I ATE NY

It's funny how a social bond - a product of the mind, you would think - can turn into a physical ache when it's broken. That's what I thought when I drove away from my parent's house in our rental car this morning. I don't usually cry when I leave my folks, but I must admit to a fair amount of weepiness as we made our way to the airport. Maybe it was because The Boy had such a great time with his Bapa (a.k.a. The Pig, a.k.a. my father,) and they won't get to play together again for at least a year, since my dad refuses to get on a plane. Maybe it's because it's harder and harder for me to imagine returning to New York for good, as we always assumed we would. (The cold didn't bother me, and I think I could live with driving more and biking less if it meant more time with my extended family, but the stories my NY friends told me of the interview process their 2-year-olds have to go through to get into preschool makes me think living a continent away from the Big City is not the worst thing in the world.) Or maybe it's the sugar.

I learned an interesting thing about humpback whales this weekend at the Norwalk Aquarium; they make their babies in Hawaii, then leave the breeding grounds and travel all the way to Alaska for a snack. Apparently, that's the closest place with enough plankton to satisfy their hunger, and that's kind of how I feel about New York. Except instead of plankton, I stuff my gullet with cookies that my mother never had around the house when I was a kid but now seems to stock in abundance, fancy chocolates I think she receives as gifts from her students, and souffles at the phenominal restaurants my dad likes to frequent.

I don't really have a point here, except to say that as painful as it was for me to leave this morning, it's probably a good thing that I'm back here in hippie-town, where my carb intake is limited to whole grains and fruit sugars.