Personal and Pony Update

Personal update: I'm working 3x a week in Brookyln, and this is the first time I've picked up my computer in over a week.  I'm reading everything (yay Android) but not commenting.

Pony update: Here's a lovely list of things sang or uttered to my horse today

• Gaaaaali, you're knockin' me out, you're shakin my confidence daaaaily! (Cecelia, Simon & Garfunkle)
• Oh Galahad, it's okay in the clouds, but I love it right here with my feet in the tack! (Gravity, SK6ERS)
• WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD SONG TO PUT ON THIS PLAYLIST?! (The Fall, Avett Brothers)
• Do I need to tell you? I don't need to be untrue! Not when I have a pony like you! (Lover Like You, Avett Brothers)
• Do we really NEED to make this about the mounting block?! LET'S NOT MAKE THIS ABOUT THE MOUNTING BLOCK.
•  I SWEAR IF YOU MAKE THIS ABOUT THE MOUNTING BLOCK I WILL EAT YOU.
• It's 8 PM and I wanna go to to be-ee-ed! I've got a pony, runnin through my haa-aa-aands! I'm outta money, so I'm gonna sell him, it's 8 PM and I want to go to bed! (Night Shift, OAR)
• We knew enough to pick our battles, that is why we left BTF, music that I never used to listen to lets me riiiiiiide! (Seattle, Speechwriters LLC)
• Who matters here, horse?  Who matters?  NOT YOU.  NOPE.  I'll feed you to the woods! I'll send you so far out of this herd YOU. WILL. CRY.
   
  and, finally,
   
  • Thank you!  THANK YOU!  Good boooooy, good boy good boy good boooy!

   
  and that's what matters in the end.
   

My Favorite Place

I've always found myself conflicted when it comes to my own coordinates.  I don't know where I belong - except that I know I belong in too many places.  I've never been the type to say that my hometown is my "home", and for as long as I can remember I've tried to cling to other places.  For a while, when I was young, I felt like I belonged nowhere else than in Ocean City, New Jersey, at the shorehouse we'd rent with my mom's sister and her family for a week each summer.  I learned every nook and cranny and secret kept in Ocean City.  As I grew, the magic faded.  While I'll always love it, it's not where I belong.

I've always had a place in my heart for New York City.  Call it trendy, call me a poseur, whatever.  I grew up visiting the city and I still live and die with every trade, signing, win or loss of the Yankees.  For years and years, I "knew" I belonged in the City.  I had to have the City.

Now, I find myself torn.  The more time I spend in the more rural areas of New Jersey, the more I realize that I want my drive home to be on a road between cornfields.  I want my driveway to be bumbling gravel.  I want a garden, goats, and my horses in my backyard.  I need a place to get away from "the world".  As I'm getting closer and closer to the real world, I'm beginning to feel some pressure again to figure out where I belong.

Maybe that's why I've chosen to study Geography - a significant piece of my heart has always been focused on "place".

Anyway, this whole rambling was inspired by a song I was listening to this morning, My Favorite Place by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers.  Here ya go.

i gotta get back to the city
where the sound is the subway at night
all the people i see on the crowded streets
it helps me to feel more alive

i gotta get back to the country
where the sound is the song of the spring
the kids in the town and they're running around
it helps me to feel like i'm free

this is my favorite place
my worry slips away
i could stay here for days and days and days and days
this is my favorite place
my worry slips away

it's time i was getting back home
where the sound is the song in my heart
the places i go, i always know
home is wherever you are.