Oh christ, look!
On a recent trip to the laundromat, the liquor store and Friendly’s, Caitlin & I were greeted with this boon announcement while nearing the bridgework spanning the Connecticut River — which loyal Gabby’s Playhouse readers will recognize as the same temporary bridge I have been obsessively documenting over recent weeks! But if you can stand a little heartbreak, here’s the thing: I probably won’t be there for the undoubtedly superawesome unveiling, as I’ve decided to come back down to The City for a week or two to choke down a few more liters of urbanity — and attend SantaCon, this reindeer-piss-fueled bacchanal that Liz Baillie has aggressively talked me into attending — you know New Yorkers and their fetish for mob violence. I am now heavily in the market for a bargain santa outfit with which to guard my identity while engaged in certain immature grog-inspired misdeeds abroad in Manhattan.
My return to White River Junction was brief and bittersweet — or maybe I mean coldwarm. As hard as I tried to will my birthday into nonexistence with liberal applications of self-pity and reclusiveness, some friends stubbornly insisted on displaying their affection for me anyway, either by phone or by dropping by the Red House for a few late-night drinks. There’s nothing quite like a drunken mass-voicemail from the neighborhood bar, asking where the hell you are, to bring a tender tear to one’s eye during a dark night of mortality contemplation. God damn does that town make it hard to feel alone in the world sometimes.
Anyway, I was also visited on my birthday by a gorgeous dump of snowdrift — a meteorological phenomenon that has, over the past few years, become among my most favorite reasons for being alive. I got to revel in piles of it all day, shovel a tiny share of it, and, of course, take a few pictures of it too:
(click on picture to look at more pictures)
There was even a drunken late-night snowball war outside the Red House that night of a caliber that almost made me feel thankful for the privilege of living in the ass end of Vermont.
But the next morning, we were already loading up the car and chasing the fleeting sun back towards civilization — with a stop at Cracker Barrel along the way. Back in NYC, I’ll be spending the week wandering around the city and hatching out pending cat portrait requests. And I’ll have time to draw more, if you want one too — it turns out that they make highly appropriate holiday gifts.
I don’t suppose that I can complain too much these days. No sir.
