New Blog Link

I've decided to move my blog to a new location. Check it out: http://teenietravels.travellerspoint.com

The Strand

I can't seem to write about New York right now. I seem to be somewhere else--in my head maybe. We crawl from one corner of the city to the other, searching out food and, occasionally, enthusiastically, those little temples to literature I find in the form of libraries and bookstores. We browsed the Strand today, for as long as Chris could stand it. Difficult to explain my love of bookstores since I never buy anything. Maybe it's just comforting to be in the company of so many friends, gently beaming their familiar titles at me. The Strand boasts 18 (8?) miles of bookshelves, which I found difficult to contemplate. (Certainly each shelf in a bookcase must be counted separately?). I thought: a dustier, more historic version of Keplar's in Menlo Park. Still, it was no Powell's. I know with these careless words I must be stomping on some old and sacred ghosts, but that's all gone now, isn't it, and it's not coming back. That's what all of New York feels like to me, pasting over all the character and tradition, all the grime and humanity, with anything that is bland and chic and new. Sometimes I turn away with an excess of helpless disgust, but then I always look back, oddly fascinated.

Daily Trivia II

I'm losing my sense of time. Events that happened a few days ago seem months away, and yet Friday sneaks upon me as a surprise. Our days go like this: wake up around 10 to 11 am futz around and feed ourselves a bit, deciding what to do; go to a few places in the city to eat; walk walk walk until we think Carlos might be home soon; watch TV/go on the internet/trip research with Carlos until his eyes get droopy; shower; laundry; retreat to our rooms where Chris and I work on his Chinese lesson of the day; and finally Chris drifts off to sleep while I read.

Daily Trivia

We still do laundry everyday (or, rather, Chris does it since I usually just have underwear and sometimes socks). The laundry hangs by the window in Carlos's bedroom, where we sleep, from a white string tied around a silver-painted pipe and a precarious-looking nail. Seeing our hanging laundry pleases me for no reason I can devise.

We didn't go out today--instead occupied the whole morning cooking and then went to tutor the soccer children with Carlos. I spent the afternoon helping Crystal with her science homework, a puddle of anxiety over my inadequacy. Couldn't I have gotten something more straightforward than (literally) rocket science?

NYC

During the day we wander around the city in the damp cold. Everything is gray--the concrete, the sky, the slate rivers. And dirty the way only a city can be dirty in the wet.

Today we got caught in the Garment District during rush hour and were so overwhelmed by the crush of people that we ducked into the subway and left. Then I read all the way back to the 161st St. stop, just like a local would, and that's what I pretend we are for this month that we're here. After all, what do we do besides eat, take the subway, and cook? We walk just to see, and sometimes we pop into a library (for rest) or a Starbucks (for the bathroom).

I'm intrigued by the idea of living here. It's at once alluring and hateful. I love the ease with which one can slip into different worlds, and yet none of these worlds are as great to me as San Francisco.