NY, NY
So I went to NYC this weekend and I had such a blast. It’s less liberal, more commercial, way more racially integrated (and refreshingly so), smaller, and safer than I remembered. And, more poignantly, I felt so intangibly at home there. I think part of it is that my painfully tremendous craving for legit Indian has been satiated.
I left DC early, and took the Washington Deluxe bus, a $17.50 alternative to the Chinatown bus, that travels between NYC and DC. The bus was grotesque, in terms of amenities and clientele; no aircon, and a melange of hideous people: hygeinically and/or ideologically . To my left, there was a woman sucking on lots of chicken wings, with a tremendous amount of phlegm, who ordered 2 orders of Nathans fries, doused in K, which she ate with one of those little annoying fry forks. To my right, another woman who was all up in my Kool Aid. She fell asleep and put her hand on my thigh. I finally had to pretend I had something I needed in my overhead bin to get her hand off of me. I wasn’t traumatized. Also, there was a snorer and someone with a flatulence problem. It was just bad news.
On the good ol’ Jersey Turnpike, we passed a tractor-trailer which was fully in flames (and surely the driver died) and some frat brother yelled out "sweet." How appropriate. Made me appreciate the people on my Israel trip. Is the world just getting worse?
On the trip, to escape the situation at hand, I finally read Coetze’s The Lives of Animals, c/o of Joshy Marcus, which I much enjoyed. Though it didn’t make me vegetarian.
When I arrived, Priscilla was the consummate hostess. She picked me up at the bus and took me to her lovely, edgy, little, apartment-behind-a-photo-studio. We ate late night Indian near her "Curry Hill" home. And we took a 50+-block whirlwind tour, with kombucha in hand, of the East Village (with its little japanese restaurants), Greenwich Village (where we watched incredible street performers surrounded by hoards of crunchy hippies and hipsters at 1 AM), Grammercy, Chelsea, Murray Hill, the Meat Packing District. It was amazing how things had further gentrified in my two year absence. One neighborhood flowed into the next with incredible energy and promise. By the end of it, at 2 am, my feet were blistered and worn.
The next day I woke up, and Priscilla had left me a beautiful note with a Metro card, and I went out and explored the Union Square farmers market (nice, but no Ferry Plaza or Pike Place), and the Street Fair on Park Ave. I shopped until I dropped at Daffy’s and other places (and found so many cool stripey work shirts, I had to stop myself), and ate the BEST FRIKKIN PIZZA EVER. God, if they opened this place, San Francisco couldn’t take it. The sauce/cheese/crust made me believe in love. It was what pizza is supposed to be.
Later on, I met up with Pizarro, formerly Wendell in the Village. I saw the place where I started hating ketchup — the Slaughtered Lamb. We went to NY’s Martuni’s counterpart, the Monster. The accompanist thought and I sang and got so much attention — people asked to take pictures with me! I felt so cool! I also ate a banana at the bar and they didn’t seem very happy. Afterwards, Pris and I ate yummilicious kathi rolls on Bleeker and MacDougal, and another slice of pizza, because one wasn’t enough.
We then went to Erica’s amazing rooftop party. The breeze, the food, the company (include Susan M from Law School) was all just perfect. I had such a nice time and everybody looked great.
The next day, we had brunch, shopped, I took home DELICIOUS pakistani food from this place Naimat Kada. NY’s Lahore. Delicious I tell you. YUM!
It was just a perfect weekend. I felt so revitalized and so at peace. Because I was so happy in SF, I had forgotten just how much I loved to NYC, until this trip. New York embodies such an interesting compilation of memories, from birth and childhood, to high school, to choir tour, to when Ruth and I went for Spring Break, to Law School. NY is ***almost*** like home to me. I plan to go 1 x a month. So, if you’re there and want to see me, let me know. NY is somewhere I should be planted at some time. Perhaps some time soon.
The bus back was way better. I ate the delicious Pakistani food at the rest stop; the best food that rest stop has ever seen. (I was too embarrassed to eat it on the bus, odor-wise, recollecting to the chicken wing sucker woman.) The aircon worked and a nice unobtrusive guy sat next to me (who I bumped into on-campus today) I read another book - Friendship: An Expose. Interesting stuff - mainly about this hyper reflective guy who feigns modesty. I feel like I might turn into him one day.
PS: Today in DC was so oppressively hot, I thought I was going to melt. It was like 100+ degrees.One day, it was drizzling and so humid that I could not tell the difference between my sweat and rain drops until I tasted them. Yucky.
