September song

All the travel, it’s catching up with me.

Which is not to say I regret any of it. This summer I’ve been in Columbus (and The Usual Undisclosed Location), D.C., San Diego, Chicago (well, outside of Chicago), Boring (which wasn’t), Ashland, and last weekend, Seattle.

I’m very glad I went up. There’s no substitute for spending real, face-to-face time with friends who are mostly present in my life as phone voices, emails and blog posts. We went to some of my favorite places, and added some new ones to the list, notably the Kingfish Cafe. I love having favorite places in multiple cities. Little pockets of places I don’t live end up feeling like home.

But, as is clear from the second paragraph above, I’ve been away from home a lot, lately. And right now, I just want to hunker down and hide in my house and fight off the crud I am trying not to incubate. (No thanks to the lady on the train back to Portland who announced “I’m so sick…I’m totally getting strep throat…unless it’s the partying” in between coughing fits.)

Yesterday I walked a little over five and a half miles. Half that distance was a pleasant perambulation around Green Lake Park with dirtylibrarian. The other half was unplanned and occurred at night, with luggage. We were probably just too impatient, but when the third cab in a row arrived at Union Station, then turned around and drove away without picking up any passengers, it seemed more efficient to walk home. It was a beautiful night for a walk.

So now it’s September, and I’m not leaving town again for a couple of months. I’m trying to focus. To knuckle down without knuckling under. To stop worrying about things I can’t control. To keep the plates spinning, the i’s dotted, the t’s crossed. To close multiple tabs. We’ll see how it goes.

Y’all: what are some of your favorite places in cities where you don’t live?