Travels with Matthew

I’ve been pretty quiet lately. Sorry to starve you <g>. As with so many things in my life—running comes to mind—it’s much harder to make myself get started on a blog entry than it is to actually write it once I’ve sat down and logged in.

Today is Friday, my last day in St. Petersburg, and I think I should do a wrap-up before I leave my winter home at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. Dan is driving up with me because he has to be in Columbus for work next week. When I told him that I would pick him up before 7 a.m., his eyes bugged out. “You’re up by then,” I commented, to which he replied, “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to do anything!” He can sleep in the car.

I’ve done my laundry and cleaned the apartment. I gave Janie, my host, the last of my must-be-refrigerated food, and the fridge is now empty. I’ve taken down my computer setup and packed everything away except the laptop itself. My clothes are stowed; my books and CDs are stuffed in a big box I got from Penn State Press. My monitor is wrapped up in my bathrobe. (I figure that’s the best way to get it home without scratching it further.)

Fair warning: The balance of this post will not be in chronological order. I’m just adding bits as I recall them. If I can remember the order in which they happened, I’ll arrange them, but I make no promises.

The last couple of weeks have been filled mostly with work and—now that I’ve crossed the mental frontier to realize that this is now my winter home—daily routines like cleaning and cooking and watching TV (All of Farscape and as much Star Trek Voyager as I can squeeze in). Not much fun to report. I did, however, have a wonderful three days with Mark when he was last down. The weather was drier, and the mercury hovered around a temperature with which we could both live. We went down to Sarasota and walked around for much of his final day. After a great lunch at Red Clásico, we bought a painting at State of the Arts Gallery C. It’s our first truly abstract—a genre I’ve been becoming more and more interested in.

Here’s a photo he snuck of me when I wasn’t looking. (For those of you who are interested, I was reading the epic of Gilgamesh. I’m pleased to say that I got through the bulk of White Jacket, all of Gilgamesh [which is short], and Travels with Charley while I was here. I just started The Sheltering Sky; I seem to be on a literature-set-in-North-Africa kick.)

And some other shots from Sarasota. These orchids were growing in the crotch of a baobab tree about 10 feet above the ground.

I drove up to Clearwater a week or so back to check it out as a potentially more affordable place to buy a condo. I didn’t realize it, but apparently, Scientologists own much of the city. Clearwater (I subsequently learned) is a major headquarters; it may be fair to say that it is, in fact, their world administrative headquarters. The city itself seemed pleasant enough, though it’s perhaps too small to support the kind of life that I would want while living here. Downtown was positively dead on a Sunday afternoon. I was a bit surprised to find a Starbuck’s open. After I left, I drove over to Clearwater beach. I forgot that for some college students, spring break had begun. It took me 45 minutes to go about 2 miles over a bridge from the city to the beach, and then the place was crawling with spring breakers. I had to be very careful until I got out of the swarm. The drive down the barrier islands was nice enough, though. I actually didn’t realize that they were all connected. I’ve now driven from St. Pete Beach in the south to Clearwater beach in the north. The different areas and islands—Pass-a-Grill, Treasure Island, Indian Rocks Beach, Clearwater Beach—all have very different characters, which is kind of fun.

Clearwater was entirely palatable, but I didn’t find it photographically compelling for the most part. I did take a couple shots, but not much. The first one is part of the bridge to Clearwater Beach (which you can see in the distance).

I also made an excursion to Bradenton for the same reason. I didn’t spend as much time walking around there, but again, I think it might be too small. Still, it’s only about 30 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg (Clearwater is about 45 minutes), so if it has a restaurant/night-life district that Mark and I could walk to once or twice each week, it would be enough. It’s certainly more affordable.

The funnest thing I did in Bradenton was walk around their Village of the Arts, which is an artist colony. I took some pictures of the area because most of the houses/galleries/studios were decorated so whimsically.

There was also Gulfport, which has its charms but which is probably not the place for us.

Another momentous day included a walk to the downtown movie theater to watch The Lady in the Van. Love Maggie Smith! Love Alan Bennett! The best line from the movie: “There’s air freshener behind the Virgin.” I really liked the movie, but it’s very much my kind of movie. Dry. British. I know you all know Maggie Smith, but if you don’t know Alan Bennett, do yourself a favor and Google him. The Lady in the Van isn’t the first time he and Smith have worked together. You can see her amazing performance of his Bed among the Lentils online.

I also had lunch with Peter and Marc today one last time. They may be in Columbus for Easter, so I hope to see them then, too. Their condo is right on the course of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, and time trials started today. I took a quick video of a few of the cars from their balcony. You’ll understand how loud the cars are when I remind you that we’re 29 stories up. We literally could not hear each other talking when we were on the balcony.

I think I’ll leave it there. I’m picking up Dan and Alex for dinner tonight. We’re going to Alex’s favorite ice cream parlor afterward. Tomorrow begins the long trek to Columbus. Apparently, a rock slide in Tennessee has closed I-75 north of Knoxville, so getting around that will be my next adventure.

Thanks for sticking around with me for my inaugural season as a snowbird.

Goodness how the week has flown. It’s Sunday now, and it’s been more than a week since I last posted. Much of that time was either uneventful or overflowing with work. I had two very long work days on Thursday and Friday, so I tried to stay off of the computer yesterday to give my back and neck a break.

Last Saturday, I joined up with Peter and Marc, two more friends of ours who live in St. Petersburg. Along with their dog, Griffon (I’m guessing on the spelling; he’s a Brussels griffon that they rescued), they live in a 29th-floor condo in downtown. They have a balcony with a fabulous view from Tampa to the east, around the south across the bay, and ending at the Don CeSar hotel (aka, “The Pink Palace” on the gulf side of the peninsula. In the video and photos below, you can also see  the Dalí Museum and the Rowdies’s soccer field.

This is east; Tampa is far in the distance and toward the left.

Here’s south. That’s the Dalí with the bluish slug on top near the center of the photo, just this side of the runway of the private airfield.

I didn’t quite get the Pink Palace in this shot, but this is looking west.

The music you hear in the video below is wafting up from a weekly open-air market just across the street from Peter and Marc’s building. It always amazes me how far up sound travels—something Mark and I discovered when we took a hot-air balloon ride in 2006.

Marc and Peter introduced me to a restaurant patronized pretty much exclusively by locals called Ciccio Cali. Good food (maybe a little healthier than I’m used to, but good); inviting, light atmosphere; really friendly staff. They don’t have hot tea, though. Sigh. The battle continues for us tea drinkers in a coffee nation. I almost pulled my “Do you have iced tea? Do you have cups? Do you have a microwave?” line, but our waiter was so nice that I didn’t want to come off as snotty. I drank iced tea.

After lunch, we swung back by the condo to pick up “Mr. Griffon” as Peter calls him and tool around the Old Northeast neighborhood in Peter’s vintage 1968 Imperial convertible. Not surprisingly, we got lots of looks from older men who were obviously and longingly recalling their first cars. I had the whole back seat to myself, and it was liking riding around on a black leather davenport. I felt like I should be waving to passersby like the Pope.

During the afternoon, I got a fervent email from Dan. “Did you see the news?” Antonin Scalia’s death had just been announced. For some time, he has been one of the two justices I have most wanted to see leave the Supreme Court, but I also sympathize for his family and friends. His death appears to have been quick and relatively painless, and I hope that the people who loved him can find some comfort in that.

Alex, Dan, and I met for dinner at Cody’s Original Roadhouse (adequate, but forgettable) and ice cream at Larry’s Famous Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor later that evening. Alex prefers an ice cream shop in Pass-A-Grille, but for whatever reason, they had closed early that night, so Larry’s was the alternate choice. He warned me before we arrived, though, that the owner is an elderly man who sits all day in a corner watching Fox News. Sure enough, there he sat with the remote in his hand flipping channels looking for news on Scalia’s death but ultimately settling back on Fox. The ice cream was good (but how often is ice cream not good?).

Breaking the timeline of this post a bit, but yesterday, I discovered Old Farmer’s Creamery, which is nearer to me and has better ice cream. It’s no Graeter’s, and it’s a bit pricey, but it will be my go-to for solo ice cream while I’m here.

—–

Last Sunday was Valentine’s Day. I sent Mark flowers on Thursday, and on Sunday I fixed a computer problem for him, so I think I’m good this year <g>. I also took my second Java test, but I didn’t do as well. The questions I got wrong, however, are less important than the ones I got right, so I’m content with my score. For the rest of the week, I got a couple more lessons done, but I’m now behind where I wanted to be. That’s okay, though; I’m learning Java for my own edification, so when it happens, it happens.

The weather has finally been what I expected when I planned this trip—sunny and 70s—so I drove over to Madeira Beach and then north almost to Indian Rocks Beach. At that point, I hit a traffic backup, and I don’t think I moved for more than 10 minutes. If you’ve ever driven with me, you know how I get sitting in traffic. I would rather drive twice as far than sit still for long periods of time. I happened to be stopped next to a public beach access with parking, so I decided that was where I’d stop. I went for a long, barefoot walk on the beach. Yes; the water is still too cold for me, so I stuck to the sand. I had my camera along, and here are a couple shots. I hope they offer a window of relief for my kith and kin in the cold.

How would you like this to be your front yard? (The Gulf of Mexico is behind me.)

This guy was half yawing and half yelling at me to go away. “No paparazzi, please!”

Though I didn’t compose it very well, I like this shot of two fishers.

And if you’re like me and appreciate some aural relief, here’s a clip of the surf.

I’m out of bathroom reading, so I stopped at Barnes and Noble to pick up the current issue of The New Yorker. Good gravy! I can’t believe how expensive it’s gotten—nine bucks! I think the last time I bought and issue, it was four.

Mark comes back this Wednesday. I’m going to try to advance two projects before then. Wish me luck.

Okay. I’m going to give up the fiction I’ve been trying to perpetrate. I’m really in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Just kidding.

I suppose like most people, I find writing to be hard work, and being out of practice, on most days I don’t feel like doing a full blog post. What I’ve been doing instead is jotting down notes every day or two and then going back and fleshing the posts out later in the week, all the time pretending that I’m writing about a day on that day. The deception makes the process even more exhausting, so instead, I’m just going to come clean and say that from now own, most of what you’ll read is written as much as a week after the actual events. I’ll try to keep my verb tenses logical, though.

Last Friday was Mark’s first full day here. It was a cool day, but the sun was out, so we ventured a walk downtown. I showed him some of the sites I’ve already discovered, including Central Avenue Coffee where Matt and I had breakfast on our first full day in the city. We wandered down to the bay so I could show him the Dalí Museum, and since we were there, we decided to go through the museum. It was my second time in two weeks but his first. I hadn’t brought my camera along, but Mark took these photos on his iPhone.

It’s a truly beautiful building. Even if you’re not really in to Dalí’s surrealism (I’m not), it’s worth going through the collection. The interior is well done and very manageable in an hour or so, and—unbeknownst to me—Dalí did do Impressionist works early in his career, some of which are beautiful and included here.

On our way home (Mark is playfully aggravated that I’m calling my apartment “home”), we stopped at King’s Street Food Counter, the hot-dog and grilled-cheese joint where Matt and I ate two weeks before. A bit of work, a nap, and then we ended our day’s jaunts with a trip to St. Pete Beach for a nice walk along the Gulf of Mexico to watch the sun set.

We popped over to Dean and Diane’s to collect him for dinner at The Queen’s Head. (Diane had to work, but we hope she can join us when Mark returns in a couple weeks.) We couldn’t pass up a visit their three dogs and two cats before dinner, though. One of the cats is not in the picture below, but that’s Giada (Italian greyhound) to Mark’s right, Roxy (miniature dachshund) under his hand, a black cat whose name I forget on his lap, and Max (Australian shepherd) at his knee.

Dean has a friend in town who rescues Boston Terriers. Who knows; maybe I’ll be driving home with a new dog.

—–

Saturday was a little warmer than Friday, but unfortunately, it rained almost all day. We had a really nice lunch with Wally and Yoshi at Sweet Sage Cafe. The food was excellent, the service was friendly and fun and competent, and the company was exceptional. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about the service and food. We met the owner and learned that he also owns Hyde Park in Columbus. He also gave Cameron Mitchell his first job (as a dishwasher), so I now see why service is such a significant feature of Mitchell’s restaurants.

Wally and I have very similar senses of humor, so we always have a great time together. I’m still figuring Yoshi out, but the more time I spend with him, the more I like him. Partly I’m curious about his Japanese culture and heritage, but I also think he’s funny and sweet. He still has some language issues with English (I hope that if you’re reading this, Yoshi, that saying so is not offensive) and will turn to Wally to feed him a word. Those moments and his accent make it a bit more of a challenge to get to know him. It was such a treat that they were down at the same time that Mark was here.

Yes, I am smiling in that picture.

Other than lunch, the weather kept us in all day, and though it could have been a bummer, we discovered the Netflix show, Grace and Frankie and had a great time cuddling up and watching TV.  What a fun show (though admittedly, it’s not to everyone’s taste). We dines with Dan (Alex was called in to work and had to bail on us), James, and Tom at Fresco’s Waterfront Bistro later in the evening. I thought Mark and James had met during one of our previous visits to St. Petersburg, but they both felt that wasn’t true. They did both think, however, that they’d seen each other before—probably when James lived in Columbus. Zionks! It’s a mystery that will probably never be solved.

—–

Sunday was a more bittersweet day. The weather improved, but Mark flew back to Columbus in the morning. I did my laundry still enjoying the glow of his visit. Dan had asked at dinner the previous night if I wanted to go to the mall in Tampa with him because he needed to buy a new pair of pants (no such luck), so I went along. He’d lent me an Apple TV, and the trip would give me a chance to pick up an HDMI cable that I needed to make it work. Other than the excursion to Tampa, I read for a bit and napped and did one of the Dispatch crossword puzzles that Mark had saved for me.

I have been thinking a lot about being without Mark here in Florida. His absence is painful sometimes, but I think that a bit of absence is also good for me—and I hope it’s good for him, too. Don’t misunderstand; I don’t regret at all falling in love with Mark nearly 21 years ago or marrying him 2 years ago, and if I had it to do over again, I would. It’s just that relationships—like anything in life—require a certain amount of give and take, of good and bad, of gain and loss.

When I was in my early twenties, I pretty fully expected to be single all my life. I figured I’d have relationships here and there along the way but that none of them would be permanent, “capital-r” relationships. I can be pretty difficult to live with and sometimes and—in winter especially—even hard just to be around. I had come to terms with the idea of being a “confirmed bachelor.” Then I found myself declaring, “Someday I’m going to marry him.”

I continue to be surprised and grateful that I actually did marry Mark—or rather, that he married me. But among the things that I think our capital-r relationship has cost me is a sense of the new and an eagerness to explore. Mark and I have settled into a routine in Columbus. During the week, work until 5 or 6; get dinner; retreat to the basement to watch TV until 10 or 11; go to bed; repeat. On weekends, Cap City Diner for Friday dinner; Saturday lunch at Paul’s; run errands for a bit; find some way to kill the rest of the day; Sunday lunch at Arby’s or Panera; find some way to kill the rest of the day.

There are some parts of our routine that I love and that I wouldn’t give up, but there are others that I find constricting and that I want to shake up. What I’m finding in this trip is that I can shake some things up—that I still want to shake some things up. I can still explore and learn and have adventures. I realized back in 2011—though not in so coherent a manner—that my trip to Cambodia and Bhutan served much the same purpose. That trip was so physically grueling, however, that the wonderment was swamped by the effort just to move forward. I suppose I’m experiencing the same ennui that many—maybe most—couples who have been together for a long time experience, and it’s good to remind myself with trips like this one that Mark’s and my intellectual and spiritual lives don’t need to roll to a complete stop just because we’re older. We’ve talked many times, for example, about taking day trips on Saturdays to explore Ohio, but we’ve never gotten around to doing it. Maybe it’s time to get serious about that.

—–

With Mark back in Columbus, I jumped back into my Java class on Tuesday. The actual programming is not difficult, but I am still struggling with some of the logic. The exercises often give us tasks to complete but limit the kind of code we can use to accomplish them. More than once, I’ve said to myself, “I can do this, but I wouldn’t do it the way they’re forcing me to,” and a lot of that is because my logic is not as strong as it needs to be. I’m sure that once I get better at the logic my code will become less linear and, therefore, more efficient.

I finally met Jonathan—the man from whom I rented the apartment and his girlfriend, Natasha on Tuesday, too. They knocked on my door while I was finishing up my frozen-pizza dinner. We had a nice, brief chat (he delivered more toilet paper; what a way to meet someone for the first time!), and, after deciding I wasn’t a freak, invited me to join them, his mother, and his aunt at Cage Brewing for some foosball and a drink. I had a nice time talking with Natasha, Janey (Jonathan’s mother and, I think, the owner of my apartment), and Nan (Janey’s sister). After an hour or so, I walked the two blocks back home and started watching Farscape on Netflix. It’s not very good, but I’m not so put off by it that I’ll stop watching. Yet.

—–

Having some downtime this week allowed me to take a Wednesday-afternoon trip to Northshore Park, which is immediately north of downtown St. Petersburg in the Old Northeast area. The park looks out on the bay, and Tampa is in the distance. I have always liked the photographic contrast of smoke from stacks and clouds. Someday, I’ll get a shot of them together that adequately captures the contrast. Apparently not today, though. This is okay, but it’s not quite coming together, and the haze is distracting. It needs additional colors or something.

Last night, Natasha recommended the park as a good running location, and indeed, she is right. Though I have to drive to the park, it does have a long-enough running trail, and it’s a beautiful, tranquil place. I did not, however, run there this morning because it was too cold to be running along the bay. Thus, the trip over to check the place out and get some photos.

I have lots of pictures of birds in the shallows, but most are only mediocre. Not on my game today, I guess. This is one of the better. I like the shadow and ripples, but the color is flat, and it’s a tad out of focus.

I was walking past a planting bed and came on another plant that I can’t (yet) identify. This is easily the creepiest seed pod that I’ve ever seen. It has spilled about three-quarters of it’s seeds, but when it was full, it was probably about 9 to 12 inches tall. The bed was filled with only these plants, and the pods and berries are scattered throughout. It’s the Pod People! Aargh!

I walked a fairly long way along Beach Drive and Coffee Pot Boulevard, which are separated from the bay on the east by the seawall. This is just one of many lovely, LOVELY homes in the area. I had my zoom lens on, so I couldn’t get most of them in a decent shot. Had I won that big lottery, I’d be buying a place along here!

And then there was this gal (I’m assuming it was a female, but I really don’t know for sure), who was the most fearless bird I’ve ever seen. I took several shots of her when she was standing in the shallows eating, and then she flew up and landed on the sea wall directly in front of me. It’s like she was posing; I was literally less than six feet from her, but she never showed any impetus to fly away.

Most of the shots I took of this heron need to be recropped (as I did here) because I was shooting fast fearing that she would fly. I also tend to be self-conscious when taking pictures and don’t linger long in one place because I feel like people are staring at me.

Laundry Day (aka Saturday). I need to bring another pair or two of long pants next time I come. I’ve been wearing jeans on both of my laundry days thus far because it’s been chilly in the morning, so I’ve only had two pairs to get through the rest of the week. The laundromat was pretty empty when I visited last week, but this week, it was positively bustling. At one point, I was joined by a man apparently doing nothing but hanging out and signing loudly, a fellow and his five-year-old son, a woman and her two men friends—husband(s)? brother(s)? I can’t be sure—a young man in his late teens who was somehow related to the group, and, for a short time, his estranged girlfriend/wife/whatever. (I overheard him mention her kicking him out.) I’m not sure if it’s exciting or scary to be in such a crowd with your underwear on the table.

I took my week-one Java programming test today and got 100%. Yay! It wasn’t really that hard because most of what has been covered so far has been programming concepts that I already know. Where I struggled was with some of the logic. We had to evaluate statements like: given p = true, q = true, and r = false, then is “!(p && (r || q))” true or false? After a lot of scratching my head, I got all 12 of the combinations in the problem correct. Not a Java programmer yet, but I’m happy to say I’ve learned something!

After I got home, Dan came by, and we had brunch at Trip’s Diner, which is about as close as I’m going to get to my beloved Saturday lunches with Mark at Paul’s in Columbus. Across the street, we spotted a nice, smallish bookstore, Wilson’s Book World. It’s my kind of place; they pulled real literary fiction out of the general fiction section so I didn’t have to slog through the dross to find the gold. I bought two books, Mason’s translation of Gilgamesh and Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America, both of which have been on my list but neither of which I often find on the shelves. Dan found a sci-fi series that he read many years ago and wanted to reread. One of the books was missing, so he almost left without buying it, but I cajoled him into it. He can find the missing book at another store or online.

I then dragged Dan across the county to look for a new hand strap for my camera. Two malls and a Best Buy with no luck. It’s kind of sad to say that it’s probably the way things are going everywhere, but there are no camera shops (that I could find, anyway) in St. Petersburg. Sigh. I guess we’re lucky to have World of Photography and Midwest Photo Exchange in Columbus; I should go there more to support them. In the end, though, I bought a hand strap on Amazon; I can’t do without it until I get home, unfortunately.

It’s now around 6:30. The sun just went down. I don’t know where the day went, and I’m taking that to mean that I had an enjoyable day. Dan and Alex, Tom and James, and I are going to Urban Brew and BBQ for dinner in a bit. I piqued Dan’s interest singing its praises last week, so he badgered Alex into trying it out. I think they’ll like it.

—–

Sunday opened as not my best day. I dreamed that I owned a theatre that caught fire and that, due to smoke inhalation, my breathing became very labored. I woke at 4:30 to real-life labored breathing, and I was afraid I was having a heart attack. I thought seriously about calling a squad or driving myself to the hospital until I got myself settled down. I checked my symptoms and realized that I’d only made myself hyperventilate. I went back to sleep (more bad dreams; that’s the last time I eat barbecue after 8 p.m.), finally rolling out of bed around 8:30. I had an email from my friend,  Jan, saying that the Buddhist temple I sometimes visit to meditate had burned. The fire had been reported at about 4:30 a.m. Uncanny.

On my desk was a request from my personal trainer to copyedit a marketing email. He and I trade services, and I’m deeply in his debt right now, so I wanted to makes sure to do a good job. Unfortunately, I don’t know the interface of the marketing program very well, and I corrupted his email so badly that I couldn’t recover it. I salvaged about half but finally had to email him and ask him to recreate it.

The day went better after that. Dan and I went to the mall so he could get his phone fixed. True to grumpy form, Dan snapped at the poor fellow in the Apple Store because of a minor scheduling snafu, but he left with a working phone. And I found shoes.

—–

It’s Monday. I found a multi-purpose trail—the Pinellas Trail—that runs a couple blocks south of my apartment and had a good run on it today (except for the god-awful rotting garbage stench along about 100 feet of the trail). I think it’s an old railway that goes through an industrial area. It was a tiny bit sketchy, and Dan had advised me to be careful because of reported muggings along the trail, but I had no real concerns. I checked the crime reports in the area, and it seems that the muggings all happened a good way further along the trail than I’m ever likely to run. I’ll continue to use the trail, but because it is a little isolated, I’ll stick to daylight hours, and I won’t carry anything with me except my apartment keys.

I worked for most of the rest of the day then went for a two-mile walk to downtown and back. I’m in an area called “Grand Central.” I think I mentioned earlier that it’s an artsy area with a lot of galleries, but it also sports an impressive number of well-done murals along. Here are some photos I took along Central and First Avenues North.

The area also distinguishes itself with colored-concrete insets in the sidewalks—something I’d really like to see in the Short North when the city rebuilds the infrastructure over the next three years—sculpture, and cool architecture.

I introduced Dean and Diane to El Gallo Grande. It’s amusing that I—the most non-foodie person I know—am introducing St. Petersburg natives to their own restaurants! After dinner, I settled in to rematch the space-western series, Firefly. To my great pleasure, I discovered that I’d missed the original pilot and now understand the parts of the storyline didn’t make sense to me. It was like finding $10 in your coat pocket.

—–

Today is Tuesday; Mark is coming on Thursday, so I feel like I need to “clean up the edges” a bit. I cleaned the apartment on Sunday, but my hair desperately needed to be cut. Wanting to stay within walking distance if possible, I turned to Yelp and found a barber shop nearby with very reasonable prices. I mentioned it at dinner on Saturday. “I love Chago’s!” is the response I got from James. “It’s gossipy. The people are fun. It’s like being in an old-fashioned beauty shop. And you’ll get a great cut.” He wasn’t kidding. It was a pretty light afternoon for them, but all of us were chatting and gossiping—gay guys and straight guys, black guys and white guys and Asian guys. And I did, indeed, get a really good from Shawn cut for $20. I’ve never gotten the straight-razor and hot-towel treatment before. I feel like a beardless hipster. Chago’s will definitely be my go-to barber shop when I’m in St. Petersburg.

It’s been a busy work week so far, and tomorrow looks busy, too, so I don’t expect to get back to my Java class this week. I’ll have to make that a priority next week. It’s a five-week course, and I definitely want to be done with it before I leave.

—–

Arrival Day! Yesterday was Mark’s and my second official anniversary. Today, he and his mother arrive for a visit. We’ll go immediately from the Tampa airport to his sister’s house near Kissimmee where his mother will be staying for the month. I’m looking forward to seeing him after three weeks. It’s going to be a rainy day today, but that’s okay.

I hope my iPod is working for the two-hour drive. I went for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen last night, and it melted on the way home and spilled into the cup-holder where the iPod was sitting. By the time I got home, the iPod was swimming in a pool of melted ice cream. I used a Q-Tip to get the mess out of the docking port, but this morning, I had trouble getting it to boot up or connect to my Mac. I finally did get it connected, but I’m not sure how reliable it’s going to be now. Sigh. If it isn’t one thing….

It’s Tuesday of my second week in Florida. I can’t believe that one week has already passed.

I find myself facing what I expected to face with this blog. Not a lot has happened. I finished my previous entry on Sunday, and Monday and today were normal workdays. Who wants to read about that. When I’m 80 and senile, I know I won’t. So what to write about this week? What pictures to show? Time will tell, I suppose.

I went to a large bookshop yesterday. Haslem’s is a sprawling purveyor of new and used books just around the corner from my apartment. Located in what looks like a K-Mart plaza from the sixties, it lacks the charm of some of my favorite independents, but it does have a pretty good selection. I picked four books on this trip: a tour book on Bhutan (believe it or not, I don’t have one), Krakatoa, which recounts the 1883 explosive destruction of a volcanic island in the far eastern Indian Ocean, Endurance, an account of the Ernest Shackleton’s disastrous expedition to Antarctica and the amazing survival of his team, and Wreck of the Medusa, which tells of the grounding and sinking of the French ship, Medusa, and the horrors the crew faced over the next thirteen days as the number of survivors dwindled from 150 to just 15. I’m sensing a theme here.

I’m having dinner with Dan tonight, and I really need to give a shout to my friends, Peter and Mark, who also live in St. Petersburg.

…

So here’s something new. Dan turned me on to edX, an online learning destination created by Harvard and MIT. I’ve signed up to take a free class in Java. If I like how edX works and feel like I actually learned something, I’ll probably continue on and probably even pay to get a certification. I have wanted for some time to be able to code in something more useful than just VBA, but I haven’t been sure how to go about learning what I need to know. Perhaps I’ve found the way.

Today is overcast and rainy. It’s the first really overcast day since I arrived. That’s not bad, considering that I’ve been here for 11 straight sunny days. A ratio I can live with. I didn’t have any real work to do today (I’m waiting for a client approval), and with the weather being so dreary, I couldn’t really work on my photography, so I took a spin over to Banana’s, a venerable used CD store not too far away from my apartment. I looked through most of their inventory, but after 90 minutes, my neck was tired from craning to read the titles on stacks and stacks of 3-for-5-dollar CDs. I checked out with 13 new discs:

• Katy Perry, Teenage Dream (mostly for “Teenage Dream”)
• Dead or Alive, Sophisticated Boom Boom (What can I say? It was on my list, but I still don’t know why.)
• Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto (I like their other stuff up to and partly including Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends—which I think is generally overproduced—so I thought I’d try it.)
• Five for Fighting, Two Lights (Again, I like his other stuff.)
• A Flock of Seagulls, The Best of A Flock of Seagulls (and some other songss to round out the album)
• Lyle Lovett, The Road to Ensenada (C’mon. It’s Lyle Lovett. Nobody does Lyle like Lyle.)
• The Moody Blues, The Story of the Moody Blues… Legend of a Band (My sister once left me in her Maverick while she popped into a convenience store, and “Nights in White Satin” came on the radio. It creeped me out and scared the bejeezus out of me, but I can’t quite let it go.)
• Lisa Stansfield, Lisa Stansfield (One of the most under appreciated voices in R&B, in my opinion. Listen to her rendition of “Down in the Depths” from the AIDS charity album, Red Hot + Blue. It’s like drinking fine scotch.)
• Michael Jackson, The Essential Michael Jackson (mostly for “Ben”)
• Lisa Stansfield, Real Love (See above.)
• Dire Straits, Money for Nothing (I thought I was buying the original album with the song, “Money for Nothing.” That album is called Brothers in Arms. It’s okay, though; this one’s a compilation.)
• Toad the Wet Sprocket, Bread & Circus (I like their other stuff, and for less than $2, I can afford to hate it.)
• Collective Soul, Collective Soul (It was also really cheap, so if I end up only liking the hit, “The World I Know,” it’ll be worth it.)

I’ll go back another day to scan through the rest of their holdings. They had lots of things that tempted me, but I have a list to knock out, first.

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It’s Friday, and the sun has come out again. Wednesday was mostly icky, but Thursday’s weather was truly awful. It rained all day—literally all day! I stayed in except for a jaunt out at lunch to get a salad at Applebee’s. A nice young woman there asked me what I was reading, so I told her very briefly about Melville’s White Jacket. She had just read and loved Buck’s The Good Earth, which I’ve not read, but the style of which I can pretty confidently surmise. When I finished lunch, I gave her a few references including anything by Willa Cather (for the style) as well as Maugham’s The Painted Veil, Orwell’s Burmese Days, and Forster’s A Passage to India (all for the exoticism of the East; Burmese Days is probably not going to be to her liking the though.)

I completed the first week’s worth of lessons in my Java class today. I’ll take the exam tomorrow, but I wanted to reward myself with the sun, so I put the top down on my car and drove to St. Pete Beach with my camera. St. Pete Beach is on the gulf side of the peninsula and south of Treasure Island. It’s in the town called Pass-A-Grille. It’s kind of a swanky area, and although you can see a mix of modest and expansive houses, pretty much all of the real estate is well kept (and, I suspect, quite pricey). I said “Hello” to lots of passersby as I was walking, partly to allay their fears about a stranger walking through their neighborhood with a camera and partly because I’m making an effort to be more friendly and less intimidated by people. Everyone said, “Hi” back, and that made it an especially nice walk. Here are a few photos

These reminded me of the vertical Buddhist prayer flags we saw in Bhutan.

These are yuccas, if you can believe it. They were at least 20 feet tall!

This guy had just caught a lizard for lunch and was feeling pretty pleased with himself.

Here is one of the more modest homes in Pass-A-Grille.

And here’s part of one of the more palatial ones about two blocks down the road.

I expect I’ll eat in tonight, but maybe I’ll call Dan about getting coffee later. Tomorrow is laundry day. Bleh! Maybe I’ll take that Java test while I’m at the laundromat.

Mark comes down in less than a week now, though, so I need to try to get a haircut before Thursday.

There’s a gate outside my window swamped by an enormous bougainvillea. It’s in full bloom right now. Beyond the gate is a crushed-shell parking area. I’ve officially become a snowbird at 47.

“I’m not planning to blog this trip,” I told Patty, my colleague at Penn State Press. “It’s not really an adventure.” I did plan to do some writing, though, and work on my photography. A few days later, it occurred to me, “Why bother trying to finish that script or those short stories; I’ll probably never see them complete, anyway.” Instead, I could scratch my writing itch with the blog, and so here I am, sitting at a tiny table in “my” breakfast nook in St. Petersburg watching the sun climb the sky.

My 45th and 46th winters in Ohio were pretty hellish. Lots of snow; very cold. When the last one finally started to let up, I blurted out in front of Mark and a friend of ours that I’m done. I’m had to find a way to spend time in Florida, and a week or two just wouldn’t cut it. I think I surprised Mark and our friend, but I know I surprised myself. Last July, I rented an apartment for two months, and now I’m here, telling you about it.

Early Friday morning, my friend, Matt, and I embarked on this new adventure. As you might expect, there isn’t a lot to say about the drive down. It was sunny. It was foggy. It rained. The tires hummed along. We passed Ruby Falls (that’s for you, Jan and Tony), but we didn’t stop. Friday was to be our day to push as far south as we could, so distractions, as entertaining as they might be, just weren’t in the cards. After much talking and laughing, we pulled into the parking lot of our motel in Macon, Georgia at around 6.

Do you know how embarrassing it is to stop at a motel for one night but have to ask to borrow a bellman’s cart to bring your things in? Very. Especially if you’re a northern guy in the South and assume that everyone expects you to travel with little more than deodorant and a watch. My dilemma was that in addition to 10 days worth of clothes, I had electronics—my computer and it’s entourage as well as my camera—that I felt unsafe leaving in my car overnight. I drew the line at my monitor, though. I can only imagine what the concierge would have thought to see me dragging a 24-inch monitor into the motel with my bags. The monitor got its revenge, though. It got scratched. I’ll have to look into repairing it or replacing it when I get home.

After dumping our bags, we headed into Macon for a bite to eat. From what we could see—which wasn’t a lot; Maconites don’t seem to believe in copious street lighting—it’s a cute, small city. It would be worth a longer visit. Downtown was lively; I think I heard that a concert was scheduled, and that brought a lot of people out. The concierge at La Quinta recommended the Rookery, and we did put our names in for a table there, but in the end, we settled in at a New Orleans–style pub called Parish on Cherry across the street and had a fine evening there. We ate at the bar, and we’re pretty sure that we weren’t the only gay pair there. Across from us were an older couple of gentlemen, both of whom looked like refugees from 70s British glam-rock bands. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that one of them in particular was a former member of Yes.

We finished the roughly 15-hour journey on Saturday morning and arrived at my apartment at about 3 on Saturday afternoon. The drive from Columbus is stupidly simple—even I didn’t make a mistake. Take 71 to 75, and it’s straight on until you hit 275—the St. Petersburg outer belt. Getting to the apartment was equally simple; it’s just off 275.

Janey, the mother of our host, met us on our way in and gave us a brief rundown on the apartment and facilities. I’m trying to get a handle on Janey’s story, and I suspect I’ll be narrating some of it as I continue to blog. From what I’ve gathered from her and from her conversations with Matt, she lost her husband a few years back, so she came to St. Petersburg from Colorado this winter to spend some time with her son, Jonathan, who seems to own the building. Janey is living in one of the three units in the building, and I think she’s thinking about making it permanent. She’s not missed winter in Colorado for a single day she tells me. Here are some photos of the place.

Perhaps oddly, the first thing Matt and I did when we unloaded the car was go for a run. After so much time in the car, it sounded—and felt—like a good idea. It was only then that I realized that Matt had never been to St. Petersburg, so I was happy to be able to show him the little bit of bay front that I knew from my previous visits.

We met up with Dan and Alex for dinner at El Gallo Grande on Saturday night. The food was excellent—the best Mexican I’ve had in many years. Better, even, than Cuco’s which is my Columbus favorite. Unfortunately, I don’t expect it to last; it’s in an unfortunate part of town just south of the university, and I think we were one of only three tables on a Saturday night. Matt and I closed the night with a drink at a bar on Central. It was a mixed crowd, and I laughed to be reminded how some young lesbians behave at watering holes. There was lots of “expanding” to fill the available space, lots of hanging on each other, lots of PDAs, but I knew that one wrong sideways glance could unleash the simmering territoriality and a fight would break out. It was quite fun to watch.

Breakfast Sunday morning was at a little joint called Central Coffee Shoppe that’s not too far of a walk from my apartment. It reminds me of the now defunct Rube’s Diner in Clintonville. It’s a greasy spoon that does breakfast and lunch for cheap and that’s full of interesting characters. We met up with Dan after that to run a few errands—in particular to buy an ethernet adapter and long ethernet cable, which I forgot to bring from Columbus. I think Alex was mortified when we showed up at their house because he didn’t think it was picked-up enough for guests. Dan probably got a bit of an earful afterward. Alex is, however, an impeccable homemaker, and he has absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. As nice as their home is, I have to agree with Matt that the sunroom is the best spot. Matt liked it so much that he fell asleep in a chair in the sun and started snoring.

Bob Mangia picked up Matt and me for dinner Tuesday night at BellaBrava. Bob lives up the street from Mark and me about a block and a half, but he has a friend living just north of St. Petersburg and has been coming to visit her every January for a number of years. It was a treat to see him outside of Columbus.

On Wednesday, Matt and I ate in and then met Mark’s friend, Dean Shepherd, and Dean’s friends out for a drink at a tavern called The Stone Soup Café. They have a pretty wide selection of beers on special for $4 on Wednesday nights. It turns out that Dean’s house is about six blocks due west of where I’m living. I hope to see more of him and his wife, Diane, while I’m here. Mark is already planning at least one meal with them when he comes down in a couple weeks.

I spent the next couple days running around with Matt (and watching my new obsession, a British TV show called Doc Martin) and just being happy to be here. I miss Mark, which goes without saying, and my Thursday lunch friends, but I feel clearer of mind and less like I’m in a fight just to get on every day. We’ve been exploring places like the Dalí Museum, mostly (not my favorite artist, but what a nice museum!), and I’ve been working when I have work.

Matt’s flight out was at 10 on Friday morning, so I bundled him off to the airport at about 8. Here’s a selfie of us before we left for the Tampa airport.

I-275 is undergoing construction, so I was figuring it would take 45 minutes to get him to TPA, but it ended up being a fairly painless drive, and within 30 minutes, we’d arrived, I’d dropped him off, and I was back on my way to St. Petersburg. I’m really glad he came down with me and stayed a week. It’s made the transition easier, but now that he’s gone, I’m starting the uncomfortable but not unanticipated process of adjusting to being alone. Dan and Alex are just 10 minutes away, of course, but I don’t want to become a pest, and I think it’s important for me to relearn life-alone skills, especially if I’m going to be making this winter trip for the foreseeable future.

Friday night, Dan and I went out to a mom-and-pop joint, Indian Shores Coffee Company, and happened to stumble on open-mic night. We didn’t say long, but the first performer was pretty good, and I enjoyed the three songs we listened to. Saturday night was dinner with Dan and Alex and their friends, James and Tom. I’ve eaten out a lot—Urban Brew and BBQ and Urban Comfort were particularly good, as was Kings Street Food Counter—but I think that will slow down now that Matt has returned to Columbus. I’ll probably continue to see Dan (and Alex when he’s not working) a couple times each week, but mostly I plan to eat in. I’m still eating leftover pasta, turkey tacos, and fish sticks. (I can hear you groaning.)

I’ve had to pick up a couple things to make the apartment more comfortable, but all the essentials have been provided by my hosts. I’m going to run out today to pick up some groceries and a couple more little items that will make my stay more convenient.

Saturday, I made a brief trip to Fort De Soto Park. It was windy and cool, so the beaches were deserted, but it was a nice, sunny drive, and I got a couple interesting photos. The last one reminds me of Matt, whom I call “Foxy” because of some neighborhood confusion over his last name—Wolf—when he first moved to Harrison West.

That about brings me up to date. More to come.