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Summer vacation in Cape Cod, MA
Aug. 26th, 2001 02:08 pm"DO YOU FEEL LIKE STRANGLING ME YET..?"
It's nice to know that I could spend an entire week with him and not feel smothered. I take that to be a good sign in our relationship. I can't think of many people I could spend a week with and not feel like holding their head under water for more than 3 minutes.
"AND THEN AFTER WE EAT, WE CAN GO TO OUR ROOM AND PRETEND TO BE FISH AT THE END OF EACH OTHERS' ROD..."
That's actually what he said to me. And I actually got excited at the thought, because we had both just bought two new fishing rods (my very first!). Wanted to see how my fishing rod feels. Nine fishing rods is the answer to the Jeopardy question: "How many fishing rods did we have in the car on this vacation?" THe car was packed-- there were rods and hooks and lines going everywhere in the car. From Tuesday night through Friday night, we went out in the darkness around 10p.m. to fish for striped bass with his brother on the beach. Speaking of which..
"HON! I CAN'T SEE WHERE I'M WALKING!"
"..YOU DON'T NEED TO SEE WHERE YOU'RE WALKING.."
This trip was the first time I've walked on the beach at night since I was 10 and went crab hunting and searching for sea turtles on an eastern beach in Malaysia. At that, we had flashlights and anywhere we walked, there were 10 or so other people around. This time, we were the sole people on the beach. In the dark. In the fog. And it was cold. And wet. And far from civilization. And many shadows moving in the darkness. I hate the dark.
"LOOK! ANOTHER SHOOTING STAR!"
After that first night on the beach, which was nothing but foggy, damp, and cold, the next four nights that we spent on the beach were really beautiful. He saw 10 shooting stars, and I saw two. The sky was lit up with so many stars, we were so far from light pollution, it was unlike anything I've ever seen. In NJ/NY waters, the sky is lit up with a tan-brownish tinge. Out on the tip of Cape Cod, on a beach that requires a 15-minute drive through a sand-path (i.e. no regular cars can get to), there is absolutely *nothing* to taint the skies. A million stars glittering in the black night.
AND SO..
What have I learnt from a week in Cape Cod?
The beaches in central Cape Cod, in Yarmouth, are filthy with seaweed. Flies are everywhere. And everybody on the beach are immensely overweight but clad in tiny neon bikinis. The men are all balding but have hairy chests, and a belly overhanging their shorts.
Beaches further north are beautiful, with soft clean sand. But the water temperature is close to 65 degrees.
Provincetown, the gay mecca, consists of only one genre of homosexuals. It's no longer a sexual orientation, but a lifestyle. What I mean is that you can be gay without looking like a butch gym teacher with crew cut hair sporting mean earrings if you are a female, or having slick hair with a bottle of hair-gel, a tight tank, short shorts, and Doc Martens if you are a male. I think it compounds a stereotype of gay people that I didn't appreciate. The atttitude of people in Provincetown is to shock the tourists. Everything is for shock value, from cross dressers to flauting their homosexuality to sex stores. But really, when you come from New York City, things like that don't even cause you to blink.
Cape Cod is overpopulated by skunks. And on any given day, you see 10 of them. All dead on the road.
People in Cape Cod don't believe that traffic rules apply to them. Turn onto a busy street whenever you wish. The worst driver always has the right of way.
Food in Cape Cod is awful and overpriced, save for a few restaurants.
We stopped in several cities on the way back in Rhode Island. I think I like them a lot better. Cape Cod, in reflection, is largely a Disney-sort of gimmick, where it's been transformed by capitalism into a money-grabbing scheme that sells a beautiful summer resort get-away when in actuality it has a lot of fat pasty-white people on the beach with lots of smelly seaweed, skunks, and people who can't drive.
It's nice to know that I could spend an entire week with him and not feel smothered. I take that to be a good sign in our relationship. I can't think of many people I could spend a week with and not feel like holding their head under water for more than 3 minutes.
"AND THEN AFTER WE EAT, WE CAN GO TO OUR ROOM AND PRETEND TO BE FISH AT THE END OF EACH OTHERS' ROD..."
That's actually what he said to me. And I actually got excited at the thought, because we had both just bought two new fishing rods (my very first!). Wanted to see how my fishing rod feels. Nine fishing rods is the answer to the Jeopardy question: "How many fishing rods did we have in the car on this vacation?" THe car was packed-- there were rods and hooks and lines going everywhere in the car. From Tuesday night through Friday night, we went out in the darkness around 10p.m. to fish for striped bass with his brother on the beach. Speaking of which..
"HON! I CAN'T SEE WHERE I'M WALKING!"
"..YOU DON'T NEED TO SEE WHERE YOU'RE WALKING.."
This trip was the first time I've walked on the beach at night since I was 10 and went crab hunting and searching for sea turtles on an eastern beach in Malaysia. At that, we had flashlights and anywhere we walked, there were 10 or so other people around. This time, we were the sole people on the beach. In the dark. In the fog. And it was cold. And wet. And far from civilization. And many shadows moving in the darkness. I hate the dark.
"LOOK! ANOTHER SHOOTING STAR!"
After that first night on the beach, which was nothing but foggy, damp, and cold, the next four nights that we spent on the beach were really beautiful. He saw 10 shooting stars, and I saw two. The sky was lit up with so many stars, we were so far from light pollution, it was unlike anything I've ever seen. In NJ/NY waters, the sky is lit up with a tan-brownish tinge. Out on the tip of Cape Cod, on a beach that requires a 15-minute drive through a sand-path (i.e. no regular cars can get to), there is absolutely *nothing* to taint the skies. A million stars glittering in the black night.
AND SO..
What have I learnt from a week in Cape Cod?
The beaches in central Cape Cod, in Yarmouth, are filthy with seaweed. Flies are everywhere. And everybody on the beach are immensely overweight but clad in tiny neon bikinis. The men are all balding but have hairy chests, and a belly overhanging their shorts.
Beaches further north are beautiful, with soft clean sand. But the water temperature is close to 65 degrees.
Provincetown, the gay mecca, consists of only one genre of homosexuals. It's no longer a sexual orientation, but a lifestyle. What I mean is that you can be gay without looking like a butch gym teacher with crew cut hair sporting mean earrings if you are a female, or having slick hair with a bottle of hair-gel, a tight tank, short shorts, and Doc Martens if you are a male. I think it compounds a stereotype of gay people that I didn't appreciate. The atttitude of people in Provincetown is to shock the tourists. Everything is for shock value, from cross dressers to flauting their homosexuality to sex stores. But really, when you come from New York City, things like that don't even cause you to blink.
Cape Cod is overpopulated by skunks. And on any given day, you see 10 of them. All dead on the road.
People in Cape Cod don't believe that traffic rules apply to them. Turn onto a busy street whenever you wish. The worst driver always has the right of way.
Food in Cape Cod is awful and overpriced, save for a few restaurants.
We stopped in several cities on the way back in Rhode Island. I think I like them a lot better. Cape Cod, in reflection, is largely a Disney-sort of gimmick, where it's been transformed by capitalism into a money-grabbing scheme that sells a beautiful summer resort get-away when in actuality it has a lot of fat pasty-white people on the beach with lots of smelly seaweed, skunks, and people who can't drive.
