The Umbilical Yo-Yo Act (Asheville, NC - Brooklyn, NY)
I'm in my bedroom getting dressed up. Favorite purple velvet jacket, a silk shirt and slacks, I'm not going out dancing, or drinking, or this month's party to end all blah blah blah, I'm taking myself out to dinner. At the new French-Farm bistro restaurant on Cortelyou where married couples with three kids go to feel romantic and elegant in Ditmas Park. And then I'm coming home.
I just came back from a three-day vacation in Asheville, North Carolina. The liberal haven of the South a slice of San Fran in the heart a' dixieland. I vaguely knew a couple people and found a host on Couchsurfing.com (a road-tripper's dream come true) and took an awful 19 hour bus ride + 5 hour mini-van ride with family to get there.
And it's quiet. It's peaceful. And then I get a phone call from one of my employers informing me that I forgot some important paperwork in my last shipment to them.
FUCK! And I thought I was on vacation. So I call home all frantic to get my dad and brother to track down the stuff which was right on my desk and send it for me and while we were chatting, he asked me to cover a tour for him on Saturday. Which means coming home Friday, which means cutting my 5 vacation down to 3 1/2.
I earned this vacation. I worked (and yes, partied) like a dog this summer, then moved out of a crappy apartment just to spend a nice few days in somewhere that was whole-heartedly NOT New York just to get yanked back by the. . . (Wait for it. . .)
UMBILICAL YO-YO!!
The firmest bedrock of my life is my endless gratitude for being raised in such a blessed family and household in such a rich, brilliant city.
But GOOD, GOD!!!! WHAAT THE FUCK DOES IT TAKE TO GET AWAY FROM YOU PEOPLE ONCE IN WHILE!!!!
There was Contra-Dancing! And pretty girls in country dresses who just wanted to DANCE! And crickets, and the most amazing dumpster-diving a budget scavenger could ever ask for, and I swear that the weekend had so much more to offer, but I had to cover. For my dad, because he didn't want to work on Rosh Hoshana.
Now I could make a big deal out of the "fair-weather Jew" phenomenom (his favorite food is shrimp) but that's not the point, the point is, when he needed me to cover for him, I did, regarsless of being 700 miles away because it's family. And in my case, you can only get away, until you feel the cord tugging.
There's another reason. I'm writing this from the big bedroom I graduated into when my older brother went to college. The bedroom I spent the latter part of my adolsence in, living back home. Rent free. Dad's house once again.
That apartment I mentioned before was number 2 of bad apartment choices I'd made in New York, each resulting in Dad taking me back in (always rent-free!) because, well, it's family. We're all in this together.
So tonight's the fancy dinner celebrating my successful vacation, which in total cost less than the money I'm going to make giving directions to a bus driver and chatting up adults from Where'zat?istan to various places throughout Queens for 6 hours.
It's a good life. Even if you have to escape it sometimes.
Coming next: An (abridged) review of Asheville, NC
I just came back from a three-day vacation in Asheville, North Carolina. The liberal haven of the South a slice of San Fran in the heart a' dixieland. I vaguely knew a couple people and found a host on Couchsurfing.com (a road-tripper's dream come true) and took an awful 19 hour bus ride + 5 hour mini-van ride with family to get there.
And it's quiet. It's peaceful. And then I get a phone call from one of my employers informing me that I forgot some important paperwork in my last shipment to them.
FUCK! And I thought I was on vacation. So I call home all frantic to get my dad and brother to track down the stuff which was right on my desk and send it for me and while we were chatting, he asked me to cover a tour for him on Saturday. Which means coming home Friday, which means cutting my 5 vacation down to 3 1/2.
I earned this vacation. I worked (and yes, partied) like a dog this summer, then moved out of a crappy apartment just to spend a nice few days in somewhere that was whole-heartedly NOT New York just to get yanked back by the. . . (Wait for it. . .)
UMBILICAL YO-YO!!
The firmest bedrock of my life is my endless gratitude for being raised in such a blessed family and household in such a rich, brilliant city.
But GOOD, GOD!!!! WHAAT THE FUCK DOES IT TAKE TO GET AWAY FROM YOU PEOPLE ONCE IN WHILE!!!!
There was Contra-Dancing! And pretty girls in country dresses who just wanted to DANCE! And crickets, and the most amazing dumpster-diving a budget scavenger could ever ask for, and I swear that the weekend had so much more to offer, but I had to cover. For my dad, because he didn't want to work on Rosh Hoshana.
Now I could make a big deal out of the "fair-weather Jew" phenomenom (his favorite food is shrimp) but that's not the point, the point is, when he needed me to cover for him, I did, regarsless of being 700 miles away because it's family. And in my case, you can only get away, until you feel the cord tugging.
There's another reason. I'm writing this from the big bedroom I graduated into when my older brother went to college. The bedroom I spent the latter part of my adolsence in, living back home. Rent free. Dad's house once again.
That apartment I mentioned before was number 2 of bad apartment choices I'd made in New York, each resulting in Dad taking me back in (always rent-free!) because, well, it's family. We're all in this together.
So tonight's the fancy dinner celebrating my successful vacation, which in total cost less than the money I'm going to make giving directions to a bus driver and chatting up adults from Where'zat?istan to various places throughout Queens for 6 hours.
It's a good life. Even if you have to escape it sometimes.
Coming next: An (abridged) review of Asheville, NC
posted by GideonLevy | 4:25 PM
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