Quick! Think!

Wednesday is my last day at the Big Scientific Institution. Monday I start a new job at another outfit which I shall not name. I have two days off plus the weekend. Why did I not take more time off, I hear you wondering. Lots of reasons. They need not concern you. But anyway here are my two free days. And I figure I should do something nice with myself for one of them, maybe even two.

New York? Could do, but whenever I go to New York I run myself right into the ground and come back a shadow of my former self, trying to see everybody I want to see and get to the bookstores and Pearl Paint. I have considered taking the train up, hurrying across town to the Morgan Library which has a William Blake exhibition that I would like to see (I am told that the actual engravings are way more brilliant and detailed than they ever appear in reproduction), and then I would march myself back across town and get on a train to Washington and not even think about using my phone. But then you see I think "Oh I bet it's a short run from there to New York Central Art Supply, which is heaven for people who love paper." And then I see how easily I could succumb to the city's temptations.

Philadelphia? The Barnes Foundation. Here's my chance to go on a weekday. It would be easy to do if I drive but there's almost no point if I drive, because half the point of the whole thing is to take the train. Because as you know, just being on the train is like a vacation for me. But if I take the train then it has to get there in time for me to travel across Philadelphia (a city I do not know at all) to the Barnes place and it just seems like one of those things that I would likely screw up. Stay overnight? Where? See how complicated it gets?

The non-travel portion of my two days of wild abandoned freedom I would like to load Sweetie and some painting gear into the car and drive out to one of our old hiking places up the Potomac and paint there for a morning and then come home and do laundry and have a big fat nap. But it will probably end up being nothing but errands.

Baltimore? Not far enough.

Virginia? I have spent quite enough time in Virginia, thank you.

The beach? I am picturing myself shivering.

Yeah, I'm talking big. Laugh if you like. With luck I'll be able to make a real getaway in the spring or summer.