My Spring Vacation
Apr. 26th, 2025 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressI am having a good vacation! Dang, but I should do this sort of thing more often!!!
Last I mentioned anything about my life, I was having a nice time in Providence! Let's try and catch up:
On Sunday, my beloved Tues and I indeed did nothing of consequence. We walked to get a lovely Sunday brunch, then realized at the last minute that it was in fact Easter Sunday, and that might've been fraught. We lucked out though, and the little creperie ke recommended was not too busy, so we could get crepes and bring them back to ker house to eat them. The rest of the afternoon has some playing video games together (ke was showing me Corru Observer which is neat and very aesthetic, but a little too visual-novel for me to get super hooked) and some playing alone, and lots of cuddling and just being happy to exist around each other. Also I managed to get kem to watch two episodes of Middleman, and I am so so happy that Middleman continues to hold up and be pretty damn great to watch.
On Monday I walked Tuesday to work, and then prepared for the Very Scary Journey Into Boston on Marathon Monday which turned out to be much less of a thing than feared. Yes, the train out of Providence was Hella Crowded, but not nearly as bad as it could've been to start out --I was able to score one of the little single seats, and so I just locked into my book and ignored everything else. People mostly cleared out at Back Bay, iirc, so the red line from south station was basically normal, as was getting to Watertown in the evening for Scottish.
Going to MondayScottish was good, I have been missing it _some_ but it feels a little complicated to dance anywhere that's not queer-focused these days. (I am genuinely feeling a little bit of that at NEFFA even, and it's not that NEFFA is unfriendly, it's not that any of these places are _unfriendly_ to queers, it's that they're not specifically designed for us, and that's noticeable.) But I did some good dances, and also had an unexpectedly touching moment of accomplishment when one of the older gentlemen asked me to dance. He is a _huge_ flirt, but I've long since observed that he keeps his flourishes and goofing around and affections to the white-haired set of ladies, who match his own locks. He has never been unfriendly towards me, but just really prefers company his own age. So him asking me to dance makes me feel that oh hey, maybe I am seen as a grown-up sometimes!
Home again home again, to snuggle up to Austin who just barely beat me there. We had good cozy evening, and then very lovely lazy morning. I mean, not actually all that lazy, but look, I didn't need to be out of the house two hours before he even had to wake up, which is a rarity. So I got to walk him to work on Tuesday morning, and then head home to frantically finish packing for the rest of my vacation.
Back to South Station, this time a bus not a train, and off I go to Burlington VT! The bus to Burlington is fairly direct, but it takes five hours *before* the 45 minutes of unclear delays (traffic? weird stops? no one knows!) and while yes, I am perfectly excited to play video games for five hours straight, that was also _a lot of damn video game_.
It was worth it though, because the end of the journey was visiting SamSam! Tuesday night I staggered off the bus and got fed some dinner and began to eat a truly staggering amount of gingerbread (Sam kept making it for me, by which I mean, had pre-made a dish, and then when I finished it Wednesday night, made another one. To be fair, they and Bean did also eat some, but I can put away a _staggering_ amount of gingerbread, it turns out).
On Wednesday, they were all "let's go for a bike ride" so I saddled up the spare bike and borrowed Bean's helmet and we went down the hill to the lake and had a beautiful bike ride along Lake Champlain. While trying to decide how far to go, Sam explained that the path we were on was about twelve miles one way. Obviously 24 miles was too far, I said, so we just went a goodly chunk and found a big ol' causeway and paused for a while to sit in the sun on the rocks and watch the lake and observe a great number of lovely little wolf spiders who joined us. Once we biked home (with some amount of complaining about very far and also well past lunch --we should've packed snacks!--) Sam looked it up: we managed about 18 miles, which was well more than I would've done on purpose after not biking for most of six months. I am very glad I thought to stretch after!
Thursday we went to ECHO, because Sam had never been. (I learned this when I visited last year for the eclipse, and was all like "wait, there's a science museum a not-unreasonable walk from your house and you've never been???") It was a nice time --definitely aimed a little younger in general (I think we were probably some of the only unaccompanied adults) but not so crowded that we couldn't make observations and engage with the exhibits. Afterwards, they took me to get my ~very first maple creemee~1, which is apparently a Vermont staple. It was...fine? It's soft serve ice cream, like, you're not gonna mess that up by adding maple flavour.
In the evening I had DnD, while Sam and Bean made dinner, and then the three of us were able to watch the most recent Game Changer together, and laugh a lot, which felt very nice. I helped clean up the dishes, and then off to bed.
Today started with a bit of snuggle, and then packing up my many things and off to the bus stop again. Shorter bus ride today, because Tuesday's mom Karen was meeting me in Montpelier, and giving me a lift the rest of the way down to NEFFA! I am staying with her and Tuesday, which is very kind, and helped my logistics a huge chunk. We had a nice drive (long though!), settled in to the hotel, and then I grabbed the car to hit up a grocery store (I shopped hungry and I have no regrets about the amount of random junk I got) and collect Tuesday from the Mansfield train station. It was a long but not unpleasant series of drives, and we got home in time to eat a bit of dinner (junk ftw!) and then Tuesday went off on a volunteer shift and I wandered into the contra hall.
I don't have particular ego tied up in doing Medleys, but I ran into Melissa S***** (another one of those humans who comes with first-and-last name, apparently) as people were beginning to prepare and correctly figured that she would be a pleasant partner to dance with. It was a pretty good medley, and I did two more contras after, from Maia's four-by-four set. One of them was dancing with a fella who's been friends with my mom for longer than I've been alive, and so it was lovely to get to hang out with him!
I stood around trying to want to do more contra dancing, but getting distracted by talking to friends instead. So many people I know! So many good conversations! I am very happy about it, and when I headed back up to the hotel, was very happy to fall into several more lovely rounds of conversations. Finally I came back up to my room, and was able to write words.
Two more days of exciting NEFFA and then brutally back to the real world on Monday. Huzzah (sigh)
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Edited to spell creemee correctly, thanks Tuesday! <3
Last I mentioned anything about my life, I was having a nice time in Providence! Let's try and catch up:
On Sunday, my beloved Tues and I indeed did nothing of consequence. We walked to get a lovely Sunday brunch, then realized at the last minute that it was in fact Easter Sunday, and that might've been fraught. We lucked out though, and the little creperie ke recommended was not too busy, so we could get crepes and bring them back to ker house to eat them. The rest of the afternoon has some playing video games together (ke was showing me Corru Observer which is neat and very aesthetic, but a little too visual-novel for me to get super hooked) and some playing alone, and lots of cuddling and just being happy to exist around each other. Also I managed to get kem to watch two episodes of Middleman, and I am so so happy that Middleman continues to hold up and be pretty damn great to watch.
On Monday I walked Tuesday to work, and then prepared for the Very Scary Journey Into Boston on Marathon Monday which turned out to be much less of a thing than feared. Yes, the train out of Providence was Hella Crowded, but not nearly as bad as it could've been to start out --I was able to score one of the little single seats, and so I just locked into my book and ignored everything else. People mostly cleared out at Back Bay, iirc, so the red line from south station was basically normal, as was getting to Watertown in the evening for Scottish.
Going to MondayScottish was good, I have been missing it _some_ but it feels a little complicated to dance anywhere that's not queer-focused these days. (I am genuinely feeling a little bit of that at NEFFA even, and it's not that NEFFA is unfriendly, it's not that any of these places are _unfriendly_ to queers, it's that they're not specifically designed for us, and that's noticeable.) But I did some good dances, and also had an unexpectedly touching moment of accomplishment when one of the older gentlemen asked me to dance. He is a _huge_ flirt, but I've long since observed that he keeps his flourishes and goofing around and affections to the white-haired set of ladies, who match his own locks. He has never been unfriendly towards me, but just really prefers company his own age. So him asking me to dance makes me feel that oh hey, maybe I am seen as a grown-up sometimes!
Home again home again, to snuggle up to Austin who just barely beat me there. We had good cozy evening, and then very lovely lazy morning. I mean, not actually all that lazy, but look, I didn't need to be out of the house two hours before he even had to wake up, which is a rarity. So I got to walk him to work on Tuesday morning, and then head home to frantically finish packing for the rest of my vacation.
Back to South Station, this time a bus not a train, and off I go to Burlington VT! The bus to Burlington is fairly direct, but it takes five hours *before* the 45 minutes of unclear delays (traffic? weird stops? no one knows!) and while yes, I am perfectly excited to play video games for five hours straight, that was also _a lot of damn video game_.
It was worth it though, because the end of the journey was visiting SamSam! Tuesday night I staggered off the bus and got fed some dinner and began to eat a truly staggering amount of gingerbread (Sam kept making it for me, by which I mean, had pre-made a dish, and then when I finished it Wednesday night, made another one. To be fair, they and Bean did also eat some, but I can put away a _staggering_ amount of gingerbread, it turns out).
On Wednesday, they were all "let's go for a bike ride" so I saddled up the spare bike and borrowed Bean's helmet and we went down the hill to the lake and had a beautiful bike ride along Lake Champlain. While trying to decide how far to go, Sam explained that the path we were on was about twelve miles one way. Obviously 24 miles was too far, I said, so we just went a goodly chunk and found a big ol' causeway and paused for a while to sit in the sun on the rocks and watch the lake and observe a great number of lovely little wolf spiders who joined us. Once we biked home (with some amount of complaining about very far and also well past lunch --we should've packed snacks!--) Sam looked it up: we managed about 18 miles, which was well more than I would've done on purpose after not biking for most of six months. I am very glad I thought to stretch after!
Thursday we went to ECHO, because Sam had never been. (I learned this when I visited last year for the eclipse, and was all like "wait, there's a science museum a not-unreasonable walk from your house and you've never been???") It was a nice time --definitely aimed a little younger in general (I think we were probably some of the only unaccompanied adults) but not so crowded that we couldn't make observations and engage with the exhibits. Afterwards, they took me to get my ~very first maple creemee~1, which is apparently a Vermont staple. It was...fine? It's soft serve ice cream, like, you're not gonna mess that up by adding maple flavour.
In the evening I had DnD, while Sam and Bean made dinner, and then the three of us were able to watch the most recent Game Changer together, and laugh a lot, which felt very nice. I helped clean up the dishes, and then off to bed.
Today started with a bit of snuggle, and then packing up my many things and off to the bus stop again. Shorter bus ride today, because Tuesday's mom Karen was meeting me in Montpelier, and giving me a lift the rest of the way down to NEFFA! I am staying with her and Tuesday, which is very kind, and helped my logistics a huge chunk. We had a nice drive (long though!), settled in to the hotel, and then I grabbed the car to hit up a grocery store (I shopped hungry and I have no regrets about the amount of random junk I got) and collect Tuesday from the Mansfield train station. It was a long but not unpleasant series of drives, and we got home in time to eat a bit of dinner (junk ftw!) and then Tuesday went off on a volunteer shift and I wandered into the contra hall.
I don't have particular ego tied up in doing Medleys, but I ran into Melissa S***** (another one of those humans who comes with first-and-last name, apparently) as people were beginning to prepare and correctly figured that she would be a pleasant partner to dance with. It was a pretty good medley, and I did two more contras after, from Maia's four-by-four set. One of them was dancing with a fella who's been friends with my mom for longer than I've been alive, and so it was lovely to get to hang out with him!
I stood around trying to want to do more contra dancing, but getting distracted by talking to friends instead. So many people I know! So many good conversations! I am very happy about it, and when I headed back up to the hotel, was very happy to fall into several more lovely rounds of conversations. Finally I came back up to my room, and was able to write words.
Two more days of exciting NEFFA and then brutally back to the real world on Monday. Huzzah (sigh)
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Edited to spell creemee correctly, thanks Tuesday! <3