2002-09-19 - 8:00 p.m. pulled to bits On my way out the door this morning, I picked up a lovely Chococat reporter/stenographer notebook to keep at hand for writing throughout the day. (I'm tired of jotting down fragments of thoughts only small enough to fit on yellow sticky notes.) Since I wanted to remember to check out the City magazine Web site, I flipped open the notebook... and saw, written on the first page, in a script not my own, "Manhattan 2000". Somehow, I'd forgotten my ex and I had been planning a trip to NYC right before things disintegrated so spectacularly. That explains why the NYC guidebooks were already on my shelf when I started planning my April excursion... funny how easily the mind blocks these things out... A solid eight pages of notes cover, by topic, the places we wanted to visit: food, architecture, wine, furniture, vintage clothes, haberdashery shops, and museums... Lord. I recall how desparately I'd wanted to go to the ribbon shop! My favorite 1930s black straw hat really needs a new ribbon to encircle it... In reviewing the pages, I see some places I visited (Dean & DeLuca, many of the vintage shops, ABC Carpet & Home, Moss, MOMA, the Met...) and many I did not and likely will not visit (Sakagura, Castelli gallery, the mexican kitchen supply store). Of them all, ABC was the one he'd been most excited to visit...in April, he'd asked me to photograph it for him so he could feel as though he was there... I think it was directly after that excursion and taking those photos for him that it hit me I was taking the trip we'd planned together...alone. A trip which he has yet to take. We will never take our trip to NYC, either of us. We'll never have that shared experience. Instead, we will each have our own NYC experiences that we will try in vain to share with each other through ineffective words and incomplete photographs... Why did my eyes fill with tears as I wrote this entry at work today? Travel brings me such joy... yet reviewing these aborted plans made me sad even though I'm no longer sad about this boy...so very strange. Here's hoping this next trip cures what ails me. Cheers. xo almost gold any comments? (1 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09