Arlington

I'm back in New York. Actually, I was back several days ago, but somewhere between here and there, I picked up one mother of a cold, which has had me waylaid for the better part of a week. Finally I'm feeling well enough to compose a thought or two.

The trip to Arlington was a good one. It's been a long time since my mother and I took a road trip--at least since college--and I'd forgotten what an enjoyable travel companion she is. We spent most of the ride just chatting away about everything. Haven't done that in a while, so it was good to catch up. Arlington, itself, is a strange place for me. Since I was twelve, I've been to the national cemetery for more funerals than any other; in fact, I'm pretty sure the first funeral I ever went to was there. I have three family members buried there. My grandfather and grandmother and my Aunt Marie, who died in the first Gulf War. As my mom and I drove through the town, I realized I could pick out landmarks from the various funerals, like the diner we ate in after my grandfather's funeral and the military housing we stayed in on Fort Meyer while we waited for my aunt's body to arrive.

It's strange to me to have a relationship with a cemetery, especially this one, but I suppose there was a time when all people had personal relationships with their cemeteries. When they dug their own graves and said their own last rites. I do like the funerals at Arlington. There's so much ceremony in them, so much respect for the dead. The other funerals I've been to were swift assembly-line affairs. A quick in and out. I don't care for those. I want a funeral with some thought to it.

After that, we went out for dinner with the family--many of whom I hadn't seen in years--and then drove home.


Und dann...

When I got home, I was happy to see one of the books I recently bought from Amazon has arrived. That would be Low Life, a portrait of 19th century New York desolates and delinquents. I'm looking forward to starting on it. I may have to vary between that and the other books I'm reading. One is Pandora's Hope, which is essays on the reality of science studies. I picked it up while looking for a book on neuroscience and wasn't able to put it down in the bookstore. The other is Transactions in a Foreign Currency, short stories by Deborah Eisenberg, which came on a recommendation from a friend and hasn't been great, but hasn't been bad, either.

Meanwhile, in the last day or two, I downloaded and played a short interactive fiction game that made me remember an earlier plan I'd had to write a choose-your-own adventure book. I thought of this years ago, while walking home. I would write a real book--a really in-depth and literary book--that would also include a path you could choose yourself. As with choose-your-owns, it would be in second person, but unlike them, there would be no way to simply die. If you made a misstep, or made a decision that led you to a dead-end, it would take you back to the beginning of the book and you could start over again, or just go back to the page you left off from. Alternatively, if I wanted to get really complicated, I could write it so there were no dead-ends, just alternate possible endings. Either way, the thought had me really excited.

And with that, it's a quarter after one and the day has finally caught up with me sufficiently that I'm a little sleepy. So I'm off to bed, in the hopes tonight won't be as crazy and full of fever dreams as last night was.

PS

I've edited my FAQ to fill out a couple of the questions at the end, which I think petered off a bit in the first version of it. Can't have petering around here...no sir. Peter-free, this place is.