I love Fall. I love Fall nighttimes. I love listening to Killing Joke’s “Night Time” at 1:30 a.m. on lucid Fall nights while glowing with Guinness and scrambling for words. 
I love breaking out the old REM vinyl with the windows wide the fuck open and dancing around in flannel and remembering when Michael Stipe was idealistic and admiring the cover of “Document” while the chilled breeze seeps into my hair and fills me with inspiration and all sorts of crazy nostalgia for teenage moments past and reminders of why I love music.
Sorry I’ve been absent - took a week off from work, from the Internet, from the news, from D.C. and the Redneck Across Town. I greeted the first day of Fall sitting on a deck looking into the West Virginia woods, catching up on reading and letting the day flow though my body as the stresses and weights of my life lost their grip and dripped off me.
I continued my dance with Fall in New York City, catching up with old friends and running around the Village taking in the sights, smells, breezes and vibes of a place that never lets you take yourself too seriously while searching for Roman candles.
Being the geek that I am, I decided that I needed to have my first-ever pastrami on rye in New York. Luckily, my friend knew just the place, and I enjoyed the greatest $10.95 sandwich of my life. Yes, I really took a picture of my New York pastrami on rye. What? I refrained from trying a New York egg cream - that’s for the next visit.
I biked along the waterfront from Chelsea to Battery Park, watching the development rise and thinking about taking trapeze lessons. I finally saw Ground Zero for the first time, and chilled a bit with an actual wild turkey wandering around in the park.
New York is perfect in the Fall. My only complaint is I come back seeing D.C. as a stifling prison of uptight futility, a circle jerk of people with way too much money and way too little brain power thinking they can control every aspect of Life and making everyone else suffer for their mediocrity. I’m ready to pack up and go … to a place where rent is even higher and I have no job. Oh, wait - shit. I guess I’ll stay a little longer.
sid world headquarters
Mala | 30-Sep-03 at 8:53 am | Permalink
I love the diversity of DC’s neighborhoods. The food is to die for - allowing for Indian one night, followed by Chinese the next and Ethiopian on the weekend. There has been an explosian of art in the past couple years - I still haven’t hit all of the galleries. And if you’re a fan of architecture like me, you can get lost in admiration staring at the range of buildings throughout the city.
The stereotype of DC is as the rich, corrupt, boring, political powerhouse. I prefer to tease out the aspects that make it home.
sid | 30-Sep-03 at 10:39 am | Permalink
I know that you’re right. I know that I don’t take advantage of all I should here. I know that New York has its fair share of tight-assed snootiness.
But for some reason walking around Manhattan that city just feels so much more alive and raaar! than here. The first few days I’m back D.C. always feels like a stale frat party whereas New York is a red house party.
Mala | 30-Sep-03 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
No city compares with New York. The city that never sleeps where everything is to “the power of.” Super sized buildings, chaotic activity, people yelling simultaneously in multiple languages. There is no mistaking you are in a city
You either love or hate it.
And although I love New York, I prefer the small-town feel of DC. If anything, perhaps Chicago is the perfect compromise.
Going from West Virginia to Manhattan must have been a shock to your senses. WOWZA!
tom | 01-Oct-03 at 1:23 pm | Permalink
I second the Chicago-as-perfect-compromise notion. Mind you’ve become so spoiled by Northern California that the notion of putting up with sleet has become unthinkable, but still: Chicago’s a great town — I’d be tempted to move there before New York.
tom | 01-Oct-03 at 1:25 pm | Permalink
uh, make that “mind you I’ve become…” (note to self: preview feature is your friend)
Anonymous | 02-Oct-03 at 4:45 pm | Permalink
….I struck that picture 90 times…
sometimes in heartache (PJ’s Black) but all for the love.
RRRAAARRR! gibb gibb
spinning in circles, singing the songs we love, at times in self absorbance (Driver
(or, it could be screaming Cramps’ “Goo-goo muck” land surfing in Missouri while devouring pear chapelle and pop tarts) the possibilities are endless!