Psychic Cacophony
Yesterday afternoon and into the evening, I helped Shannon move back into her building of 3000 flags. We cleaned the ceiling fans, unpacked boxes of kitchenwares, scrubbed down a totally grotesque toilet – the usual new apartment stuff. After a few hours of such activities, our attention turned to pizza and Riesling and sitting down at a table. So we rustled up quarters and singles, called Dominoes and rejoiced at the arrival of our delicious pie (the Riesling having already been opened an hour in advance.)
What started as a food break quickly turned into an actual sobremesa of chatter. The topic was, of course, life in the city versus life in the country. This is a common thread in most conversations I’ve had of late and was most definitely brought on by my return from Philadelphia. As I was explaining the sheer joy I feel at knowing there are so many people living and dying at every moment in such a densely populated place as a city, Shannon was simultaneously describing the crushing weight of sensing millions of thoughts all at once. It seems odd that we would both come to the same conclusion as to what makes the city good/bad on the first try.
I guess I wonder what this psychic cacophony means to other people. Does anyone else sense inherently the presence or absence of a population? Good or bad? Could this be the basic difference between people that prefer to live in a rural setting or an urban setting?
tl;dr 🙂
Really, though, I have a terrible habit of romanticizing city life because I’ve never experienced it for longer than a few days at a time. The emptiness of rural areas drives me nuts, though. I can easily see how someone could feel overwhelmed with the number of people in such a close proximity, but I really don’t think it would affect me. Plus, if it ever got too bad I would just leave for a weekend.
I originally just wanted to say that I recently had a bottle of Yellow Tail Riesling that was very good.
having no where to park and paying the city thousands of dollars in ticketing and towing costs in the past couple of years, not to mention a dozen other reasons, has caused me to crave my good old country life for a while.
getting a roll of toilet paper in 5 minutes is such a lovely convenience…
but city life could be better. with lots of money, an apartment that isnt smelly and run down or in a section of the city overpopulated by college idiots, with a driveway, etc. etc.
i’ve been on a hating the city kick lately….
Well yes, Sonya, not being around that many freaking students in Oakland would probably make you feel a lot more thrilled about living in the city. Hell, Dawson St. is like a third world country sometimes with hordes of unwashed drunkards teeming about.
Still, even with the annoyances, it sure does beat living in the middle of nowhere for every day except the odd one where you just want silence.