Every day I look at the world from my window

A moment from last September, from when I visited Seaside Heights and Clownfest, which I have been savoring:

It was after the clown parade, after the main activities had dispersed and people were going back to the usual boardwalk attractions, the ride, the watching of clumpings of leftover clowns who weren't going back to their convention or other work. I was wandering around and taking pictures and otherwise enjoying as best I could without bunny_hugger the experience. There are some rides bunny_hugger doesn't ride, for fair reasons like motion sickness, and I realized this was a fair chance to ride them without making her wait for me.

One of them, on the Funtown Pier, is the Starship, a Gravitron-type ride. This is pure centrifugal force, in a fustrum-shaped room with padded walls against which one stands, and then, as the room spins faster, one can't stop standing against. I thought I'd get the ride to myself but a kid came in, and we had the spinning to ourselves.

Since there wasn't anyone we had to share with, I scrunched up, getting above the floor, and stretched out, spreading my arms and legs as wide as possible, taking in the strange experience of gravity going all wrong. Sometimes I'd close my eyes, just soaking in the surrounding noise and the motion and the smell of fast-whipped air, and feeling this transcendent touch.

And then I opened my eyes, and saw the kid had not just scrunched his way up the side of the walls but also turned himself sideways, laying horizontally across several padded columns, and getting away with it.

Amazing.

Trivia: An 1199 map of Kyoto, Japan, shows the city in isometric perspective with fine details of the streets and buildings, with temples, shrines, and palaces clearly marked. Source: Maps and Civilization, Norman J W Thrower. (It really looks Victorian-era modern in detail and precision.)

Currently Reading: Love Conquers All, Robert Benchley.