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elionwyrA benefit to working at the museum was having access to the roof.
Which doesn’t seem like much of a benefit until you consider that sitting on a rooftop to watch Fourth of July celebrations means you get all of the show and none of the crowd. For someone as crowdphobic as I can be? This is pretty awesome.
Some years had more of a gathering up there than others. Usually we could look across the skyline and see employees from other museums up on their rooftops, too, and on a good night you could wave greetings back and forth.
One year in particular, we had a larger sized crowd than normal because my husband had brought a bunch of his paleontological associates with him. This was the year that they had gone to Egypt and come back with more than fifteen minutes of fame, and so one of our firework-watching friends was an author assigned to learn as much as he could about these scientists within a short span of a few weeks.
The book he would eventually write was not an easy project. He did well with the variety of material he had to cover, though it was a mix of war history, science, and adventure. We were a bit nervous about what story he was going to end up telling, because this was after a story about these people’s early careers in paleontology. So when someone walked up to us and asked if we’d like to go off in a corner and smoke some not-entirely-legal substances, we were quick to shush him.
“Dude, what are you DOING? Will is RIGHT THERE!”
“Oh. Is he the…oh. Oh.” *pause* “Do you want to invite him, too?”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
There are snippets of time in your life that are ridiculous and funny and awkward and perfect, all at once. Standing there, on that rooftop, with that circle of people, that future ahead of us, and the sky exploding above us – oh there’s no doubt that was one of those imperfect fabulous moments.
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Which doesn’t seem like much of a benefit until you consider that sitting on a rooftop to watch Fourth of July celebrations means you get all of the show and none of the crowd. For someone as crowdphobic as I can be? This is pretty awesome.
Some years had more of a gathering up there than others. Usually we could look across the skyline and see employees from other museums up on their rooftops, too, and on a good night you could wave greetings back and forth.
One year in particular, we had a larger sized crowd than normal because my husband had brought a bunch of his paleontological associates with him. This was the year that they had gone to Egypt and come back with more than fifteen minutes of fame, and so one of our firework-watching friends was an author assigned to learn as much as he could about these scientists within a short span of a few weeks.
The book he would eventually write was not an easy project. He did well with the variety of material he had to cover, though it was a mix of war history, science, and adventure. We were a bit nervous about what story he was going to end up telling, because this was after a story about these people’s early careers in paleontology. So when someone walked up to us and asked if we’d like to go off in a corner and smoke some not-entirely-legal substances, we were quick to shush him.
“Dude, what are you DOING? Will is RIGHT THERE!”
“Oh. Is he the…oh. Oh.” *pause* “Do you want to invite him, too?”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
There are snippets of time in your life that are ridiculous and funny and awkward and perfect, all at once. Standing there, on that rooftop, with that circle of people, that future ahead of us, and the sky exploding above us – oh there’s no doubt that was one of those imperfect fabulous moments.
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Date: 2010-08-01 06:02 am (UTC)The Oakton, VA house my family lived in from 1987 to 1994 was the first one where I could get out onto the roof from my bedroom window. I did that sometimes, mainly at night. One time I did it when a police helicopter search was happening over and near my neighborhood. Thank goodness I didn't look like the suspect!
On some of my really late-night trips out onto the roof, I got naked on the roof. Staying on the side facing our backyard and the treeline; I'm not THAT much of an exhibitionist. ;-) Plus I was just in high school; not much of a physical specimen...
I loved the different perspective of it. Felt kind of private, too, unless I went to the other side of the roof over the garage and facing the street.
(edited to fix annoying misspelling)