Blogspot, lumbering idiot man-child of my heart,
Until I started working, I never completely understood the appeal of beaches and pools and wilderness. Nowadays though, all I can think about is fishing and hammocks. Employment really makes you old.
This weekend I went to my freshman suitemate's upstate abode. The following is an account of my harrowing visit to the unholy grounds that spawned Alexander David Barrow.
Rhinebeck sits in the Hudson River Valley and is accessible by MetroNorth. The rail itself runs alongside the river and provides spectacular vistas of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants on jetskis. Twisted chunks of old track lay on the side and I twice mistook them for rust-colored waterfowl. In all honesty though, the train running so close to the water reminded me of the tram from Spirited Away and the glacier-carved bluffs on the opposite side of the river (the lower Hudson isn’t actually a river, but a tidal estuary) really were beautiful.
The area around Rhinebeck is home to several big Dutch names—Roosevelt, Vanderbilt, Van Cortlandt. In contrast, Al’s upstate country house is relatively new, having been rebuilt after a fire six years ago destroyed the original antique wooden floors and killed one of the family pugs. After 9/11, the Barrow matriarch went on an Americana rampage, so that the doors to Chez Barrow are guarded by imposing, if slightly eroded, red ceramic eagles.
Al's mom also happens to be an editor for one of the big New York interior design magazines. So, with the exception of a completely ridiculous leopard print couch (pinpoint fug explosion), the house oozed carefully maintained rustic charm. It’s the type of house for which regular watchers of Barefoot Contessa (a loathsome show on the Food Network hosted by the behemoth Ina Gartner) would murder a hundred immigrant maids and a hundred immigrant landscapers. The only element in the parlor that gave away that we were not, in fact, living in the Age of Robber Barons was a dehumidifier that helped ensure that everything looked, but didn’t smell, old.
Most of my Saturday was spent dead on a floatie or face down on the grass like some beached elephant seal, complete with muffled barks for a bottle of Newcastle. I haven’t been in the water in a long time, so when I took the first plunge, I was surprised by how substantial the stuff is. At some later point, drunk as shit, I thought to myself “No wonder people are so fat. It’s not our fault. We’re full of water! I have such empathy for diabetics.” After spending six hours under the upstate sun, I am about as tanned as I am apt to become: still several shades lighter than a glass of Poor-Man’s-Ovaltine.
On Sunday I drank whiskey drinks and watched Catwoman and Janice Dickinson’s Model Agency. I’m glad to see that Sharon Stone now looks like Draco Malfoy and that Janice Dickinson is still batshit insane.
Guys, I’m writing this at work when I should be designing a categorization system for Allied Health Professionals. Shit, I am so fucking punk!
Until I started working, I never completely understood the appeal of beaches and pools and wilderness. Nowadays though, all I can think about is fishing and hammocks. Employment really makes you old.
This weekend I went to my freshman suitemate's upstate abode. The following is an account of my harrowing visit to the unholy grounds that spawned Alexander David Barrow.
Rhinebeck sits in the Hudson River Valley and is accessible by MetroNorth. The rail itself runs alongside the river and provides spectacular vistas of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants on jetskis. Twisted chunks of old track lay on the side and I twice mistook them for rust-colored waterfowl. In all honesty though, the train running so close to the water reminded me of the tram from Spirited Away and the glacier-carved bluffs on the opposite side of the river (the lower Hudson isn’t actually a river, but a tidal estuary) really were beautiful.
The area around Rhinebeck is home to several big Dutch names—Roosevelt, Vanderbilt, Van Cortlandt. In contrast, Al’s upstate country house is relatively new, having been rebuilt after a fire six years ago destroyed the original antique wooden floors and killed one of the family pugs. After 9/11, the Barrow matriarch went on an Americana rampage, so that the doors to Chez Barrow are guarded by imposing, if slightly eroded, red ceramic eagles.
Al's mom also happens to be an editor for one of the big New York interior design magazines. So, with the exception of a completely ridiculous leopard print couch (pinpoint fug explosion), the house oozed carefully maintained rustic charm. It’s the type of house for which regular watchers of Barefoot Contessa (a loathsome show on the Food Network hosted by the behemoth Ina Gartner) would murder a hundred immigrant maids and a hundred immigrant landscapers. The only element in the parlor that gave away that we were not, in fact, living in the Age of Robber Barons was a dehumidifier that helped ensure that everything looked, but didn’t smell, old.
Most of my Saturday was spent dead on a floatie or face down on the grass like some beached elephant seal, complete with muffled barks for a bottle of Newcastle. I haven’t been in the water in a long time, so when I took the first plunge, I was surprised by how substantial the stuff is. At some later point, drunk as shit, I thought to myself “No wonder people are so fat. It’s not our fault. We’re full of water! I have such empathy for diabetics.” After spending six hours under the upstate sun, I am about as tanned as I am apt to become: still several shades lighter than a glass of Poor-Man’s-Ovaltine.
On Sunday I drank whiskey drinks and watched Catwoman and Janice Dickinson’s Model Agency. I’m glad to see that Sharon Stone now looks like Draco Malfoy and that Janice Dickinson is still batshit insane.
Guys, I’m writing this at work when I should be designing a categorization system for Allied Health Professionals. Shit, I am so fucking punk!
posted by Byron at 10:44 AM
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