2004-08-19 - 1:22 a.m.
I can't seem to get away from getting only 5 hours of sleep the day before I travel. I just attempted to dye my hair blonde, succeeding only in lightening the top of my head and leaving the back of it as dark as ever. I was hoping for a "dramatic new me" to dazzle folks when I got back to the city, but I don't think that's going to happen. It's probably out of fear of making my hair fall out and thus avoiding dye with amonia in it.
I got my pictures back from Lauren and my trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia last week (was it only last week... wow). Somehow I managed to not get a picture of our lovely hostesses Sarah, Rachel, Sonia, Jill and Capp. Lauren did get a picture of Abby the dog swimming with us in a lake that was the color of tea and Capp got lots of pictures of Dave and I swimming in the freezing ocean. We had driven to the beach, expecting it to be hot and sunny like it was in town, only to be greeted with fog the consistency of "pea soup" as we like to say in Maine when we got there. Not to be shown up by a midwesterner (Dave) and out to prove my "I grew up swimming in this cold water" roots, I stripped down to my bathing suit with Dave and Sarah, while Capp and Lauren looked on skeptically. We ran screaming into the water, which, when it was up to my chest, was so cold it contracted it to give what felt like a "small heart attack," to use Sarah's words. Once we got out the foggy beach felt "wicked warm," so much so Dave and I went in again while Capp took pictures.
Other highlights of the trip included watching Time Bandits projected on a wall down at a pier while the fog rolled in, a vegan ice cream cake Jill made, eating most of our meals in Sarah's backyard while Abby the dog and the chickens looked on, a walking tour of Halifax's North End that included an through history on African-Canadian's migrations to Halifax, and Dominos, the fat black and white cat that drooled so Sarah tied a bib around his neck which "doubled as a cape." In addition to seeing Sarah again after 4 years (we met first at the New York City Zine Fest in 2000) I also got back in touch with Caleb, who I met there too. He spotted us out a window on Agricole (say "agri-cola" not "agg-ree-cole") and we proceeded to have a "How have you been?" chat yelled between us on the sidewalk and him on the second floor. It was also incredible that we got to have dinner with my friend Wade and his partner Angela, on a trip with their family from DC, at the same time. Halifax = US punk rock vacation, I guess.
I know of few places I have been where "the kids" were as nice as they were in Halifax. It reminded me of Portland, Maine, but a little bit bigger and more together in some ways. A little bit more run down too. It was somehow nicer, more dramatic, but maybe that is because it has the thrill of the a new place and re-uniting with old friends and meeting new ones.
The drive home got a bit hellish as we drove into what was a tropical storm, though the CBC intially reported it as "scattered showers." I did take Dave and Lauren on a tour of "down east" Maine, which ened up being lots of trees, fog, rain and "fog without trees" which was the ocean. Oh well. Few out of staters can say they've traversed almost the entire coast of Maine within a couple of days, a feat to be proud of for sure.
Tomorrow it's back to Brooklyn, where I am very excited that Lauren and I's master plan seems to be falling into place, our friends are (mostly) moving to New York and even to Central and South Brooklyn. Seems like I've started updating my diary again, so if you want to hear me be emo about the future and wax poetic about my hope in my friends, read the previous entry.
