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The Intersection of Aurora & Seneca
Jun. 15th, 2012 09:25 amIt’s been a while.
Life in town definitely suits me better than life in the country. One of the things about growing up in a place as unique as Manhattan and then leaving, is that most of your brain continues to be adapted to living in Manhattan. You end up putting this part of your brain on a shelf in the closet. Ignoring it. When you start using it again, the familiarity is this intense, exciting rush.
This tiny little intersection, Aurora and Seneca Street in upstate Ithaca, New York is intensely urban. That soothes me somehow. The squeaky breaks of the buses and garbage trucks. The rattling idle of the cars and trucks. Filtered voices rising off the streets. Most people would find it appalling, I’m sure. But I like it. It’s the great seething mass of ambitious humanity.
The apartment itself reminds me very much of the one I lived in in Paris and Scotti’s Chelsea studio in my modeling days. The iconic brick wall! The landlord gave me a brief history of the building. Erected in the 1870s, the upper stories were originally intended as storage for the commercial establishments at ground level. When he turned them into apartments, he pulled out vast networks of pulleys and dumbwaiters. The ceilings are very high. The light filters in, shadows move on the wall.
It’s a flat with three bedrooms, and one of the other bedrooms has also been rented out – to a woman in her early 20s, much to RTT’s horror. Apparently he finds it very odd that an old crone like me would be sharing living space with a young beauty like her.
He didn’t tell me this. Ben did.
I don’t think of myself as old, of course, but it’s an illusion I can only sustain these days so long as I avoid mirrors.
“But it’s not like we’re roommates,” I said to Ben. “It’s like we’re living in the same hotel.”
He shrugged and looked away. I could tell he thought it was odd too. But Ben gets more and more parochial and small town everyday. Sometimes I look at him and wonder how we could have been soul mates for 17 years. We are pals, good pals. He has come through for me and continues to come through for me in every possible way. But once upon a time, we shared a strategy for world dominance. Is it only young people who are allowed to have strategies for world dominance? I still have one. It’s on that shelf in the closet, next to the map of Manhattan. Every once in a while, I pull it down and look at it.
There’s a lot to write about. This was mainly about testing the microphone.
Life in town definitely suits me better than life in the country. One of the things about growing up in a place as unique as Manhattan and then leaving, is that most of your brain continues to be adapted to living in Manhattan. You end up putting this part of your brain on a shelf in the closet. Ignoring it. When you start using it again, the familiarity is this intense, exciting rush.
This tiny little intersection, Aurora and Seneca Street in upstate Ithaca, New York is intensely urban. That soothes me somehow. The squeaky breaks of the buses and garbage trucks. The rattling idle of the cars and trucks. Filtered voices rising off the streets. Most people would find it appalling, I’m sure. But I like it. It’s the great seething mass of ambitious humanity.
The apartment itself reminds me very much of the one I lived in in Paris and Scotti’s Chelsea studio in my modeling days. The iconic brick wall! The landlord gave me a brief history of the building. Erected in the 1870s, the upper stories were originally intended as storage for the commercial establishments at ground level. When he turned them into apartments, he pulled out vast networks of pulleys and dumbwaiters. The ceilings are very high. The light filters in, shadows move on the wall.It’s a flat with three bedrooms, and one of the other bedrooms has also been rented out – to a woman in her early 20s, much to RTT’s horror. Apparently he finds it very odd that an old crone like me would be sharing living space with a young beauty like her.
He didn’t tell me this. Ben did.
I don’t think of myself as old, of course, but it’s an illusion I can only sustain these days so long as I avoid mirrors.
“But it’s not like we’re roommates,” I said to Ben. “It’s like we’re living in the same hotel.”
He shrugged and looked away. I could tell he thought it was odd too. But Ben gets more and more parochial and small town everyday. Sometimes I look at him and wonder how we could have been soul mates for 17 years. We are pals, good pals. He has come through for me and continues to come through for me in every possible way. But once upon a time, we shared a strategy for world dominance. Is it only young people who are allowed to have strategies for world dominance? I still have one. It’s on that shelf in the closet, next to the map of Manhattan. Every once in a while, I pull it down and look at it.
There’s a lot to write about. This was mainly about testing the microphone.
