Earthquake!

For once I was the last one up. But hey, the shaking felt as if someone were trying to rouse me out of bed, and I had ten more minutes: it was only 4:37 a.m. That's mostly what I'll remember, beyond the alarm clock shaking on top of the TV after everything else quieted. Yeah, yeah. I'm up! The other members of my household have more specific recall about a doorway bead curtain shaking and the sound of the whole house vibrating. At least it wasn't a tornado: their first thought.

Anyway, magnitude 5.4, centered in Evansville, Indiana, hundreds of miles from here. How midwesternly wide. And of course I looked online for detail about our morning experience. No way I'm turning the television on for EARTHQUAKE! redux. It's too early for that kind of nonsense. The stories are now propagating, but my favorite is the first one that seemed to be out there, quickly posted by some guy in the surely empty Evansville newspaper offices, apparently calling his friends:

Earthquake rattles Tri-State
By Ryan Reynolds
Originally published 04:42 a.m., April 18, 2008
Updated 04:47 a.m., April 18, 2008

An earthquake rattled the Tri-State in the early morning hours Friday.

The shaking, which started at about 4:35 a.m. CDT, lasted about 10 seconds.

A reporter at the Associated Press building in downtown Indianapolis reported feeling the earthquake as well. Scott Rosenburgh, a former Courier & Press advertising manager now working in a suburb northwest of Chicago, said the quake woke him there. The quake also awoke people in St. Louis, Mo.

The National Weather Service Office in Paducah had had reports of items being knocked off walls in the Poseyville area.

Police dispatch in Evansville reported the investigation of a possible gas leak on Bayard Bark Drive near Kerth. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Darkness on the edge of town

"Danny and I worked together for 40 years - he was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician. I loved him very much...we grew up together."
—Bruce Springsteen

Danny Federici, for 40 years the E Street Band's organist and keyboard player, died this afternoon, April 17, 2008 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after a three year battle with melanoma.

The Federici family and the E Street family request that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund. A web site for the Fund is being established and we'll post its link when it is on line.

Bruce Springsteen's concerts scheduled for Friday in Ft. Lauderdale and Saturday in Orlando performance are being postponed. Replacement dates will be announced shortly.

First of the Season

Frankly, it's the most horrifying thing I've ever seen, and yes, I'm aware it's only a circle of construction paper. But it's taped over the clock. "Time to Learn" the markered slogan taunts the students--not my students, clearly--and when I visit that classroom I find myself checking my wrist almost without thinking for the comfort of my watch. I just need to know; I don't operate in a timeless vacuum, don't understand that strategy. I can identify the one mechanism man has perfected for making time come to a full and complete stop, however: in my experience it's called a graduation ceremony.

When my seniors ask me to describe what awaits them, I say,"Oh, it lasts forever. You won't believe the talking." I'm not even playing. I'd confirm that we hold the world record for length of ceremony in the category two hundred students and fewer, but even the thought of it bores me. A minute and a half of pride and pleasure; two hours of near coma. I'd say that I'm a terrible role model, but given that I have an advanced degree, I must be expert at feigning interest.

Tonight parental duty required attending the first graduation of the season, though DARE strikes me as an odd thing to graduate from. But perhaps I'm just a malcontent. Next thing you know I'll be pointing out that the officer who taught what's billed as a decision-making model used a logical fallacy as his big keynote example, but hey, the kids seem to like it, and I suppose it won't hurt, even if the statistics say otherwise. Besides, you've gotta love fifth graders. I don't know if this is what the officer had in mind when he hauled them through the detention home, but here's to one girl's version of being scared straight: 1. the clothes are ugly. 2. the food is bad. 3. it's boring. They will make of it what they will.

So, yes, I was paying attention, in a look who's grown, look who hasn't, wow, he's changed kind of way since I rarely see many of those kids. Two hundred or so fifth graders walked across the high school stage tonight, probably a little less than half of their future graduating class. Seven years hence their commencement ceremony will be over at the university, since even the gym won't accommodate all the graduates and family and friends. I can't even fathom what we'll witness in the intervening years, middle school and high school, though we all know most of those boys and girls will make at least some of the choices they've just sworn they never will. As if life is decided with a classroom workbook. As if a police officer is a parent. As if any of it is as black and white as those t-shirts that they all wore. In the end, I think we'll do the right thing. The girl strikes me as that kind of person. But still when we look back in the near imaginary year 2015 I'm sure this will seem like a much simpler time.

Media whores

I've been out of the news business a dozen years now, but I still have friends at the locally owned daily newspaper. I have a great appreciation for their plight, though I'm not often kind about their product.

One of these friends blogged about last night's gotcha debate on ABC. This is admirable when you consider that the newspaper company also owns a television station, in fact they occupy the same downtown block. KCRG is an ABC affiliate.

It does my liberal media bias good to see journalists still willing to fight the good fight.

whatever the odds

I've consulted with a surgeon, been marked up with a Sharpie. Drifted off in a frigid OR, woken up minus the lump. But I haven't really been there. My doctor was confident, so I went along with her benign assumptions, trusted in my genes. So I've had the concern but not the panic, not the worry that everything had changed. I've never looked at packages and lapels dolled up with pink ribbons and wondered if the funds raised might someday be for me.

If only that were true for the old acquaintance whose aggressive diagnosis I received word of today. If only that were true for my student's mother whose arm will be amputated Monday in a last-ditch effort to stop the progress of her disease.

But, life happens, and this is a part. Fair or unfair is not even the question. Challenge for these women and their families not even the word. Though my biology says I'm more likely to finally have a stroke that's not metaphorical, someday, of course, the patient waiting for the cancer doctor could again be me. But that's not why, in the meantime, I'll contribute, participate in the Relays, send out the best possible thoughts for the best possible outcomes, help out with the kids. My motives are simple. I just want them to live.

Boss' endorsement

Dear Friends and Fans:

Like most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.

After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.

Bruce Springsteen

Biggest Loser

For the first time in "Biggest Loser" history, a woman won. I didn't used to pay the show much attention, even when a former Iowa wrestler was a contestant. This year, however, it has been my constant companion as I've waged my own battle of the bulge.

When I next weigh in on Monday, I'll be something more than 35 pounds lighter than I was Jan. 14. That pales in comparison to the totals posted by contestants on the "reality" show, as does my prize, but I take just as much satisfaction in the accomplishment. And I didn't have to make a fool of myself on national TV.

The faculty/staff competition put together by a student fitness organization couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. A slowing metabolism coupled with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the daily caloric intake of a teenager is not a healthy combination. By December, I was sufficiently dissatisfied with my appearance and concerned for my health that I decided to do something about it.

Exactly what wasn't clear until the "New Year, New You" faculty and staff competition was announced. I teamed up with two co-workers and we recruited a volleyball player/athletic trainer to be our coach.

My 30-pound goal became an obsession. It was as if my life depended on it. The day the body fat scale said I was no longer classified as "obese", I knew that it did.

I'm the last one to spew health advice, but there's no magic to weight loss. Burn more calories than you consume and you'll lose weight. Consume more calories than you burn and you'll gain. It's really that simple.

I did learn some things about helping my body work for me -- breakfast, for instance, isn't just a good idea, it's the law -- and I've learned to make smart choices about what I put in my mouth. I've learned I really can fit exercise in to my daily routine.

I'll be proud next week to be crowned "biggest loser" in our little competition, but -- just like the reality show -- the real prize is the ego boost that comes with feeling good and looking good. Even as grilling season nears, I know I didn't go on a diet -- I changed my life.

an update

Probably there's no other way to live, circumstances being what they are. Take a breath and do it. Don't think about it. Day to day, hour to hour.

Three months ago to the day--I haven't been counting, only an old e-mail alerted--my students' small world was all upheaval and panic when what could never happen to one of them did. It seems a long time ago now. My student who fled in an immigration bust fall-out has become a second-hand name, a "How's he doing?" when he calls from Chicago. I'm glad he's fine.

And then, randomly, the story, the trigger. They always start in the middle.

"He's not sure if he'll go back to Mexico."

"What?"

"His brother has tried to pass three times, but he's got caught, and they told him next time he'd go to jail for three years. So he thinks he'll stay down there."

"I guess so." The wife and three kids, by the way, are in Chicago, waiting. Family reunification may still be policy, but it is not easy. It's also not the point, not this time.

What is instead striking is not even how casually this news is relayed, but how completely the girl who's telling the story has slipped back into what for a crisis-filled moment seemed like an untenable life. She's driving because she's old enough, not because she's licensed. She'll work in the summer because her mother says it's time to pitch in. She'll follow the gray rules, stay outside the lines. She'll focus on the iPod she bought with her share of the tax refund and her tech school acceptance--all the trappings of the American high school life she lives--and deal with the rest when it comes. As we now know that it will.

Just ask the grad who has left a vague message on my voicemail. He says only that he wants to talk, discuss a few things. The news says that his former employer has been fined tens of thousands of dollars for hiring certain workers. I hope for no connection, know better. Wait for another call.

Everyone's life is complicated in one way or the other. These are just the stories that I know.

A very quiet Monday

A discussion of a weekend car wreck and a ticket for driving without a license.
A resulting conversation about whether proof of insurance can save one from being hauled off to the local jail.

The bell.

Laggard instruction in essay writing that should have been finished a week ago at least.

A surprise entrance by a chronic truant, forty-five minutes late, natch.

Civics, Chapter Six. The Executive Branch as the framers intended. No current events today.

Advice on procuring summer writing tutoring and an explanation of why I cannot do it myself. For once, relief in the distance. Help with selecting a topic for a persuasive paper, completion of an outline.An update on the surgery and why she will not get it.

Algebra and fractions.

The chastised exit of the same truant for his sister's "dentist appointment."

A broken promise about asking guidance to get Oscar's stuff out of his locker now that he's not coming to school.

Delinquent paperwork.
A cookie from the boy who adores me.
Papers graded and entered, motivated by the news that midterm is suddenly Wednesday. WHAT?

A twenty-minute lunch with a departing friend. News of a summer baseball tour. Lighthearted envy. Talk of a coming birthday. Unnecessary assurance that I do not seem that old from someone who is that young.

Copies.

"My mom's leaving tomorrow," announced via sudden, unscheduled appearance.
"Are you okay?"

E-mail. Arrangements and requests and staff-centric gossip.

A map of Europe, the location of Luxembourg, and an explanation of the key.

An apology for eating pretzels in front of the girl whose mother has put her on a starvation diet, thanks to American food.

The Reign of Terror (in France, not my classroom) and World War II.

Child Development as a school subject, not the process I daily witness.

A delicate explanation (given the Chinese) of this "Tibet" thing that keeps turning up on Sports Center, complete with clarification that the Dalai Lama is not an animal.

Geometry. Word problems sketched. An English teacher alternately confident and stymied by tenth grade calculations.

A phone call from the teen mother about a long-delayed drop letter and the pretense of summer school.

"Ms. P., why are you being so nice today?"
"I'm not any different today than I ever am."
"Yes, you are."
"What are you doing that you don't always?"
"My work."

A meeting made bearable by like-minded colleagues. All the other everythings I've already forgotten. All things considered, a very quiet Monday.

Blather and Understatement

Not just the name of a band formed by two former colleagues in a past life, but an appropriate title for what you will read in this post, if you so choose.

Over the span of the last nine days, I've done something I never imagined and something I said I'd never do again. Both were gratifying in their own way, and both were emotionally exhausting.

A week ago Friday, I married my step-brother. It's legal, apparently, not that we be married -- but that I could officiate his marriage to his wife -- a perfectly heterosexual female, in case anyone cares. By virtue of my online ordination with the Universal Life Church, I may legally officiate weddings, funerals, and all sorts of "religious" observances.

Though my previous experience was limited to "funerals" for a pet dog and cat, I confidently officiated the wedding on a sun-splashed beach in Jacksonville, Fla. I didn't realize going in how meaningful it would be to me.

I was armed with a "sermon" found on the Internets -- modified slightly by a reading of John Lennon's "Love" by Scott's real brother, Michael, and taped inside the pages of a Brett Favre book that appropriately served as the bible for this holy ceremony. I said -- or rather, read -- some things about marriage that seemed to strike a cord with many in attendance. Afterward, several people asked me if I had written it. One woman even asked where my church is.

There are no plans to open Lonnie's Mega Church anytime soon, and I'm not sure my ordination will serve me again. This wedding was special, and I think that's what made it so gratifying. However, ordination lasts a lifetime and I'm always open to new experiences.

Today, I was director -- again -- of the second annual rain-shortened play-like-it's-spring-damnit! baseball tournament (not its official name). You don't have to be crazy to run a baseball tournament, but it sure helps.

For the second year in as many tries, Mother Nature was not our friend. Last year, a mid-week snowfall forced us move parts of the tournament and confine others to Sunday only. This year, persistent rain and cold and Murphy's Law mucked things up again. After reshuffling the deck for a Sunday-only tournament again, it was apparent on Saturday that we had to cancel altogether.

Except we had a team in from Chicago that was already in the area. After a less-than-satisfying tournament experience in Kansas City last summer, I was determined not to let this team return home without playing any baseball. So we moved the 14-year-olds to the only field close to playable, and made it happen for four teams.

It was still too cold for baseball -- maybe 43 in the sun and behind a wind block -- but four teams were able to play six games over the course of nine hours. Perhaps appropriately, the Chicago team took home the hardware. My son's team gave reason for optimism and I was proud as ever to see Zach step up to the plate, take his position at shortstop and, for the first time in probably five years, start a game at pitcher. On the day, he pitched 2-1/3 innings of no-hit baseball.

Me? I'm spent. The mundane and routine sounds pretty appealing right now.

flying

"You can't get there from here," was literally true last week, at least if one were relying on silver jets stamped with red and blues As. Given that is nearly the only choice from our nearly monopolized airport, I sighed with retroactive relief that my need to fly came a little sooner, that I wasn't stranded or abandoned and actually enjoyed my time in the air. A first class surprise in the back of the plane.

On the way East I scored an aisle to myself and an old fashioned pilot who told us which earthen crisscrosses were which cities as viewed from thirty thousand feet. Two hours of nothing; a beautiful break. I smiled as the Indian couple across the aisle lit up with excitement upon our descent, but you know I only saw them because I was comparing that window to mine. A skyline, a statue, even the sporting highlights of Queens--Flushing Meadows, the old and new homes of the baseball pond scum--and the globe from the 1964 World's Fair. A tourist before I even stepped off of the plane.

The journey west offered neither view nor solitude, but in the end it was my favorite, maybe of any trip on any aircraft. My neighbor was going to sleep or write some music, and I was going to watch some trashy Showtime on the pretty iPod, but since we never stopped talking, none of that happened. I don't recall how we started.

I do admit that somewhere in there the classic St. Louis question, “Where did you go to high school?” did get asked. That verbal tic, that habit, that regional compulsion is supposed to be an easy way to peg who someone is, what they’re about. And to me it does seem natural, though obviously it’s imperfect and backwards, meaningless except when it’s not. I am not, after all, a Wood River girl, except that, somewhere in there, I am. It informs how I think of things, what I appreciate, what I know is out there. Despite the fact that I do not now, have not ever, and will not in the future perm my hair, drink Busch beer, or go to the tractor pull. I know the flaws in the system.

But what other possible follow-up is there to a mention of graduating both from an exclusive college and in the bottom half of his high school class? When he sheepishly answered with an expensive acronym, he expected me to know it, and I did. "That explains it," I said, both a conclusion and a tease. When he insisted I give up my high school alma mater in exchange, I was slow to answer because I knew he wouldn't know it, and he didn't, specifically, though he congratulated me for having all my teeth. The other side of the river, after all, remains just a set of assumptions for the privileged and otherwise well-traveled in my part of the world. And yet somehow we had ended up on the same wavelength and the disparity in where we came from and are didn't seem to matter much at all. Interesting.

Or maybe not so interesting, in the scheme of things, that a 24 year-old kid and someone nearly old enough to have been his teen mother had a conversation both compelling and fun from take-off to landing. The Venn diagram of politics and social attitudes we created would have nothing larger to say than a hot shot software architect and a suburban teacher had more in common than the demographers would presume. Smart people become liberal and interested in the world. Some boys are ahead of the curve. Underestimating my age by eight years is charming. Save all the details I'll randomly remember, that's probably the sum of it, though by any calculation a far a better answer than a silent flip through the Sky Mall and a half-hearted gaze at some TV on a tiny little screen.

a wish

It seems early for the hubbub; it must be a trick of the weather. Blustery and gray says March to my brain, but next week is halfway through April. The Seniors are already taking their leave of school, wading deep into the Spring rivers of celebration, so quickly a flood. Class breakfast. Prom. Six Flags. Commencement. The lock-in.

"I'm so excited," says my teacher's aide as she spills out the modest bag of souvenirs and supplies that were delivered today: picture frame, tassel, announcements, even cap and gown--already. Childhood goal made concrete. Joy in her grin.

For weeks she hesitated, held back by duty, reluctant to dive in to this particular pool, this youthful finale. Suddenly, though, she has tickets to everything, a prom dress, anticipation to spare. Her mom's resurgent cancer will wait, or else it won't, but at least they'll have this. Life being lived. A chapter they've waited for.

All this Senior stuff is often a study in let-down, so manufactured, so temporary, but just this once, may it be exactly what she needs and has dreamed of.

Hallefreakinlujah

The planets have aligned, and by that I am referring to Planets Flu and Slacker. Thanks to the most brilliantly timed bout of illness with which I've ever honestly been afflicted, I shall not be slogging through the damp woods with The Dreaded Alexa and my mortal enemy, Mullet Woman. I will not be sullying a perfectly good Brett Favre cap in an effort to keep the ticks out of my hair. I will not be flirting with double pneumonia given the forecast for constant rain and/or snow--and the best part is that, perhaps just by benefit of being mine, my daughter doesn't care.

"If you ask me, a night-time girl scout scavenger hunt is just a recipe for disaster anyway," she justifies, unnecessarily, either because she knows I didn't want to go or because she really didn't either. I am never going to get credit for my willingness, could procure a doctor's excuse from each of my specialists and still be thought a faker: my reputation as the non-participatory scouting mom is just that solid. But, small price to pay for staying warm and dry and avoiding the siren song of motherly martyrdom.

"Maybe on Saturday we could to the movies and to our favorite Chinese restaurant instead," she suggests.

That's my girl; how I love her. And despite fever and cough or possible contagion, we will most definitely be there. Some sacrifices are worth it.

Are you kidding me?

That has become my typical response when the corner "convenience" store attendant informs me they're out of my brand of smokes. The only convenient part is they're the cheapest in town -- of the cut-rate brand I selected after the state raised the tax.

I'm smoking less these days, but I've always been a pack-at-a-time consumer (vacations excluded). But when I go to buy a pack, there ought to be one to buy.

Have you ever stopped for gas and the tanks were empty? Me neither.

I'm sure I could get a Red Bull -- or a HoHo -- whenever I wanted. Isn't that convenient?

Out

"Do you want to know a secret?" she asks as I walk in the door, on the brink of tardy for my own first block class.

I raise an eyebrow, gesture to the small gathering of ninth graders, try to keep up the pretense of school. But I am intrigued; six years later, a senior, finally, she's still not one for discretion. To have reigned in her impulse is something. So I let her tell me, later, in the bastion of illusory privacy that is the hallway. How many times for how many reasons I've closed a door, leaned against a wall. This time I'm told of a mutual friend in another school who has come out with some news about who he is, or how he will live, and while his announcement was not intended for public consumption it was intended for me. "Only the people I trust the most," he'll e-mail me later. This excitable girl is my courier.

"Can you believe it?!" she exclaims. "I mean, we always teased him, but. . I mean, I don't care." she grasps, amazed. "But he did say it might be a phase." I'd have said, "not that there's anything wrong with that," but she wouldn't have gotten the reference. She wanted a, "No way!" at least, for me to share her not-quite-shock, but she should have known she wouldn't get it.

"That says a lot about your friendship; I'm glad he can trust you like that," is what she got instead. I didn't remind her of the time we all crowded a middle school hallway after his hastily withdrawn admission of the same kind of preference led to an uglier scene. Surely she remembers. I can still see them, such kids, looking up to me to fix it as my mind raced for words that might not make it better but wouldn't make it worse. Silent panic in the school corridor; luckily, I don't think they noticed.

Or maybe they did; they're well aware of my failings and faults, and yet they keep returning with their dilemmas and successes. Some of it is necessity: we've been stuck with each other for a literal third of their lives. But beyond that, there's something. If only I'd taught this young man English he could express it more fully, but I'm thrilled with his gist when he writes me tonight, "thank you, mrs p, i'm glad that from everyone i know you are one of the most understandable people i've met in my life."

Another Brett Favre tribute

coincidence

Today a teacher dragged into school, barely remembering her role or function. Appearing at the appointed hour seemed accomplishment enough, given the jet lag and the time change. But, she'd been gone for more than a week and a new semester was starting; no time for easing in or for sleeping. And there was a fact that she'd persuaded her director to send her across the ocean to be rejuvenated and recharged. Slacking upon return would be untoward, especially now that she's a supervisor. Or so Tatiana from Latvia explained to me, during the one evening of our lives that we'd share.

We met in the Canal St. subway station, trying to determine why the street-level sign promised R and W trains while the platform only indicated a 6. Ah! there's the passageway! Ah! there are friendly but erroneous New Yorkers who promised that we couldn't get there from here! So from there we shared a mission, a walk back through Little Italy to another station with a W train which stopped right back where we were (sometimes tourists with maps know more than the locals), a circle on the Staten Island Ferry. And then more walking, her introduction to the Village, dinner, and her first margarita in six years.

Turns out that one of things that Tatiana and I have in common is that we both spent a year living in Wisconsin. Tatiana, the EFL teacher from Riga, Latvia, whom I met on the Chinatown/Canal Street subway platform in New York City, once lived for a year in Wausau, Wisconsin. Sometimes I love the world. And good conversation and serendipitous meetings and knowing that thousands of miles from here the thoughts and memories of an educator in a former Soviet republic have been the tiniest bit informed by running into Allison, the teacher from near St. Louis, not San Antonio, who just happened to be standing there.

escape clause

And I quote:

"Absolutely no alcoholic beverages are allowed on Girl Scout property. The rule for smoking is that the girls should never see anyone smoking. If you cannot go 24 hours without smoking, please do so in the privacy of your car using your car's ashtray. Violation of these two rules will get you sent home immediately."

Hot damn and hallelujah: the Mother/Daughter Olympiad Campout has an escape clause! Not that I smoke, but I'm sure I can bum one, and my brother has already promised use of his special camping flask. I'm set, and I don't have to be ready 'til Friday: talk about "Be Prepared!" But I suppose that slogan belongs to the Boys. If only my child came equipped with a Y chromosome, I could easily avoid all the Scouting for that group's hateful politics. In the meantime perhaps I'll make a Free Tibet t-shirt and see if that's enough to get bounced from this Spring scouting Olympics. It would be selfless, really: 47 women are waiting for my place.

I really can't imagine. I'm doing it because the girl wants to, because I've been gone, because I'm the mom. It will definitely be a story, maybe it will be fun. Maybe Mullet Woman, the leader, won't get on my very last nerve. Maybe Iceland, our assigned spring olympiad nation (I think the whole thing's rigged) will kick some Girl Scout butt. Or, you know, maybe I'll go back to New York. This just isn't my crowd, at least not for 20 hours. I just can't get my head around any activity for 150 mothers and daughters that advises labeling one's clothes because "you'd be amazed how many pairs of underwear get left behind." I'm sorry, I don't know about anyone else, but if I somehow become separated from my panties in such circumstances, I don't really want them back.

Live from New York

Technically, I had been to New York before. I had crossed the George Washington Bridge, driven through the Lincoln Tunnel, skirted the edges of Harlem with three other midwesterners in a Vega. No, it was not some transportation-themed wild goose chase, though that would have made just as much sense: we were on our way to Connecticut. It's not a very good story, and, well, now it just doesn't matter. Because now I am here. And just as the t-shirt says, I love it.

Picture perfect

A perfect day, I've come to know, starts with a healthy breakfast... so long as one wakes before 11. So, pretty much any weekday.

Perfect days are more infrequent. Take today for instance.

A nine-mile bike ride to the beach, followed by four hours of basking in the glorious sunshine, followed by a nine-mile bike ride home. Somewhere along the way, I snapped a photo I'm pretty fond of. Perhaps you'll like it too.