anamnesiac

two crispy blue sky days in a row. M and i used the first one to wander around the city. we took the train into the heart of chinatown and then meandered north without a plan. we poked around an arcade watching the DDR addicts (this is in the lineup for my next obsession after the irish singing thing) and making photo-stickers out of our faces merged with tiny anime characters, stopped briefly to sit on a sunny patio at pfiff in soho and eat hamburgers, and then caught a train up to – ok, this part was not my idea – fleet week activities on the hudson.

actually, though, i am secretly fascinated by the military. being the hardcore moderate that i am, nothing is inherently pure good or pure evil. we took a tour of the aircraft carrier turned museum, and i kept thinking of my father. he was a radioman in the korean war – a very abstract concept until i was in the recreated radio room with all of the plastic blonde/blue eyed navy men posed in stiff positions around stacks of mid-century analog machines. they even had a few real-live korean war vets showing people around – complete with whisky breath. really took me back.

inexplicably, we moved on to the upper west side. i think we were trying to go to places we would not normally go. of course, as we were reminded, there is a reason that we do not normally go to these places. but we did find a fantastic italian restaurant where we sat outside and had fresh pappardelle with garlic and broccoli rabe and downed a bottle of red wine.

the whole
day was
lazily pleasurable,
blissfully directionless, and
uncomplicatedly happy.