off and away
this weekend i was lucky enough to have not only games-night with ice-cream, a teasy but unsatisfying BSG "mid-season finale" & then some new dr. who (i'm learning) with more ice-cream, kitty snuggles, a little loungy novel-reading, a few good rainstorms & a bit of thunder, most-excellent breakfast potatoes, really good luminous evening colors under a high-cloudy sky, & tasty veggie-bean salad leftover from a party sangeethadevi went to this morning, but i also had the added benefit of a one-night stopover visit from whale_girl, who came to games-night, walked around the pond with me telling cat stories, laughed at my friends a lot, and clambered all over this rig in the morning tightening straps and demonstrating her car-gymnastic skills:
(more pics are available at the "photographic evidence" link in the "summer in syr 08" album)
you might not be able to tell from the photo, but that's three boats and one car parked out front of mine-n-annabel's houses. in the morning, we had toast & coffee & a lot of googlemapping, & away she went, west-young-woman etc. today for reasons related to an imaginary realm not my own SK-L (to nab robotapocalypse's nomenclature) & i had a wistful web-hosted-photography-assisted conversation about the likelihood that either or both of us would ever again be able to afford a real, honest-to-god american road trip, to go anywhere, really, but in specific to chase down the disintegrating kitschy monuments of old route 66. i'd already given up the idea of driving myself to new orleans to see ima_spoony_bard because i have no foreseeable source of income and it's simply too much cheaper to fly.
all the great traversing of mythic distances will have to be left to folks other than me this year, and maybe for an indeterminate number of years into the future, if not all of them, considering the climbing costs of gasoline (whether in cars or jets) & the ever-declining monetary value of my credentials & experience, which makes the prospect of rushing off to see claire on her magic fairy island all the more magic-fairy & unreal (which i suppose i should admit it always has been, although it was nice to pretend to believe it for a while). because, you see, she followed through, and went away. a short step first--this weekend's been bonnaroo, & i've had text message-exchanges about kidnapping glen hansard & drinking bacon-flavored vodka in the rain, & then rumor is tomorrow's plan is chasing down the ghost of elvis--but then the big planes & all of her stuff is with her or shipped (or in my basement to be driven to ellicott city before i can't afford to get even that far anymore) & she's home again, absolutely literally on the opposite side of the globe.
which, considering the luck i've known, might be a better place to keep girlfriends than close at hand, but i liked her here, snickering about folks we love and love to hate around text messages to folks we don't hate over a crisp salad lunch at kitty's her last day in town. i don't know if i'll be able to find the right fondness in my heart for maggie-the-dog's jumping on me without claire there to call her smeag-head in her funny crispy vowels, & while i'm sure caleb's actual adorableness hasn't diminished, it's just not the same now that nobody calls him "snorty mc-snort" & makes it sound like a term of endearment. but this is what happens, see, when you adore people--they go leaving, and taking all their preciousness with them.
my very bestest madyonk is taking everything fantastical about herself and her adorable wonderful family right out of my near-driving radius, and her dissertation will be finished so i'll have nobody to bitch with anymore, and josh won't call me "ty-wa" (he'll probably have his r's all straightened out by the time i see him next), and brian won't laugh at me for buying shitty cars and smashing pigeons on the highway, and nobody will overbuy french-toast bagels and leave them tauntingly sugar-crunchy on my kitchen counter ever again. and to add insult to injury, sangeethadevi is going home for a week tomorrow and then moving out three days after she gets back, & so even though she's only moving a few blocks away (to a great deal on campus she'd have been a fool to pass up, so i'm not actually complaining) it feels like somebody handed out wings to all the girl-gelflings but me. or maybe just to all the girl-gelflings, & that's how i found out i'm just a human after all, & i can't fly.
so, quick: somebody ask that swiss jet-man when he's gonna start sharing those things.
(more pics are available at the "photographic evidence" link in the "summer in syr 08" album)
you might not be able to tell from the photo, but that's three boats and one car parked out front of mine-n-annabel's houses. in the morning, we had toast & coffee & a lot of googlemapping, & away she went, west-young-woman etc. today for reasons related to an imaginary realm not my own SK-L (to nab robotapocalypse's nomenclature) & i had a wistful web-hosted-photography-assisted conversation about the likelihood that either or both of us would ever again be able to afford a real, honest-to-god american road trip, to go anywhere, really, but in specific to chase down the disintegrating kitschy monuments of old route 66. i'd already given up the idea of driving myself to new orleans to see ima_spoony_bard because i have no foreseeable source of income and it's simply too much cheaper to fly.
all the great traversing of mythic distances will have to be left to folks other than me this year, and maybe for an indeterminate number of years into the future, if not all of them, considering the climbing costs of gasoline (whether in cars or jets) & the ever-declining monetary value of my credentials & experience, which makes the prospect of rushing off to see claire on her magic fairy island all the more magic-fairy & unreal (which i suppose i should admit it always has been, although it was nice to pretend to believe it for a while). because, you see, she followed through, and went away. a short step first--this weekend's been bonnaroo, & i've had text message-exchanges about kidnapping glen hansard & drinking bacon-flavored vodka in the rain, & then rumor is tomorrow's plan is chasing down the ghost of elvis--but then the big planes & all of her stuff is with her or shipped (or in my basement to be driven to ellicott city before i can't afford to get even that far anymore) & she's home again, absolutely literally on the opposite side of the globe.
which, considering the luck i've known, might be a better place to keep girlfriends than close at hand, but i liked her here, snickering about folks we love and love to hate around text messages to folks we don't hate over a crisp salad lunch at kitty's her last day in town. i don't know if i'll be able to find the right fondness in my heart for maggie-the-dog's jumping on me without claire there to call her smeag-head in her funny crispy vowels, & while i'm sure caleb's actual adorableness hasn't diminished, it's just not the same now that nobody calls him "snorty mc-snort" & makes it sound like a term of endearment. but this is what happens, see, when you adore people--they go leaving, and taking all their preciousness with them.
my very bestest madyonk is taking everything fantastical about herself and her adorable wonderful family right out of my near-driving radius, and her dissertation will be finished so i'll have nobody to bitch with anymore, and josh won't call me "ty-wa" (he'll probably have his r's all straightened out by the time i see him next), and brian won't laugh at me for buying shitty cars and smashing pigeons on the highway, and nobody will overbuy french-toast bagels and leave them tauntingly sugar-crunchy on my kitchen counter ever again. and to add insult to injury, sangeethadevi is going home for a week tomorrow and then moving out three days after she gets back, & so even though she's only moving a few blocks away (to a great deal on campus she'd have been a fool to pass up, so i'm not actually complaining) it feels like somebody handed out wings to all the girl-gelflings but me. or maybe just to all the girl-gelflings, & that's how i found out i'm just a human after all, & i can't fly.
so, quick: somebody ask that swiss jet-man when he's gonna start sharing those things.