stop. pause. rewind. fast forward.

Melanie, Hank, and I just arrived in a Microtel in Seneca Falls, New York. I can smell the day's travel emanating from my body, but I am so happy to have free internet access, and red wine in a blue plastic cup, that I'll postpone the shower for a little while.

I've been composing imaginary posts for the last several days, including thoughts on: my T-ride from Mission Hill to Cambridge with Hank and Stephen, where we trekked around Harvard and stopped in at Hank's old co-op; Melanie's kefer, which is kind of like breakfast and a pet at the same time; the MassMoMA in North Adams and the incredible, politico-dada works of Huang Yong Ping, the carnival graveyards of Carsten Hoeller, as well as the most astonishing all-black painting by Kerry James Marshall; and our evening trip to a baseball field to see fireworks, which was capped with a brilliant, booming display that we watched shivering in the pouring rain. (July 4 is also always special because it marks three years of moving in and through a relationship for Hank and me. This is the second year in which we passed the occasion outside in a storm. Last year we were camped in a tiny, waterlogged tent in the middle of a furious, all-night lightening and thunder storm at a rural Oklahoma campground. I prefered this year's chilly fireworks-lit raindrops.)

Earlier today, we visited Herman Melville's home in Pittsfield, MA. This was a particularly important stop for Hank, who not only looks like a young Melville (thanks to our friend David Embry for pointing this out to us), but reads and studies his fiction on his own. I, for one, feel proud of the fact that I not only read Moby Dick over a Winter Break several years ago, but was actually seduced by the narrative, slowly and lovingly reading each page and feeling beams of white light shining out of the top of my head during the cetology passages. And, let's admit it, any material culture that actualizes the stuff of U.S. literature is going to make me feel like something good is happening in this country.

I enjoyed the picnic we had outside (the weather has been remarkably clear, sunny, and cool -- O, fresh breeze, how I have missed and needed you!). We've been subsisting on our travel food, which includes Melanie's kefer, of course, as well as avocados, apples, cheese, bread, crackers, tomatoes, mixed-nuts and dried fruit, hummous, and some other traveling basics. (Those who know me well also know that this isn't very different from my everyday eating habits, but I was also really, really happy to have some pizza at Cosmo's Cafe, a classic Syracuse joint that we stopped at first thing off the throughway. See next paragraph.)

From Melville's house, Hank drove us to Syracuse, New York. This was very exciting for me, since I have not been in Syracuse since I graduated in 1993. Perhaps predictably, the return was quite disorienting, and a little anxiety-ridden. New construction on campus prevented me from understanding where I was and, once I felt like I got my bearings, I wasn't sure what to say: "This is where I would smoke cigarettes before my class on Gender and the Culture of Television"?, or, "Here's the cool mural that memorializes the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti," or "I remember the time I dropped acid and made out with that statue"? There were memories emerging at every turn, but it seemed sort of silly, and self-indulgent to go on and on about them: "I remember the time that I was walking to class with Gretchen Murphy and saw Robyn Wiegman and Tom Yingling sitting on *that exact bench* and I was wearing blue nail polish and was secretly pleased that Robyn noticed and made a big deal about it." Right?

When Melanie and I found the houses we lived in our Junior and Senior years (707 Maryland and 846 Lancaster, respectively), the streets looked really, um, run-down. And I know those places were really run-down when we lived in them (we were college students, and it was over ten years ago, after all), but, as Melanie pointed out, they didn't seem that way then. They were, to me, places of real experimentation with living, thinking, socializing, writing, theorizing, and learning. Every day was so exciting to me. Syracuse was the place I learned to think more deeply and live more creatively than ever before. For four years, I studied feminist theory, historical materialism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, film theory, ideological and institutional analysis, and critical race studies with much seriousness, and it bonded me to others who were interested in similar ideas. I joined my first direct action groups while on campus there, and made connections with other campus radicals. I came out of the closet (first as a gay person, then as queer) in Syracuse, and believed it was a political act. It felt like it was the most important work in the world to be doing, and I knew, absolutely, that it would be a lifelong commitment.

As we left the gothic beauty of SU's Hall of Languages, Hank suggested that we head out to Seneca Falls rather than spend the night in the somewhat shabby motels of Syracuse. It was a great idea. Tomorrow, we will see the Women's Rights National Historic Park and The Elizabeth Cady Stanton House. It feels right after the personal and institutional flashbacks of college life.

My blue plastic cup of wine is nearly gone. Melanie and Hank have been making travel plans on the bed. There is some Miles Davis on the lap-top. The motel room window is open and I can hear police sirens and other traffic from the highway. Tomorrow, we head out to Niagara Falls. We will cross the Canadian border and see what happens next.