Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Long Week is Over

That's right. It's Saturday night, and I'm sitting down in the living room of my apartment for the summer, finally taking a breath. Just to recap:

The last time I posted I was in Kingston, Rhode Island, stuck at an Amtrak. I don't know whether Amtrak ever actually repaired that train, but they didn't do it while I was in Rhode Island. After 3-plus hours of sitting idly, an empty train came from Boston and carried us away. Instead of the original 7:20 p.m., we arrived at Penn Station around 11:45. I started work the next morning.

Work, is good. I update Discover magazine's Discoblog about twice a day, writing blurbs about weird science. I fill in the magazine stories that go online with links to other relevant sites. I might get to do some longer bits of writing soon. So that's good.

Most of the week I've been stressed out about where to stay, so it's nice to be free of that burden for a few months. I stayed with Rob Sunday and Monday, paying my debt by helping his roommate move a couch. Just give me something I know how to do.

Tuesday and Wednesday I stayed with a girl named Jenna D who I met on couchsurfing.com. The site exists to help people who want to travel on the cheap and meet new people connect with their potential hosts. She was the only one who ever responded to me. Like most Web communities, it seems, couchsurfers aren't interest in rookies, or people who don't have a bunch of "friends" and references on their page. That aside, Jenna was sweet and great. We had beers at a bar near the Carroll St station and talked about the oddity of our situation -- either one of us could have been crazy, theoretically, but we weren't. I paid my debt by bringing her Brooklyn Summer Ale.

Thursday night I stayed with Andrew G, a Discover intern from NYU. He is still in school, moreso than I am, which means besides working 10 to 6 at Discover, he's in class until 9. The plus side of that is that he lives in a NYU dorm in Downtown Brooklyn, where his 21st- story room has a beautiful view of lower Manhattan. And they haven't even forces a roommate on him yet.

Now I'm at my place. I met Rob for drinks last night, which ended up with us back at his building watching his downstairs neighbors playing Grand Theft Auto IV, but more importantly, with me taking Bart's second ticket to the Mariners-Yankees game today. The Yanks won, 12-6. It was cool to go. Yankee Stadium isn't mind-blowingly gorgeous like the newest stadiums in the majors, it's just a place where a ton of cool things went down, so I'm glad that I visited. My majors league ballparks count is now up to 4, with eyes on Shea and Philadelphia's Citizen's Bank Park for later this summer. The giveaway at the Stadium today was packs of Yankee Legacy baseball cards, featuring famous events from the stadium's history. I got the pope. I kid you not. The pope -- he's all about giving mass and all. And I got the Ali-Norton fight, so that was cool.

The long weekend was well earned. Hope everyone else is feeling good.

1 comment:

Elissa said...

I've been wondering -- glad to hear it's going well. Larry and Nina are going home tomorrow after a (mostly) lovely visit.

OK, seriously? This time the word verification is "dokoy". Really?