some of what has happened

After much driving, much much driving, 12 hours to Charlotte and 7 to DC and 5 on a bus to NYC, we are here in a Tribeca loft filled with art and a 12 year old cocker spaniel named Toffee. The ride was fine, with much napping in a quilt den in the back of the Jeep and listening to Radiolab. Alabama is a blight on this fine country, with awfully bigotted road signs at every turn, so we got through there right quick. Atlanta has nicely progressive radio, with hip hop and lib commentary, so nice. The Carolinas were so beautiful, we're going to be doing quite a bit of camping after the city. Or so we say. Those are the tentative plans. Charlotte charmed us quite a bit, but while in New York, nothing else compares, not even a little bit.

DC was really nice though. The first night we stayed with our good friend Lisa, who is now living in communal quarters of ungodly tininess. It is not something I could do, but she thrives in the highly social, highly activist environment. We drank quite a lot at her place and at the Wonderland bar and then back at her place and next thing I knew it was morning and I couldn't find my jewelry. The weather was bright, clear and about 75 degrees, so Will and I walked about 30 blocks from what my friend Katie calls the ghetto but most assuredly is not to the Mall, where we visited the insanely crowded Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I am always shocked by how well-kept and nice-smelling DC is. All the row houses have these tiny but gorgeous lawns sprouting with wildflowers and roses, giving most of DC this green wonderful breeze. I love walking in cities when the weather is good and all the children and dogwalkers come out to play. We ate the fattest jerk chicken sandwiches and watched the city roll by. My very dear friend Katie met up with us at the Smithsonian and suggested we walk past the White House to the Renwick. I cannot recommend this place enough. It is just. Ugh. So good. It is very small but it houses some of the most profoundly moving art I have ever encountered. Don't even look at the site, just go when in DC and let the work wash over you. You'll know it when you see it. After, we stopped for gelato, a habit I could easily over-acquire, and then eventually went to Katie's for yum vegan dinner. One thing about my relationship with Katie. We have known each other for almost ten years (Jesus God) and have been through a lot together. There have been times of intense closeness and times of not talking. There has been distance and reconnection. But there is just something very powerful about being with her, of having that familiar wonderful intimacy and dialogue, that is one of the most comforting things for me to experience. I so often feel isolated and lonely, skipping from situation to situation, wondering if I am good or even just alive, but when I am with her, I feel like a full rich person. I am so glad to have seen her.

Yesterday we booked a Bolt bust to NYC and settled in for the ride. I am reading Tipping the Velvet still, which I am offsetting with Infinite Jest, which is why I haven't finished it yet. It got to a ridiculously juicy bit when we first spotted the city and it was a struggle between diving in to the book and straining for peeks of Manhattan. After dinner with De Woody, our gracious host, we walked around the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village, looking in boutique windows and breathing in the streets upon streets of Indian food and noodle shops and sushi and all those people laughing and drinking and eating huge plates of gorgeous food. I had to fight my open mouth, closing it over and over again. We walked til our feet ached and then we came back to the loft to drink Brooklyn beer on the fire escape. The loft across from us was all lit up and we were the somewhat undesiring voyeurs of a little bout of pornography watching from the single male occupant. When the underpants came off, we went inside. Today I woke from unsettling dreams to a symphony of cacaphonic construction noise. We met a friend of Will's for brunch and then Will took me to Fort Tryon Park, an unexpected and beautiful garden on the river with a cathedral and many beautiful flowers and condoms in the bushes. On the subway there, we watched kids breakdancing. On the subway back, we listened to a mariachi band.

We spent the afternoon walking through Hell's Kitchen, and then the Village again, and then Chinatown, where we ate amazing dumplings for $1.25 and I was refused a mango smoothie and I don't know why. There were musicians in the park and I felt a little of what Stephen might feel like, surrounded by Chinese people and feeling every red hair on my head. Now we are back in the loft and that is the long long entry just skimming the details of the first few days of our trip.

There is a lot going on inside my head but I am not getting into it here. It is there though, boiling under the surface, and I keep thinking about what Shanna said when I told her I was taking this trip with Will: You should go, and you will find what you need.