Spent with a movie, followed by a few sublimely geeky hours tracing chain suprmarket history in Indianapolis and playing with video on the side, then a torta at Guadalajara, and now I’m reading my book (thanks, Sarah) and watching the big storm from the tiki room.
Sundays do not require excitement.
According to Business Week, that is.
Here’s why I hate stupid non-news stories like this:
That said, I wonder if our ranking would have gone up or down if they’d included Winston-Salem’s actual population (229,617) rather than some random number (33,822) that came from…well…I don’t know where it might have come from.
Remember when reputable publications used to have things like editors and fact checkers? And writers, for that matter?
M is for “meeting(s).”
M is for “myriad maniacal morons in big-ass SUVs on I-40.”
M is for “Monday.”
But at least I managed not to spend the weekend dwelling on an anniversary I didn’t particularly want to remember. Instead, I explored Charlotte with Carroll on Saturday and spent Sunday eliminating things that no longer belong in my life. The latter sounds all mysterious and philosophical and shit, but it pretty much just means “cleaning out the basement.”
How things that might have excited you a year or two back are now more likely just to make you worry about the extra layer of stress they might add to your vacation.
A blanket, a grape Pop-Tart, and a “Hawaii Five-O” rerun on Netflix. What more does one really need on a chilly, damp Saturday night?
Sorry. The title is just a gratuitous Thomas Dolby reference. I’ll actually be driving north, which will be infinitely more fun–if no less expensive.
I’m getting very excited about my upcoming Canadian vacation. Considering how long it’s been since I’ve been all that excited about much of anything, that’s a pretty happy thing to say. Yeah, it’s been a shitty year. The worst ever. By far. So this should be a nice break.
The itinerary is being shaped by an outside force that I shan’t be naming right now (when I get back I promise) and it’s not completely solidified yet, but it looks like I’ll be in Buffalo visiting Sarah and Brad on the 8th and 9th, followed by five days in Toronto, three days in Ottawa, and a few more days in one or more locations that may include any combination of Montreal, Portland, and Schenectady.
It’s going to be a more urban trip to Toronto than the past two; I’m staying close in and am planning to do more walking and transit. Once out of Toronto, I’m looking forward to road tripping across southern Ontario and seeing friends in Ottawa (which I’ll be visiting for the first time) and upstate New York. I’M also planning to do a Stpehen Shore style diary scrapbook kind of thing.
And when I get back, I’ll have a very unique Canadian souvenir. But more about that later…
Assorted thoughts while spending a Friday evening with Gene Tierney:
So I guess there’s a bit of a premium for that convenience. I just went to FedEx and spent more to send something three-day than I would’ve spent at the post office for overnight service. Sigh…
Other Monday stuff:
Time for some Hawaii Five-O…
Since I no longer have the ABC Friday night lineup from 1972 to count on:
Good night, all.
October is traditionally a time of great reflection and new beginnings for me.
Earlier in life, it was the time that the new school year stopped seeming quite so new, when the weather got nice, and when it was time for the fair–which always made me feel like a kid again, long after I’d stopped really being one. It was when I moved to Charlotte in 1986 and San Francisco in 1992, and it was when I began my career as a librarian in 2009. It was in October that I first met the love of my life in 2001 (and October again nine years later when that relationship really began to break down in earnest). And October has always been my favorite time of year to travel.
Now I’m starting my forty-eighth October. The weather has been lovely and the school year is once again becoming less new. I stopped going to the fair after the last three or four times because it doesn’t make me feel like a kid anymore. I’m not moving this year, but I’m starting my third year in this new career and doing quite well with it. And I’m alone again, which may be best for everyone involved–but that doesn’t make it any easier.
As in so many Octobers past, I’m also about to be traveling and pondering the future on a far away highway. I’m probably expecting too much from a simple road trip, but this one is extremely important to me. I need some time to be alone outside my everyday environment. I need to remember that there’s a world outside my little protective cocoon of home, work, and the highway connecting the two. I need to think about what that world means to me, about what my place in it might be, and about how I might proceed in order to get rolling on the next phase of my life. I need to get back in touch with me as an individual (rather than “me as a son” or “me as an ex-husband”) and what is important to my own happiness. I need to stop thinking so much about where I’ve been and start thinking about where I’m going.
And I need something…anything…that makes me feel like a kid again.