minneapolis

I'm a bit more careful about broadcasting my location these days, but now that I'm — uh, back in Alabama? — I'll say that I had a good time in Minnesota. I should post some pictures, shouldn't I? First up, though, a gentle bit of listening pleasure for your Friday. Guster still sounds like Guster, but the images in this video are the real winner.

I’m in Minneapolis, trying my hand at actually vacationing for a change. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

It had to happen eventually, but it took a bottle of mead and a late night and finally signing off of work to realize it.  I am going. I am really going. I have this sleep, the one that’s coming for me fast even as I type this entry, and one abbreviated one more, and that is it. A little over twenty-four hours and I am gone.

I am lying on the guest bed next to a surprisingly small pile of items that must go with me. Is this all I need of life for two weeks?  Really?

I’ve turned off all the lights except the lava lamp, whose glow is strangely soothing, and put away my books.  (Wizards of Earthsea is for the plane, so quit dipping into it already, Amy.) I need to wind down, and sleep, and yet suddenly it is all too real and all too soon and all too horribly far away.

Tickets are booked to Paris; tickets are booked to San Francisco.

We will be six in San Francisco, with tagalong extras depending on the day and the inclination of our local friends.  We have nebulous plans:  look for us in the cheap seats at the Giants-Astros game on July 4.  I’ll be the one in the bleachers with the beer; that’s all you need to find me in the crowd, right?  We’ll do a night tour of Alcatraz and I’ll relearn the San Francisco bus system and pictures, pictures, pictures!

A week in San Francisco.  We’ll celebrate Suzan’s birthday and tag along behind Asai in Chinatown.  Asai learned last night there’s a temple there; amidst the touristy time and stomping all over the city, we’ll probably take a few minutes for prayers. 

You would never have told them ahead of time that the prospect of taking kids to the zoo terrified you, and you were glad later that you did not because paradoxically, it was easy, and the clouds were even kind enough to finish their business early enough to allow you time to play outside.

A few hours later you recognize the familiarity of the geeky-auntie role. You have painted Zoë’s fingernails bright blue, and in a move that will shock and amuse many of your local friends, photographic evidence of a toddler sitting in your lap (by choice!) has been gathered.

You have the distinct pleasure of letting someone else make you dinner. The kids have meltdowns and the conversation goes late; your toes have hooked themselves of their own accord onto the chair next to you, and you don’t exactly remember when you decided you needed to be in the rocking chair, but it was right and necessary.

You reassure yourself that O’Hare will not screw you like last time, despite your sub-forty-minute connection. The land on the other side of your second flight is unknown to you, but you get on the plane anyway, recognizing that every airport, every flight, on this trip leaches a little of your individuality away.

No one is special in an airport. You walk down corridors that see hundreds of travelers per hour, all purposeful, all just as nameless and faceless as you. You are disconcerted to realize that within an hour, you will remember no faces and, in turn, will be just as forgotten. You wonder if you are the only person who becomes a little more transparent, a little less opaque, every time she goes through another airport.