zin for breakfast

rhapsody in blue

Rhapsody in Blue is such a city song, and not just because of that scene in Fantasia 2000. It's a raucous and unpredictable song. Just when it seems as though it's fading out, BAM! It's all crashing piano and cymbals like a traffic jam of angry cabbies. I'm listening to Rhapsody in Blue on repeat. I'm also listening to the salsa band that's playing in Morningside Park, and some indistinguishable music that's pulsing through the wall. I get fleeting earfuls from cars that idle down the block. Now that's a city song.

I'd like to make a semi-regular habit of sitting on my stoop. I've never had a stoop, really, at least not one that was worth sitting on. Or I guess it's more accurate to say that I've never had a stoop in a place where stoop-sitting was such a worthwhile activity. In any case, I sat on my stoop tonight until the sun went down. I was inspired by the other stoop-sitters in my neighborhood. I thought you could only sit on your stoop if you were smoking a cigarette or talking on the phone, but plenty of people in New York just kind of hang out there. It was a beautiful night, and a holiday, and it felt a little like summer's last gasp. Maybe that's why there were so many stoop-sitters and families walking and kids staying up past their bedtimes to play in the park. As I parked myself there, I watched all the people around and thought about how healthy communities are those that foster human interaction among strangers. That's why neighborhoods with houses built close together and close to streets can feel so much more "charming" and comfortable than those with sprawling houses separated from each other and the road by expanses of lawn and long driveway. A lot of it has to do with scale. We're humans--we want our surroundings to fit us, but we end up living in places scaled to cars instead of people.

So I was thinking about that as I watched people come and go on the block, and I realized that cities, even cities like New York, are, in some ways, more people-friendly places than suburbs or even places like (gasp!) Sonoma. After all, where else can people walk to get their groceries, take public transportation anywhere, sit on their stoops and come into contact with dozens of people over the course of a night? This was turning into a wonderful, redemptive understanding of city life when the woman next door came out with a bag of trash. I smiled at her and said hello, but she didn't look at me. I kept smiling and looking and smiling while she unlatched her gate, put the bag in the trash can, latched the gate again, and went back inside without even glancing at me. Then I realized that I hadn't even made eye contact with any of the people that had passed by over the course of the night. Not for lack of looking on my part, that's for sure. It's hard to say hello, let alone meet someone, when you can't even look each other in the eye. So there's where cities suffer, I guess. We're all here, walking, biking, lounging around in close proximity, but the lines of communication have snapped close.

Okay, so New Yorkers are notoriously rude, and I guess it's not exactly safe to make eye contact with strangers here. Survival in the concrete jungle, etc etc. But I'm hardly posing a threat, hanging out on my stoop with a book, attempting to look as friendly as possible. It's not even as though I'm trying to start a block party. We don't have to be friends, but can't we just acknowledge each other? I sound naive, don't I. I just figure, here we are, packed together so tightly, our music becoming one cacaphony of a song, sitting almost elbow to elbow on our stoops, we might as well say something.

How am I? I'm adjusting just fine, thank you.

I'm hesitant to write this post because I wanted to have some iconic photo of Manhattan, Columbia, my neighborhood, or something to show you that I'm really here. Unfortunately, I seem to be way too self-conscious to take pictures on these city streets. I know that I'm totally anonymous here and people would barely notice, but I'm intimidated by all the jaded New Yorkers, and vehemently opposed to being mistaken for a tourist. I'd rather pretend to be a "real" photographer, but I don't have a fancy enough camera or a big enough lens or enough of an air of casual expertise to pull that off. Which is all to say, this blog may be a little more text-heavy, at least until I get over myself. Which is really all to say, I'm officially in New York! Sitting in that cozy room as pictured in that first excited post just over a month ago.

Okay, so it's a little scary being back in the big city. But any unfamiliarity there is outweighed by the intense familiarity I feel walking around the Columbia campus, watching tour groups, moms and dads with boxes, kids with "CU Welcome Staff" t-shirts. American colleges are all the same in these small ways, and it's reassuring. It was hot and sunny today, and people in swimsuits were lying on patches of lawn here and there, which reminded me of Claremont, except here the lawns are surrounded by a city of concrete that literally flows into and throughout the campus. There was a long skinny swath of grass that looked perfect for some frisbee throwing, but my guide told me that it rarely gets used. Maybe I'll have to do something about that.

I generally believe that one should never be alone on their first or last night in a place. Technically, I'm alone in my new room tonight, but it doesn't really feel that way. I stayed on campus after my orientation had ended, talking to interesting new people. My mom was with me, via cellphone, while I waited for the bus to pick me up and take me to my new home. And once I got there, my aunt--my guardian angel--called because they knew I'd be here tonight, and she was full of news from Sonoma, including another hilarious Ravenswood run-in that may have landed me a job here in New York. It will never end...

It's only been one, very long, day, but I'm already so inspired by this place and my program and the faculty and students in it. It's going to be, I hope, an intensely focused two years, and I can sense how quickly that time will pass.

In conclusion, I like Garrison Keillor's summation of Californians in this piece for Salon.

You wake up, your laptop is full of e-mails but you're in California so you don't have to reply to them.

I know, right?

small talk

My family is consumed with raising a puppy, and it's nice. It's nice to have a young crazy being in the house, something to lick your face with shameless abandon and nip your nose by mistake. It's nice to see my parents so invested in raising him to be "the dog we always wanted." We went to puppy kindergarten tonight, and although Lucky was sort of psychotic, he actually did really well and made friends with some of the other puppies rather than getting scared and puking in the corner like last time. He's growing so fast, and he seems to think he's still a lot smaller than he is (see photo).

I miss my family in Sonoma and my friends out there. It's sad that we're all so dispersed these days, but it's nice to run into them in random corners of the country, and it's funny to find people I know from Claremont living in my very own humble hometown, 3000 miles away. It was comforting to walk around New Haven and see my favorite coffee shop, my high school friend's dad, the same server working at Ivy Noodle, and then there are these two wonderful friends who have barely been here a week, and this is their home now too. And there will be friends in New York when I get there, although they won't be quite so close, and I know it will be hard to see them often. But it's a comfort to know that they're there.

I'm watching Michelle Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention. She's really good. Maybe she could be president someday too. Oh God, her closing music is "Isn't She Lovely." That almost killed it for me. Almost.  Now Barack is talking via satallite. I like the whole casual repartee he's got going there with his wife and daughters, even though it's totally bizarre to be saying goodnight to your kids on national TV as if you were at home tucking them into their own beds. Somehow I think they pulled it off.

I don't want to talk about the weather on this blog, but I have to mention the fact that it thunderstormed today. I panicked briefly--rain? what?--then I felt okay. And it's cool tonight with a little breeze, which reminds me of fall, and I have to admit that the thought of an East Coast fall is exciting. But only a little. Let's not get carried away.

a long drive ends, plus hula hoops

My old room is smaller and creakier than I remembered. There's a puppy running rampant through the house. There are two giant trees missing from the backyard. So, things change when you leave for a while. I can handle that.

I couldn't update last night because the Golden Eagle Bed & Breakfast in Bedford, Pennsylvania did not have wireless internet. It did have a stellar homemade breakfast though. We ate it alongside a group of middle-aged ladies who said grace before they ate and then hula-hooped in the parking lot after. They were very nice ladies.

Bedford was another puzzling place. It reminded me of the Truman Show in that it was all cuted-up with old-fashioned signs and elaborate window displays, lots of antique stores, penny candy, a small movie theater, your standard nostalgia, but the town was totally devoid of people. 8 p.m. on a Friday night and the streets were deserted. We went to a seafood restaurant for dinner and were the only people there for most of the meal. On the walk back to the inn, we passed the same old white men in what seemed like a continuous rotation. It was as though everything in the town had stayed the same since 1955, so that even the people who lived there forgot that they were getting old.

We did get some great chocolate from a guy who dips everything by hand. He told us about some of the history of the Bedford area, how it played a part in the Civil, Revolutionary, and French and Indian wars. Neon lettering in the factory windows just outside town read, "Jesus Christ Watches Us," which is a strange thing to see in neon. There was a farmer's market in the morning, and we picked up some plums and some little tomatoes.

Today's drive was pretty uneventful. There was no public radio for a while, though. I get anxious when I can't get NPR, and it had been so reliable for most of the trip. I also started getting sad as we headed into the New Jersey/New York area. I don't think I was ready for this vacation, this little in-between space, to end. Now I have a long to-do list and a pile of Very Important Documents to sort through and boxes to unpack and repack and on and on. I'm thinking very little about school, considering it starts in four days. It's one of those things that's so unimaginable, there's almost no point in thinking about it. My strategy, as usual, has been to keep working through details until the big picture hits me in the face. And I'm happy to be in one place, even if it is temporary, and even if my house doesn't quite feel like home.

the many ways of going back

The humidity is rising as we move eastward. My hair is curling all over the place, and blisters are forming on my feet for the first time in years. It's like they're saying, "Welcome home!" every time I take a step. The names of the towns are written on water towers here. For a while it was just a white letter on a hillside, then a name across a row of silos, and now the water towers.

I'm in Urbana-Champaign, IL, on the Urbana side if you want to get technical. It's a college town, home to 40,000+ University of Illinois students, one of whom is my dear friend from high school, Scott. He's starting graduate school on Monday, and he hasn't been here much longer than I  have. We wandered the campus toinight, watching undergrads move into dorms, clusters of freshmen roaming, guys barbecuing on expansive lawns in front of expansive fraternity houses. Frat rows are fascinating to me. All these old, beautiful houses that seem to exist for the sole purpose of getting trashed every weekend.

U of I likes its orange and blue, which I have to say is a jarring color combo. It also likes its souvenier logo glasses,  asian noodles, and $2 beers. I liked those things too. Jaywalking, on the other hand, is not okay. Walking around, I thought about how easy it was to blend in and feel like just another student starting the year. I will be a student again in another week, and while I will be in a much different part of the world, I'll probably be doing many of the same things...getting lost, wandering around, trying to find good food. It's both incredibly easy and incredibly hard to imagine being a student right now. I'm returning--to school, to the east--but nothing about it is going to feel familiar.

Scott kicked my ass at poker on the same denim bedspread where I kicked his ass at poker 4 and a half years ago. Except this time we were in Illinois instead of Cambridge, Mass. And everything was different, but not in a bad way. I think it's good to reconnect with people in your life who remember you at earlier points in your life. Ira Glass talks about this in an episode of This American Life that I heard the other day. These friends are precious for a lot of reasons, but especially because they can show you a snapshot of yourself that you forgot or never knew existed. Or in this case, a homemade CD cover plus liner notes.

It's not over yet. Stay tuned for notes from Podunk, PA.

friendly faces in sunny chicago

Look at these happy friends I have! I'm in Chicago, and it's been wonderful to see some friends again. Not that my mom and I aren't keeping each other company, but you know how it is. It was a long, grueling drive through Chicago-area traffic, but once we got here, the city took my breath away. It's green and open and breezy and full of lots of great architecture and kids splashing around. 

 

We went out to dinner at Julia's favorite hipster spot (Lulu's? Lula's?). It was delicious and full of classic hipster types that were too cool for me. Julia's writing for Time Out Chicago these days, which I think is totally impressive. She's going places, that one.

Tomorrow will be more Chicago and then a little bit of Champaign-Urbana and another long-lost friend. Something more substantial and more thoughts from the road tomorrow.

criminal behavior and the big o

We drove out of Cheyenne and into a dense fog bank that followed us deep into Nebraska. It was the kind that made the road disappear in front of us, and trees were dark forms that faded in and out of the fields alongside the highway. A train slid out of the fog and drifted by. It was eerie.

When the fog burned off, Nebraska turned out to be pleasant in that corn-fields-dotted-with-lakes, puffy-clouded way. We stopped in Gothanburg, home of the first Pony Express Station. Did you know that I love the Pony Express? It's my favorite method of mail transport. I went inside, hoping for some artifacts from the early days of correspondence, but it was just a gift shop.

We also stopped for lunch in Grand Island, where my grandfather's father once owned a hotel. I also made history in this town by receiving my first speeding ticket. Apparently I was going 48 in a 35 zone. She pulled me over like 100 yards before it became a 45 mph zone, that wily, bored traffic cop. I've got a court date in Grand Island on the 3rd of September. Maybe I'll just write the check.

I'm quite taken with Omaha, the big O as they call it. We ran along the Missouri River, walked through some cobblestone streets and had a mediocre zin at an overpriced restaurant and wine bar. It's okay though. I give Omaha points for having a wine bar and not shirts like these from a gas station somewhere in western Nebraska:

Yes, those are 12 reasons why handguns are better than women, including "a handgun won't complain if you're a little fast on the trigger." I do think the others are sort of cute though. 

Omaha feels like a city. There are highways all over, like Cheyenne, but the neighborhoods are more separated out. There seems to be a lot of large-scale construction, and some serious demolition too. Downtown Omaha looks like it's on the verge of yuppiness. The artists' lofts are going up, the Native American Treasures store has opened, there's a swanky French Cafe and a Persian restaurant. But it had a nice feel. Even though the cars and four-lane highways break up the flow, people like to be outside, and we saw plenty of walkers and a few bikers too. It really seems like a city in the midst of a major transition.

 

Can you guess where I'll be tomorrow?

a long drive, part I

Cheyenne, Wyoming is a confusing place. It's criss-crossed by highways and oddly empty at 6 p.m. on a Monday night. There isn't a central focal point within the town, just a small grid of buildings and then the roads just shoot out toward the empty horizon. There are dozens of motels, a major freight train interchange, and a Walmart distribution facility. There are men who stand against their pickup trucks and stare at us as we pass. When the sun set, it filled the whole western half of the sky.

The drive through Northern Utah and Wyoming has been beautiful. Not stunning like Colorado and Southern Utah, but just open and wide-skied, smooth brown hills and grassy valleys. Cattle and fields of wind turbines and train tracks along the highway. I feel self-conscious about my Connecticut license plate out here. My little Saturn can't keep up with all the trucks and semis, but she's chugging along just fine.

I had forgotten about gas station "food."

Tomorrow morning we'll leave early and start driving again. More reports from the road, coming soon.

more talk about things i haven't actually read/seen

I haven't seen Bottle Shock yet, but the town of Sonoma is certainly buzzing about it. Not only is it about the Napa/Sonoma region's rise to international notoriety, but a lot of the movie was filmed here too! I found this site, which details all the scenes that were shot here last summer and where, specifically, they were taken. The first two, Buena Vista Carneros and Duhig Road, where the two guys get a flat tire, are along one of my favorite bike routes. And I'll just say that the flat tire part is more than plausible. There's also a scene at Della Santina, the Italian restaurant in town, and the wine bar next door, Enoteca, plus lots of shots of the town square. I wish I were here to see the filming. The locals were probably going insane, judging from all the hubbub now.

I don't have much in the way of photos right now. My memory card was refusing to store photos for a while. The problem has been fixed, I think, but honestly it's been an overwhelming week. Packing, seeing friends, tying up loose ends. I'm picking my mom up at the airport in a few hours, and we'll spend a day in Sonoma before packing up the car (didn't I just do this?) and driving to Salt Lake City, stop #1 of the cross-country drive. Here's a loose itinerary:
Day 1: Sonoma to SLC
Day 2: SLC to Cheyenne WY
Day 3: WY to Omaha, NE
Day 4: NE to Chicago, IL
Day 5: Stay in Chicago, maybe down to Champagne, IL
Day 6: Somewhere in IL to Somewhere in PA
Day 7: PA to CT. Home sweet home.

I'm going to try to update from the road, plus pictures. PLUS I just stocked up on Poloroid film. I'm hopeful and sad and nervous, but there's no time to worry about much now.

on writing, for once

            

It's been an oddly wonderful last couple days. I've been so inspired to capture all the little moments that are making my last weeks here what they are, but the two mediums I usually turn to--words and photographs--seem to be failing me. Or I'm failing them, I guess. I was thinking about this the other night around 3 am, well into the 2nd hour of my insomnia, after trying multiple times to get something honest down on paper. I was thinking, specifically, about mediums for creativity and why we (I) assume that a moving, beautiful, important experience is wasted if it's not documented in some way.  Part of it is the fear of forgetting, I'm sure. I don't want to lose those images. Me in the dark street, bright bay window, men on the banjo and accordian, an older couple dancing close, shouts and laughter. But I want more than documentation, a log of events, and that's where the creativity part come in. The creative medium is, for me, a way to recreate what's behind the image. It's what makes the moment worth remembering.   I have all these beautiful, important, life-affirming moments collecting inside me, and I can't contain them all, so I try to re-form, to literally produce something from them. I don't know what else to do with them, and I don't even really understand them. I want other people to see and feel what I've seen and felt, and I want us all to be in this place together. It's such a basic desire for me, one that informs my whole understanding of creativity and the purpose of mediums (is it media?) like writing, and that's why I'm frustrated when those mediums fail me. Or I fail them. Or whatever.

I'm looking forward to grad school for many reasons, but one of the biggest draws for me is the audience factor. Given what I've just said about reaching out to other people, it makes sense that I'll write more or better when an audience has been clearly set up for me: as limiting and artificial as workshops can be, they provide, for the duration of the semester at least, a guaranteed audience, people who will read my attempts at translation, documention, connection, whatever it is I'm trying to do, and (I hope) help me do it better.