull right now. Some things that I saw:

--4 teenage boys giving each other hugs before they got out at their respective stops.

--2 older women discussing Japanese flower arranging, Bonsai trees, the Botanical Gardens, and their community garden. One of them was the chair of her community garden and had just taken a class on pruning, and when her friend asked if she had a committee to help her, she replied, "sure, I have a committee, but they are a bunch of New Yorkers. What do New Yorkers know from trees and grass? Nothing."

--2 very tall, very thin 16ish year old boys with an 8ish year old girl (their sister, I assumed) on the shuttle. She kept chattering at them about her school day, and when they got off, they told her they would pull her flowered backpack. She started giggling and said, "you look so silly!" and a guy and I behind them started laughing and one of the boys said, "hey! this isn't my backpack, alright?"

--a man swing dancing by himself on the subway platform.

Travelogue: Vacation Days 1 2 3

I am on Spring Break, in sunny (sorta) balmy (well not really) New York state. I figured I would do a few posts while here to let you know what I'm up to, because, let's be honest, my normal daily routine is not the sort of thing to set the presses afire. It's a lot harder to write about reading than it is about...PARADES!

Yep, parades. A slightly less-well-known fact about me is that I jump at the chance to go to parades. Despite being about as unnationalistic as they come, I love all displays of Americana--county fairs, fireworks, picnics, and parades. And I have never been to the Albany St Patricks Day Parade before, but my extended family goes every year. Despite having not one iota of Irish genetics, I am fond of St Patricks day because a lot of my favorite music is Irish/Celtic in origin and soda bread is awesome, and I knew that my relatives + beer + bagpipes = a good time for all, and I was SO right.

To back up a bit: I flew into Albany on Friday after a really great week with my sister visiting me in Indiana. I'm sure there will be further posts about that, but suffice it to say that it was super fun. We ended the week with a massive dance party with my friends, having somehow convinced the DJ at a particular bar to play us multiple Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls tracks. We flew out on two separate planes yet landed in Detroit at around the same time. I met up with my sister and her roommate there, where we went to an airport bar for the first time ever for some very overpriced martinis. Then they flew to Rochester and I flew to the ol' state capital itself. If you were curious, the gate I flew out of in Detroit was in the far end of the C wing, down some stairs, and they were re-carpeting the floor so I had to climb over some carpet rolls and dodge some caution tape. It was pretty classy! One of my cousins picked me up, we collected another cousin at the train station, and headed home.

Saturday morning began Parade Day. We all got decked out in green and headed to the city to check in on one of my cousin's and his friends, who were most definitely drunk but also their normal polite and funny selves. Then we went to another house party, where a really really good college friend of mine met us. After we left and were walking down the street, we walked past the house of a guy who went to high school with my friend, and he was standing on his porch! She knew he lived on that street, but not where, so that was pretty cool. We met his roommates, used their bathroom, chatted, grabbed lunch, and met up with more of my family, including my seven year old cousin, who was wearing a green tutu, and her fabulous mom (another of my many awesome cousins) who was wearing rainboots with chickens on them. My family's tradition is that you walk along the parade route with the parade before watching most of it from the end.
(photo courtesy of my cousin Melis! We're festive.)

Admittedly, there was nothing that spectacular about the parade--some pipes, drums, marching bands, random Irish people, step-dancers, and the like. What was fun was all the various people watching and their shenanigans. The police just give up for the day and don't enforce open container laws, and it seems to work surprisingly well. I didn't see anyone who was belligerent, although I'm sure as the day went on that got a lot worse. And my relatives seem to always find random people wherever we go that they know somehow, so that's always funny. The father of one of my cousin's friends works at City Hall and let us in the basement to use the bathroom, so I can now say I've been in City Hall! In a weekend where so much of the news was about tsunamis and flooding and sadness, it was nice to stop watching the news and just to be goofy for awhile. My friend came home with us and we had really great bonding times before she had to leave for work this morning.

As for today, I spent a lot of time in my grandmother's wing of the house--she's been feeling unwell but seemed to perk up a bit today. We dropped my cousin off at the Hudson train station (a really adorable train station! It reminds me of England). I read for school (about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons), read for fun (Agatha Christie), watched the most TV I've watched in about 3 months, and wrote an abstract (due tomorrow--no sense in waiting til the last minute, say I). My aunt made a tasty salad and shrimp alfredo for dinner, I got to meet the newest member of my family, my 6 month old cousin who is the smiling-est baby boy EVER, hung out with his 6 year old sister who is hilarious, and had the goofy (as they often are) black lab lick my feet. I miss my hometown and parents and my other grandma, but I also love all these people to bits. My family, I often say, is the best.

I leave the fam tomorrow and train-it to Brooklyn tomorrow. Details to follow!

Highway Blues

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
--Visions of Johanna, Bob Dylan

This past weekend I went to my alma mater. The impetus of the visit was to attend a memorial service for a very kind, very genuinely wonderful person, so it wasn't a purely "fun" visit...but parts of it were very fun. I know such lovely people, truly. It was hard to leave this morning, and not just because it was 4:45 am! I've had an achy feeling all day, I think stemming mostly from the fact that I spent 3 days in constant company with some of my favorite people in the entire world, and now I am in...Indiana. And I have been up for too long (even though it is barely dinner time) and I have to read so much and I just want to go back to Geneva and sit by the lake.

I can't dwell on this stuff, because transitions are hard and gross and it will eventually all work out, blah blah blah. I know this. Doesn't make it any easier, though.

So, instead, I will talk about traveling. I fly so rarely (maybe every 4 years, normally, if that) that when I do fly, it is still an exciting adventure. I love people watching in airports. I like the bustle and the possibilities that seem to accompany it--much as I love trains, there isn't that sort of energy associated with them. My flights were all on time, and everything went smoothly, which I'm really glad about. Because truthfully, I don't really like flying, particularly the taking off business. I chew gum like a fiend to help with the ear-popping, but my efforts weren't good enough on Friday, as I developed a reaaaaally bad earache that radiated pain down my face for the duration of the flight, and which stopped soon after we landed, thankfully.

On my way to Rochester, I was seated by a nice-ish man who owned an RV dealership. He was a little too tanned and frat boy-ish for me to really relate to, but we had a good chat about hockey. And he was jazzed that I was going back to college--I think he translated this to going back to Animal House, because THEN I got to hear all about his frat pranks.

This morning I arrived at the Rochester airport to see a HUGE line for security. Turns out there was a "police incident" so they were backed up, but I made it to my flight with minutes to spare. Although I did have to endure this in the security line while we were waiting:
Businessman, after we'd been chatting for awhile: So, art history, huh? What are you planning to do with THAT?
Me, feeling slightly punchy: Oh my gosh, what a GREAT question. No one has EVER asked me that before! (and then I gave what passes for a disarming smile)
Businessman: My son got his degree in theater (note: which he pronounced thee-ay-ter. WHO DOES THAT.) And now he's working at Lowes. Ha!
Me, internally: Good thing I can't have something pointy on my carry-on, because I seriously want to stab you.
And then I was so agitated that I had a coughing fit (probably not related) and stuck the cough drop in my mouth with the paper still on it. Sigh.

Delightfully, the businessman in front of me got randomly profiled so they made him do the air test thing, while I just got to walk through the detector. He was having a conniption fit about it, too. I thought a call to his lawyer was imminent. And THEN I had to walk by them BOTH in business class while I shuffled back to my seat at the back, and they both waved and looked smug. Sigh, again.

It's ok to be back. We did Artemisia Gentileschi in my seminar, and I have a soft spot for her for many, many reasons, so that woke me up a bit (and the discussion was more nuanced than I was expecting, which was gratifying.) And now--time to make a baked potato, unpack, try to organize my life, and get some sleep.

A T-Shirt is Worth a Thousand Words

I have an "Ithaca is Gorges" shirt, which I deeply love. And other people do, too--every time I wear it, I get comments on it from strangers. In Brooklyn it was a good conversation starter with my neighbors ("Ithaca! It's so pretty up there"), the doctor at the hospital ("did you go to Cornell? My daughter did"), people in bars ("I'm from Rochester! Let's talk about Wegmans!"), the library ("I was in Syracuse once. GO ORANGE!"), and random people on the subway.I was not expecting the same Ithaca-excitement in Indiana. However, I was proved wrong. People in class (some I knew, some I didn't) told me it was funny. A guy in the bookstore gave me the up-and-down look, and said, "cool shirt" before sidling off. Best of all, I was on the bus (actually, having just sent my Brooklyn cousin a text saying, "why does the Ithaca shirt make people so excited?") when an older man got on; a professorial type with long, graying hair.

He sat behind me and kind of leaned over. "Cornell?" he said, "or Ithaca U?" " Oh, neither," I replied. "I went to school in Geneva, so I'm from the area." He paused for a few seconds. "William Smith, right?" he said.

I could have given him a hug. I've been having to explain my alma mater repeatedly since being here, and it gets a little old. Coordinate system, Finger Lakes, small liberal arts, "it's right in between Rochester and Syracuse," etc. My professors, by and large, know of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, but the other students don't. Which I suppose is only fair enough--I've never heard of their small Southern and Western liberal arts colleges, either. The only school name I've recognized so far is Sewanee. So I don't know why I feel that New York schools should be known by all, even though most of them have never been to New York. Probably an East Coast bias on my part.

So, it was nice not to have to explain, and even nicer that this guy had gotten the "William Smith" part right, instead of just calling it "Hobart," which happens a majority of the time. Which is majorly infuriating. But anyway. After I squeaked out, "yes!! William Smith," he said, "I lived in Ithaca for 20 years." Well! We had much to discuss--mostly, vineyards, Trumansburg, Cuba's garlic festival, Taughannock Falls, Wegmans (obviously), and how it does not snow nearly as much in Indiana as it does in Ithaca.

He said that Bloomington is equivalent to Ithaca in a lot of ways--Farmer's Market, artsy stuff, live music, and food, but it's not quite as cool. I had been getting an Ithaca-vibe as well, while walking around downtown. While I love Ithaca (and would live there, for sure), I have been known to make fun of it, too. Self-righteously liberal academics, eat-fresh-produce-or-you'll-die mentality, wear only all natural hemp, a slight snobbishness--it lives up to those stereotypes sometimes, I think. But for a few minutes on the bus, a stranger and I bonded over how much we miss New York. And I've got that t-shirt to thank.