Blackfriars Bridge, late 1980′s.
London, I love you thiiiiis much. And by “thiiiiis”, of course I mean, “enough to post what is probably the nerdiest picture of me IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.”
Happy Friday, guys.
(And if you cannot get enough of nostalgic eighties photos, check out the corresponding flickr set.)
Archives for the month of: July, 2005
My heart and furrowed eyebrows are with my loved ones and your loved ones in London. I often consider the Big Apple and the Big Smoke to be sister cities, not just being the twin empires of my heart but also two cities alike in dignity. Perhaps when the buildings fell here, four years ago, Londoners also held their hearts and hands out for our similarities, in an even greater sympathy than the rest of the world, knowing how fragile our seemingly strong metrops are. That’s how I feel now. The subway here feels different today, like the buildings must have felt different in London four years ago. Perhaps I’m drawing unnecessary parallels because my mind can’t settle on anything in particular, flitting about worried for everyone and everything, for the fabric of our daily lives, and perhaps that reminds me and other New Yorkers too strongly of four years ago.
I’m glad that mine are okay, my Londoners. I’m heartbroken that others’ aren’t. I’m thinking about all of you, for your selves and your friends and your beautiful city.
cranky update: actually, I don’t think I included quite the level of uneccesary but cleansing vitriol required when this happens. Fuck you, terrorists. Fuck you in the EAR. You fucking SUCK. You are fucking dingbat bastards that are totally fucktarded and deserve to be clubbed repeatedly over the head with a frozen baby seal but even the seal doesn’t deserve to have to hit your unworthy fucktastic faces. I fucking hate you all. There. I feel a little better – you?
cranky paranoid update: While I’m very glad and always have been for four years now to see friendly NYPD officers in the New York subway system, being on the 43rd floor of a midtown office building and hearing screaming fire/emergency vehicles tearing up eighth avenue and down broadway is always, and continues to be, disconcerting. Also, still, Dear Terrorists, Fuck You, Love, Krissa.
100% more of something: extra. extra-vagant. (It’s sort of like gasting your flabber.)
Super props to Jen and Molly for figuring it out.
It was about one o’clock on Saturday when Stuart woke me up from my lazy sleep but it wasn’t until four o’clock that we hit the road. In between was a lot of jostling and teasing and me whining, “come ON! don’t you want to go on an a’venture?” and Stuart answering, “but in Sleepy Hollow, can I actually sleep?”
We sped over the Triboro and across the Bronx on 87. “Want to bet on dogs?” I asked as the Yonkers Raceway came into view. It was closed. We journeyed on, Gorillaz on the radio.
“West or East side of the Hudson?” I asked as we neared the approach to the Tappan Zee. Stuart deferred and I insisted he decide. I placed a bet in my head – he’d say we should cross the bridge and explore Nyack.
“Let’s stay on this side.” So we slowed the zooming pace down to a leisurely stroll in Mom’s 4Runner, winding our way through Historic Tarrytown on route 9. And then Historic Sleepy Hollow. “Sure is sleepy.” And on through Historics Scarborough and Briarcliff Manor.
And into Historic Ossining. “It should be a verb,” we decided. “To ossin.” We laughed at the clocktower in the center square – Make Time to Enjoy Historic Ossining. “Woo!” we yelled, “that was one historic Ossin!”
We didn’t think we’d find anything as exciting as a dam. As a civil engineering landmark. “An Historic Civil Engineering Landmark,” Stuart pointed out as he read the bronze plate overlooking the weir, with metal ballustrades covered in spiders that fed off the reservoir’s teeming insects. We watched slide gently over the stone lip and sudddenly turn loud and violent, crashing on the natural rocks and stone steps of the dam. We kissed at the bottom. We got into the car and drove around aimlessly over a one-lane bridge and chasing sunlight through dense forests to kiss at the top, with the spiders.
We looked for dinner, keeping our hopes high that the perfect nook would suddenly appear on the road ahead, a surf and turf, a seafood shack, with blue and white moldings and a grey-haired cook. We found the Oceanhouse in Croton-on-Hudson and we ate so decadently as to bely the tiny size of the restaurant – no more than seven tables and run by a husband and wife team. Fireflies flickered in the windows outside our table. Stuart slurped oysters and I paired mushroom and goat cheese, followed by my steak, finished with creme brulee.
And as we drove home through the firefly-lit night, marveling at the stars, only an hour from our home, we congratulated ourselves happily. We were proud of the dam and the Oceanhouse, as if our streak of independence itself had crafted them out of thin air, as if the sheer act of exploring had brought these delights into existence, freed them for others to enjoy as well. We were proud of our sense of a’venture.
We bought a sweet little iMac G3 (graphite) from a friend who was looking to get rid of it for a below-market price. It may be an old model but with TLC, there’s almost no such thing as an outdated mac. And for a couple hundred dollars, it leaves the iBook to roam free around the apartment on wireless. So we brought him into the office, set him up, and voila! Two macs, happily co-existing, Ladybug and Scarab.
It looks like we’re not only DINKs, we’re also DITCs. Rock ON, yuppiedom.
