That census meme
Thanks, firecat. (I wanted to write something about the $#%@%@% jeep and the snow day and driving to boston and back to get the cat out of hock, but I'm too damn tired to say anything coherent.) So:
March 1961: we were either still in Chevy Chase (don't know the address) or already back in New Haven. I remember being told I shook hands (at all of 2 and a month) with JFK when he came through during the transition, but don't remember or necessarily believe it. (My mother also told me once that, because of a snafu in the timing of resignations and reappointments, a family friend had been secretary of the treasury for several hours.)
March 1971: In the house in New Haven, across from East Rock Park. Front bedroom. I would have been enjoying the heck out of 7th grade, knowing that I was going to skip directly to high school the next year and never see most of the kids in my class again.
March 1981: In an apartment on Edwards St, also in New Haven. I had finished all my coursework (sort of, barely), but I had to write the non-credit senior thesis for a BA in physics, and that could only be done in the spring. I was also continuing (though I never quite finished) a research project about why the beryllium-on-carbon films they used in a sophomore lab course didn't behave the way they were supposed to. I now think I was completely wrong about my hypothesis. Hung out with my friends who were graduating normally, lived with a guy named steve who was in town to have space to write his senior thesis (on synagogue architecture) from CMU and a crazy classics grad student who had a poster of a french nuclear test on her bedroom door. Later shared an apartment with steve in new york.
March 1991: a nice little one-bedroom on the upper east side. But I was already getting ready to move down to Chambers St -- I'd realized a while before that that if I was getting on the First Avenue Bus every other night at 3 in the morning I should probably live somewhere else. I don't think I was seeing anyone at the time, having made a serious hash of my love life in the previous few years. But I did have a hopeless crush on a co-worker. Or maybe two. That was also the winter/spring that I ripped out all the ligaments in my left ankle (12 weeks unable to accomodate even tiny changes in slope) which gave me an appreciation for the phrase "temporarily abled" that I hope I retain even now.
March 2001: here in vermont, contemplating the first of endless renovations to this house. Kitchen was first, as I recall. Working for various folks in New York remotely, firmly enspoused with J (if you can pack and unpack a house together...)
March 2011: still in vermont. House mostly finished, except the parts that aren't. Officially married for some time. Two charming-from-a-distance offspring, sometimes also charming close up. Hoping this summer I can clear the backlog in the shop (dining room table extension, toddler bed, trim for my office, blah blah blah.)
March 1961: we were either still in Chevy Chase (don't know the address) or already back in New Haven. I remember being told I shook hands (at all of 2 and a month) with JFK when he came through during the transition, but don't remember or necessarily believe it. (My mother also told me once that, because of a snafu in the timing of resignations and reappointments, a family friend had been secretary of the treasury for several hours.)
March 1971: In the house in New Haven, across from East Rock Park. Front bedroom. I would have been enjoying the heck out of 7th grade, knowing that I was going to skip directly to high school the next year and never see most of the kids in my class again.
March 1981: In an apartment on Edwards St, also in New Haven. I had finished all my coursework (sort of, barely), but I had to write the non-credit senior thesis for a BA in physics, and that could only be done in the spring. I was also continuing (though I never quite finished) a research project about why the beryllium-on-carbon films they used in a sophomore lab course didn't behave the way they were supposed to. I now think I was completely wrong about my hypothesis. Hung out with my friends who were graduating normally, lived with a guy named steve who was in town to have space to write his senior thesis (on synagogue architecture) from CMU and a crazy classics grad student who had a poster of a french nuclear test on her bedroom door. Later shared an apartment with steve in new york.
March 1991: a nice little one-bedroom on the upper east side. But I was already getting ready to move down to Chambers St -- I'd realized a while before that that if I was getting on the First Avenue Bus every other night at 3 in the morning I should probably live somewhere else. I don't think I was seeing anyone at the time, having made a serious hash of my love life in the previous few years. But I did have a hopeless crush on a co-worker. Or maybe two. That was also the winter/spring that I ripped out all the ligaments in my left ankle (12 weeks unable to accomodate even tiny changes in slope) which gave me an appreciation for the phrase "temporarily abled" that I hope I retain even now.
March 2001: here in vermont, contemplating the first of endless renovations to this house. Kitchen was first, as I recall. Working for various folks in New York remotely, firmly enspoused with J (if you can pack and unpack a house together...)
March 2011: still in vermont. House mostly finished, except the parts that aren't. Officially married for some time. Two charming-from-a-distance offspring, sometimes also charming close up. Hoping this summer I can clear the backlog in the shop (dining room table extension, toddler bed, trim for my office, blah blah blah.)