I’m going to dabble in John Cole-style personal posting tonight. I’m returning home from a three-month trip and there’s nothing I hate more than coming home from being away. I’m not on vacation, mind you, and I’ll have fewer duties when I get back home than I have now, in fact. But whenever I visit a place and leave, I think I’ll never be able to come back, and I didn’t really take advantage of all the fun stuff at this place, I just sat around and read the internets (or however I wasted time when I travelled before there were internets, I can’t remember anymore) when I should have been out exploring.
Do you have this feeling when you return from traveling, or move to a new place, too?
I’ve always thought that the Tony Bennet songs “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “We’ll Catch Up Some Other Time” were about this, about how he’d never actually come home to you, San Francisco, or catch up some other time.
ant
wut dewd?
I think you should leave this kinda stuff to cole.
He is much better at it. ;)
belle
I used to travel for months at a time, a lot, before there were internets, certainly before internets were so portable.
I felt the same way. don’t blame the internets. you just have a curious mind, it’s OK. home is home. it is good to come home.
you can go back.
Punchy
More Florida-style gun chicanery.
Stay classy, gunners.
joeyess
You’re a strange one, Mr. Head of Fidelity. There’s no place like home. Whenever I travel, I am in anticipation of returning home the moment I leave my garage.
Valdivia
Many many years ago when I lived somewhere in the Middle East and very far away from my little Latin American country of origin there was a song I used to listen to that always killed me in this way, it was about San Francisco, and sitting on a pier next to the water and missing that feeling of the SanFran bay and also how when you sat at the water you missed your home. I think it’s more or less what you are talking about. Or as the germans say–sehnsucht.
Or maybe I am just totally maudlin and you are talking about something a little more practical! :)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
My travels were mostly limited to hopping in a C-130 and going wherever. And I did a LOT of it. Getting home was always the best part.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Valdivia:
I think I miss places I don’t actually live more than wherever I actually live, no matter where that is.
Linnaeus
I wouldn’t say that I hate coming home from being away, but I do know the feeling of, “I may never come back here, what about all the stuff I missed seeing/doing/whatever”
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Valdivia:
Ah, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay!
EDIT: No, probably not. But I tried.
D-boy
whenever I travel I tell myself that I cannot see and do everything I want. I try to have some level of acceptance around that or otherwise it just drives me crazy or I try to cram as much stuff in as possible with diminishing returns
General Stuck
I spent pretty much the first 40 years of my life with the rambling bug. Not vacation stuff, but either related to working with the feds or to colleges, several of them. I love where I live now, and all my restless impulses have gone to the past where they belong. I have no itch to go anywhere, anymore. Unless it’s exploring the natural wonders like The magical Chiricahua Mountains maybe 60 miles away, but that’s about it, other than the Gila Wilderness out my back door. I can’t stand living in bigger cities, and don’t really miss some of the interesting stuff to do that can only be found there. But with decent internet, a body can virtually go about any where they want without leaving your chair.
Valdivia
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
actually something way too obscure and which I could only find in a horrid home made video but the song is performed by the original singer live so you get the idea :)
ETA: I really appreciate you tried! and totally OT you inspired a really good title for my latest picture. Thanks!
Mark S.
Jesus, you don’t shoot just because you hear rustling. It’s idiots like this that make me wonder if I’ve been taking my life in my own hands when I go hiking. That dumb fucker should not be allowed to own a gun.
Valdivia
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
not to get too philosophical here but I guess as an immigrant, or an itinerant mover, I have come to define and re-define the idea of ‘home’. And sometimes I may be living somewhere and in between redefining home for myself and I fell like I am floating between two parts of my heart, if that makes any sense.
The place I live the longest (nyc) still feels like home to me. I still miss it. But what I miss is the life i had there with my friends and we have now all scattered to other places so that particular ‘home’ experience lives on when we are together in the city but only then.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Valdivia:
Yes, I feel that way a bit about NYC and Berkeley. Though when I go back, I realize you can’t go home again, it’s not the same.
eemom
g’wan, tell us where you were. That way somebody can tell you you didn’t miss much, or something.
How did people waste time ANYWHERE before the internets?
Day after day, for years and years, I went to work, and sat in front of a computer all day without any internets to click on.
And then — before I had kids — I’d come home and sit down at the kitchen table with an Amstel Light and a doggie in my lap and read the Washington Post. That was my big unwinding time.
In retrospect it all seems so….barren.
k488
“Some Other Time” is one of Leonard Bernstein’s greatest tunes. Thanks for mentioning it; I’m about (in a year’s time) to uproot from my professional home of 30 years, and my actual home of 20 years to start at a new institution at the age of 60. Daunting, but exciting, and your mention of SOT brought tears to my eyes.
Martin
@Mark S.:
STAND YOUR GROUND!
lamh35
I actually envy people who are comfortable traveling alone. The one time I traveled alone to another state was in 2005 to Baltimore for a job interview at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. I didn’t do any actual touristy stuff though.
I would love to travel more, but traveling alone just doesn’t appeal to me. But then again, I’m a talker/conversationalist, I like to have someone to interact with, it’s why I spend so much time interneting I think…it’s sad really.
A friend of mine will go to movies by herself and out to eat by herself (she even traveled to Japan by herself last year), but I just don’t have it in me to that.
When I travel now-a-days it’s usually to NOLA, and it’s to see my family. As much as my family gets on my nerves, it’s never a dull moment. I have so much family, that I am never alone. When I was home before Katrina, it was a little overwhelming, I couldn’t wait to leave NOLA for NYC or SFO or Miami. Now I miss it. When I make it back home to DFW from NOLA, I have a momentary escape of breath to have peace and quiet, but within a day or so, I’m back to missing the fam.
Do you live alone DougJ? I ask cause I used to have my younger sister living with me. I became her guardian because she had issues with living with my mother. It was aggravating at first, and I always just wondered when she was gonna leave, now that she is away at college as much as she got on my last nerve, I came realize that I kinda miss having someone home to talk to do when I got off from work.
It’s probably the worse thing about being single, I know, I know, I should get a dog or cat right…lol.
ETA: I’ve lived in DFW for 7 years now and I STILL don’t consider it home. This is STILL home: Fats Domino – Walking To New Orleans
eemom
“You can travel on ten thousand miles and still stay where you are.” — Harry Chapin.
“New York’s home but it ain’t mine no moooore…”
Redshift
Hmm, not me. I probably worry more about not getting to all the places I want to go than having missed a few spots in the ones I’ve been to. I generally manage to do a decent amount of exploring wherever I go, even if I didn’t pick the destination.
But I like coming home, too.
Mark S.
After reading this article, I am surprised the bowls have lasted as long as they have. College football could make a billion times more money with a playoff, and there isn’t much reason to share it with douchebags from the Orange and Fiesta Bowls.
There was a time I used to defend the bowls in Slate-esque contrarian way, but I think I was just nostalgic for those New Year’s Days where you had eight games and could keep flipping back and forth. Now they spread it out over weeks and about 3 of the 65 bowls games are interesting to a non-alumni.
Also, too, get off my lawn.
satanicpanic
I know what you mean Doug. I really miss some of the places I’ve been to
suzanne
I actually really like coming home after being away. It’s the unpacking-and-getting-a-shitty-night-of-sleep-’cause-I-have-to-be-at-work-tomorrow-by-eight shit I can do without.
SectarianSofa
@DougJ Seems pretty normal. You need some cognitive behavioral therapy and/or some meditation, to not have such concerns.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@eemom:
Things were tough before we had craft beers, weren’t they?
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@lamh35:
I mostly travel for work so I have a built-in network of friends when I do it. The only bad thing is that they don’t like going to architectural tours/museums/exotic food as much as I do, so I have to do that stuff myself.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
the proximity and topic of the last thread makes me think if you were a citizen, brown, and in arizona you might not feel like you have the freedom to explore :(
Valdivia
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
my best friend in nyc, was a Berkeley transplant, and while in the city he missed everything about Berkeley and now that he is back there he does miss nyc and writes all the time that I have to come and visit–his piece of ny transported :)
@lamh35: I have traveled alone a lot but I am still incapable of going to the movies by myself or drink alone in a bar where I live. go figure.
sfinny
Having most of my family move away actually ended up being good in that when they would visit, I would do all sorts of touristy things right at home that I had never seen. It was amazing to me how many local sites, like the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the Empire State Building, Central Park Zoo, I had never seen even growing up here.
But as pretty much a homebody, I am always happy to get back to my own place.
lamh35
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: see that’s what I mean, I envy your ability to do that. Not to get to self-diagnostic, but I think it’s a consequence of being from a large blood family and extended family. I always tell people that NOLA is the largest small town ever. Doesn’t matter what parts of the city I go to, I kid you not I always run into a family member or someone from my family’s old neighborhood or their kids an such.
So the idea of eating by myself or touring museums and such by myself just does not compute for me. Which obviously means that I admittedly miss out on alot touristy stuff, but that’s just my lot in life I guess :)
Redshift
@lamh35:
I did pretty well traveling alone when I was getting flown to SF for a week at a time every month or two a while back. I saw quite a few of the sights, went to a couple of concerts. I’m fairly quiet; I like a good conversation but I don’t need it. It would have been better with other people, but it was still fun.
Meals were kind of dull, though. A lot of great food, but I didn’t enjoy it as much by myself.
MattR
@lamh35: Hopkins Hospital isn’t really close to anything worth seeing.
I used to do a lot of travel to install software, but because we were going to warehouses they were always 45 min or so outside the city we got to visit the local Outback but rarely the actual city we were visiting.
Bill Burr on living alone
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: i actually prefer touring museums and such like alone. I can linger where I want, skip what I want, etc. Eating alone isn’t my first choice, but it doesn’t bother me. With unfamiliar/exotic cuisines, I definitely want someone there to split dishes with. The only thing I really don’t like about traveling alone is you can’t say, “watch my stuff I’ll be right back” when you have to go to the bathroom in an airport/train station with all your luggage.
danielx
Depends on where you are, and what you’re doing, and what time of year it is, as to whether you enjoy traveling for work. I’ve worked in Toledo in January, which was like the devil’s own icebox – cold, gray, terminally depressing. Then Scottsdale in August was the reverse, the devil’s own frying pan. Forget all that bullshit about dry heat, when it’s 120 outside it’s just freakin’ hot. In both cases I couldn’t get home soon enough. Now working in New England in September…nice. Working in San Francisco any time at all…nice.
Mark S.
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
I don’t understand that. When people visit me, I at least ask them what they’d like to do (it meant going to the same aquarium in Dallas five times when I lived there). Some people seem to think I came to visit them just to watch TV on a different couch, and are annoyed when I make them take me places.
MikeJ
@lamh35:
Travelling with others for fun is great, but I hate being part of a team at a out of town client site. The same people you’ve spent all day with at work will want to go out to dinner together, they will always be afraid of the local food, be unwilling to take a stab at the language. I can not tell you how many shitty evenings I’ve had to spend trapped in a Hard Rock Café because the dimwits on the project insisted on talking about it at dinner instead of during working hours and we had to eat at the dullest place available.
lamh35
@MattR: thx for that video. I lol way too loudly, which since I live alone probably would “outside looking in ” seem crazy…
danielx
I once went through a corporate relocation horror story that had me move to the DC area for six months, and living there was kind of nice – lots of museums, lots of history, lots of scenery. But you don’t live at museums and it wasn’t home, no matter how nice it was.
MattR
@MikeJ: Not to mention the strip clubs and prostitutes they insist on frequenting. No wait, I am combining this with another story in the news.
@danielx: My problem is I never take advantage of the perks of home unless someone else comes to visit. I think I spetn two days at the Smithsonian during my year living in DC. And I grew up in the NYC area but did not visit the Statue of Liberty until I was 16 or so and we had company who insisted on going.
Suffern ACE
I missed out on one long business trip by eating something that knocked me out of action for a streak. I did miss the team building tourism, missed a wedding I was invited to. But I did get to watch a lot of tv. I learned that Tom and Jerry is very popular, and that Hindi might not have words to sufficiently capture the concept of “buns of steel” so it was not translated in a commercial for a “get thin with no effort” exercise plan. I should regret not getting out if the hotel, but since I actually would not spend a saturday watching Tom and Jerry for 18 hours, the whole not seeing the taj mahal was kind of a wash.
lamh35
@MikeJ: It true about people I work with, but I surround myself with an eclectic bunch people away from work. Thanks too those people I’ve gotten out of my comfortable more than ever.
My trip to India 2 years ago was because I have a good friend (the one who travelled to Japan by herself) who found a deal for 2 people to travel to India for 7 days, which included air fare, hotel, and tours for less than $1200. It was at an opportune time and I said yes without thinking. I didn’t let myself think about it actually.
If it wasn’t for my electic bunch of peeps I probably go to work and come home and not much else all the time (thanks to them, I don’t stay home EVERY day, just most of them)
PurpleGirl
lamh35 — I had a friend who was always amazed that I could go to movies or to “GOOD” restaurants by myself. She grew up being taught that a woman needed an escort to go to better places.
I also did some traveling right after college to see friends and done the tourist thing in D.C. and Boston (during a Star Trek convention). When the Peekskill friends moved to FL I made a bunch of trips down there and the tourist thing. I like planning trips — like what is there to see. Haven’t done it lately, and I should.
Did some business travel when I worked as a paralegal. Spent two weeks outside Phoenix (at a golf resort) for an arbitration trial and also observed some insurance rate hearings outside Trenton (NJ). But those were limited scope, timewise.
But I always like coming home to my place.
ETA: I’ve always carried either books or crochet projects with me for alone time. Didn’t always read or do crochet but I had the option with me.
eemom
One point that should be noted is that it’s a lot easier for a man to do certain things alone than it is for a woman — e.g., have a drink in a bar. Especially in an unfamiliar place.
Consider how many places there are where it would be unthinkable for a woman to travel alone, and not at all so for a man.
lamh35
@Suffern ACE: amazingly, my particular tour group did not have any of it’s members get sick for the whole 7 days. Another tour group though, which parallelled my tour co had all of its members get sick during the course of the 7 days. I guess we were lucky, so I didn’t miss out on any of the sites in India.
Taj Mahal…majestic in pictures, not so bright in person, but the history was fascinating.
Valdivia
@eemom:
yep. Having grown up with the hard core patriarchy around me, I still have a hard time sitting alone at a bar.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@eemom:
That’s a good point.
lamh35
@PurpleGirl: I don’t actually need the other person to be a man (although I love men…lol), I just like being able to look over at whoever I”m with and enjoy a gag together.
I remember when I was younger, I spend a summer in a summer medical school program at Duke University (it was 2001, the june before 9/11). I was bored with the work so I taught myself to navigate the transit system and I saw Shrek at a theatre by myself. Doing a pretty funny part in the film I found myself turning to the person next to me and realizing oh wait, I came by myself. It was so sad an experience, that I’ve never gone to the movies alone since…lol
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eemom: No question. I think it was Julianne Moore who wold a story on Letterman about being so excited to be working in Paris, she got up early and went for a walk alone, smiling at the people she did meet while walking down the street. She thought it was a cute coincidence that every time she turned around she saw the same man, then she realized he had taken her “Bonjour” as a proposition. A funny story as she told it, but could have ended ugly in only slightly different circumstances.
Suffern ACE
@lamh35: I am supposed to go back to India in July. I was planning on making my way up to some of the early Buddhist sites in the north. The let’s go guide recommended hiring armed guards at the police station. Which is probably good advice as I might have hired the first armed men to approach me at the train station. Frickin Moaists.
srv
You missed some cool shit, and it’s all about getting old and spending your hours on the interons.
All those old people, regrets about what they did not do. A billion of them will regret the internet.
Hope that cheers you up.
lamh35
I gotta get to bed, I gotsa J.O.B. to go to.
just an OT reminder that Obama will be on Jimmy Fallon
Oh and Colbert may have just made my night. Singing with Julie Andrews!!!!
Colbert >>>>>>> Jon Stewart
Dork
Is this Balloon Juice or Princess Sparkle Pony?
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, a female friend of mine had a “funny” story about being in Paris for work and having a guy in a park who wouldn’t take no for an answer until she demonstrated that she knew aikido…
Mark S.
@danielx:
Granted, I’ve only been there once, but DC seemed really soulless to me. I’ve never heard anyone who lived there talk about it with any affection. I can’t think of one interesting fact about it besides it’s the capital. Why don’t we just move the capital to Anaheim?
Gin & Tonic
@lamh35:
The only way I do this sort of stuff. My work requires me often to travel alone. I love it. Don’t have to explain anything to anyone, if I feel like going out I go out, if I don’t I don’t. Don’t have to talk to anyone, it’s great. I’ve seen an awful lot of places that way, and I seldom leave thinking “man, I didn’t see or do enough here.”
Valdivia
@Mark S.:
Raises hand! I love DC. Truly. :)
Suffern ACE
@Dork: Fuck you. Once again always wrong Doug J misses my brilliant point. Consider yourself pied
That help?
Joey Maloney
@eemom:
Tetris. Remember the “OMG here comes the boss” hotkey? It paused the game and covered the screen with what looked like a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.
Redshift
@MattR: Yeah, that’s definitely true. I do actually get out to the Smithsonian and stuff occasionally, but much more when people are visiting.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Oh lord. Anaheim? If it’s moving anywhere it’s going to be near the Wisconsin Dells, the waterpark capital of the world.
DC is one of the most pleasant places to be at this time of year.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Dork: Fuck off, Derf.
Dork
@Suffern ACE: um…..lolwhutz?
JCT
@eemom: Brutal — I’m flying back to Tucson from a visit home to NYC right now…..
Hope I don’t miss NYC like this forever.
Joey Maloney
@eemom:
That’s one thing I learned from an ex, how different a woman’s personal geography is from a man’s. There were so many places that I would walk alone without a second thought that she wouldn’t. And I’m not brave or foolhardy or big and threatening-looking. I just failed to perceive the potential threats because the threats were gender-specific.
I’ve been living abroad for two years now and it’s pathetic how little touristing I’ve done. Some of it is due to visa problems, but I’ve done precious little traveling within borders either. I mostly go to work, go to the bar, go to the park. On the other hand, some days just negotiating the language and the culture make a trip to the store adventure enough.
burnspbesq
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
The truly amazing part about eemom’s comment is that she’s willing to admit that she’s old enough to have been around when the Washington Post was worth reading.
Suffern ACE
@Dork: Well you were one worried that the place had gone all pretty pony. I was only trying to help you recognize the place. Panty sniffing cudlipbagger!
Redshift
@Mark S.: Why, because Anaheim is *completely* soulless?
I’m a DC-area native and I’ve always loved it. The core downtown area has an institutional feeling because *nobody lives there.* But different areas have their own character and attractions.
MB
@Mark S.: Oh, Mark. Such a lack of imagination. DC is a *fantastic* town. We can’t help it if the rest of the country keeps sending its shittiest people here.
~
@Doug – my favorite quote, about that feeling after travel? Comes from William Gibson – “her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.”
http://blacknell.net/gallery/windowseatplease/
Mark S.
@Suffern ACE:
You mean August (when I was there) isn’t the best time to visit?
I’m probably being too hard on the ol’ District. I read an article a couple months ago that argued that because there ain’t much else going on in DC besides the federal government, our elites are more parochial than if they lived in, say, London or Paris. Maybe, maybe not, but our Village is incredibly stupid, and maybe they’d be less so if they were in New York.
BGinCHI
In other news, Blue Dog dickhead Altmire loses his PA Dem primary.
That’s good news.
Valdivia
@Redshift:
I love walking the different ‘hoods and going from one vibe to another. Though downtown is very institutional since no one lives there as you said, I love going there for my architectural photography. This town has some incredible buildings but no one ever looks up! I love discovering the beauties no one sees.
@Mark S.: I have to disagree here. DC is by no means nyc but it has a huge art community-theaters (Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theater and one and on) opera, great music scene (9:30 club is constantly rated as one of the best indy concert spaces in the nation), restaurants. It may be a bit of a company town because people who hang out on K street and the govt environs all seem the same but there is a huge diverse life in the district aside from that.
fasteddie9318
The one time in my life I got it together enough to visit Greece, the national museum in Athens was closed for pre-Olympics renovations. Imagine crossing something off your bucket list and then feeling like you have to go back and write it in again.
burnspbesq
Has someone gone to Randinho’s house and removed all the sharp objects?
Mark S.
@Redshift: @MB:
That’s true, I’m mostly trolling. But Redshift, I thought you were in Boston for some reason.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@MB: Technically David Broder is in Bethesda.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Lord. Our new York elites are plenty dumb and short sighted, too. Remember, these are the people who run the national news, who report every two inch snowstorm as a top national news story that should somehow interest people living in Colorado. I think it’s best to divide those people in as many places as possible.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Yer a mean one, Mr. Burns. : (
Mark S.
@burnspbesq:
If Chelsea wins the Champions League but finishes sixth or whatever in the Premier League, do they get to play in the Champions League next year?
Mark S.
@Suffern ACE:
No! Michael Bloomberg is the most brilliant person since Galileo!
/mustache
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@Valdivia: 9:30, Rock and Roll Hotel, Black Cat, DC9, others. Nation leaving was a disappointment. Your comment is great just wanted to pad out your music venues:.
Fort Reno will be great over the summertime.
Valdivia
@burnspbesq:
I almost lost my herbal tea.
eemom
@Mark S.:
Count me amongst those anyones. Lived here, albeit mostly in the burbs, for going on 25 years. The place has the character of a package of blank copy paper.
I grew up in NYC, and though I never actually wanted to live there either, I appreciate the hell out of it after all these years in this sterile vacuum.
Suffern ACE
@Valdivia: It is a lot less expensive and less pushy than New York when it comes to doing nice things. Classical music concerts in odd places, if you’re into that. But it’s probably better to live there. The nice things I remember doing by myself I couldn’t see someone flying in to do. I mean, who flies in for a week to listen to lectures at the library of congress or read a book behind Dumbarton Oaks?
amk
OT – How did Patrick Murphy lose in PA today ? Did the dem establishment ditch him ?
Redshift
@Mark S.: Not me. Redshirt, maybe?
Redshift
@Mark S.:
Sounds like it was written by a Villager. ;-) The same sort who say “nobody really lives here, everyone is transient,” because they only interact with other political appointees and congressional staff. The vast majority of DC-area residents are as permanent as any other city; we’re just invisible to them. (The federal government is by far the biggest employer, but the vast majority of federal employees are civil service, not political appointees.)
That situation is a consequence of the insularity of the Village, not the cause of it.
PeakVT
The DC burbs are boring, but aren’t the burbs just about everywhere boring? How many people have you heard say “I live 20 miles outside [city X] and it rawks”?
I will never miss Tysons. I do miss the Ballston-Rosslyn corridor, though.
Redshift
@Mark S.:
Back before air conditioning was invented, European diplomats got hardship pay for being posted here. So, no. ;-)
Mark S.
@Redshift:
There’s a Redshirt and a Redshift?
Sorry, dude, I probably mixed you guys up.
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Also, too, that’s too confusing. You guys need to come up with other names.
Valdivia
@Corbin Dallas Multipass:
thank you! I love having more choices. I have stuck with the 9:30 but happy to have new venues :)
Redshift
@PeakVT: Aw, come on — Tyson’s couldn’t be more soulless if it had been deliberately designed to be, but that’s not typical. Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, Vienna, Falls Church, and more all have a lot of charm and unique character. (I’m more familiar with the Virginia side.) I’d argue that the inner DC suburbs are less boring than in most cities, because since DC has fixed boundaries, they’re areas that would have been absorbed and become old city neighborhoods almost anywhere else.
Mnemosyne
@Mark S.:
I was trying to convince some guy, someguy, and Some Guy to choose different names, but they told me to GFM. :-(
Redshift
@Mark S.: It’s not my fault, I was here first!
some guy
@Mnemosyne:
go fuck yourself :–)
Anne Laurie
@Valdivia:
Spent the first 18 years of my life in NYC, but from as far back as I can remember I never intended to stay there. Spent the next 15 in a university town in the Midwest, which was good enough for my purposes at the time, but I never expected that to be permanent either. Eventually the Not-Yet-Spousal-Unit (who grew up in a very small town & had no intention of going back) said “Everybody else in town is either a student or a professor. We need to go somewhere, preferably somewhere at least one of us would always be able to find a job.” And I said, well, New England’s nice, ever since I first visited Boston when I was six, I always said I’d live in Boston someday…
That was 25 years ago — we bought the house we’re living in almost 20 years ago — and I’d be perfectly happy staying right here till the day I die. The Spousal Unit loves travelling; I love visting zoos and museums and craft fairs, but when it comes to travelling, the two of us do a fair imitation of Ali Baba Bunny (“maybe we should’ve turned left at Albuquerque… “).
I always prefer coming home to going away, no matter how much I look forward to the reason for ‘going away’. I’m glad to see far-flung friends, especially when we’re back in a place where we had a history together, but HOME is always my favorite place to be.
Valdivia
@Suffern ACE:
exactly!! I miss nyc everyday but I have learned to really appreciate living here.
@Anne Laurie: loved reading your story, its the happenstance of destiny that redefines home for us sometimes. that in itself is beautiful no? though hard too.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i’ve had a lot of experiences, or moments where i had the idea that i was getting a last look, or taste, or whatever. the strange part is some times that is comforting, a relief, other times its haunting.
Redshift
@Valdivia: And if you want to come over my way, the Birchmere is also excellent.
some guy
I would love to go home to BeanTown.
like very much the story of how how how Anne ended up there.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@Redshift: Wow, silly oversight on my part to not include Birchmere. Thanks.
Valdivia
@Redshift:
I have never been! will check it out too.
For all the DC homies (or BJers in general) if you ever want an architectural tour of the city give me a holler. I only warn you I might stop to take some pics along the way and look demented laying on the sidewalk… :)
some guy
Particularly worrying is the growing involvement of Islamist extremists, who profit both from experience in Iraq and supply lines to Iraq’s lawless Sunni regions. They had initially been marginal to Syria’s uprising, but locals now echo American diplomats’ suspicions that their foothold has widened. Last month a newly formed Jihadi group, Jabhat al-Nusra (the Salvation Front), released a professional video claiming past bombings against security forces. The attacks appear to have been carefully timed and skillfully executed.
http://www.economist.com/node/21551085
burns, esquire, will be along shortly to let us know there are no “proven” jihadis in the Free Syrian Army, AND shut up, shut up, shut up
eemom
Home: there’s no place like it.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
I used to just comment as “mark”, and at some site some troll showed up who commented as “mark”, so I changed my name. I’m so unoriginal I’ve never come up with another name.
Suffern ACE
@Redshift: I’m just trying to figure out what real estate prices around here would do if you tried to squeeze in another few hundred thousand upper middle class people. I might be able to retire early.
I’ve thought we could break up the village by moving the Capitol around. The government workers stay put, but for six months of each term, congress must meet someplace else. Put the names of the states in a hat and draw them out. Third largest city in each state gets the nod. Native tribes who wish to host can put their reservation names in as well if they so wish to extend an invitation. This isn’t about meeting real people or whatever. Just put them in a place where it’s a little hard for them to haunt.
eemom
@Redshift:
We got us the Jammin Java here in Vienna too.
PeakVT
@Redshift: I don’t see Vienna (along 123) or Falls Church (along 7) as being all that special. Alexandria is nice enough visually, and the Orange Line corridor is an urban planning effort of blinding genius in comparison with most of the country. But there are vast tracts of leafy, pleasant, but entirely uninteresting suburbs surrounding that. And then there’s all the office parks and recent developments out in Loudoun and Chantilly that will always suck donkey balls no matter how many wide roads they build. It’s a good place to live because it’s so prosperous, but outside of a few areas there’s nothing all that distinctive IMHO.
Mnemosyne
@some guy:
See? I don’t get no respect around here, I’m tellin ya …
kdaug
No matter where you go, there you are.
Mark S.
Best song about a city?
My vote
lamh35
OMG. Obama slow jamming da news and he drops da mic at the end!!!!!
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: I believe you jumped on me once for calling you “Marc S” when replies were down. Have you thought of going with “Maerc”. We could make up a country of origin where that’s the patron saint. A good backstory. Somewhere with steppes and a noble history of horsemanship.
Anne Laurie
@Valdivia: Thank you.
The closest I’ve ever come to not loathing Mitt Romney was when he babbled “I love coming back to Michigan, the trees are just the right height here” because that’s how I feel about New England. Although, specifically, the unexpected-environmental-detail I “love” about New England is that the scenery goes up & down in layers, like it’s supposed to — the upper Midwest is sadly flat & straight & sandy to someone who grew up at the uppermost end of the Appalachians.
My first college roommate grew up in a small town so remote that, even though she was paying in-state tuition, it took her almost as long to drive home as it did for me to drive back to NYC. We walked down the main street of the town together, and since it was all one- and two-story buildings, I said it felt like the sky was going to come down on my head since there wasn’t anything tall enough to hold it in place… and she said it felt like all those wall-to-wall brick buildings were going to crash down on us like legos every time a heavy truck rumbled past.
Corbin Dallas Multipass
@eemom: I dunno but that reminded me of this post from Atrios today/yesterday.
Be it ever so ostentatious, there’s only one other place that Marie Antoinette once lived in, like home.
Mark S.
@Suffern ACE:
That might work, but how about
Maerc S.?
some guy
@Mnemosyne:
cocktails at the 3.6 bars within walking distance nW x North of the Capitol is getting No Respect, being slagged by Center Right BJ Fight Club is much more satisfying.
muddle one lime, quartered
add simple syrup
etc.
Yutsano
@Valdivia: I shall have to accelerate my plans to conquer 1111 Constitution Avenue. :)
Funny that you and NYD are Noo Yahkers living in DC now. I just realized there’s a greater than zero possibility you’ve seen him about. But saying tall blonde Marine in DC isn’t exactly a helpful description.
some guy
@Corbin Dallas Multipass:
luv authentcity, re: nomenclature. originality: makes us Human. cf. et alia. etc.
Nutella
@Joey Maloney:
Yes, it can be exhausting just doing basic life stuff in a place where you don’t speak the language.
Redshift
@eemom: Yes, indeed, it’s a fine little club.
Valdivia
@Anne Laurie:
your description of things being just right is so much more poetic than Romney’s though! :)
@Yutsano:
hi you! how are you doing? you certainly have to accelerate your conquering plans. I know the city better now so I can show you around (and now have tons of new music places thanks to the team here). Also too. I may be moving to Shangai, so hurry up! :)
as for that description: umm that doesn’t really help! though since I am 6 feet tall he may find me much easier than me him. not to many tall latinas walking around here.
Redshift
The night is young, but I gotta cut out. ‘Night, everyone.
PeakVT
Also, too, the Spinach Feta Pie from the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover is my favorite food ever.
Yutsano
@Valdivia: He’s 6’4″ (which again doesn’t help) and I’m almost certain he works the Capitol building but I’m not certain. It’s not fun when he does Arlington rotations. That hits him hard.
I suppose it’s no great shock to reveal you’re taller than me. Sigh. :)
@PeakVT: You just made eemom die a little. :)
Valdivia
@Redshift:
yep me too!
g’night y’all.
@Yutsano:
when I go to the capitol this weekend for the march for women I am looking out for him :)
I am used to being taller than everyone now. Sorry! ;)
lamh35
I was supposed to go to sleep, but POTUS is killin it on Jimmy Fallon
Valdivia
@lamh35:
I am so glad to hear it. I am falling asleep so i will check it out tomorrow. We have the coolest POTUS
ETA: some deets?
suzanne
@JCT:
As a fellow native New Yorker transplanted to the desert for long enough now that I’m essentially as native to Arizona as one can be if one is white and not Mormon, please let me tell you that, while the Southwest has its charms, I have never stopped missing home. But I can’t afford to move back. (One of the aforementioned charms is decent, affordable housing.) I will note that Tucson fucking sucks goat ass.
And summer is coming. Fuckin’ blow my head off right now.
Mnemosyne
I don’t quite think of the place I’ve lived for almost 20 years as “home,” but the place I grew up isn’t really “home,” either.
I guess I feel like Aral Vorkosigan: “My home is not a place, it is people.” And since I’m here with my person, so to speak, I am home.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: It’s so funny: I’m rootless going back to my childhood (Navy brat) so much so that every two years I feel the compulsion to find a new place to live. I’m coming up on that mark now and I’m trying to decide what I want to do. That could be why I’m looking for a new job in the IRS that I could literally do anywhere in the country. Or even possibly out of it.
lamh35
@Valdivia: I hope one of the front pagers post the video. Obama had all three segments and Dave Matthews sang a new sing. It started off with Obama, jimmy & the roots slow jamming the news after which Obama “dropped da mike” ala Chris Rock. Then the interview segments which just shoed how good Obama is at speaking a language that the youth understands (he seemed to have the twitter speak down packed) and it seriously show how personal able he is and that he IS a formidable campaigner and pretty darn quick on his feet.
When asked for a tweet in respond to a man asking what he should say to his teenager about why he should vote for Obama over Mitt in 140 characters or less he seemed to come up with “I believe in young people & I’m going to fight for u”
eemom
@Yutsano:
We’re not in Astoria anymore, Toto. : (
gaz
@Yutsano: Same here. I stuck around Seattle for quite awhile though, even though I switched neighborhoods periodically – (hey, parts are pretty Balkanized!)
And I’ve stuck to the states, well washington state – but moved a lot. More luck than anything, being a navy brat myself (my step dad was navy, and raised me – my dad is a LEO). anyway. Next stop Mexico. Should be fun. Now that I am 100% telecommute (FINALLY!) I can take full advantage. No kids of my own either. heh. I’ve never been this (relatively speaking) poor in my life, and yet I’ve never had so many options.
Joey Maloney
@Suffern ACE: Not a bad idea, if for no other reason than the traveling circus economic stimulus of having 535 rich people plus all their staffs move in for half a year.
RadioOne
I love traveling, but I also love coming home. In fact, one of the best benefits to traveling somewhere is to come home tell people you know what you’ve seen elsewhere.
Travel should be considered one of the most essential elements of living.
Mnemosyne
Since we were all talking about traveling, I went ahead and made our hotel reservation for our trip home to visit family this summer. Both of our families are in Chicagoland, so we picked a spot right on the border between Lake and Cook counties (literally — Lake-Cook Road is the border).
Since this will probably also be our only real vacation this year, we decided to splurge on a one-bedroom at the Courtyard instead of the standard hotel room so we’re not right frickin’ on top of each other 24/7 for 7 days. That tends not to go well since we both like to have a certain amount of personal space.
jayboat
I travel a lot- this year I will do 6 shoots of 7+ days and another 6-8 of 2-5 days, and a few overnighters. Most out of state, some out of the country. Part of my self-appointed duty as a photojournalist is to try and capture some of the essence and ‘feel’ of an area where the event is taking place. This is usually easy because everything I cover is boat and water related. I never feel like I really miss anything, although it’s obvious that one person cant see everything, because there’s only 24 hours in a day.
Just do what makes you feel happy and don’t beat yourself up over what you ‘might’ have done.
FreeAtLast
I have a recurrent dream that it is the last day of a vacation somewhere beautiful and I suddenly realize that I haven’t done anything at all on the vacation. Just slept late every day and not managed to get my act together enough to get the family ready to get outdoors before it got dark. Seems like I’m (sub)consciously worried about a wasted life.
The prophet Nostradumbass
The Bay Area will always be “home” to me. I have lived here for the vast majority of my life.
It’s funny how “home” works for people; my mom, who has lived in the USA for over 50 years, will still refer to Ireland as “home” on occasion, even though she has no intention of ever living there again.
Elias
Wingnut hero of the day, who was apparently beat by a mob of blah people in retaliation for the George Zimmerman self-defense act…
Well, turns out he got beat by the parents of kids he’d “fussed” with after their basketball rolled into his yard.
And what exactly do I mean by “fussed”? Well, he pulled a knife on the children and threatened to lynch them.
http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Mayor-Police-Delmar-Beating-Not-A-Hate-Crime/sZA4gRm-_kmh8Jx-OhV-ig.cspx
If only he’d had a gun for self-defense. That would’ve shown that mob whose the master.
Raven
We are going to Maui in July for a niece’s wedding. My wife said “if you go fishing what will you do with the fish”?
I’m going to the islands and she wants to know IF I go fishing? IF. . .
Chet
In memory of the just-departed Levon Helm, I give you his closing stanza from “Acadian Driftwood”, which seems (kinda, sorta) apropos to the discussion:
I’ve worked in the sugar fields up from New Orleans
It was evergreen up until the flood
You could call it an omen, points ya where you’re goin’
Set my compass north, I got winter on my blood
CynDee
My trouble is that when I travel (not so much anymore, unfortunately), I want to live in the places I visit. I was never much interested in going to Russia, but when I did, I found it fascinating and wonderful and loved the people–and their dogs, too. There are a lot of dogs, and they are well-behaved and go everywhere. I wanted to live there long enough to learn the language well and see “everything.”
I want to live in England for about five years. I was there 3 weeks and came back with an accent. I want to live in Seattle and New York and Utah. I managed to live in Florida for 18 years, but also want to go back to being a denizen of the High Plains. Every place has its fascinations and wonders to appreciate and fill up on. You want to clone yourself; it’s all so interesting. It’s just that, clone or non-clone, you have to be able to make a living there . . . sigh.
shortstop
Heh, Doug, after your Crossroads post yesterday, I had scratchy old Robert Johnson recordings on all last evening…plus some Son House and Charley Patton. Looks like you did, too.
Brachiator
@lamh35:
I have no problem eating alone. Sometimes it even has its perks. A couple of times, an owner thought I might be a food critic and made sure that the service was extra nice. Sometimes I will offer to eat at the bar and not take up a table.
Apart from this, even though I don’t travel as much anymore, I love traveling and everything about it. I have a strange affection for airports and train stations, and check people out, wondering where their destinations are, if they are coming home or going on vacation. If there were space sports, I would be trying to hop a freighter to make a quick planet jump.
I love trying to get the rhythm of a city. I would often wander a city late in the evening with friends, especially when we were hitting blues bars in Chicago or jazz clubs in New York or dance clubs in Mumbai. A sometimes insomniac, I would occasionally hang out at this all night coffee shop frequented by cabbies and late night workers changing or starting their shifts, in New York. Ironically, I was taken to the same kind of place late at night by some cabbies in Jaipur. In an odd way, this feels like “home” to me.
A fun trip leaves me feeling refreshed when I get back home. And I can’t wait to plan the next trip.