Return from Exile

Thanks to all 2 or 3 of regular readers for your patience...finally back from blog exile, most of which was self-imposed (just got out of the routine in July), but for the last couple of weeks was due to "vacation" with my in-laws at the Jersey shore. (Why yes, that is a contradiction in terms.)

While my in-laws are well-meaning and generous to a fault (having paid for the house rental), two weeks with them is like death by a thousand little cuts. I believe I have mentioned earlier my mother-in-law (motto: "Life...with Narration!"), for whom blissful silence is a scourge on the Earth from which she feels she has been chosen to eradicate, which drives me absolutely crazy. I mean, I enjoy having a bagel in the morning without someone telling me, "Oh, you're having a bagel for breakfast today!"

And agida for lunch.

After the first week, I'm thinking that getting back to work wouldn't be all that bad.

After 10 days, I'm playing the "what-if" game with every ex-girlfriend and woman I dated or even thought of dating, or perhaps bought an ice cream from the evening before. Thankfully, I'm now back in civilization, and the anticipation about getting back to work has subsided to the usual low level of dread.

I've also found that I'm not really all that much into the beach any more. There is plenty to like about the New Jersey shore - nice beaches, I do enjoy swimming in the ocean, long, flat bike rides, and an opportunity to sit back and enjoy God's creation (and, in some cases, the enhancement to same by the Main Line's finest plastic surgeons). But maybe it's me...it seems as if, at least in some of the Shore communities (including the one where we were), it's just an amplification of the self-satisfied, conspicuously-consuming, mindless-Republican lifestyle that is just so repulsive in day-to-day life, taking on a vibrant new life of its own writ large here, without any of those pesky minorities or socially-responsible folks to ruin their fun! Bring on the Escalades and the BMWs, the beach-block reconstitutions of their suburban McMansions (built high to block the neighbors' view of the ocean), replete with swimming pools for those too lazy to walk the half-block to the beach, and palladium windows everywhere (thought: does the job description for an Andersen or Pella sales rep say "blow every architect you can find. Repeat"?), the sport-utility strollers for their pre-prep-school offspring, the Idle Blonde trophy wives with skin burnished to the texture and color of fine Corinthian naugahyde (to look good for those Rick Santorum fundraisers in the fall). It's all just a little much. But a few days of sun, a lot of reading (bet I'm the only one reading Bonhoeffer on the beach in Avalon), the aforementioned bike riding, and copious amounts of vodka weren't all bad.

On the other end of the Shore social spectrum are the various boardwalk attractions...for some reason, I thought it would be fun to go to the Ocean City boardwalk one evening with the kids, and wondered why I would have ever enjoyed it. God, as soon as I got back to the house, all I wanted was a hot shower. Places like that give sleaze a bad name.

As a sporadic but relatively serious bike rider, the benefits of the Shore's flat, wide streets also come with shortcomings, namely that people who never ride or understand bicycle laws/etiquette come out of the woodwork for their only rides (I use the term loosely) of the year. You've got your folks who ride without helmets (particularly the parents who make their children wear them, but don't themselves: the "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" school, and the others who think that their Burberry golf caps provide adequate head protection), ride without lights at night, ride against traffic, ride as if they don't have a fucking clue, ride while talking on cell phones ("hi, how are ya, about to hit the pavement, gotta go!"), various combinations of the above, etc. Can't we put in Idiot Lanes for them to keep them out of our way? Oh well, more targets for the Escalades...