Reading (For Dummies)

I Drag Myself into the Town

I headed down to see my dad's new house late night Wednesday. I rolled in around 2:30AM in a move that reminded me somewhat of High School travel-mode. It was a fitting description -- I was to head down to NYC and see some folks from my native habitat in their now-native-habitats (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens). I left Thursday morning for my first unguided trip to the islands.

Being my typical unplanned self, I made a majority of contacts while on the road in the afternoon. Everyone was busy, no-one home. Most people couldn't even tell me where they lived nor how to get there. It was a precursor of what the city life is like. So I decided to drive down to New Jersey and visit Marykate.

MK helped me by giving a plan of action for where to go in the city. I arrived, made phone calls, arranged to meet people. Got stood up repeatedly. Met up with Jason (New Hampshire upbringing prevails over city jet-set life in Jay's case), then finally Mary, who was sort of the main reason for visiting in the first place.

I went to town to see how she was doing after a late-night conversation of the stressed-out sort. Sometimes I feel like I can help just by being a basalt pillar of sanity for people. It's a silly thought, but it lets me sleep at night.

Mary and I went off for some music and bar scene funness, including visiting her favorite band and boyfriend at the Bulgarian Culture Center (416 Broadway). It was pretty amazing music from Macedonia, sung in Greek and a variety of slavic languages, with DJ accompaniment at points.

The following day was a late start wandering around Manhattan with Mary, meeting Lindsay for lunch, swinging by Jay's work, and hanging out in New York's public spaces (libraries, parks, sewers). Towards evening, we ate sushi, drank wine, asked existentialist questions of ourselves, and explored the texture of a loaf of bread together.

The visit, questions, and ideas broke some of the neurons in my brain. I always like when that happens, but I knew that a longer stay in the city would send me into a catatonic state. So I went back to New Paltz on Saturday. My countrified brain needs the humility that comes from rushing water and a lack of people that don't know me.

SUOC was in town, climbing the Gunks. My dad's place is a 2 or 3 minutes drive from the cliffs, so I met up with Bert, Jonas, Ed, and Ben from the club and crashed in various place on my dad's floor.

Another night of little sleep (I had been getting about 4 hours per night in the city) took us all to the cliffs. My climbing sucked even more than usual...I'd like to blame it on not sleeping and dealing with city experiences, but that isn't the case. I've never climbed much, and it's been a while since I've climbed anything outside of a gym (or freaky experiences in Deutschland). More frequent visits to the old man's are in order, I guess. As are less frequent visits to the Citay.