The Road Not Taken

When the NJ State Arts Council announces the winners of the annual individual artist grants, it's done at a public meeting. Every other year that I had applied this was done in Trenton (usually in January), but this year they decided to hold it in Red Bank on February 14th, the same place where they hold the regional workshop. This is a lot closer, and so I had been thinking about going to it. And if I didn't have so much going on these days I probably would have. But I also had to get my new postcards down to Georgian Court for their mailing, and after hefting that stack of 250 cards, I realized it would cost me less in gasoline than postage to get them to Lakewood. The only day that I could do this and get them out in time was today. And since I had been told that the results of the grants awards vote will be online tomorrow, I decided to skip my ride up route 18 and take route 70 and various county roads down to the college.

Besides dropping off the stack of cards (plus some they'll post for me), I met the woman who has been my contact through all this process, said hello to the people I've known from my past times there, and got to see the gallery's new look. Spent some time considering how I might arrange my work in the space. With a class to teach that evening a little further south, I went out and picked up route 9 (or Highway 9 as Mr. Springsteen calls it) and took that down to Pleasant Plains, where I could cut across to get to school. This was a simple and direct route, but turned out to be quite slow, so if I ever make a trip between the two places again, I'll go a different way.