Pink

We break up the drive at the Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton. Though we are consummate lovers of zoos -- Amber more professionally -- it was merely something to do to interrupt going directly to Ithaca. I am not actively resisting arriving, but in the preceding weeks, as Amber made it more about her scientific conference than a romantic getaway, I was admittedly not as eager as I had been when I booked a stay at William Henry Miller Inn.

Amber prepared for this as they would any trip. Their demeanor is no different despite this being another significant step in entering a doctoral program at Cornell. That Ithaca might become our home, forcing us to uproot ourselves from the one we have built for the last decade, does not factor much into it from them. When I bring this up, Amber says they do not bother worrying about things that might not happen, which must be a grievous psychological flaw I lack. It is only proper to perseverate on every possible permutation of the situation whenever something diverges from the usual.

At the zoo, the suspiciously upbeat young woman who took her admission told us we could go up an incline, though most people go the other direction and then have to contend with a steep hill in the middle. We'll only have to descend this near mountain.

She smiles tooth-strip white at me, and I do not believe a word out of her precious little mouth.

There is nothing here I would remember as a hill. I've been in a car for 2 hours and already have 9,000 steps just from existing; I would welcome a hill for the opportunity to restore the blood to my legs.

Amber and I take the young woman's reverse directions anyway. For the first quarter mile of our journey -- I know this distance precisely because the path began by telling us we had gone a mile and counted this down -- all the animals we saw were gigantic, wire armatures with canvas stretched over their ribs. These are organized into little scenes, the animals not interacting until we reach a flock of 4-foot lightning bugs running afoul of a gargantuan blue spider and its web. Aside from that, the fake animals keep to their species ghettos.

We see our first living, normally-proportioned animal after that whimsical quarter mile, perhaps better placed at the end of the visit rather than the beginning. Even the typical bevy of squirrels and birds doesn't seem interested in perching beside a canvas frog the size of a bumper car.

What do they see?

The actual animals are overheated. Amber speculates they do not receive the loving care given to those at our local, school-run zoo, but what can one expect? We should be grateful the zoo bothered having something more than the enormous artificial taxidermy for our admission.

When anything resembles a cat -- proportions be damned -- Amber coos, even when a mother Pallas cat jumps at them for daring to look past the reflection into the enclosure. This is the high point of their visit, being startled by a caged wildcat.

"I would have been in trouble if there weren't glass there!"

"Then the cat would have been in trouble," I say, "as you would have put it in your pocket."

"True," they say, though their dress lacks pockets.

It's Pallas cats!

They relate that their phone claims there is a restaurant within walking distance. I would be as happy getting to Ithaca at this point, having delayed the inevitable as long as I could, but they are too hungry for patience or, they amend, walking.

When we arrive, it looks like it might be a strip club. It is named Nips, which one must admit is suspect. But no. It is a bar that, if pressed, serves food aside from a surprising (and occasionally unpalatable sounding) variety of wings. All the locals and the butch bartender are done with us when Amber nervously asks if I want to stay.

They have burgers. We eat and are mostly ignored. We do not drink anything but water. We do not belong, and nothing will change the obviousness of this. Still, my chicken spiedie is beyond delicious, even though I have to ask the bartender what exactly a spiedie is.

On the hour drive from Binghamton to Ithaca, I make sport of stating every minor inconvenience or aesthetic flaw we endure is the city's fault. Amber is not annoyed by this and concedes that the traffic born of heavy construction on crumbling roads is Ithaca's fault, even if the rest might only be my not wanting to move.

It is faintly possible Ithaca is not a blighted hellscape peopled only by idiots and lunatics.

The bed & breakfast belongs somewhere other than downtown -- too old-fashioned, Queen Anne, and imposing. However, we stayed at Lizzie Borden's Bed & Breakfast, a period house in urban Fall River; I cannot deny this is precisely our speed.

Our accommodations are -- and I don't say this pejoratively -- a hotel room. It is not outwardly the charm one expects from a B&B, but we are in a cabin behind the home. We have access to the house proper, and we'll get breakfast with the others, but we are left to our devices. Given that we have only stayed at one (non-haunted) B&B where interacting with the other guests was encouraged or pleasant, I am not bothered.

Over the TV in our room is a banner wishing happy birthday, tinsel hearts hanging from the dresser, and felt hearts pinned above the bed. Did I mention the occasions for our visit, that this is our anniversary and Amber's birthday? I don't recall, but I tend not to be tight-lipped about these things. The other possibility is housekeeping left these up, which is less likely. It's too classy a joint to be so sloppy.

We drop our luggage and go immediately to get the anniversary cupcakes that Amber had ordered a day ago.

The section of Ithaca where we find the bakery is the Commons, an open-air mall containing both the seductive notes of a plant store and the profligate promise of a pen shop. Even the ink bottles sing a siren song, but I may be the only sailor in the frequency.

Fancy

I concede this is marginally cute, and I can see why someone would shop here. There are maybe fifty shops in a few blocks, most of which could pass for hip if one were in the business of labeling such things -- which I'm not. I'm here to get cupcakes and pretend I am not seeking fatal flaws in the city.

We are not here to impress me with Ithaca. Amber could choose to care about this, but their goal is to make Cornell further acknowledge they exist. If there is time left over, we might hang out.

Amber looks at the box and sees the order is wrong, that there is a chocolate cupcake where there should be a red velvet one, and the frosting is entirely incorrect. Just like an Ithacan to screw up a simple cupcake order! I offer to go back in and politely ask if they might have different cupcakes -- there seemed no dearth of these in the case -- but confrontation for dessert is foreign to Amber. They will eat the chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting, even though it will be ashes in their mouth.

We return to the house, using their fancy dishes and flatware for plating, and eat the dairy-free cookies they made us (because I was fool enough to mention our lactose intolerance) and a standard s'more cookie, and then decide to hurry back to our rooms instead of being artistic on the plush sofas, writing and reading.

Staying in a bed & breakfast is not a young man's game. Granted, I'm in my early 40s, and Amber will be 35 in two days, but most who opt for this mode of travel are retirees who prefer comfort and a glut of early morning calories to affordability and making one's way in the world. My people are supposed to prop up Airbnb, which I'm constitutionally against. It steals away all the available real estate in Red Hook, making it harder to tether Amber somewhere familiar so she doesn't covet Cornell.

The older people at the bed & breakfast seem contemptuous of us. Sometimes, they won't even acknowledge us. A woman sees me approaching the door, looks me in the eye, and yanks it closed as quickly as possible. She does not make it in time, and I push it open, giving her a big smile. How dare I dupe her by being entitled to access to the cookies and tea?

Sated with sugar, Amber and I try downtown again, but most everything has closed for the night. The weather forecast suggests we will have few better opportunities to shop.

I skim the dining options and see a strange gulf in the reviews for the Yellow Deli disproportionate for dissatisfied customers. Were they the site of a mass salmonella outbreak? Were mob informants found in the foundation? Is it a front for an apocalyptic, child-abusing, anti-Semitic homophobic cult that enslaves its members?

Oh. It is that third one? The Twelve Tribes, also known as the Commonwealth of Israel, forces its members to sign away all their possessions and work for free. They are open about the beliefs mentioned above, so much so they scatter the cafe and surrounding area with pamphlets explaining them. The deli is a loss leader meant to attract unhoused teens to be absorbed and forced into servitude and marriage.

We won't be eating there.

Like any city, we see unhoused people. I don't know their stories. This is not where I would want to spend my houseless time.

I don't know what kind of social safety net Ithaca has, but the unhoused are in the square, where most others go to shops and dinner. They're not interacting with passersby, but several mumble to themselves. (Some might be proselytizers from the Twelve Tribes, but none are overt.) There are also buskers and magicians, who I believe are supposed to be there and are not random people who can make balloon animals or play guitar. For all I know, they are houseless people with aspirations of show business, which I respect.

Ithaca falls the way of most vacations: a time when Amber and I can be together without interruption or distraction. This is not how it would be in Ithaca if we lived here. We would not, in fact, live in Ithaca but more likely in the outskirts because we could not afford real estate in the city. Amber aspires that we would buy a house and put down real roots, which has been impossible in the Hudson Valley. We have our apartment, families, and a few friends we see too infrequently, but we lack roots. I do not want to make roots in Ithaca or its more affordable outskirts. Conveniently, there are two juvenile detention facilities within half an hour of Ithaca proper, but that doesn't cheer me much.

If I lived outside the Hudson Valley, I could treat my home as a vacation destination. I know the fun things to do, but I don't get around to doing most of them as a local.

Things would become mundane in Ithaca. Right now, I associate aspects of it with places I've been. Ithaca is not new; it is an amalgam, a composite. If I could find some little source of originality, that would be something. The best I can say is that it is pretty when water falls on rocks, something I know well from the Hudson Valley, though I will begrudgingly admit that the water falling on our rocks isn't quite so pretty.

Amber notes how unnerving it is to have such small mountains in Ithaca. These are hills with geologic aspirations. In the Hudson Valley, sentinel mountains surround us, most of which are suitable to hike, some of which are hiked. Not by us, but by people.

In Ithaca, everything is about the Cayuga Lake. There are better Finger Lakes. Stores sell jewelry of the lakes, most of which look like silver blobs. Lake George, for all its flaws, at least cuts a distinctive, spidery figure. You don't look at a sticker of Lake George and wonder what else it could be. Cayuga Lake is especially blob-like.

We leave the bed & breakfast for Amber's college tour, passing a sign for the Casadilla Gorge. Amber grants that we can walk a little further to see the waterfall, which we already see, but not so closely. By the time we are on the bridge, a one-minute walk, Amber realizes this small hike would bring us directly to campus. We left the breakfast early, so there is no hurry. At least we can say we saw a gorge if nothing else pans out.

Over the rushing water, Amber notes how cool it is that we were in the city moments ago and are now deep in nature -- or as deep as one can get with chains set up as handrails. This grace is not to credit Ithaca. It didn't direct cataclysmic glacial action during the last Ice Age to form this. It only capitalized off it.

It's mercenary, if anything, nothing worthy of my respect.

I admit there is instinctual pleasure in seeing this. One of the pleasures of Ithaca is this balance between the city and serenity. It's nothing I would want for myself, but I'm sure other people like it. It's a walkable city, though we cannot find much worth doing outside one mile squared. Amber reports Cornell's claim there isn't anything to do after 9 p.m.

We make it to campus before long, though Amber needs a break halfway up, during which the waterfalls were not without breathtaking qualities. Still, this may only be the ozone from the rushing water on the rocks. Perhaps it addles my judgment.

On campus, Amber notes the foliage growing on most buildings. "That's how you know it's Ivy League."

"Cornell's an Ivy?"

I prefer a Seven Sister. Vassar, in particular, if I can get it. There is nothing like a college a short drive from my apartment.

"They don't have a doctoral program."

"Or even Bard."

"Not in my field."

"Basically," I say, "any school that does not require me to uproot my life for your justified dreams."

Woe betide the world that requires me to change.

We cross two bridges over the gorge, both of which have anti-suicide nets.

"What does that tell you, Amber?"

"That undergrads are under such pressure they want to die," they state with authority. "Not the doctoral students, though. I'll be fine."

They seem sincere.

"I'll never see you again," I say.

"You'll see me all the time," they say. "You can stop by my home office."

So professional

We know the college visit will be for teenagers, though Amber can pass if one doesn't scrutinize. Aspiring doctoral students do not bother. What is there for someone who wishes to occupy a lab instead of a sorority house? (I assume there must be Greek life somewhere as tedious as Cornell.)

As we wait, Amber assesses the school by how many outwardly queer people are taking this tour. There are three in our group, but one is a teenager's father, so it may be unfair to count him.

There are plentiful queer people in Ithaca, judging by the preponderance of Pride flags in downtown, from stores to churches, many paired with Black Live Matter signs. There is a possibility that the cultural atmosphere of the town is not dissimilar from mine. However, it is adjacent to a massive college. One would expect open-mindedness as a matter of course. If you want to do business near undergrads, it would be unwise to come out as a homophobic monster -- the Twelve Tribes aside.

The tour is what these always are: names of buildings, majors, dorms, activities, with the thinnest veneer of gossipy anecdote, utterly anodyne. The tour guide tries, but he is so well-practiced that we could have received this information from a backward-walking robot.

I ask Amber if they think Cornell is haunted -- my greatest concern -- but of course it is. Given its age, a lack of ghost stories would be more frightening than a spirit. If there are no specters, one must wonder how the faculty exorcized them and if they are taking students or assistants for their parapsychology lab. If it comes with benefits, I would rather be a ghostbuster than a teacher of adjudicated minors.

The most I take from the tour is that the college's secular focus meant their competition referred to them both as the Heathens on the Hill and Cornell Infidels, both of which are cooler designations than the university deserves. Given that they razz Colgate by chanting "Crest Is Best" at hockey games and throw fish at Harvard for reasons I missed but seem to do with Boston selling seafood (and for which Harvard retaliated by tying a live chicken to a goalpost, which does seem random), they need to step up their game if they are going to deserve such insults.

The day is so long. My feet are ready for a reprieve after the tour, but it must be a mild slope to our room -- something for which I am sure to be grateful. The day has hardly begun.

Is it hyperbole to state with authority the walk to our bed & breakfast is a solid mile downhill? I will not ruin my certainty by looking it up on the map. Depending on the day's excess of bravery, it is a hill I could descend in three minutes on a bike. Walking up would take me an hour, not factoring in the bike (and possibly supplemental oxygen). The houses wall this street, most of which are open to rental from Cornell students, are stunning. For the prices they advertise, I hope they come with a chairlift. Walking this hill would be great for one's calves, but I cannot imagine focusing on coursework after expending so much energy summitting to one's bed.

We go to the Cornell Botanical Gardens after lunch, which -- I'm sorry, Cornellians -- aren't impressive. Perhaps it was the soggy day, but Amber had higher aspirations than some anemic azaleas. There are some for whom a decent garden is a joy. This was only a trek.

This leads us to the Cornell Dairy Bar, the ice cream from the milk of Cornell's herd. Amber had heard this was a must-have experience for any visitor. I have two kinds of mint and generous licks of Amber's vanilla and raspberry. It is as underwhelming as the garden, especially contrasted with Holy Cow, within walking distance from my apartment. It is at least less droopy than the flowers if that helps matters.

Walking back, I mention that I don't feel especially attractive. Amber assures me I am above average. To prove them wrong, I will point out any man I think is more attractive than I am. We then pass a disproportionate populace of plain or unfortunate-looking men. When I point out one whom I'm confident is more attractive than me, Amber says it is difficult to measure this between races. I do not think they are only weaseling out of agreeing with me, but I am right about this.

Amber says I cannot find more attractive people because of our being in a city that most tourists would not consider; it's selection bias. If you live thirty minutes away and want to do some light shopping, this is a place you go, but not one for which one crosses borders. However, we pass people speaking five languages, all of whom seem to think that this is a tourist trap where they should part from their money. Amber has a point, though a slightly elitist one (no doubt from having been colonized by ivy pollen). When the college students return in a month, the population of Ithaca doubles. Ostensibly, there could be one or two college students who are more attractive than I am. It's dubious, but it is possible.

The following day, Amber dresses smartly for the conference in black slacks and jacket, with a sky blue shirt, as though this will allow them to be closer to camouflaged. Given their autism and inclination, they would never want to stand out in this crowd. Even their short haircut is an attempt to look the part, though they didn't get a casting notice or dress code.

They eat the better parts of a brown bag breakfast the inn had cooked them, still burdened from our late and unsatisfactory dinner the night prior. Nervous butterflies of the conference steal the rest of their appetite.

My legs would not begrudge a break until Amber finished their conference. This is not my habit. I will not sit alone in the room while Amber is off learning and schmoozing in the faint hope they make a worthwhile connection that helps them become a doctoral student.

After a breakfast relegated to the coffee table because older people with empty seats felt territorial, I hike the Casadilla Gorge Trail again. On the internet, I investigated others within walking distance -- Amber took my car, so I am staked close to the room -- and was unsurprised none competed with the one a block from where I was staying.

My pace is quicker than Amber's. In contradiction of the signs, people wade into the slower shallows, though one strips to his briefs to splash in rapids where it would be easy to lay a foot on a slippery stone and, at best, get bloodied if not swept away. Signs do not persuade my obedience, but I only dip my toes in once as a mild rebellion -- whenever I am near a natural body of water, my instinct is to touch it to say I have.

When I reach the top, I release my camera bag onto a stone bench and look at the sun dappling the green leaves. I perspire heavily, but there's peace in that exhaustion.

I pass people on the way up and down, most of whom do the basic courtesy of stepping out of the way, though some of the children charmingly do not understand this. I impede their gamboling and am best ignored.

While Amber is at their conference, no doubt gadding about with luminaries of their field, each basking in my partner's intellectual glow, I struggle to convince myself to leave the room again for sustenance despite breakfast still weighing on me. Eventually, I harangue myself enough that I will regret not eating that I walk toward a sandwich place. I then become distracted by an organic food co-op and buy spicy tuna rolls from them instead. I eat these with my weird probiotic soda in a wine glass, reading a UFO book for research and feeling like a king.

I try Ithaca on like a costume, not something that is me but a mask I can take off as I please. It could look enough like my face that I could forget. I have lived so long in Red Hook that I have forgotten most of the sensation of living elsewhere. The pain, that I remember. The claustrophobia of being locked away at Maplebrook, treated as much like an indentured servant as I will ever allow, is something I doubt I will ever forget. I recall the exquisite struggle of Fishkill, working hard substitute teaching and tutoring to be more in debt every month, my only reliable pleasure the college student who used me as her respite and dirty little secret. Do I remember any of the true joys of these places? I remember being alone, feeling I had failed.

Red Hook, and Amber along with it, seemed a constant success. My debts dwindled to nothing. My mental health received treatment for the first time. Bolstered by my ex-girlfriend, who taught me what it was to love without reservation, I was prepared to be in a mature relationship with someone, leading to my marriage.

What would Ithaca bring? Struggles, that's for sure. I would have to adjust, though less than I imagine. I would wonder if I had made the right decision, a doubt that would permeate until I was given a great reason to believe I had. What form would this take? All the bookstores stocking my books and requesting I give readings and talks. A bevy of nearby friends who host bonfires and Christmas parties and openly adore me. Professional ease without frequent disappointment.

When Amber returns, it is with insecurity they needed to be more impressive. They were overdressed, as I suspected they might be, but it was better than seeming too casual. They wanted to be taken seriously and, aside from wearing layers in this humidity, one looking at them would have to assume they had impressed.

They do not feel they have done enough, but the graduate student with whom they had been corresponding was more helpful than Amber suspected she would be. Amber is not here to make friends; they are here to make connections and, ideally, get into a lab. It was indeed worth the sacrifice of the morning for them.

They mention they might want to do a dual program in veterinary science and something else instead of their doctoral program. Why would they hedge? A doctoral program will accept Amber, or I do not understand how colleges work. Amber is too qualified and devoted. They are made for a place like Cornell in a way I would not have expected on first blush. The notion they apply and are not accepted is foreign. Technically, it is something that could happen, but practically not.

Pretty (lake, not person)

For Amber's birthday and in celebration of their conference, I made reservations at the most upscale restaurant I could find. They deserve lobster.

With an hour to go, the restaurant calls to say they had a catastrophic power failure and cannot accommodate us, but the hostess promises indeterminate recompense if we come for lunch the next day.

We go to our second choice restaurant and are seated immediately despite the over half-hour wait because we are willing to sit on the porch in the late July heat.

Amber repeatedly asks if it is okay that they order lobster lollipops. I assure them that asking for permission is unnecessary, especially as it is their birthday dinner on vacation, and I have been married to them for nine years and two days. I expect they will ask again the next time they have an opportunity, so I try not to give them one.

At the table beside ours, a woman is half-encouraging and half-interviewing her 80-something mother and 90-year-old father about a book the former wrote that will be published. An author, my ears perk enough to eavesdrop that it is about escaping East Germany via the Berlin Wall; not valuable for me. Their college-age server, Courtney M., who is so confident it comes off as borderline flirty and not only gives her full name but spells it twice, asks everything. She says a fortuneteller prophesied she would publish a book, though she is going to school to be a criminal profiler for the FBI. The table suggests that, with her beauty and mien, she could play one for Hollywood. She would prefer to do it for real first.

If she were angling for a big tip, she should teach classes. I want to give her money, and she doesn't even look at me.

As she parts with the check, she teases the man that she had better see him next year. Reminding a nonagenarian that the reaper's scythe cast its shadow ever closer is a bold gamble. He all but blushes when he assures her she will.

Once the family gathers their things to leave, talking not about publishing or life under a Communist regime but the charm of their server, I interject that it was like dinner and a show.

Amber books us a boat tour, a reward for making it through socializing at the conference. Like lighthouses, Amber loves to be on boats. They are a creature of water.

Ours is a sunset cruise. There is a star-watching cruise, but it would return at 11:00, well past our bedtime, even on vacation.

We arrive early, after returning to the room to stow my leftovers in the mini-fridge and divide up another cupcake.

We walk the park near the lake to burn some time. I return to my joking vulnerability. "If we move here, you are not allowed to leave me, no matter how sexy people in your lab are."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Because that would make you history's greatest monster."

Amber spots the mile marker. "Oh, this is one of the hikes from the website!"

We walk and search for the next so they can see whether they increase or decrease for whatever good that would do us, but time has grown too short.

The boat tour is so like those we go on in Lake George that it borders on parody or plagiarism. "Here is the home of some ungodly wealthy magnate. That mansion belongs to the children of another. You will never afford this. Oh, look! Even that dilapidated shack with fewer than 400 feet squared sold for more than most proper homes two hundred feet away from the lake! All of this was carved by glaciers, which happened during the Ice Age, which caused glaciers, which carve this lake."

The narrator explains that one can get anywhere else from Cayuga Lake owing to the Erie Canal.

I lean over to Amber. "Even this lake doesn't want to be in Ithaca."

Here, I feel the potential of this future more keenly. Vacations, even ones partly for business, allow for freedom from the everyday. Without the burden of jobs and chores, we can better connect. It is easier to imagine the cataclysmic change moving here would provoke and not feel so panicked.

For far from the first time, I note how much better my days are away from my computer, which is tricky given that I use it to write. I can sit at my computer, meaning well, and realize I have lost hours doing nothing productive. I hate that so valuable a tool can strip time from my life.

We pack the car to head home in the morning, but this is not Amber's nature. Cornell stole half their day in Ithaca, and they intend to snatch it back.

We go first to the farmer's market mentioned conspicuously in the city and by our innkeeper Casey, who wore an apron featuring Frida Kahlo.

Walking toward it, I reiterate that Amber is not allowed to leave me.

"Why not?"

"If you try to leave me, I will sleep with one of your students."

"No, you won't."

"You are right," I said, "because I will sleep with three of them for revenge."

The market is only impressive by dint of occurring in a designated wooden structure. Otherwise, it is produce and congestion. I sample increasingly spicy hot sauces until I reach the apex, one made with pumpkins. I smile at my tolerance, and then the heat hits me from uvula to tongue. While I ride the endorphin rush of harmless pain, Amber buys me samples of the lower-end bottles and Kristina a bottle of the most potent one, which I hope she will sample in front of me.

When we return to the car, we split one of the last cupcakes, stale but still flavorful.

Amber wants to go to a food co-op, as though grocery stores are typical tourist destinations. I nix this. I want to be home far more than I want to look at more organic produce, but I cannot decline when they suggest checking out Lucifer Falls -- even though the website I checked out when seeking an Amber-less hike did not make it seem worthwhile. They are owed a better gorge, and the walk promised to be mild and flat, no more than a mile and a half in total. I only care that it should be quick, and then we will start for home again.

A minute later, we pass the food co-op. I pull in. Amber studies the bulk food, marveling at the flowers in a way beyond my understanding. So that this detour is not a waste, I tell her to get a sandwich, and I get sushi so we can have a picnic lunch at the falls. It is the same sushi I had from the grocery store the day before.

Lucifer Falls is, I regret to inform you, majestic. The Gorge Trail is stone steps leading down a cliff on one side. It would not look out of place in a sword and sorcery fantasy novel.

The falls are stunning and would be tranquil were it not for the hundred other people seeking peace/profile pictures.

We settle on a flat rock close to the water for lunch, just past the sign telling us it is dangerous to go past it and a few dozen feet from a blonde in tight garb taking well-posed cell phone pictures with a tripod before the falls.

In the car, I had spun a yarn about 73% of Ithacan teens losing their virginities at Robert Tremaine Park, so much so the police who also lost their virginities here look the other way. I do not know why I created this story except that Amber has recently laughed at my jokes, so I am more inclined to tell them. I do not know if I have become funnier (dubious) or if they become easier to amuse the less stressed they are.

Perfumed by the aerosols of the falls, I embroider this story further. After the Ithacan teens lose their virginities, swimming down the falls is a rite of passage. Amber looks at the hundreds of feet of drop, the water slamming onto multiple outcroppings of intimidating rocks.

"I don't think that's true," they pronounce, "or we had or we would have seen a lot more people in wheelchairs."

"No, if they don't make it down intact, they are sacrificed to Lucifer," I say. "How is your sandwich?"

"It's fine," they say. "Egg salad is safe food. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know it is gross."

"It's an autism thing. Egg salad isn't great, but it is the same basically everywhere. You can't go wrong with it. If I got another sandwich, I can't know I will like it, so I get egg salad. Sensory issues, you know?"

Having explored weird sandwiches and been more pleased than not, I sympathize, but I do not emulate.

The Rim Trail back to the car is arduous, a hundred stone steps going up a thousand-foot incline. I dance, bike, and run daily. My legs are strong, and my cardiovascular health is such that this trail barely gives me Zone Minutes on my fitness band. Poor Amber lags and huffs. I cannot blame them. The clear choice is the Rim Trail to Gorge Trail or just Gorge Trail both ways. It would be no less beautiful, and one would sweat less.

Living here would not be miserable, no matter what I pretend. Not every change would be tolerable, but Amber would be there through it. I would find my niche and might, in short order, find my people, which is often what I want most. In the Hudson Valley, I have only a few people who will contact me to socialize or will respond if I call them. Otherwise, we tend to insularity. In Ithaca, new people may be happy to meet me. My job is not fulfilling by its nature. This is not to claim another juvenile detention facility would be, but it would be smaller, and that alone could help. Also, while the cliche is that these are not angels, I could do with residents whose crimes are not so -- in an ethical and literal manner -- mortal.

I am only too happy to put Ithaca in my rearview. A twee button on the experience would be that I fell in love with Ithaca and was eager to move now. I didn't, and I am not, but it is livable. Stick it a hair from Red Hook or Beacon, and I would pack my bags. Send me a job offer, and I would feel more confident. Ithaca is a small, cute city. I have been in these. Bigger than Kingston and Beacon, much smaller than Portland, Maine, but cut from the same cloth. It is not unfamiliar.

last watched: True Blood
reading: The Vintner's Luck