New Holding Patterns

St. Uhura Watches

Six weeks in and the dread that set in has lifted and productivity is somehow on the menu. We have developed some routines in here and one of them has been attending webinars. I've alway been a class junkie, but the thing is I live in the Bronx where the opportunity to take classes and attend lectures is being choked off by Brooklyn's pull of all things extracurricular from Manhattan to itself. It was limited by the snail's pace of public transportation. It was limited by the costs that came with spending more time in a city being flushed of small time bodegas and salad/sandwich joints that don't take orders by app and still have staff with whom you can interact. I'm the sort that likes to mix her own coffee or ice tea and add just the right amount of milk and artificial sweetener and ice. The joy of "going in" was kept in check by the time wasted trying to get back out. It was limited by a growing desire to avoid wasting time. Ninety minutes each way on the MTA, if the transit gods smiled upon me, to attend a one hour talk! I don't think so. It was diminished by not having friends to meet afterward because they all moved to the best coast to have an easier time of things and well-lit apartments with real closets and amenities like sunlight. Or they are just too tired from working to pay rent and can't countenance non-happy prices but really need to drink in public for longer than those happy hours. Or maybe they are saving up to spend that money elsewhere where it will go further, which is anywhere.

Zoom Table Reading

Now all those classes, the lectures, the book talks, the panel discussions are online and even better, they are being taped making the time and location a non-issue. As it turns out, and this was somewhat of a surprise, I don't miss the face-to-face. Maybe I had too much of it during my time in the classroom. Maybe I got tired of it when I was doing "entertainment".  Or maybe I'm the sort who I will avoid people, if I can. This quarantine feels similar to the best parts of my childhood, the long stretches of time when I was left alone to whatever devices I could invent while shit was falling about all around.

Downtown Montreal

The past few years have been about saving for vacations. Saving time, money, and fun. Putting off big dinners out in New York because it would be more fun to have that big dinner in Montreal on a night when the weather is perfect and the airbnb is walking distance from the restaurant and we can pretend we have that kind of life. Delaying discretionary purchases in New York because the shopping experience in tacky-ass Vegas is just that much more of an experience. Not even thinking about a beach in the tri-state area because I might be able to get to one on a real island in the real sun. Overpriced drinks taste better everywhere else. This, here, is a place to be in between being places I'd like to be. I don't even bother with local mailing lists for events. A bit much, but it's an important part of aspirational nomadic living. Keep it rolling, virtually. I'm converted.