possible spring break plans

spring break plans (3/11 - 3/19): san francisco/berkeley with bree, possible roadtrippage to someplace such as yosemite, big sur, mt tam. i wonder whether i even still know anybody currently living at the oscar wilde house?

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was fairly hilarious. Shuttling Doug's drunk friends to the High Falls involved threatening not to drive anywhere until one relented in his insistence of riding in the trunk and demonstrating that the babyseats in the back could, in fact, be removed, though it turns out Kastan's small enough to squeeze into one anyway. They jumped out at the falls, I returned the monstrosity of a vehicle—Doug's friend reportedly considered parking 'out back' to avoid being discovered an SUV driver and subsequently shunned by the reportedly hippy denizens of le co-op—picked up Bree just off work, in the GTI, back to the High Falls, ten minutes to midnight...

So you can imagine us out there—me and Bree and Ryah and Robert, we'd lost the others—out huddled in the masses on the Pont du Rennes, the truss arch pedestrian bridge at the High Falls and possibly the only French-named piece of public infrastructure in all of Rochester. The bridge spans the chasm of the Genesee river gorge, and green laser beams dance around to the tune of 80's synth-pop over some municipal PA system that I can only imagine was the Fast Ferry of yesterday.

In green laser lines the last minutes of 2005 count down on what might be "Kodak Shale," or whatever they call that rock that walls the gorge. That's right, we brought in the new year with a fireworks display best described as "feeble," to the tune of U-2's "New Years Day," a song whose relevance does not extend from the title into the lyrics, or perhaps you could say it was all too apropos for this town: "Nothing changes on New Year's Day."

Ryah provided all sorts of hilarity. With the seconds counting down he started the chant, "SUI-CIDE, SUI-CIDE," which would have been all too easy on this bridge some seventy feet above swirling masses of very cold water. Then the feeble fireworks erupt from a mortar bank on the beach and Ryan bellows out at the top of his lungs: "FUCK ROCHESTER". I think some people laugh. But then he regains his composure and shouts with equal intensity, "I LOVE THIS CITY." But then! "Hey, guys, it's THE FUTURE!" Pause. "Wait, where are the flying cars??"

To all of us: "This is going to be the year when we are all going to figure out our lives!" If we'd had drinks, we'd have raised them to that.

The flood retreats from the bridge. We're separated. We're reunited in some High Falls bar.

Rob buys two lottery tickets, one for himself, one for me. We both lose.

Ryah barges into the kitchen and steals a bag of chips. Amol calls from San Francisco.

Rob and Ryah and Doug all run off to some other place. Bree and I drink pints. The toast: "To further adventures."

This conversation ensued:

"I'm not working tomorrow."
"Want to go somewhere?"
"Okay"
"Canada?"
"Sure"
"Montreal?"
"Let's go!"

And so we did.