wanderlust

My brain appears to be taking its sweet time emerging from vacation-induced languor. Over the past two days I have managed incredible feats of inanity, to the point that I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a menace to society, and whether I should be able to take a personal day on account of stupidity. For instance, it took me three separate trips to Staples to procure the proper envelopes for 2005 tax forms. Because I cannot, apparently, distinguish "1099" from "W-2".

Then, on the way to work on Tuesday, I noticed a service advisory for Manhattan-bound F trains. I wondered why the signs were posted on the Coney Island-bound side but dismissed the thought. I boarded a train and curled up into a corner seat. 15 minutes later, I realized that I was heading in the wrong direction.

And yesterday afternoon I noticed that a sign across the street from work has been torn so that it now reads "Same-day assports". I laughed so hard when I saw it that I started choking on my gum, attracting the attention of an elderly woman with a cane and a slightly moldy fur coat. She asked me if I was okay, but when she saw what I was looking at she emitted a scandalized chirp and scuttled away. I had no choice but to swallow the gum. Which is just punishment for being unable to maintain one's composure in the presence of the word "ass".

The only problem with vacations, as far as I can tell, is that they have to end. And the shock of plunging back into real life is far too brutal for the brain to handle; as a result, we go dumb.

The following paragraphs should provide sufficient proof for this theory.

I spent the past weekend in Florida with three of my closest friends. We all work in publishing and, as such, are generally exhausted and embittered. We're also poor, but Jet Blue was having a fare sale and my friend's father has an apartment in Palm Beach, so the way I see it, the trip was less an indulgence than a responsibility.

Although, don't get me wrong, there was certainly a great deal of indulgence. I spent most of my time sitting poolside, sipping Bloody Marys that were magically refilled by a very helpful man in a crisp white uniform. Occasionally he would also bring me peanut butter cookies. I don't know his name and we never spoke more than two sentences to one another, but even so I think that this man might be a little bit perfect: I never once felt guilty about asking him for what I wanted.

Unusually, though, I managed to fall in love with a vacation without falling in love with the destination. I say unusually because, in truth, I am a raging geographical slut.

When someone self-identifies as a commitmentphobe, they generally mean that they have a fear of committing to a romantic relationship. I have no patience for these people. They piggyback on a long and glorious tradition of existential angst because they just can't bring themselves to say "Well, I just don't know if I like you that much" or "I like you a lot now, but I'm not sure I'm going to like you a lot later". Come on: provided you have a basic grasp of modern contraception and no great tendency to find yourself walking down an aisle, getting out of a relationship is, all things considered, pretty fucking easy. There's nothing scary about romantic commitment unless you really suck at breaking up with people.

Real terror is this: handing over first and last month's rent, making a down payment, finding a grown-up job, signing a contract, changing residency status. Whenever you do these things, whenever you make these choices, you're restricting future choice and opportunity in a profoundly terrifying way. The opportunity costs of transitory monogamy can't begin to compare.

From 1999-2004, I lived in 7 apartments in 4 cities in 2 countries. I explored careers in academia, film, design, government, theatre, and publishing. I chose the most interdisciplinary major I could find. Nearly everything I did in those five years was, very specifically, about not making a choice. I like new challenges and I hate missed opportunities; the very idea of settling down in any way, form, or fashion was repellent.

Naturally, I chose to go to graduate school.

I was drawn to graduate school because it is, in a way, a non-choice choice. Or, at the very least, a choice to avoid any truly consequential choice. You get to spend 5 years or so in relative freedom, reading and arguing and writing, and when you're finished you have honest-to-God qualifications that you can take just about anywhere, into any number of fields. You can leave, you can come back, you can apply for fellowships, whatever. Doctoral programs are the open relationships of professional life.

As it turned out, though, not open enough for me. Now I am, I suppose, what you would call a reformed rake, having settled for a city and career that makes the finding and fashioning of new ideas its business. I'm not exactly thrilled by the commitment, but there's enough novelty to distract me from opportunities elsewhere. It's a compromise.

Even so, I have a bit of a wandering eye.

Whenever I'm out of town, I turn a calculating gaze on my surroundings, a rapid consideration of moving costs and employment opportunities and decorating schemes. For a while, I wondered about living in a cottage in Nantucket. I seriously debated moving into a crumbling townhouse in Savannah. I've even thought about returning to St. Louis and insinuating myself into its newly revitalized downtown.

I also routinely torture my friends and colleagues in New York by threatening to flee to Mongolia or Canada or England. The other day Alison mentioned that her mother had spent a summer in Tasmania, which resulted in a flurry of online research on my part and an exasperated sigh on hers.

Once, I requested an application from the Peace Corps. Even though I know, with absolute certainty, that I would be the worst member of the Peace Corps in human history. (Third-worst if you count fictional characters.)

But there is no daydream more soothing for a true commitmentphobe like myself than the dream of relocation, and every city I see enables my nomadic tendencies.

This is why it was unusual that I didn't feel any great compulsion to move to Palm Beach. Palm Beach was like a warm-weather version of midtown Manhattan: terrifying in its affluence. And also terrifying in the age of its inhabitants. People there are seriously half-desiccated. It was like walking through the Egyptian collection at the Met.

So, in the end, I've come to the conclusion that Palm Beach is the perfect place to go on vacation. Even if I have to pay for my drinks or - God forbid - fetch them myself, it's a lovely place to while away a weekend. But I know I'd swallow a bottle of hydrochloric-acid-spiked cyanide if I had to stay, so I don't waste any time wondering if it's a city worth ravishing.

And when I return, my brain is dulled by sun and travel and booze, and for a little while I forget how very much I want to run away. (More)