o! ma! ha!

Well, folks, I like it here in Omaha. It is a nice combination of midwesterly chilled-outness and big-city options. One thing I liked about Lincoln that just didn't happen in New York was that it was easy to see people and we can and do at the last minute. Omaha shares that quality. Like New York (and unlike North Platte), Omaha has some really good restaurants and cultural events (although it obviously can't match NYC in depth or breadth). And while my Lincoln social scene has been pretty stagnant for the last ten years, and NP had no social scene to offer at all, young, interesting folks in Omaha are new to me, plentiful, relaxed, and easy to meet. In NYC, the friend options were actually too plentiful--it required a ridiculous amount of extra effort to see people again that I liked but had met only once, plus most people there already feel like they have so many people to see that they don't have time to make new friends. Things were a little different at the beginning of law school, but it quickly fell into that pattern. In Omaha, especially if people are from Omaha, they seem to appreciate new faces. I like it.

And yeah, work's fine, good people, challenging, what-have-you. My place is nice. I need a roommate though. And Lulu and I have been going to obedience class. Obedience is still elusive, but it's worth 6 thursdays to try to catch it.

I'll try to post a little more often here. I've been really excited about the per-dag blogs recently, but I do have a bunch of photos that didn't make the EPD cut that still merit a look (I think, anyway).
. . .

far far away

thanks to HDL: underneath new york
. . .

the dirty little move

It all happened very fast. At a Bright Eyes concert in midtown on friday, Conor Oberst stalled and Lou Reed (a thinking reed), all muscles and new york and deeply lined, appeared. He and Oberst sang waiting for the man and dirty blvd to a full, standing audience. Then to home and then to bed, because the next day was the day I left New York City, my Dirty Little Move (DLM, coined by LWT): a more apropos send-off than Lou Reed's surprise performance couldn't be asked for. Early Saturday I picked up the moving truck (watching a good portion of a good-old-shoot-em-up western while waiting), and H*s, SWT, and E.G. and I packed her with all my manifold belongings. H*s and I said our goodbyes to 1018 manhattan avenue, apartment 1, hopped (literally: she's pretty high off the ground) into the penske, and set out for the west. The DLM started off inauspiciously, though with high good humor: I managed to make the first wrong turn possible, and taking the Queens-Midtown Tunnel was made more exciting by the police search of the penske for midget wrestlers (not to mention the surprise $9 toll), and we had to drive straight thru manhattan on a holiday weekend and figure out how to get a truck into the Lincoln Tunnel. From then on, however, the DLM unfurled with surprising smoothness. At some point, when we passed a sign instructing us not to take horses on to the highway, the penske acquired the moniker Betsy. About 8 hours after entering the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, Betsy, H*s and I made it to my brother and his family's apartment in lovely-but-difficult-to-navigate Pittsburgh, PA. That day was a mere three-state day: News York and Jersey, and the uncounted mountains of Pennsylvania.

We primed the pump of the second leg of our trip with lots of baby-holding and bagel-eating; a slow sunday morning, thoroughly necessitated by the events of the days past. Then, with our new (and later, we discovered, needed) atlas and this highly recommended book of NYT crossword puzzles, Betsy, H*s and I set out once more. Through more Pennsylvania and mountains, West Virginia, several thunderstorms, Ohio, four crossword puzzles (two Tuesdays, one Monday, and one Wednesday), Indiana, a beautiful sunset, Illinois, endless darkness, Iowa, an hour of Nebraska and several hundred dollars worth of gasoline we drove, 17 hours, and arrived this morning around 6:30. You can't ask for a better road-trip companion than H*s--grab him for your next one. Nor are there better pit-stop hosts than my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece, and their dog. And the crossword puzzles were perfect for keeping both driver and passenger awake and focused. Google maps did well by us, with one small exception (a momentary Pittsburgh confusion with no adverse effects), and we only really needed the atlas for the small portion of the trip for which we'd come up with directions ourselves (a bad move).

We are now paused, and Betsy is parked, in Lincoln, and we'll shake the final leg, to North Platte, later this week.

. . .

the great gastronomic goodbye

On Saturday, my possessions, H*s, and I will leave New York in a penske truck and head for the hills of Pennsylvania, en route to North Platte, NE. Right now it seems pretty sad, but I think once we hit the open road (or Memorial-Day-Weekend-congested road, as it may be), I think I'll start getting excited. In between the packing, I've been eating. SWT, H*s, various dinner companions, and I have over the past week sampled: thai, ethiopian, uppity pizza, coffee-shop, bar & grill, polish and italian pastry, seafood, organic cupcakes, bakery, fancy italian, neighborhood brunch, Brooklyn cheesecake, and homemade pesto cuisines. In one day, I had a homemade omelet, raw oysters, flounder, and lobster, and an ethiopian hodgepodge. It's a great way to say goodbye, both to the city and the friends.

. . .