The Trip

A lits of things that were probably said/learned.

If you're traveling in upstate New York it's best to stay in Bolton Landing. It has the small downtown with the sort of small houses that one feels comfortable describing as cute. The lake is also only a stone's throw away, and you don't have to share it with all those grubby folk who are busy mucking up Lake George. Bolton Landing probably has a cobbler. Neither I nor you know exactly what a cobbler does, but we're both pretty certain that it's an important job in Bolton Landing.

In the morning I watch a man, short brown-hair, forearm tattoos, smoke a cigarette near the parking lot. Mind you, these hotels virtually overlook the impressively dazzling Lake George. You almost have to go out of your way to not look at the Lake. However, here is this guy, just smoking a cigarette on the porch, watching the parking lot get warm, and listening to the cars whirring by on the old highway. It pretty revealed to me yet another example of why I should take up smoking. No person in their right mind would sit in a parking lot staring at the check-in trailer with a picturesque lake at their backs. Why? Because other people would walk by and judge you a bit, maybe go back and tell a story to their wives or teenage children that intimated that perhaps they should stay away from the guy staring down the yellow lines of the parking lot. Unless that guy is a smoker. Then, he can stare at whatever he wants. He doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. If only I didn't detest the smell of smoke. Anyhow, if you see me sitting somewhere, arms over the back of a bench, or my back pressed up against a tree, looking like a soul with not a damn thing to do in the world just pretend that I'm smoking and it will solve the mental conundrum.

I do strange things on trips, such as insisting on hearing a particular song in a playlist that I feel defines that portion of the trip before I will change it to NPR or podcasts of turtle songs or whatever. Do turtles sing? Two months ago S mentioned that she liked that I occasionally prepare a sound track for our lives. It's the sort of compliment that you grab onto and run with in a marriage like you've got a little baby tucked under your arm when you're trying to score from the two-yard line. I now feel I have carte-blanche to create elaborate playlists that represent our lives. Of course, this is all some vague defense against the indomitable force of impending children's music, which is almost uniformly obnoxious and catchy. Such that, I still hum along to the ridiculous days of the week song from my pre-school teaching days set to the tune of the Addams Family despite having developed a visceral hatred for the song while mumbling it daily with a gaggle of little ones.

Sometime during the drive she asks me if I'm happy to be going on vacation. And I say,

M: "Happy? Happy? You'd have to define the term more concretely for me. Why philosophers have worried that very question since time en memoriam. What does happiness mean, you know, deep down? Are we talking about something that lasts, or a thing, more ephemeral, like a really good milkshake kind of happy."

S: Do you have the address for the hotel?

M: I don't remember if I brought the papers or not.

S: Are you serious? Or are you just saying that to annoy me?

M: See. Isn't unhappiness so much easier to define?

S: I'll get them out of your bag.