Bags packed. I'll be very lucky if I don't get charged for going over the weight limit, even though I put everything heavy — i.e., books — in my carry-on. I finished my last venti latte. Window sills are all dusted.
Walking back to the apartment with my paper cup of coffee, I felt a little wistful. I noticed things I'd never noticed —the smell of the water the shopkeeper was spraying on the sidewalk — and had to face the fact that there were billions of details that I'd failed to perceive in my 9-month stay. Too late now. Look at all the people I've never met, and — worse — the people I only just met and barely got to know.
I can count it as a positive that leaving the place gives some understanding of all these failures — all these hidden riches. And a trip away from home makes me love home so much more.
It's the thought of going home — of Madison — that moves me the most right now.
१५ मे, २००८
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It's been lovely having you, Prof. Althouse. Have a safe trip home.
Now we permanent Brooklyn residents can stop envying your view of the harbor.
I couldn't get back to Ohio fast enough, during and after temporary employment in NJ where I had grown up.
the smell of the water the shopkeeper was spraying on the sidewalk
when you get back, smell the Madison water.
MM can likely explain to you that water doesn't smell.
what the shopkeeper was spraying OFF the sidwalk smells :)
The smell of water... it's an ozone smell.
"Now we permanent Brooklyn residents can stop envying your view of the harbor."
Envy my view into a 200-year-old oak tree.
Ann,
Looks like Charter will be having a nice surprise waiting for you in Madison and elsewhere in the near future:
May 14, 2008, 8:40 am
Charter Will Monitor Customers’ Web Surfing to Target Ads
By Saul Hansell
Charter Communications, the fourth-largest cable system in the United States, has started telling its high-speed Internet customers that it is going to keep track of every site they visit on the Web.
The cable company will sell the data to a firm called NebuAd, which in turn will use it to show ads to Web-surfing Charter customers that are meant to be related to their interests. (Visit a knitting site yesterday and see yarn ads today.)
Charter started sending letters out to several hundred thousand customers in four markets: Fort Worth, Tex.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Oxford, Mass.; and Newtown, Conn. (The letters were first reported by DSLreports.com.)
Charter said it will start testing the system within 30 days and will make a decision whether to roll it out to its 2.8 million Internet customers a few months after that.
Using data from Internet service providers for what the advertising people call behavioral targeting raises all kinds of questions about privacy, disclosure and who owns the information about where Internet users surf....
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/charter-will-monitor-customers-web-surfing-to-target-ads/index.html?ref=technology
Well at least now that you are not posting from Brooklyn anymore I can go from defense to offense. I think I can get pretty offensive.
Our long national nightmare is over.
Now we New Yorkers can envy you for your larger living spaces and lower housing costs.
G'bye you crummy, humble, homely place,
G'bye Brooklyn, it's been hard to love you;
G'bye dented faces of every race,
G'bye Brooklyn, I could almost learn to love you;
G'bye ringaleaveo, You're It! home base,
G'bye Brooklyn, Yes, I love you.
I have a recurring nightmare. I am playing for some Podunk team like the Royals or the Angels. Away from the city. I would wake in a cold sweat. Thank god for sleeping pills.
(Joe Pepitone, New York Yankee first baseman).
Wellington Mara: Well Vince I am afraid we are going to stick with Jim Lee Howell and we won’t be making a change any time soon. So if this opportunity is there, maybe you should take advantage of it.
Vince Lombardi: I know Mr. Mara. But Wisconsin. Shit. I fuck’n hate cheese.
(New York Giant contract negotiations, 1958)
Commissioner of the NBA: The first pick in the 1969 NBA draft is Fredrick Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr of UCLA by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Lew Alcindor: SHIT MAN! Milwaukee. Wisconsin. Freak’n cheese. You gots to be kidding me. Maybe if I change my name they will trade me.
(NBA draft, 1969)
Well come back home Prof. Althouse. I for one missed hear you opine on WPR morning shows. So in this hot election season I look forward to hear your opinion.
Joe Torre: Mom I have to go to Milwaukee and join Frank on the Braves.
Mrs. Torre: Va funcuolo Dio and tutte e santi. Me poor bambino. There is no mozzeralla in that god forsaken place. Only the Cheddar. Only the Cheddar.
(Brooklyn, 1960)
The exhausted law professor pulled into her driveway and sighed. Home at last. She took her luggage out of the back of the car and opened the door. She put the heavy luggage in the foyer and walked over to her couch. Just to sit and rest for a minute. But the door bell rang. When she opened the door she saw two geeky guys with slicked backed hair, letter jackets, jeans and an odor of Brylcream and Old spice.
Squiggy; Hellllllllooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
Leonard 'Lenny' Kosnowski: We’re your new next door neighbors. Welcome to Wisconsin. Got any cheese.
The professor opened her mouth in a silent scream.
Vaya con dios amiga
We're Wisconsin, Trooper. We got mozzeralla up the wazoo.
Welcome back, see you around the Isthmus.
Not in 1960 man. Only those dirty
Eye-talians were eating mozzarella in those there days.
And in New York only Titus has mozzeralla up his wazoo. The rest of us like it in our caprese salad with basil and a light olive oil.
Plus I bet all her chickens are dead. No one was there to look after them. So sad.
We got plenty of them thar Eye-talians. My girlfriend is Eye-talian. In fact, her whole family is Eye-talian.
I don't like mozarella up my ass Trooper. That is offensive.
I do love a caprese salad though.
We let her chickens go. It seemed like a good idea (after all, it helped Parvarti win $1M).
titusdaddyyourshashairiwonttellmommy said...
Titus, your nom de jour is disturbingly revealing. Unless you're pulling our leg, by all means and for your own sake seek help.
Michael, it is just a joke that a friend and mine play when we are together.
He pretends he's my daddy and I pretend I am his son and we have an incestous relationship.
We laugh about it.
It's a joke.
Lenny and Squiggy as Ann's new neighbors, that's funny...
Sometimes I read this blog and wish I were Ann. All the travel and experiences.
She better get to know Lenny and Squimond fast because they are moving to California. They can get married now.
I have enjoyed your New York photos and observations. I am ending my 8 month sojourn in....wait for it....Wichita, Kansas...... on my way back to Vancouver, Canada. So much less exotic and exciting than your time in New York......Poor pathetic Canadians, eh..........
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