Saturday, October 29, 2016

Another Saturday morning

I ordered my almond flat white and sat down to write on a paper. The guy next to me smiled as I sat down and I smiled back, thinking nothing of it until 20 minutes later where I concluded that he had to be American. He certainly couldn't be Danish since they don't look at you and definitely don't smile. He smiled that kind friendly "you are welcome to sit here next to me" smile that means exactly nothing more than that. On the other hand, if you smile or say hello to a Dane, they will immediately worry that you want to be their best friend. But it is possible to have casual conversation and even casual dinner, without pretending it was anything more. Like I had the previous evening with a fellow academic nomad who had a plane to catch later in the evening and I had nothing better to do than to stay late in my office to continue paper editing and figuring out what to do with my computer. We caught a pizza at a local joint where we could sit in faux leather booths and talk for a couple of hours. It was really nice to have an academic- turned private conversation with someone I always admired but never overlapped much with in terms of area. He was a nomad like me, working 25% here and 75% an hours flight away. I worked 100% here but had a 6 year old daughter in school an hours flight away. We bonded immediately.

Flybaby is with her dad for the next week until we fly to New York for two weeks. Her and I are both ecstatic, I have booked three play-dates, an off Broadway show and a tour of a chocolate factory in Red Hook. We are staying for one last time in our old apartment with the view to the Empire State building and I hope to catch up with colleagues and friends, Zoe's old babysitter already booked. We will round of the trip with my conference in Florida and to Zoe the most exciting thing ever: One day in Disney World (Magic Kingdom of course). I'm only sad that we don't have time to more than one day there, but I'll probably take her back another time.

But until then, a drat everyday of weekends blending into weekdays with work and paper writing and occasional academic dates.

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