the city so nice, they named it twice
this morning, when I woke up, I was crying. weeping, actually. it was largely the direct result of a horrid nightmare I had. but some of it had to do with an acute sense of loss i’ve been experiencing for the past couple of months. and about 3% of it had to do with today being the last day of my vacation.
I have this creepy fascination with telling a story NOT from the beginning. I suppose I’ll take the time now to recount the last few days.
thursday morning, ‘round about 3am, I arrived at Fort Lauderdale Airport. tricky business, navigating an airport you’ve seen before at no less than an hour north of four o’clock. somehow, I managed to locate the pre-security checkpoint checkpoint, also known as the place you cannot pass unless you have in your possession a boarding pass. after a (remarkably) quick run through a special air-lock chamber designed to sense out explosive materials, I made my way to the gate, Bose QuietComfort headphones on to block out the noise of the arriving passengers. I decided to send a couple of emails, since it was an ungodly hour, and I didn’t feel like digging out my book.
the irony of my seating choice and arrival time at the gate was that I was the absolute last passenger to board the plane. additionally, Spirit Air is way cheap with the overhead compartment space, so my bag ended up getting checked. which really went against everything I believe in.
the flight was as painful as I suppose it might have been. the problem lay in my noise-canceling headphones, which give me a weird motion-sickness thing at high-altitudes, apparently. as an aside, I don’t think I care for flying. but the flight went by with me dozing on and off, accompanied by the songs of HMS Pinafore. upon our arrival at LaGuardia, I had to stand for 20 minutes in front of a still, and then revolving, conveyer belt waiting for my luggage. my uncle greeted me as I waited, making it considerably more bearable.
I hadn’t seen my uncle since my graduation, and before that, since the previous summer. I always like to make the joke, my two favorite uncles are both named Martin. as it turns out, both are also the younger of my parents’ siblings, this one being my father’s brother. he’s an interesting character, in that he, a skinny 38-year-old gay man, managed to entertain and keep entertained with his buxom 21-year old lesbian niece for five days.
(by the by, i’m typing this on the return flight in a program called Journler, and i’m really enjoying the tracking paragraph, word and character counts. I like it so much i’m thinking of including at the end, unless the radiohead-coldplay playlist i’m listening to makes me kill myself before this plane lands.)
anyways, he took a bus out to come and pick me up, and once it appeared on the conveyer belt at baggage claim, we loaded my overstuffed duffel bag (my carry-on, tee hee) and my equally overstuffed backpack (my “personal item,” tee hee) in the freakishly deep trunk of a yellow cab, and proceeded to his apartment in the heart of Harlem. the drive over was enjoyable, as he exhibited pretty veritable tour guide skills, pointing out various bridges of impressive suspension all the way to his apartment.
he lives on a pretty majestic street, not only in its popularity (as exhibited by the plethora of people traversing it at any given time, as well as the number of trains that stop at the station located about 45 feet from the concierge desk) but in its slope. I had to walk up and down the blocks surrounding his place several times (e.g. grocery run, ice cream run and drug store run, all to be detailed soon enough), and it reminded me of the unfortunate side of an isosceles triangle. you know, the one with a twin. if I had been on a skateboard, I really think I might have died.
after dropping my pseudo luggage off in the guest room/office of his nice and sparsely (but not too sparsely) furnished apartment, and then stopping in for a coffee at the dunkin donuts across the street, we began our trek. after gifting me with a preloaded metrocard and noting what amazing weather we were experiencing, we took the train all the way the south end of the island. catching the staten island ferry was probably the most tourist-y thing that we got around to. I got a good amount of pictures of the island in the distance, brooklyn, and the statue of liberty herself. I also discovered that my uncle, who was a resident of battery park until the demise of the world trade center, ended up taking refuge in the enormous boarding dock area that day. after getting to staten island, we popped right back onto the ferry, and trekked back across the water to manhattan.
upon our disembarkment, we elected to wander around downtown, amongst the various and sundry financial buildings and upscale jewelry retailers. between the new york stock exchange and the architectural drama of the cartier, tiffany & co, and harry winston buildings, I hit an excitement peak within four hours of landing in new york city. we continued to walk around, encountering an area off water street and not far from the pier-area/shopping center with cobblestone streets and more than its fair share of restaurants. apparently, ny eateries are all designed to be open-air in the summer, with doors that close for winter. it’s an interesting concept, but I tend to enjoy eating inside. sans insects.
after an hour of walking around, and getting up close and personal with the brooklyn bridge, we had worked up a bit of hunger. especially me, since I hadn’t eaten since before leaving my home at 2am that morning. so we hopped on the train, and headed to soho, the post-bohemian shopping destination of choice. the way my uncle explains it, fifth avenue is shopping for the loaded, times square is shopping for the considerably less loaded…and soho is for everyon in between. after some more walking around, and more views of old gorgeous building housing fashionably upscale shopping and impossibly posh-looking apartments, we wandered onto a movie-shoot off a semi-busy street, where we ended up having lunch.
we ate at a place called boom, which I could best describe as italiano-influenced. I had a prosciutto and mozarella sandwich and a side of potatoes and salad (a staple for me, because it’s just so hard to screw up) and the uncle had a curried pasta. while in the restaurant, a couple of interesting things happened. first, I noticed that my uncle, like myself, has a penchant for remarking quietly and sardonically on peculiar events that are happening very close to him (in this instance, two men who sat and had lunch with each other in utter silence. second, lisa kudrow walked by our table, which was the closest to the window and door in the whole place. third, the black actress who always reminds me of alfre woodard (who just has the coolest first name) walked into the restaurant accompanied by a bodyguard/gay associate/brother/husband(?) who glared at me some on the way in. they both were whisked away to the back of the restaurant. my uncle and I both found it funny that she felt the need to eat in such privacy, given our collective inability to recall her actual name.
I hadn’t slept yet, and the walking around made us both pretty tired. plus, the ‘itis was kicking in a little, so we took the subway back to his place, and napped. we awoke later and got ready for my first broadway play, which was actually a musical, spring awakening. despite a distressing subtext of teenage death and pregnancy, there was a sort of beautiful awareness to the film that arose out of the tragedies that befell these uninformed and mentally prepubescent adolescents who were portrayed, as though their innocence made their deaths accurate, gave them more purpose. it was also fairly amusing and a very evocative cast of talented singers made for a lovely evening, especially when you factor in the beauty of the small theater and the fact that the snack bar carried milk duds.. post-play, we got on the subway and made our way to chelsea, which I would soon discover was extraordinarily gay-friendly and my uncle’s favorite neighborhood to hang out in, and for good reason.
there used to be a place on south beach called cafeteria, that my other uncle, this one’s younger brother, once took my dad, younger sister and I to a few years ago. since then, it’s closed, but apparently there has always been one in chelsea. so that’s where we headed on thursday night, and I must say, it was considerably nice. after a few minutes wait at the bar (at which I felt exceedingly in the way), uncle and I were seated by a very touchy (not that i’m complaining) waitress. sitting on the outside as I was, I reaped the full benefit of all the touching. uncle had meatloaf and mac n’cheese, which was quite good. I was having a strange hankering, and ordered fried chicken and waffles. we each sampled their exotic mojitos, the wild berry and pink guava. both were quite good, and I sort of wish I had both again. right now. on the plane.
after walking around chelsea, and discussing how I lost all of my preconceptions about new york as a city, we decided to head home. it was a long but fulfilling day, and I had received significant instruction in the ways of the subway, since I would be on my own the next day, as uncle needed to go to work. I began my day with a coffee yet again, as well as a trip to the drug store, and made a small list of all of the places I wanted to see that day. the original list included several independent bookstores and record shops, as well as columbia university and the shops of fifth avenue (most importantly, the apple store. I had the locations of all of these places (including what streets intersected closest to them) on the subway map we retrieved the previous day. but it was largely for naught.
my plan was to go as far south as need be, and then come back north. I also planned to start at 10am. well, friday was the day the apple update to the iphone software came out. so for reasons that I find tremendously dissatisfactory, I was stuck in the house until almost 1pm. when I did finally get to the subway, I kept get turned about because I couldn’t find my connecting train’s platform. as I explained to my uncle, I always knew exactly where I was, and exactly where I needed to go (making the problem not a logistical one), but I kept running into issues with actually figuring out HOW to get there (but more a methodical problem). when I did finally find fifth avenue (which is home to some truly gorgeous churches…the irony abounds for me), I realized that I had left my camera battery in harlem. cursing the whole way, I had to figure out how to get back to the apt. once I was there, I figured I might as well change my shirt, since hanging out in the subway tunnels for long periods of time in the nyc summer is a sure way to resemble a wet mop. armed with a fully charged camera and grim determination, I charged back into the tunnels, undeterred my previous lack of success. eventually finding my way back, I wandered neared MoMA and elected to not pay the $20 to visit the museum, choosing to instead walk through it for a nice burst of air conditioning. as I exited, I noticed that I had a missed call and voicemail from uncle. calling him back, he informed me that a friend of his was going to be in town and he thought it might be nice if we all had dinner. he doubted that he would be home in time to change, so I was going to need to get directions from him to get home. armed with the knowledge that I would need to take a shower around seven, and it being well after three, I resolved to look at my other interests another time, and focus on what was in front of me.
fifth avenue is obnoxious as hell. the louis vuitton store is the greatest exercise in pointless consumerist excess that I have ever seen. and that’s just the outside of the store, with all its bells and whistles and neon lights. a variety of incredibly high end boutiques and departments stores (å la bergdorf goodman) are sprinkled amongst equally decadent (but beautiful) office buildings and hotels. my highlight was obviously the apple store, though I never did get a chance to go inside, what with the 1500+ people standing outside in line for an iphone 3g. but the exterior was enough for this trip. I also snapped some nice shots of statuary just outside central park and the plaza hotel. then I headed back to the apartment (with fewer mistakes than ever!) on the subway. I freshened up, but ended up wearing the same t-shirt (black with a white outline of a gun in a shoulder holster – which is a really hot image to me for some reason, though I remain morally opposed to firearms) as the night before (to the play and dinner) because of an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction and my uncle’s crappy iron. slipping into jeans and rainbow flip-flops, I headed to il bastardo in chelsea where I had to walk a couple of blocks down a street with utterly lovely brownstone-like townhomes.
my uncle was standing out on seventh (or eighth) avenue, waiting for me, and 2 of his 3 friends soon showed up. dinner consisted of relatively interesting conversation, once I steered it away from discussions about cholesterol and onto politics and travel. I had the duck, which I think my uncle was mocking me about, and an extremely strong mojito. an attractive male waiter ended up chatting with our table for a few minutes, as we all noticed the somewhat unfortunate behavior of some individuals who lived above the restaurant (they walked in drinking beer and acting like they owned the place. which they did not.) our collective ruminations on rude americans prompted the lovely young man to bring us a round of amarettos. one of the friends, kevin, remarked that it was horridly sweet, to which my ever-clever uncle replied, “let’s not complain about the free alcohol.”
afterward, we walked from chelsea to times square, where we all parted ways. uncle and I went back to the apartment, and ended up chatting about everything from our family to why people are so ridiculous about their “rights” as enumerated in a constitution that included not staying anywhere past five and butting in line, to why people have such polarizing opinions, and some other things that I cannot remember because of the haze of alcohol in my brain at the time, and my overall tiredness at that point in the evening.
a sidenote: I really love when Chris Martin hits the high notes (å la Violet Hill). “if you loooove meee, why don’t you leeet me know?….if you looooove meee, why don’t you leeeet me gooo?”
waking up saturday was a nice motion for me. because uncle refused to let me pay for most everything, I decided to make him dinner. after checking the previous afternoon to see if I could get the groceries delivered by fresh direct (and finding out that I couldn’t) I made a list and went down the street to pathmark. coming back up the treacherous two block hill was quite the feat, given my choice of footwear for a pre-9am outing (birkenstock clogs). we had unofficially declared the weekend to be my lesbian immersion, so we went to predominantly gay and white urbanite hippie northern brooklyn, an area called park slope.
it felt like the vibe and scene that midtown miami has been going for in the past few years. lots of adorable shops and restaurants, with just the right amount of trendy injected into the personas of the people who lived there. there were more row houses/brownstones than I ever thought possible. we stumbled across a farmer’s market at prospect park and saw TWO black cyclists. that particular area was adorable, as it sat right across from a really intense brandenburg gate-like structure and the brooklyn public library (which I maintain looks way more intense than the ny public library near central park). we ate a place called the stone park cafe, which was across from a place called s’nice (the source of endless jokes between the uncle and i), and we also saw a place called the place (also the source of many jokes).
we came home and I took a nap, uncle being drippy and sick and not wanting to do much. upon waking, I put my handiwork at mixing things into edible food to work, making a pea pesto pasta and maple-mustard chicken thighs. he seemed to enjoy the food, which we ate while enjoying the martial arts stylings of the house of flying daggers. when that went off, we each sort of looked around the room, and thought aloud about how much we wanted ice cream. so I walked down the hill to pathmark again, this time to return with two pints of ice cream. I ended up standing in a line for almost 25 minutes and nearly coming to blows with a large unattractive woman who was trying to jump me in line. when I finally got back, we watched the first national treasure, at which uncle got excited several times. at the suggestion of splitting the artifacts up between the smithsonian and the louvre, he said “fuck the louvre!”
sunday morning, we got up. me noticing that my uncle looked a little tired, my uncle not having slept at all. our master plan to maximize the day together began to churn into motion. I went to meet with a friend from college who had just relocated to the big city, and we had a little brunch near central park. upon my return to the house, I had moments to clean up for the theater. our visit to my second broadway show was even better than the first. boeing boeing was hysterical, and brad whitford, gina gershon, christine baranski and mary mccormack are fantastic. post-show, we meandered around times square. I bought exactly one trinkety souvenir and then we ate dinner at a place, rub bbq. I realize in retrospect that every time we went to eat, we ate in chelsea. can’t complain about it at all either. after eating a stellar pulled pork sandwhich and a really random beer, which I saw was recently posted up on gearcrave, abita rocketdog. we then chose to walk around, ending up in greenwich village, at a place called cubbyhole (where I did in fact consume two pints of guinness). it was a very small but incredibly homey spot, a bar with dancing and personality that I quite thoroughly enjoyed. we then walked around the village, popping into a spot called biography books on bleecker street and then walking around to the pier area, complete with views of the statue of liberty and . eventually we found our way home, and passed out while watching the second national treasure movie.
waking up on my last day was rough. I had a horrid dream about my mother dying, and so I called her at 6am, crying and sniffly. in the 12+ hours since then, i’ve come to think about my sadness as indicative of both the terror of a dream and my darkening depression over the failure of my last relationship (update, july 24: i’m tired of being depressed) but I bounced back, walking across the street for a coffee before packing up all my dirty clothes in a way that ended up conserving more space than when all those clothes were clean. then I hopped on the train to explore the morningside heights neighborhood.
getting off on 116, I meandered over to the park, passing so many of those gorgeous old apartment coops that i’m coming to associate new york with completely. at the park, I ran into a fellow photog, who gave me not a bad suggestion for a picture. I then passed by two women who wanted to tell me about god. I ended up taking their picture, because they were a nice break from the ordinary. I looped around the park and ended up trekking west on 113th past the enormous church and the enormous hospital (saint luke’s) ot amsterdam. I had reached columbia university.
my uncle neglected to indicate how enormous that school was. it’s not so much that the campus is that large, but rather that the buildings themselves are exercises in grandiose architecture. the fake library, the low memorial library (not very many books), had a ceiling that I couldn’t see, even when standing in the expansive covered atrium area. I could tell where it ended, I just couldn’t see it. I did some necessary and expected traipsing around, exploring armed with only a small map, sweater and my trusty camera. after a quick pit stop in the political science department, I ended up making my way up amsterdam avenue all the way to the northwest corner of the school. I will pause here to mention the invaluable nature of a phone with a competent map application. if it were not for my iphone, there would be no way I would have been able to get around with the ease that I did. particularly on this day, when I was alone. walking the entire way, I ended up heading over the clinton offices in harlem on 125th to have lunch with my friend and her coworker across the street, at pee dee’s steak and bbq (two meals in a row, I love meat).
after hugging and saying our goodbyes, I made my way to the train station on 125 and st. nicholas and went back to the apt. choosing to sit on my ass for the rest of my vacation was a good choice, getting up only to get a sandwich thing from dunkin’ donuts. having packed ahead of time made my experience all the more enjoyable. uncle arrived a couple of hours later, and the car to drive us to the airport soon followed. thus concluded a truly enjoyable five days, culminated by a slightly nauseating flight home (60% of this was written during that flight). and now i’m home…and I miss the gray lady of new york.
having finally visited makes me convinced of a few things. for one, there’s way more to new york than dirty streets and a congested population density. there is a discernible character that underscores more obvious elements of individual neighborhoods, a sort of new-york-ness that pervades every experience, and every sight. there’s an undercurrent of pride in this being the flagship city in america, and it comes across through both the visitors and the homegrowners. I can totally see living here, going to school here, and learning at the most popular city on the planet. also, and this is less inspired…the way I see it, there’s only about 2.5 million people living in new york. the other 2.5 million are all just visiting. as will I again, very soon.
2152 air miles traveled, 503 pictures taken, 4008 words written (32 paragraphs, 22,189 characters)
