let Facts be submitted to a candid world
Jul. 16th, 2012 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleI have been adventuring and therefore delinquent as usual, I see.
First there was a brief flying visit with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snowqueenofhoth in New York.
Stayed up far too late Sunday night packing to go see Rachel. Freezing bus ride Monday morning, hopped off the bus and stupidly decided to go shopping for a summerweight short-sleeved cardigan before getting lunch. (In hindsight, should have gotten lunch at the Organic Coffeehouse first. Oh well. I did make it back there eventually.) Went to the 34th st UNIQLO, where they didn’t have the cardigan in black in my size. They called the 5th ave store, which allegedly did, so I tromped over there.
Saw (to my joy) that Jamba Juice at Bryant Park had re-opened, so I bought a smoothie for old times’ sake (pre-made and frozen solid—note to self, don’t do that in the future) and ate the ginger cookies I’d made the night before and read Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon (the publisher finally sent me a copy! amazing!). It was quite pleasant in the shade in front of the NYPL. After drinking the longest-lasting smoothie ever, I went in and had a look round. I wanted to see the Mary Shelley exhibit, but it was closed on Mondays, so no luck. I did enjoy the Doodle gallery though—a contest by Google in which schoolchildren drew the Google logo themed around times in history they’d like to visit. Some very talented young artists and lots of dinosaurs (approval!).
Dinner with Rachel's family, and then karaoke! How didmousapelli and I not notice that our karaoke place is right next to the UN? I suppose it has been a while since Rachel and I sang karaoke just the two of us, and I used not to know the songs as well, or had scruples about making up random syllables. Heh. Guess all that practice with Mousi is paying off.
Poor Rachel’s shoes had also given her blisters, so the exact method of our getting across town to Penn Station was in question, but we finally settled on the subway. We made it just in time for me to gobble some delicious but badly over-priced pomegranate-chocolate-swirl fro-yo at Organic Coffeehouse and make my bus. I turned up Yamapi’s discography, as is traditional, and attempted to read my J-pop book in between naps.
The following week I took a tiny tiny plane to visit my friend M. in the Adirondacks.
I was totally delighted with the airplane—-it was tiny and sleek, painted blue and white, and could seat ten, counting the pilot. Part of my delight was informed by Code Name Verity, and this made me unusually sentimental about it. Everything was fine going up, and I enjoyed the smooth flight (perhaps I had been hoping for a little turbulence, just the really get the feel of the tiny plane, but no, everything was peachy). During the descent, though, the eardrum pain was excruciating. Note to self: try not to fly with clogged sinuses, no matter how much they have improved over the past two days. I tried to recall “The Windhover” and recited it grimly to myself, imperfectly, over and over again.
Here it is, for the record:
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, of course.
We had sunset for most of the hour-and-a-half flight, but arrived under cover of darkness. This prevented me from actually seeing the mountains, but I didn’t mind. I like arriving places after dark; it feels like coming home. And if there is a bed at the end of the journey, so much the better. M. picked me up from the tiny airport (so cute! so very rustic!) and we stopped in a parking lot to stargaze a little. It was such a beautiful night—-cool and clear (I was glad I’d brought my cardigan) and so full of pine trees and stars.
In the morning we had English muffins and butter and jam and peanut butter and grits and cheese. Then M. wrote for an hour and I sat on the back porch in the sun and read The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I don’t know why but I have been on a pre-and-post-and-during-World-War-II streak this summer—Code Name Verity, the Montmaray books, Brideshead Revisited on the brain, I Capture the Castle, and now this. Anyway TGLPPPS is quite charming, and though it becomes decreasingly so, is a worthy feel-good read. I hate feel-good reads, but this one had enough charm and eccentricity to get me invested enough to finish.
Then a jaunt about the historic town of Saranac Lake, including a walk to a delicious soft-serve ice cream shack, and the purchase of simmer sauce, vegetables, and two blocks of bulk tofu. We thought that might be a bit too much tofu, but I swore to eat any left over.
We fully intended to go canoeing once we got back to M.’s house, but as fate would have it, lack of rain meant that the landing was rather less marshy than usual and more muddy. We thought perhaps we could just push the canoe out a bit further, make our way round to a more amicable spot, and hop in, but at that moment the lake tried to drown me in mud up to my hips, and so that plan had to be abandoned. After we hosed ourselves off, we walked round to a wading spot and had a pleasant half-hour wade (me) and swim (M.) and talk about life, the universe, and everything including our proposed road trip out West come fall and moving-day for both of us.
Then we went back and cooked our vegetables and tofu and simmer sauce and ate them over magically fluffy couscous.
I had been telling M. about the Anna Russell DVD a co-worker had loaned me, with the twenty-minute analysis of Wagner’s Ring Cycle… and lo and behold, what did I espy but that very DVD, sitting on the counter. We promptly watched the whole thing.
I was unexpectedly tired (I guess wading through three-and-a-half feet of mud will tire you out) and went to bed early. Next morning we were to drive back to Boston. We fortified ourselves with English muffins topped with scrambled eggs and cheese, hopped in the car, and we were off. It was ridiculously scenic for several hours. We had the A Wrinkle in Time audiobook (read by L’Engle herself), which was almost exactly five hours long. I connived a brief visit to Wellesley, which was looking green and magnificent as usual. I wanted M. to see it, and to see it myself again.
In between trips I caught a magnificent cold and got teary-eyed over the Declaration of Independence and the thought that people used to just WRITE like that. I mean, "When in the Course of human events..." BAM! Cue tears.
What writing gets you all teary at its sheer greatness?
First there was a brief flying visit with
snowqueenofhoth in New York. Stayed up far too late Sunday night packing to go see Rachel. Freezing bus ride Monday morning, hopped off the bus and stupidly decided to go shopping for a summerweight short-sleeved cardigan before getting lunch. (In hindsight, should have gotten lunch at the Organic Coffeehouse first. Oh well. I did make it back there eventually.) Went to the 34th st UNIQLO, where they didn’t have the cardigan in black in my size. They called the 5th ave store, which allegedly did, so I tromped over there.
Saw (to my joy) that Jamba Juice at Bryant Park had re-opened, so I bought a smoothie for old times’ sake (pre-made and frozen solid—note to self, don’t do that in the future) and ate the ginger cookies I’d made the night before and read Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon (the publisher finally sent me a copy! amazing!). It was quite pleasant in the shade in front of the NYPL. After drinking the longest-lasting smoothie ever, I went in and had a look round. I wanted to see the Mary Shelley exhibit, but it was closed on Mondays, so no luck. I did enjoy the Doodle gallery though—a contest by Google in which schoolchildren drew the Google logo themed around times in history they’d like to visit. Some very talented young artists and lots of dinosaurs (approval!).
Dinner with Rachel's family, and then karaoke! How did
mousapelli and I not notice that our karaoke place is right next to the UN? I suppose it has been a while since Rachel and I sang karaoke just the two of us, and I used not to know the songs as well, or had scruples about making up random syllables. Heh. Guess all that practice with Mousi is paying off. Poor Rachel’s shoes had also given her blisters, so the exact method of our getting across town to Penn Station was in question, but we finally settled on the subway. We made it just in time for me to gobble some delicious but badly over-priced pomegranate-chocolate-swirl fro-yo at Organic Coffeehouse and make my bus. I turned up Yamapi’s discography, as is traditional, and attempted to read my J-pop book in between naps.
The following week I took a tiny tiny plane to visit my friend M. in the Adirondacks.
I was totally delighted with the airplane—-it was tiny and sleek, painted blue and white, and could seat ten, counting the pilot. Part of my delight was informed by Code Name Verity, and this made me unusually sentimental about it. Everything was fine going up, and I enjoyed the smooth flight (perhaps I had been hoping for a little turbulence, just the really get the feel of the tiny plane, but no, everything was peachy). During the descent, though, the eardrum pain was excruciating. Note to self: try not to fly with clogged sinuses, no matter how much they have improved over the past two days. I tried to recall “The Windhover” and recited it grimly to myself, imperfectly, over and over again.
Here it is, for the record:
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, of course.
We had sunset for most of the hour-and-a-half flight, but arrived under cover of darkness. This prevented me from actually seeing the mountains, but I didn’t mind. I like arriving places after dark; it feels like coming home. And if there is a bed at the end of the journey, so much the better. M. picked me up from the tiny airport (so cute! so very rustic!) and we stopped in a parking lot to stargaze a little. It was such a beautiful night—-cool and clear (I was glad I’d brought my cardigan) and so full of pine trees and stars.
In the morning we had English muffins and butter and jam and peanut butter and grits and cheese. Then M. wrote for an hour and I sat on the back porch in the sun and read The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I don’t know why but I have been on a pre-and-post-and-during-World-War-II streak this summer—Code Name Verity, the Montmaray books, Brideshead Revisited on the brain, I Capture the Castle, and now this. Anyway TGLPPPS is quite charming, and though it becomes decreasingly so, is a worthy feel-good read. I hate feel-good reads, but this one had enough charm and eccentricity to get me invested enough to finish.
Then a jaunt about the historic town of Saranac Lake, including a walk to a delicious soft-serve ice cream shack, and the purchase of simmer sauce, vegetables, and two blocks of bulk tofu. We thought that might be a bit too much tofu, but I swore to eat any left over.
We fully intended to go canoeing once we got back to M.’s house, but as fate would have it, lack of rain meant that the landing was rather less marshy than usual and more muddy. We thought perhaps we could just push the canoe out a bit further, make our way round to a more amicable spot, and hop in, but at that moment the lake tried to drown me in mud up to my hips, and so that plan had to be abandoned. After we hosed ourselves off, we walked round to a wading spot and had a pleasant half-hour wade (me) and swim (M.) and talk about life, the universe, and everything including our proposed road trip out West come fall and moving-day for both of us.
Then we went back and cooked our vegetables and tofu and simmer sauce and ate them over magically fluffy couscous.
I had been telling M. about the Anna Russell DVD a co-worker had loaned me, with the twenty-minute analysis of Wagner’s Ring Cycle… and lo and behold, what did I espy but that very DVD, sitting on the counter. We promptly watched the whole thing.
I was unexpectedly tired (I guess wading through three-and-a-half feet of mud will tire you out) and went to bed early. Next morning we were to drive back to Boston. We fortified ourselves with English muffins topped with scrambled eggs and cheese, hopped in the car, and we were off. It was ridiculously scenic for several hours. We had the A Wrinkle in Time audiobook (read by L’Engle herself), which was almost exactly five hours long. I connived a brief visit to Wellesley, which was looking green and magnificent as usual. I wanted M. to see it, and to see it myself again.
In between trips I caught a magnificent cold and got teary-eyed over the Declaration of Independence and the thought that people used to just WRITE like that. I mean, "When in the Course of human events..." BAM! Cue tears.
What writing gets you all teary at its sheer greatness?
