16 July 07

Time:

Almost exactly as much as I thought, from my bed to the front car of a Yonkehs-bound train (although I had time to stop for a muffin and some coffee, which I wasn't sure I'd be able to do.)

Money:

$6, aforementioned railroad (man, do I love the railroad... any freakin' railroad) ticket.
$4, also aforementioned breakfast, Junior's in Grand Central.
$32 (or something), sushi, that really good place in the West Village.
$6, pint o' Bass, Jack Russell's.

More interesting things:

Realized that some purposeful D.P.-related discussion must have taken place in the only house in Yonkers in which I have any particular interest. Professor Zulu ('cause she's Professor Alpha's complement; Mrs. Professor Alpha wouldn't work because she is one herself) announced that "Alpha tells me you drink D.P. - we have plenty of it!", interrupted by a slow growl from Alpha himself noting that that is one of many points on which we have bonded: damn skippy.

Felt very oddly like I was standing around in a house with my own parents as Professors Alpha and Zulu got cleaned up to go to the party for which they were driving into the city (and dropping me off, thank you, at which point I wanted little more than to yell, "Thanks, Dad!" as they drove away.) This was exacerbated by the fact that I sat in the back seat - not a surprise how that would make a person feel like a kid - but also by standing around in their kitchen while they did things like straighten cuff links and compliment necklaces, which does not have a whole heck of a lot to do with my own upbringing. Weird, but in a profoundly nice, strangely familiar (or maybe just familiarly homey) way.

Decided that there are way, WAY worse positions to hold in the world than to be one-half of a two-professor couple living close enough to the world's greatest city that its public transportation system gets near your house and the commute is the same length as that of some people who actually live in the city itself but far enough from that city that the houses are huge (and old), there are not just driveways but cars to sit in them, and the most expedient means of getting to work involves an above-ground rail line. That is - to speak less in fluffy generalities and more in specifics - you would not catch me arguing with anyone who wanted to tell me that someday I'll be a) a professor b) married to another c) living in a not-quite-suburb of New York with d) a big ol' book- and squeak-filled wooden house, e) a corner office in the city, and f) a country house in the mountains. The thing that made me think of all this is probably going to seem very weird, but this was in fact the catalyst: these guys have the option of taking into the city either a 30-minute drive or a 30-minute train ride, a situation which seems so quintessentially Northeastern - Tri-Rail's not that great, folks! - that I didn't even need to be able to look down at the Hudson River to be able to tell you what state we were in.