Friday, October 25, 2002

Snapshots

The Chess and Checkers House at Central Park, the old black guy and his sax at Battery Park, short trees with the season's golden leaves on Liberty Island, the immigrants' bunk beds at Ellis Island, the view from the balcony at Grand Central, bird shit on my pants.

{The Size of Our Love, Sleater-Kinney} - is that a cello in the background?

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

The drive home

Ha! I had a surprisingly good week-end. It was fun hanging out with my cousins, aunts and uncles who I get to see only about once a year. Ocean City was a ghost town when we got there last Saturday. The stores had signs saying: "See you in Spring 2003". The breeze was a bit chilly already. But we all walked along the boardwalk, shivered, shared a funnel cake, watched TV, had dinner together around a large table. We talked about other relatives, Philippine and American history, geography. And it's times like these, when you're not really expecting to have fun, that you actually do.

My cousin Josh volunteered to drive us (my aunt and I) home, since everybody had already left earlier. I vaguely remember meeting him when we were kids, but then they moved here about ten years ago and I only really met him again last year. The thing is, I'm not very good with enclosed spaces and small talk. And I was bracing myself for a horrible two-hour drive (you know, awkward silence, etc.; my aunt was sleeping in the backseat). And it did start out horrible. But then Josh started talking about how he used to go on road trips with his friends and how they'd get trapped in snowstorms in the middle of nowhere. And we talked and laughed and in the end, it wasn't horrible at all. It didn't feel like two hours either.

I'm just glad. It's nice rediscovering somebody - a friend or a relative that you didn't really bother to get to know before and now you realize that you actually have a lot of things in common. I'm also awfully touched because it's not a short drive, he has to drive back, he has work tomorrow and has to wake up early, and he left pretty late. Awww.

{Cold Cold Water, Mirah} - I finally got the Advisory Committee album! *starry eyes*