How do you pick a place?
I spent most of the flight back to Boston today trying to figure out who, exactly, smelled like an old sponge and how to make it stop. The flight attendant gave me a water instead of the coffee I asked for, and then took the water back and never returned with the coffee.
It’s a short flight, and we had already started the descent as they handed out beverages, but before takeoff, we sat on the runway waiting for clearance for a half hour, so wouldn’t it have been more efficient to get everyone’s order then?
None of this is a big deal. We hurtled through the air and in the same amount of time it took to get to the studio where I took class yesterday, I was back in my apartment, opening more birthday presents.
My brother ended up in Queens after his old roommates scattered from Washington Heights and a coworker friend of his offered up a basement room.
My parents ended up in Indiana after running away from home and picking a university for my dad to finish school.
I have a habit of meeting people on the Internet and then forcing them to be my friends in real life because why not see it all the way through, and because something feels hollow about two-dimensions.
When I came back from California last year, a friend of mine said she was glad I was back, that she didn’t want me to move there.
“You can’t live where you vacation,” she said. “Then where would you go on vacation?”
This is, I suppose, a way to pick a place. It seems like a strange way to pick a life, though, to save all your fun and ease for the days outside of your reality. Something feels hollow there.
I have a hard time with people who complain about things that are within their control. There are plenty of situations we end up in, get hit with, fall into, without any sense of direction or ownership.
But the other ones.
The other ones are ours, and we can do anything with them.
We hurtle through the air now. We can go anywhere with relative ease and quickness. It’s a luxury of oddities that we can choose where to live, to pick a place.
I ended up in Boston because I picked a place to see what it would be like.
Why not see it through, and something feels hollow about not trying for the thing I thought I wanted.
But you handed me that water and I still want the coffee.
My flight landed a few minutes early this morning. It’s snowing here.