duck-shaped pain

(Can you believe that I'm so lame? Here it is December and I'm only halfway through the trip journal, so you can all shake your heads in indignity while reading New York: Part One and Part Two�)

Thursday had been a very busy day, if you can recall. Lots of walking, lots of being social -- all great, but I really felt it when I woke up the next morning. I was achy and groggy and even an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, coffee and an Orangina could not set things right. Although a valiant effort was made.

I got up, creakily, showered in the bathroom down the hall (where J. lives reminds me of a hostel, what with the communal shower and the kitchen, but this would a good hostel, not the ghastly Santa Fe one), dressed. Put on shoes -- normally not a big step, not something worth mentioning, but it set the tone for the entire day.

I brought along two pairs of shoes, which is supposed to be the best thing to do on a trip involving a lot of walking. The theory goes that by switching shoes everyday, this gives your feet less opportunities to be cross and get back at you by blistering right and left.

This only works, though, if you have equally yoked shoes -- if both pairs are equally devoted to the cause of keeping your feet comfortable. And mine were not. I wore the good pair during the previous day's wander-fest, so I thought that I should wear the evil pair [1] today (no, that wasn't what was going though my head -- these did not reveal themselves to be evil until later).

As I was sitting out on the step in front of J.'s apartment building, eating breakfast, some old guy walked toward me, stopped right in front of me, and spoke. "You, you're the best looking girl on this block, you!" he said, pointing at me. Then he walked away.

The difference between me and other women, I think, is that when someone says something like that to me, I assume they're joking.

But anyway. Back to The Year of Museums and Walking Around.

A day with inadequate shoes and already-aching feet is, of course, the best day to attempt to see an enormous museum. I got through it (at least some sections of it) with some measure of success, but this was only possible with a lot of rest stops. Frequent and comfortable benches were my friends.

I saw a lot of things (more than I can remember -- my feeling when I left the museum was one of awe and wonder, but overriding that was ow, my brain is full -- I hate it when I get overstimulated too easily). My favorites include:

• A collection of ancient Greek engraved gemstones (example) -- so tiny, yet so much detail� [2]

• July Hay by Thomas Hart Benton. Benton is my favorite American artist, [3] and while this work is not one of my favorites of his (that honor goes to Susannah and the Elders or the Social History of the State of Missouri murals), it was the first one I've ever seen in person, which was pretty amazing, and was worth the entire trip. The only way it could have been better is if there had been a bench in front of it.

• Medieval stained glass. And lots of it.

• Thinking about all the things I didn't see, which is good enough a reason to go back.

I had lunch in the museum cafeteria, and it was good. I had a big bowl of pumpkin soup, some chilled poached salmon with dill sauce, cracked wheat salad, a lemon bar and an Orangina. It was good for what ailed me, [4] and the contrasting warmth of the soup and the cold of the salmon left a pleasing feeling in my stomach for a long time.

After six hours at the museum, though, I gave up. I just couldn't walk any more, and even plentiful benches weren't helping.

I took the bus back to J.'s apartment, and collapsed for a while.

For dinner, we walked over to a nearby bar, which also served good and cheap food. It was six dollar beer + burger + fries night, which is a bargain anywhere. We ate and talked while listening to the jukebox, which was specially programmed to not play any songs that people like or pay to hear. It would get about 30 seconds into something good and then change its mind.

Pretty mellow evening. Back at the apartment, we listened to music (I played him highlights off the weird CD I made back in August before I went to Chicago -- he was properly amused by "Giant Tickle Feather", only the creepiest children's song ever) and watched his DVD of Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King, which I've been wanting to see forever. The movie was all that I thought it would be (the scenes with David Fair were the best part), and now I know that Byron Coley is much more frightening than I ever imagined.

Then it was time for bed, which I welcomed.

Saturday, 17 November 2001

This was the day I spent money. I got up after a long, restful sleep and J. and I repeated the now-standard breakfast ritual. This time, though, the cashier complained at me for trying to pay with a $20 -- the second time this had happened to me on the trip. That was really odd.

J. went off to teach, after we made plans to meet up elsewhere in the city in a couple of hours. In the meantime, I walked some more around his neighborhood, stopping in at several stores, looking at books, and then sat down for a while to drink coffee and catch up in the paper journal.

At the appointed time, I met J. and we went off to go look at possible purchases. The first stop was a fancy paper store, where I looked through the notebooks and found another of my new favorite notebooks, and I bought one. I could have chosen from a wide array of possible notebooks, though, and choosing this one took some decisions. So many potential stationery purchases: colored staples, silly Japanese stickers, fancy see-though writing tablets, many expensive pens, but I was stoic and only bought the one thing.

We went to Other Music, which pleased me. It was very crowded inside, which inhibited my ability to browse, but I managed to walk out of there with The Beta Band's The 3 EPs and Bascom Lunsford's Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina. [5]

Then we went to See Hear and between us, bought a wide assortment of things -- some comics, some zines, a couple of books. J. got a copy of Found Magazine -- a collection of things people just found somewhere -- which I coveted, but he found it first, so� I ended up getting the new issue of Optic Nerve, some Ivan Brunetti stuff I didn't have, an issue of Anything That Moves and some other stuff that I can't recall that the moment. Must have been memorable.

Dinner was Indian food. People have been telling me for years about the block of the city devoted to nothing but Indian restaurants -- something which my naan-deprived mind had a hard time wrapping itself around. But there we were, with plenty of choice. I don't remember the name of the one we went to -- we chose it for its proximity to where we were standing, plus the excellence of its window display -- but it was good.

J. ordered lamb vindaloo, and I had (of course) saag paneer. It wasn't as astounding (nothing ever will be, I don't think) as the saag paneer I had in Tucson, but it was an acceptable runner-up. I ordered us an assortment of other things -- pappadums, samosas, and a vegetarian fritter assortment. Some of the things in the assortment were familiar to me, but there was one item -- a sort of dark, spherical thing (lights were low, exact color of item was hard to deduct) -- that I had never seen before. It was spinachy, hot and tasty, though. What it was called � I forgot to ask. We had a lot of food, though.

After filling ourselves, we got some coffee and walked around some more, going into some more record stores and comic book shops. I didn't end up getting anything else, but J. cleaned up on cheap CDs that someone was selling out of a box in front of this store.

Back at the apartment, J. gave me more comics to read, made some CDs for me, and I packed. We snacked on chips and prosciutto (unfair, really -- J. can buy better prosciutto a mere block away from where he lives than I've ever been able to find anywhere in Colorado) and attempted to play video games, which became less successful the more tired I got. I have no hand-eye coordination, anyway.

Sunday, 18 November 2001

Instead of the usual breakfast, J. and I went to a restaurant just down the street from the bagel shop. It wasn't terribly cold, just a little brisk, so we sat at one of the outside tables. The waiter thought we were nuts, though. No matter- a little chill makes coffee taste better. J. ordered something hearty and wheaty that came with home fries, and I ordered the elaborately presented bagel and lox platter. It was one hell of a breakfast.

J. had to go off to teach, so we said our goodbyes. It was good to see him again, considering that I'd been promising to visit him for about four years.

My backpack was heavy and there was nothing within easy walking distance that I felt like lugging it to, so I decided to head for the airport. By my calculations, leaving at this point would put me a bit early, but not much earlier than the recommended three hours. So I took the subway to the shuttle bus and took the shuttle bus out to New Jersey again, hoping that the lines wouldn't be too long (they were very long when I flew in, so I was sort of worried).

I checked in at the United counter, and the woman there told me that I could get on an earlier flight if I wanted, since I was there in time to catch it. I thought about my options here: wait in the terminal a long time, or wait in it a short time, and the choice was pretty clear.

The line at security was pretty short, with it being Sunday morning and all. I had to wait a while for them to check my ticket, because of the person in front of me. He had no ID. He had ID when he checked in at the ticket counter, but somewhere between there and here, his ID had gone elsewhere.

"I don't have any ID. My manager took it with him and he left." That was the official reason.

Airline personnel had to be called over, and they explained to the man that he could not go through security or get on the plane without his ID, and what was he doing giving his ID to his manager anyway? They frisked him away before the problem was resolved, which was a shame, since it seemed like a real bad story in the making, and I wanted to find out how it ended.

I went through security with no real problems, except one, where my keychain got confiscated. I had a tiny Swiss Army-style knife on there, which I had completely forgotten about. It was some promotional thing my aunt got mailed and gave to me, and was so flimsy and cheap and useless that I never even thought about it, but it couldn't go through. The woman was nice about it -- she just informed me that I couldn't have it, and I just smiled and said okay. I wasn't going to put up any fuss.

Once I got in the concourse, I was glad that I chose the earlier flight. The United boarding area at Newark is pretty shitty and sparse -- I'm used to the relatively palatial one at the Denver airport with its many restaurants and shops, not some dim bar, several rows of seats and a near-empty magazine stand. I couldn't imagine hanging out here for one hour, let alone three.

Adding insult to injury was the fact that the little newsstand did not have any copies of the Sunday New York Times. The newsstand near security had copies for sale, but I had my hands and arms full at that particular moment, and I wasn't about to go out and then go through security again in order to go buy one. But I was very disappointed. Yes, I can buy one at home, but that's different. Not only were there no copies for sale, but no one around me was seemed to have brought one with them. Oh well.

The flight back home was okay. I was in the toddler row, with two three-year-olds. They were fine -- quiet, still, sleepy Propaganda Toddlers -- but one of them had the most annoying mother. The family had been split up -- mother and son in one row, father and daughter a few rows back -- and the mother was incredibly interested in what her daughter was up to. She kept standing up and turning around and getting out (I was in the aisle seat, so her every move required an equal move on my part) and talking really loud and fussing and fidgeting and constantly asking the flight attendants to check on and ferry notes to her daughter. One time, she asked the flight attendant to go back and ask her daughter if she had taken her vitamins -- I kept thinking, doesn't this kid have a father sitting right next to her who could presumably be replied upon to give vitamins when needed? After this woman's 15th or so time out of her seat, I was ready to deck her. And then she asked if she could have some of my lunch (this was after she declined to be served a lunch of her own).

Got back to Denver in one piece. Luggage was fine. My mom picked me up and we went out to dinner -- some Southwestern restaurant, where I had jalapeno cream pasta -- and then blessed, blessed sleep.

[1] For those of you that remember this picture, from many many site designs ago, they're these shoes:

[2] The problem that I run into when I try and describe things that I see and like is that while I can have all these very intense reactions to things, trying to translate said reactions into words is very, very difficult. Everything that I write seems so trite and inadequate to explain how I feel. This doesn't just apply to this particular instance -- it's a problem that's plagued me forever. It was part of my downfall in art school (trying to theorize and explain why I or others did what we did was excruciating -- the other part of my downfall was not going to class), why I made a lousy music reviewer, and why my explanations of why this book or this dish or whatever is good always seem so simplistic. I just have a hard time turning positive feelings into words. Negative feelings, though, are no problem. I'm pretty good at saying why I dislike things. It's so much easier to be clever and wordy when you're ripping something or someone a new one. Negative (or even neutral) emotions have such an excellent vocabulary attached to them, yet there are only so many ways that you (read: me) can say something is good. To sum up: good things sound alike, but everything is shitty in its own particular and fascinating way.

[3] Not like I ever admitted to that in art school.

[4] My theory is that one should eat salmon when one feels ill or down or otherwise depressed. It always seems to make me feel better. Whether this is because of the added iron, protein and other nutritional bonuses in the salmon or because, in my mind, "salmon" = "expensive" = "special", I'm not sure.

[5] Unfortunately, none of the record stores I went into during my trip had the one thing I was looking for most of all: Hollerin'. Yes, I realize that I could just order it, but that feels like cheating somehow -- I want find a record store that actually carries this, bring it up with pride to the counter, and purchase it in person.

previous | next