In which I’m stumped by a microwave boasting a function I’ve never seen on a microwave before.

Okay, sorry. I lied. None of the nuns I saw this weekend had guns. (That’s just the name of a song on an obscure album by SNL’s bandleader. Yeah. Nuns With Guns is the name of an obscure G.E. Smith song.

Oh, forget it. Never mind. Moving on.)

Tahmi picked me up Friday morning, we drove to Kansas, we went to evening praise, we ate nun food in the nun cafeteria, and that night we hung out in the basement of ‘our’ building and knitted stuff. The next morning I’d apparently decided to sleep in because I didn’t go to morning worship and stayed in bed ’til nine.

Saturday afternoon, we both got hour-long full body Swedish massages for $40 each. From a nun. How cool is that? She knew reflexology and everything. She also told me she could feel my aura, but I didn’t concern myself with it.

Saturday night we obtained a bottle of wine and again hung out in the basement with our knitting and we talked and talked and talked, as we are wont to do. It was way fun. You can’t imagine how much talking we can do.

It rained six inches Saturday night. BIG storm. Big, loud, thundering, cracking, hailing, power-outaging storm. I loved it.

All in all, a lovely retreat weekend at Mount Saint Scholastica. I enjoyed myself. I didn’t have any deeply profound spiritual experiences, but I know better than to think that they just show up because you’ve moved your body from one location to another. (I had a stunningly deep spiritual experience there once. Another time, I got drunk as hell on wine while smoking cigarettes on the lawn. The sublime, the ridiculous, it’s all part of the trip. I take whatever comes and try to be appropriately grateful when it doesn’t smell like dirty socks or sass me.)

We even ended up taking the gifts up to the priest during mass this morning, which amused me seeing as how I’m a poser heathen and all.

Oh, yeah: about the microwave. It took Tami and me – both college educated – nearly twenty minutes to figure out how to use the microwave in our building’s kitchen to make popcorn. (There was a “broil” button on the fucking microwave that had to be un-pushed. Who knew?!?)

In which I re-post a post I’d posted a week too early last week.

This weekend, I’m going to a Benedictine nunnery in Kansas with Tahmi, where we will go to chapel four times a day, eat cafeteria food with nuns, drink wine, sing the rosary, stay in giant old bedrooms in an historical building, browse the excellent library, gaze at icons, and gossip.

It’ll be fabulous. (Not fabulous like they mean it in Manhattan, but fabulous like you mean it when you live in rural Iowa and are going to Kansas for the weekend.) Here’s hoping for creamed eggs on toast for breakfast Saturday!

Tahmi’s picking me up at ten tomorrow morning.

P.S. Don’t tell anybody I’m Hindu. I take communion while I’m there but heathens aren’t supposed to do that, you know.

In which I’m still crushin’ on NYC.

Here I am (on the right) waiting for the C train at 42nd street in my cheapo $5 Chanel knock-off sunglasses, which I bought on the street from a guy who insisted on cleaning them and removing the sticker for me:

And that’s Aimee on the left, looking totally fucking hot. (I only posted this because she looks so hot. I look like a mafia bride, but since I’m cool I’m posting it anyway so you can see how hot Aimee, The Easiest Woman In The World To Travel With, looks.)

And before I forget, a few more New York impressions:

• Pregnant women walking around wearing high heels.
• Highschool girls with more cleavage than, well, a lot of cleavage.
• The subway platforms are one hundred and five degrees in September.
• Tiny, tiny dogs. Little tiny small tiny dogs. Everywhere.
• You can always smell food when you’re outside, no matter where you are or what time it is.
• It’s never quiet, and it’s never dark. Ever.

God I wanna go back.
——–

In which I come home and ache for NYC.

Oh, sweet Manhattan, my love. I miss you so already.

I misted up getting on the train to Jersey at Penn Station. I know you’ve already forgotten me, you fickle bitch, but oh how I miss you.

~+~+~

I have never responded to any location the way I did to New York. The place totally resonates with me. Everything I’ve ever wanted is there. And holy shit, I could sing there all the time.

Waking up in Manhattan and going to sleep in Iowa will fuck your head right up, let me tell you. I’m currently alone in my house, on twenty-seven acres in the middle of nowhere, in the utter solitude and silence of rural Iowa. I can’t hear a single noise beside the fan in my computer and one of the dogs licking herself.

Talk about culture shock.

I think I’m depressed.

~+~+~

Mr. Brett called me and said, “Baby! How’s New York?!”

“I LOVE NEW YORK!” I said.

“Where you at?”

“I’m outside of Agency.”

“Oh, you’re home already?”

“Yeah, we left Manhattan this morning. I fucking LOVE New York, oh my God. I can’t even tell you. How’s Telluride?”

“We’re in Denver. We’re going up to Ron’s for the night, maybe two.”

“We?”

“Me and Ron and Jeff and Miko.”

“Oh, give those dudes a big, wet, sloppy kiss on the mouth with tongue for me!”

“Normally I would,” he said, “but Miko got hit by a car yesterday and his face is all fucked up. Thirty stitches in his mouth, and his skull is fractured.”

“Oh no, that poor bastard, he has the most consistently horrible luck. How was the very Reverend Al Green?”

“Oh. My God.”

“Oh your God?” I asked.

“OH. MY. GOD.,” he intoned. “He was amazing. Joan Osbourne sang a duet with him, and Maceo Parker was incredible, and so were the Black Crows!”

“You’re so lucky! I’m so jealous!”

So he probably won’t be home until Thursday. But why hurry back? I told him to take all the time he wants. I miss him, but neither of us really wants to be here anyway.

~+~+~

When I went to pick up Bindu I told Barb that I want to sell my house and move to New York. Immediately.

“How would Mr. Brett fit in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I could just lock him in the apartment. All he needs is a couch and a television!”

~+~+~

Yes, I’m definitely depressed.

I want to go back to New York. I think I’ll start making plans tomorrow for my next trip. Deb said I could stay with her! I need to check out Brooklyn anyway.

I have to go to bed so I can work tomorrow.

Sigh.
——–