Accidental roadtrip (NYC)

diary clips

THURS, FEB 20, 7:20am

I'm waiting for Mal to finish packing, then we fly to NYC on the same model of plane that crash-landed and came to rest upside down on the tarmac last week.

It's chilly in Tennessee, with snow flurries. Looks like it's ass-cold in New York, too. I'm bringing the giant winter coat I never wear. I've had it for years, but still feels new.

I finished my first Edith Wharton last night, Ethan Frome, her sole book about the not-rich. The edition I've got has an intro from the author, which I read twice with no clue what the fuck she was on about. I almost skipped the book, like Damn if I can't understand Wharton's own intro, how fucked will I be inside the actual story? I gave it a whirl anyway, and I'm glad I did. Effortless reading in there, clear as a bell. I've convinced a friend to hit it so we can discuss.

Starting Brautigan's Hawkline Monster next.

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FRI, FEB 21, 10:00am

Mal was crying as I checked on her packing progress when it was time to leave for the airport yesterday. She hadn’t seen news of the latest crash, I shouldn’t have told her about it, but I had done so the night before, dialing up the photo on my phone and pushing it into her face.

She said it wasn’t our flight in particular that was fucking with her, that she knew however many crashes and near misses in the last few weeks, even with headlines on who got fired at FAA, flying was still safer than many things we do without a pause. But something about handing our toddler off to her grandma for several days while we went away had Mal hyper-aware of danger.

I told her I felt bad juju, too, even if it’s not something I’d typically acknowledge (and a word I’d never use). But standing there with her tears, I said we didn’t have to go. We booked the trip around seeing Justin talk with Krista Tippett—Mal loves Tippett—at a podcast festival and added a few days around it to enjoy the city. We haven’t been to NYC in almost three years, since before the baby was born, when we came all the time. Those trips were always tied to something work/music-related, but this trip was not required. It was for fun, but fuckin’ with flying did not seem fun.

I suggested we stay home or take the days without the kid to enjoy a different city within driving distance. We’d lose the money on the hotel in New York, we were past the point of refund, but we could use the flight credits later when things leveled out or, more likely, when we had to travel for something necessary.

We both felt silly considering canceling, but I was relieved to fess up that things felt wrong. Then Mal was lost in her phone, tapping away at something.

“What are you looking up?” I said. “Crash stats?”

“No, how long it takes to drive to New York City,” she said, and then 45 minutes later, we were in the car rolling. It could have been ugly the whole drive, it’s not a particularly nice route, but because there was snow, everything was white instead of dead, leafless gray.

We had fun on the ride. We listened to a little of Steve Almond’s Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, then Mal wanted to hear some of the Dear Sugar book, Tiny Beautiful Things, and I read her the first three chapters of my novel. It’s the first time she’s heard any of it. I think she liked it, and I must tell you I liked it, too. I’ve hesitated to give her the book to read on her own, not wanting to tax her on a draft I knew wasn’t final, but doing it out loud was less risky and a boost of confidence after living alone with the manuscript for so long. I’ll read her more chapters on the drive home.

We got to the city at midnight, almost on the dot. One of the windows in the hotel room wouldn’t close, so we put earplugs in to drown out the traffic and sirens and slept hard.

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SAT, FEB 22, 7:20am

Bumped around the city in the afternoon and had good pasta at a place neither of us previously knew. I was drawn to the sheep the restaurant used for a logo. After, we went to Brooklyn for the Vern/Tippett thing, which was excellent. I ran into an ex-colleague I worked with back at Billions. He was the first agent I knew booking podcasts live, and we all wondered if he might be crazy. He was not. He runs the podcast department at CAA now. He told me the On Air festival is his Coachella.