paradisical. that's how i might describe this little vacation.
thursday: left about 8:20 pm from pelham. rain, extended foecast rain, showers, rain, rain (portland, maine). we spend the night at ----- and -----'s house in brookline.
friday: this house is nothing short of amazing. like out of a novel. two big very friendly dogs lick us awake. in the nick of time ----- gets a call from her doc, so we head there instead of to the default emergency room. drove through cloudy new england, the autumn leaves in peak, toward the boothbay region. i screwed up a little by not paying attention; caused us to spend at least a full extra hour on the road than was necessary. it didn't really matter too much though, because our late start meant we would have arrived after dark in any event, save falling into a worm hole. the lawnmeer was fine - fireplace and heavenzy soap. dinner at the ebb tide - fried haddock and clams, chocolate frappe and pecan pie.
next morning the weather had cleared significanty; blue sky, sun and cumulus clouds. very pretty views until the cloud cover returned ahout half an hour off of monhegan. we landed, had no idea how to find the hitchcock house, but things, as they so often do when we simply step back and out of the way, took care of themselves.
nice room with a skylight. a huge front deck looking out onto the town. we shall not meet our hostess until late sunday.
we toured the entire perimeter of the island in two sessions; the first of these we completed shortly after our arrival - trail 5, turn R (S) around the lower half into town. the shipwreck - must be new since i first (and last) visited Monhegan with ----- in the summer of '89.
i woke late that night under a most impressive star field.
sunday: continued our tracing of the shoreline. fair weather continues. huge dinner of seafood alfredo and bread and key lime cheesecake leaves me with a mild case indigestion.
today is monday and it is nearly time to leave. i do not relish the thought of leaving, yet nor could i conceivably stay too long away fom my books and the virtual green tables [not sure if i mentioned it earlier, but i picked up just under a dime last week at paradise poker, under 10 hours].
we walked briefly to the ocean via
trail 4, then walked back trail 3 quickly because it was cold and cloudy.
we did make it up to the cemetary and it remained cold and windy and
drizzly. i think we both had an adverse reaction to this shift in
weather; to this rude reminder of the definitive end of summer. a heated
discussion of the future of machine sapience, machine rights, etc. in the
Periwinkle, where there were no herbal teas, no lemon, and no ice cream flavors
left which might be suitable for the preparation of a frappe. It was a
rather dismal picture painted by the weather, our imminent departure and the
"closing" of Monhegan Island for the winter season.
We waited for a while in the Inn for
the Balmy Days, which, unannounced to us, cancelled its around-the-island tour
before returning to Boothbay Harbor.
The ride back to Boothbay was
frought with foul weather and slight motion sickness on my part. This
was, I'm quite sure, made much worse by the fact that I had been eating sugar-
and carbohydrate-rich foods since Friday night. Even now I host a
queasiness, a mild ongoing feeling of indigestion, which I assume shall pass
once the superfluous remains of the garbage foodstuffs have been burned off.
Lunch at the Ebb Tide (again).
Just coffee/hot chocolate and pie. Blueberry for her, Butterscotch cream
for me. Cold. Brr.
Portland---> -----. Trouble. It's difficult to be the only male in the house; she still hasn't learned to differentiate between empowering women and bashing men. I had been mentally preparing for the meeting during the entire trip. ----- was helpful in listening and making some suggestions as to how to reprogram myself when I feel the dance coming on; the dance I no longer want to engage in or be a part of. As we were leaving, ----- started pressing the "eating disorder" button repeatedly, as if waiting for the knee-jerk response of my anger. I refused to play ball. Good for me. I think today, however, that I really don't want to be around someone who constantly insults my chromosomal configuration. I am unsure how to deal with the possiblity of her and ----- coming to NYC to visit soon...
----- and I had our own encounter that night, much later. So much has been said and though about the incident that it seems to me now hardly possible that I might forget the details; but experience shows that I'm probably wrong. Still, I'm not sure how much time to allot to the recording of this. Basically, she spoke in anger, i reacted in anger, and we both got more angry and stayed that way for about an hour, after which we discussed it for a long time and I think came to the consensus that it had all been based on a slight misunderstanding. Added to that the irritability caused by the weather, the long drive home, and the end of the vacation (and for me, stomach upset and light zombie-feelings, plus irritation residual from dinner with -----).
I just had a conversation with an interesting fellow in the computer biz - he does an online service that basically replaces a computer/server, allowing the user to simply plug into the net with a "dummy" terminal and get better service, so he says, for less money. Sounds cool. We got into the conversation via his curiosity about my Palm. I yakked on and on about it. It seemed apparent to me toward the end that his service should incorporate Palm support as well. He got my card. Things are certainly interesting these days...
Added a few books to my "must read" list - Penrose: The Emperor's New Mind and Gibson: Neuromancer. It seems critical to be up-to-date with the state of the art in science fiction at all times. [uh huh - like way over a decade later??? - ch] That's the dream factory; the prophets can save me thousands of hours of time and energy. Much to do.
Had a short visit to 30th St. Cleaned the cat boxes, emptied the crap ----- had thrown in the recycle bin into the trash; took out the trash; napped. Naps are great. I should take one every afternoon. ----- and I talked about that on Monhegan. It will be hard for her to incoroporate them into her schedule. Patients must either drop out or be rescheduled.
I am in my "fave"
Starbucks on 57th/Lex. I met the computer guy here. There's a cute
chick from France across the table from me. I have to pee again.