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two identical forks
Thursday, June 19 2003
[REDACTED]
This evening Gretchen and I went on our first bike ride together since moving upstate. We rode our mountain bikes up the driveway of our uphill neighbor's place and then went on a wide loop through the woods. I even did a few high-speed circuits on the abandoned go-cart racetrack (visible in the lower left-center of this aerial photograph). Sally was with us, of course, and she had no trouble keeping up, particularly on the rocky forest trails. I've never been much of an off-road bicycle enthusiast - any place I'd normally gain an advantage by traversing by bicycle has a nice paved road going through it. Besides, my mountain bike has perfectly smooth tires, as it was never intended to go anywhere but the streets of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles. It's the most important concrete legacy of my involvement with the aborted LaunchUK project - it had once belonged to one of the project managers during his stay in Santa Monica and I'd "inherited" it when the team was dissolved and shipped back to London.
Later we went to the Reservoir Inn, located near the eastern end of the Ashokan Reservoir. It's located in a grand bluestone building and seemed sort of classy from the outside. Inside, though, it wasn't really much more upscale than the absent-mindedly tacky Hurley Mountain Inn, though it lacked all of the sports bar trappings. The customers were also a few notches (if not a full rung) up the economic ladder, probably reflecting the proximity to Woodstock. The level of sophistication can perhaps best be summed up with a description of our place setting. Beside our plate we were given two forks, as people normally receive in fancy restaurants. But these forks were identical.
Over dinner we mostly talked about what a good actress Gretchen would be if only she had the right connections. She has a whole suite of characters she does spontaneously without even stopping to consider what she's doing. The problem, though, is that one has to be located in a major city and be a self-promoting brown noser to succeed as an actress. When you think about it, to succeed at anything requires brown nosing and self-promotion. Just think of all the brilliant artists and poets who lived and died in obscurity through the combined effects of pride and humility.
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