August 21, 2009

vacation satiation

Now that a week has passed since my vacation, I'm ready to look back on it with nostalgia, rather than as the source of dehydration (too much sun) and achy legs (too much walking) and sleep deprivation (too many late nights and early mornings). Actually, all that was a meagre price to pay for good times with good friends, outrageously good food, and a little time in one of the world's great cities (NYC, though Boston's no slouch either).

Boston's North End.
I walk more purposefully when carrying a box full of pastry (specifically, ricotta cannoli).

This time we skipped the Strand, since I have
too many books still unread, and hit up Williamsburg and Coney Island instead, which was just as fabulously weird as I had been led to expect. I'm not sure whether it was the recorded messages blaring invitations to the 50-cent freakshows or the disgusting corn dog I ate, but it was just seedy enough to make us want to leave in a hurry.

Sometimes I think that mostly the reason I leave home at all is so that I can be reminded all over again how lucky I am to live where I do. And there's something to be said, too, for enforced separation from a writing project -- such that you're daydreaming about it and longing to get back to work.


On Brighton Beach. Beaches are a novelty for this Montrealer.

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