other people's newspapers

i think i'm developing an unhealthy obsession with the weekly newspapers of other cities. i couldn't care less about the village bloody voice, which actually has some bearing upon my life, or the fact that i live in what is arguably one of the most entertaining cities in the world...no, i instead choose to filter part of my life through the words coming out of seattle (the stranger) and athens, ga (flagpole), austin, tx (the chronicle). i get a sick thrill of excitement over shows i will never see, planning trips to bars and coffee houses i won't get to for years...(ooh! yo la tengo is going to be playing near pike place! ooh! spiderhouse is having a 2-for-1 pounds of coffee special! booyaka!)

i can safely say that i have spent entire days reading back issues of the stranger. i'm not sure what that says about me or my work ethic.

i think it's all borne of a combination of masochism and travel lust, which i'm feeling with particular poignancy right now. currently bottled into my very first long-term job as a desk jockey, i'm suddenly very, very aware of the amount of time and energy i spent moving around when i had more free time. i miss it. a lot. i've had, as they say in the trade, itchy feet as a result. i suddenly find myself wanting to be anywhere but here. not for a prolonged period of time or anything, just for a week or so. especially now that the weather's warming up. i want to jump on a bus and go to austin, to athens, chicago, boston, berlin, hong kong, seattle, prague, istanbul, rotterdam, brussels, tokyo...i just want to get the hell out of new york now. and this is not helped by the fact that i work for an international relocations company. i write about foreign countries for a living. it really doesn't help the wanderlust. ah well, this too shall pass. someday, i'll have vacation time, someday i'll have some sort of moderate travel budget, someday i'll have my damned british passport and then i will decamp to australia. or scotland. or anywhere else in the eu. yeah!

i will, however, probably be avoiding the middle east. call me puss, but whatever.

this, however, is not the case for my friend raski. she's just joined the peace corps, and as such is shipping out to kazakhstan on june 10. now, i'm pleased as punch and proud as hell that she got the assignment...but a little concerned at the same time. and a little jealous, if for no other reason than that she'll get to live in a yurt.

yurt!