I got out of the house!

Yes, my back was killing me by the end of the day, but I got out of the house yesterday. D and I went north for a drive to look at fall foliage. I discovered a strange phenomenon; the foliage was better right around where I live than it was closer to where (scientifically speaking) it ought to have been further along in the process. I wish we could have walked along the canal, which must be stupendous right now, but I'm not there yet. Well, I am, but my back isn't.

When I was a kid growing up in the big NJ I used to think that because the leaves were usually at their zenith right around the time of my birthday the whole thing had been designed in honor of me. It gets better. My older brother once said that he always felt his birthday (three days after mine) kicked off the holiday season. You known Stephen John Murphy Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Years. I'm starting to think I come from a family of egomaniacs. My only defense is that I thought such things as a kid; SJM, on the other hand, was about 45 when he said this.

I also turned my eternal quest for optimism in a new direction yesterday. I bought a new rug for my bedroom, a new bedspread, and new place mats for my nightstands. I have two cool nightstands with kind of beat up tops, so a covering is crucial. My room is pink, no not my choice, I just haven't repainted since I moved in to this ancient heap of a house. The walls are pink with a hand stenciled border (the previous owner was an artist) and the wood floor is a sort of well, almost eggplant color. So, I don't have a lot to work with, since I'm not a girly girl so floral prints are OUT. I found a cool striped rug at Target (cheap!) and a new (ridiculously cheap!) cocoa bedspread with pink stitched (like a thin stencil almost) flower shapes, like outlines, get it? My powers of description are not keen when it comes to describing bedrooms, sorry. The place mats for my funky nightstands are a kind of olive green. Very funky I think. The thinking is that since the bedroom's basically my prison, it might as well be a cool looking prison.

We also stopped and bought apples at Northstar Orchard, which made me a little sad because so much has happened (like apple season!) since I've been in jail. But basically it was an optimistic day, finished off by a visit to a new sushi place. I never would have guessed when I moved here five years ago that the greater Utica area (that's funny; when I type that I feel like I'm making a joke) could support not, but two sushi restaurants. The sushi was good, the service sucked. The appetizers were good, but they came after the sushi, long after in appetizer years. We had aged tofu and edamame (sp?): quite yummy. The sake was excellent and did not smell or taste at all like lighter fluid.

So I guess the moral of my story is: thank goodness I'm middle class and can redo my bedroom and eat sushi! The transition from starving graduate student has often left me feeling a little apologetic, staid and slightly foul for some reason. But heck, yesterday I liked being middle class. D even said something about our middleclassedness. Of course, we're middle class in NY, which actually means we're poor and we just don't know it.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, have a great Sunday. I'm gonna read the Times and eat apples.
Peace