Withdrawal Symptoms

I'm starting to have withdrawal symptoms from being away from New York City for too long. I have sudden urges to hop subway trains and eat in trendy cafes, window shop and tell someone I'll meet them at a numbered street and a numbered avenue without saying "avenue".

I want to go see a weird museum exhibit, I want to stroll through Central Park and sit down on a park bench and read, or sit in a coffe shop and surf the internet while waiting for a friend before we go see a movie.

I want to take the dog for a walk around the block or to the park to meet others with dogs so they can run around because my backyard is a postage stamp and not the grassy, wooded sprawl I have in reality.

I feel like going to the botanic gardens or to the beach before beach season to truly enjoy it. I want to do all these things I used to do when I was a city dweller rather than what I am now: a suburban commuter. Yeesh. Never thought I'd see the day yet here I am.

Last week I needed a bagel fix so I got a dozen bagels and 1/4 pound of lox. I want to answer questions with a question and be sarcastic and witty while narrowly avoiding double-parked cars.

I want to stroll down the street and see odd things that I wish I had my camera handy for. I want my small group of friends I once had that were always within short driving distance, walk, or bus.

I'm having withdrawal to the way things were, before I was so preoccupied with my academic life. Now that that challenge has been met, I think I am looking for more and city dwelling seems my way I know how. What is challenging about the suburbs?

Going home...

Home. Isn't that a funny concept? It can be a location but mostly it's a feeling. A feeling of warmth, comfort, ease and relaxation. That's where I'm going. Back to where I can be myself. Back to where I grew up and know that people there understand my sense of humor, the way I form a sentence and the sarcastic way I say and do things. Home is being understood by those around you. Home to me is Brooklyn. Where I lived for most of my life. Where I will go back to one day if it will have me. Where I can wander about and find things and do things and know how to get there and know what I'm doing there.

I don't feel pressured or out of sorts. That's what it is all about. Feeling at home in a place and with yourself. That's home.

Random Thoughts and Progressions

So I'm looking forward to my next few days off. I have come to this point in my life where I revel in the freedom I once longed for. I knew it was in my grasp and I fought hard to get there. Here it is. I feel vindicated. Is that the right word? Validated. Is that the right word?

Time off is a treasured thing. I want to focus my life on how to enjoy it most and maximize the time spent. What a novel concept for me. I still feel like I am contributing to the world at large but still can enjoy the time away doing what inspires me or being creative when I feel I can not be in my job. Some day I will be able to join those things I think. That will be a day when I know I have come to where I want to be.

New Orleans in November

I was in New Orleans for SETAC up until this Monday. Good trip. Interesting town. I did all the touristy stuff: walked up and down Bourbon St., went on a Vampire tour, drank a hurricane (only 1/4 of it), had my share of etoufee, gumbo and a shrimp po' boy. Tasted alligator, saw an alligator and an armadillo on our airboat tour. Also got to hold a baby alligator. it's nice to do something new and different every once in a while.

Now I am back to the grind. Did I mention I really hate this time of year? Shorter days, dreary weather, lonely feling, cold, limited to indoor activities, cold, drafts, chills after I eat, dry throats, sore nose, running nose, bad hair, the list goes on and on. Can't wear short-sleeve shirts, can't wear flip flops, can't swim in the pool, can go to the beach but nothing is open if you want to go there. Just got to suffer along until the spring and then realize I am again one year older than I was.

More Intensity and Books

So I will admit I am very much absorbed into the True Blood universe. I started reading the books only a week ago and I am already on book 2: Living Dead in Dallas. Thanks Charlaine Harris for writing something I can sink my teeth into and not get bored.

As for the HBO show, I keep watching things on you tube about the characters or last night I watched this promo thing where Alan Ball gave this synopsis of the whole first season. I am completely enthralled.

Now, last week I was trying to find out what was wrong with me that I am so preoccupied with this. This week I am riding the wave. I am just enjoying the focus and fun of it all. Realizing why I am caught up is half the fun of being caught up. I just love the way Vampire Bill is devoted to Sookie. Even after she thinks she wants to be with someone else. She comes back to him. She awakens something in him he thought he lost. True Love. You can't beat that, even with a Vampire...even better with a Vampire :-)

Intensity

So I've been getting into True Blood lately. On HBO. Had not a whole lot to do last week while I was sick so I caught up on Season 1. There is something that strikes me as either really great acting, great storytelling, or great perception on my part or a combination therein about the scenes where the vampire Bill looks at Sookie. I don't know what it is but there is this amazing sense of combined devotion, love, lust, intensity I find incredibly intriguing. What is that? It makes me think of real life relationships that could have this same intensity but you would never know unless you saw a couple like this or were one of a couple like this.

I like the scenes where he tries desperately to get to her when he knows she's in danger but he is stifled by the daylight. The one episode where he foregoes holding back because it is daylight, he almost burns to a crisp to be there for Sookie. In the next scene where he is back in one piece and waiting on her door step shows what he went through just to see her. Just to be with her. This is some romanticized ideal. Perhaps that is the appeal but I can't get it out of my head what a good feeling it gives.

I like the converations they have because they stare intently at one another. I like the way Bill says Sookie's name. All of this is wrapped into a romantic idealism you don't normally see so I find it refreshing and cute.

I also saw this movie Broken English recently. An indie film with Parker Posey. She meets this French man with whom she falls in love but does not realize it until the end. She's not foolish or crazy about not knowing, just scared and hesistant. But the French guy is also intensely devoted and loving/ caring and seems to say all the right things even when he doesn't know her well and she freaks out in the middle of a cafe they stopped in.

This kind of intensity or love/devotion is rare. I like when it is portrayed on screen. It makes me want to wrap it up and put it in a nice place then pull it out and look at it just to smile and recognize it is out there.

Gowanus Canal Memories

When I was little, maybe 6-10 years old, I can remember going into Manhattan a lot to go shopping for my dad. He needed suits for teaching so we would go to SYMS which was way down at the tip of Manhattan by the Brooklyn Bridge. When we would get on the BQE I would look left to find the Statue of Liberty, way off in the distance, shining kind of light or sea mist green; always very small on the horizon. My brother would try to point out the Twin Towers to me. For the longest time I thought they were these twin smoke stacks at a processing plant. When he would point across the water to the buildings in Manhattan then I knew where they were and I would look for them each time we went into the city. Up ahead was the bridge and I would look across the water to the Manhattan skyline. I used to wonder what all those other buildings were for, who worked there, what did they do for a living? How they got to the top of their buildings. Then, when I would look to my right, as the BQE wound around toward the bridge, we would drive over a small over pass. There was a small canal (I now think this is the Gowanus Canal) that ran under another over pass for trains that was further off in the distance. I looked down at that canal and my little 6-10 year old sensibilities were appalled, even then. That canal was brown. How could anything live in that? Were there fish or anything else in there? There couldn’t have been…then, realizing that we caused that water to be brown. By running our trains over it everyday, by driving our cars across the highway all the time and by not being clean about the industrial things we did, we caused that water to be a murky, muddy mess. That couldn’t be right…it wasn’t right. And I still think it’s wrong.

That’s why I do what I do. That’s why I focus on the issues I do. That’s the reason.