New York Travelogue – From Animal Crackers to Avatar

I am not a Twitterer or Tweeter or whatever it is that you call yourselves, so I didn’t keep a running log of events while I was in New York. However, since nothing else of interest has occurred in my life in many months, I have decided to go back and reconstruct my recent trip. Because I believe that it’s deserving of it’s own write-up, I don’t give the Wordsmoker Meet-Up too much attention in this piece.

January 23, 2010 (Saturday)

Noon: I find my seat on the plane and listen to the two racists assholes next to me criticize another passenger for daring to fly between international airports on a domestic airliner without speaking flawless, unbroken English.

1500ish: I wait for my bags at the wrong carousel while I play Civilization IV on my laptop. Eventually I get curious and locate my bags two carousels down.

1545: I take a cab to Gianna and Logan’s apartment, while the little TV in the backseat tells me to go see the Broadway version of The Lion King every 20 seconds.

1600: I am greeted by Gianna, who upon noticing that I have brought two bags, politely mentions that she would have thought that I was a light traveler. She states that she doesn’t find heavy packing to be a particularly feminine trait.

1700: I ask Gianna for help with selecting an outfit before I get in the shower. Although very decisive in her selection, she picks out clothes that transform me into an abject nerd.

1800: I take a train with Gianna to the restaurant where Logan works, where everything is delicious. I manage not to spill any wine as I have in nearly every other place where Logan has worked or resided. Logan expresses pride in my lack of clumsiness.

1945: We arrive at Art Bar and I hope in vain that I am not the only early Wordsmoker. I eye a woman at the bar who appears to be waiting for someone. I decide not to approach her since she doesn’t look cool enough to be one of us. I realize that my instincts are correct when she never joins our group.

2000: StrawberryShortcake is the first Wordsmoker I recognize. She, of course, looks lovely. More importantly, she can identify other Wordsmokers.

2000-0200: I am not going to document this in detail here. The party is worthy of it’s own piece. I am drunk for two-thirds of the evening. I enjoy speaking with every person that I am able to get near. A lot of alcohol is consumed by most and for the first time in recent memory, I don’t have to make up enormous shortfalls in the bill for a large group. Wordsmokers are a classy lot. The women are all lovely and resplendent in their beauty. The men are both formidable and urbane. As I said, more on this in another article. My regrets to those who didn’t make it.

0230: I arrive home to find an air mattress bed already dressed with the sheets turned down. Logan is worried, because I didn’t text, call, etc. I assure her that no earthly harm could possibly befall me and remind her that I have to make sure I get to Mediahohoho’s Bluegrass brunch at a respectable hour.

January 24, 2010 (Sunday)

0900: I wake up to the smell of the fresh coffee that is being brewed by Logan. She hands me a 2 Girls 1 Cup Coffee Mug that she claims belongs to Gianna. The coffee perks me up for about 45 seconds and then I slowly start to fade. Logan goes to work and I fall asleep again.

1300: I wake from my nap, realizing that by the time that I get ready and figure out the trains, I may hear about five minutes of Bluegrass, so I work on other things. Those other things include sitting on the couch, reading Wordsmoker, accessing Facebook and eventually shaving and showering. Gianna walks out of the room a few times muttering something about hangovers and then goes back to sleep.

1430: I decide to brave the trains, by using an app called “Hop Stop.” I arrive in the East Village several days later. Actually it is only an hour, but it shouldn’t even have taken this long.

1530: I start to work my way towards Logan’s restaurant for coffee, but recognize some of the businesses around Saint Marks. I realize that I am much closer to Dumpling Man than to Logan’s job. I stop off for a couple of dozen steamed dumplings. A Ramones mix is playing and I am very content and unable to move for an hour.

1645: I arrive at Logan’s work and drink coffee. This time,  it’s served in a plain ceramic cup, much to my chagrin.

1700 to 1830: Logan and I take turns making out with strangers at the bus stop. That’s a lie. We really go to a consignment store full of really cool clothing that doesn’t fit me because I am neither a 12-year-old anorexic hipster nor a morbidly obese drag queen. However, they have a pretty interesting concept. If you decline a shopping bag, they give you a token that you can drop into one of several boxes. Each box is marked with the name of a charity. The store then donates a nickel per token to the respective charities. It may not sound like much, but it could add up to several dollars a month. I decide that I will not play until they add a “Drill ANWR” box.

1845: We arrive at a restaurant where Logan’s old roommate (and possibly the coolest non-Wordsmoker in New York) works. His name is Bertrand. Bertrand is also an actor and very proficient in Jiu Jitsu – a badass.

1905: Gianna arrives and she and Logan embrace as though one of them has just returned from the war, but not one of the current wars. A nuclear war in which there are believed to be no survivors. I count ceiling tiles until the reunion is over.

1905 – 2030: We grill our meat in the pit at the center of the table. Bertrand admonishes us repeatedly for trying to eat undercooked chicken. It’s not like we want raw chicken. We just don’t know what we’re doing.

2115: Despite Logan’s insistence that we stop at a store for snacks on the walk home from the train station, Gianna and I decide that we want cookies. That conclusion is only reached the minute we arrived back at the apartment. There are platitudes alluding to the notion that a trip to the store isn’t necessary, but Logan and I decide to go anyway. Gianna determines that she wants animal crackers. I protest in that animal crackers are neither cracker nor cookie nor beast, but the choice is ultimately not mine.

2200: Provisioned with cookies and “animal crackers,” we settle down to some computer viewing on stolen, high-speed internet. Eventually comments are made about my suitcases. When I explain that one is a garment bag, Logan repeats “garment bag” several times followed by “la-de-da” in a voice that I believe is supposed to approximate me behaving like some sort of dandy. They both then act as though the extra suitcase is for my dolls and their dresses. Thus shamed, I go to sleep.

January 25, 2010 (Monday):

0900: Logan gives me coffee in the same 2 Girls 1 Cup Coffee Mug. At least, I believe that it is the same one, hoping that they haven’t invested in a matching set of these things.

0945-1020:  With Gianna at work, Logan and I head down to Brooklyn Bread, where I have bacon, eggs and Muenster cheese on a toasted roll. For an additional dollar, I am able to add a can of Diet Coke. Because it is a combo I am spared from paying the usual $1.30. I am feeling pretty smug about my crafty bargaining and talk mostly about how I believe that Muenster cheese should be called “monster cheese” because that’s what we all really want to say anyway. Logan stares at me without responding. She eats more than I do in about half of the time.

1025: I stop off at CVS because the rain is torrential and coming in diagonally. Against my better judgment, I purchase the most expensive umbrella available at this particular store for about $15 dollars.

1027: My two-minute-old umbrella is torn asunder by the famous winds of Brooklyn. There is some discussion between Logan and I about turning back to get a refund, but we press on. I ask her if the people who lived in the Brownstones along the way are “kind.” She told me that she had no idea, but wanted to know why I asked. I explain that kind strangers will often take you in and give you tea, honey, jam and toast by the fire. It’s true. I saw it in the Chronicles of Narnia. Then again, that wound up being a kidnapping setup.

1145: With great reluctance, I agree to see Avatar in 3-D at UA Court Street Stadium 12. My expectations are so low for this movie that I am actually pleasantly surprised. Don’t get me wrong. It’s entirely about the visual effects and this movie is not worthy of a Best Picture nomination. When we leave, Logan tells me to remove the 3-D glasses from the top of my head because I “look like an idiot.”

1630: Logan takes me to The Strand bookstore. I actually want to kill myself so that my ghost can haunt the place. Logan has some doubts about the soundness of my plan so I decide to continue to live. Both options have their merits. Upon leaving, Greyson Stone calls me and tries to compare The Strand with some bookseller he once visited in Portland. I laughed at him until he tells me that there was a floor entirely dedicated to pop-up books. That shuts me up. I know that it’s a lie, but it’s a damn good one.

1800: We arrive at Gianna’s work. She mocks us for seeing Avatar, so I tell her that we actually saw A Single Man, but didn’t tell her because that’s a movie she wants to see with Logan. We actually saw Avatar.

1830: We walk to Shake Shack. I am told the line would have been wrapped around the block had it not been for the abysmal weather. My initial opinion is that I would not ever wait in a line of such epic proportions for a burger. Then I eat the burger. I now fantasize about flying in once a week to wait in line for a burger and fries. The fries sealed the deal. My burger manages to secrete condiments all over the ground, while Logan’s and Gianna’s remain perfectly in tact. I placed my 3-D glasses next to Gianna in an attempt to make passers-by think that she went to see Avatar, but no one seems to notice.

1900: Logan and Gianna appease me by stopping off at Live Bait for a drink. This place means a lot to me because in my early days of coming to NY, I would train martial arts for six hours a day and then stop off for a single beer at this bar. It was more for geographic convenience than because of its merits as a bar.

2130 to Midnight: We go to The Village Tavern to meet up with Wordsmoker great, Strawberry Shortcake. Most of the time is spent with the three ladies demonstrating their hipsterness and criticizing the amount of luggage that I packed. There is also a discussion of The Wire – a magazine the importance of which is incalculable, but as a Floridian, I’m completely oblivious to.  The Avatar 3-D glasses make another appearance.  Strawberry eventually removes the lenses so that they looked like the ones worn by Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.

January 26, 2010 (Tuesday aka Hair Day):

0930: I wake to an empty apartment. Gianna is at work and Logan has committed to being an experimental hair model at the Vidal Sassoon Academy. Her hair is already kind of short. I am concerned, but it is too late to try to stop her. It’s in the hands of  a professional stylist, who faces absolutely no consequences for doing a bad job.

1130: I head to mid-town for Korean food. I always try to get in a Korean meal in NY, because there are only three Korean restaurants in all of the Floridas and the best one sucks by New York standards.

1400: Fortified with kimchi raw meat and eggs, I meander around the area of Rockefeller Center until I get a text message from Logan. She wants me to meet her at the Vidal Sassoon Academy. I offer to bring coffee. Because she gives me the correct address, but the wrong cross streets, I walk around for 30 minutes with two cups of coffee in my hands, making texting extremely difficult, but not impossible. Starbucks has run out of those new green plugs for the sip-holes, so I scald my hands several times.

1430: Logan arrives with a look of abject horror in her eyes. Above those eyes rests about half of the hair she had the last time that I saw her. The surviving hair is now the color of a dark eggplant. With my usual blunt honesty on which every woman in my life counts, I tell her that I liked her hair better yesterday, but what I’m seeing is not bad.

1430 – 1500: Logan stops in front of every reflective surface between the Academy and FAO Schwarz to try to look at her hair. By reflective surfaces, I am referring to mirrors, windows, polished marble, people with large lenses in their sunglasses, puddles of water and one person who is holding a particularly shiny cell phone.

1500-1502: Because I have a child in my family, I stop at FAO Schwarz to buy a toy with Logan. After about 30 seconds of searching, a very cranky Logan tells me to “pick something already.” I choose a stuffed turtle puppet. No one really wins here. Logan goes to the bathroom to check her hair again. My debit card is declined because I had the audacity to go to New York without clearing it through my bank.

1502: Logan announces that she “looks German.” I didn’t understand her analogy, but it opened the door for a slew of German jokes. My favorite is when I ask her if she wants to take a train or her motorcycle with the sidecar. I am the only one laughing.

1530: On the train, Logan asks me to take a photo of her hair from the back. I offer a video instead. When she sees the video, she calls me an idiot for recording too closely. I don’t get offended. I was recording that way intentionally. When she looks away, I smirk.

1730: We meet Gianna at her job. She studies Logan’s hair for much longer than I would have been able to pull off with any woman who I’ve ever dated. Gianna eventually announces that she approves of it.

1800: We return to the apartment so that Logan’s hair can be examined more meticulously. Logan and Gianna sit on one of the sofas looking at different hairstyles on their laptop. They eventually identify one that looks “amazing,” but is identical to the hair that Logan had when I first met her. I record their voices for my Tuesday Night Video.

1900: Gianna gives herself bangs. Logan changes into a black turtleneck and now even I think she looks German. I try to talk to her for 30 seconds about shaving because it had come up earlier and she moans loudly and tells me that she doesn’t want to hear about it. Perhaps because I’m now wasting valuable time that could be used to discuss hairstyles.

1930-2200: We dine at an Italian restaurant in their neighborhood and then have dessert at a French bakery. As the evening progresses, Gianna makes the observation that we all look a little German. It does not help that we access the French Bakery by cutting through a Belgian restaurant.

January 27, 2010 (Wednesday)

0700: Sadly, I pack my bags realizing that I only used about 20% of the clothes that I brought with me. I don’t voice this observation to the girls for fear of more ridicule. Logan calls a car service. She tells me that she will wait outside with me until it arrives. Logan and Gianna tenderly embrace for about five minutes as they have apparently forgotten that I am the one who is leaving.

0710:  When the car service doesn’t arrive on time, Logan goes in to retrieve her phone. By the amount of time that she’s in there I surmise that her sudden reappearance has sparked another love newton.

0800: I find out that I am on the “Do Not Fly List,” because my real name is so common that someone has doomed everyone with my tag. I believe that there is someone with my name on almost every type of list.

0820: Additional testing is done on my shoes, because they appear to be of two different colors in the scanner. Fucking outlet stores.

The rest is just a pretty standard flight home. I drank a can of ginger ale and a bag of animal crackers in Gianna’s honor. Will I warm up to the incongruously named snack? Not goddamned likely.