Highlights
from a totally seat-of-the-pants trip to New York last weekend.
Boots! Boots! Coveted and bookmarked and fretted over for long enough to be stupid, but never purchased because my feet are small and my calves are not and that's always tricky. They fit, I bought them, they make me want to wear a-line miniskirts and colorful tights all the time and Andy thinks they look silly. Success!
In the back of a mostly-ridiculous occasionally-cool-but-still-nerdy pop-up store-cum-gallery you can stand between a couple of digital projectors and look at a shadowy version of yourself on a wall. Birds reel and flock on the wall above your head, responding to your movements. I stood behind the installation and watched a girl jump and wave a hat above her head to scatter the birds.
Just enough time and proximity to squeeze in a stop for coffee and chatter about travel and work travel and how they are not the same thing but sometimes they are enough alike to make the latter one a bit of a temptation-laden balancing act, a thing unto itself.
A row of pictures on the wall, where the table used to be, in the eyeline of the high chair that used to be next to the table. My friends hold their one-year-old daughter in front of the row of pictures, and they say goodnight to each of the pictures. Some are of babies, one is of a Scottish woman notable enough to be on a postcard sent by the one-year-old's grandparents but not notable enough for me to remember why. The one-year-old has an enormous stuffed dinosaur toy, somewhat bigger than she is, and she grunts like a weightlifter when she lifts it off the ground. Her t-shirt has robots all over it.
In the basement of a bigger venue is a just-my-speed vinyl-only dance night that involves almost no ass-grinding and one tuneless shouty rendition of "Happy Birthday" for one of the DJs. A girl feeds me orange slices and a guy I recognize from TV borrows another girl's slouchy white hat and dances with her, grinning. A German dude asks if I am from New York City and then, when I say no, guesses "Brooklyn?"
I keep adding to a list of addresses and nearby subway stops, and in the middle of the list is a string of four different Turkish places serving gozleme, which I've been more-or-less consistently craving for 3-plus years now. One of them is convenient and, it turns out, celebrating an anniversary with an across-the-board discount that just about covers the price of a glass of raki. I add water to the glass, partly because raki is strong and served straight, and partly because adding water turns the clear liquor a cloudy white and the chemical reaction amuses me. This gesture draws the approving nod of an older guy at the next table over who laughs explosively when I greet him in Turkish.
I'd stayed in the hotel before, but must have used the shared bathroom at the other end of the hallway last time, because I didn't notice before that you can look at the Statue of Liberty from the window while you are brushing your teeth.
At 4 AM, while walking from the subway to my hotel after the obligatory post-dancing late-night slice, a well-dressed guy in the general vicinity of the Standard approaches me, asking for directions to Scores. "I know this is a bad idea," is his lead-in, and I am expecting something more obnoxious. I tell him, sincerely, that I'd help if I could. He looks like he could stand to redistribute a little wealth. I have no guidance to offer, though, other than a general wave in the uptown direction. He may have doubted my sincerity because I was laughing at the time. My laughter attracts the attention of another guy who offers that he likes my stockings. "Fuck the stockings!" I say. "What about the boots?!" and get a mumbled response.
Boots! Boots! Coveted and bookmarked and fretted over for long enough to be stupid, but never purchased because my feet are small and my calves are not and that's always tricky. They fit, I bought them, they make me want to wear a-line miniskirts and colorful tights all the time and Andy thinks they look silly. Success!
In the back of a mostly-ridiculous occasionally-cool-but-still-nerdy pop-up store-cum-gallery you can stand between a couple of digital projectors and look at a shadowy version of yourself on a wall. Birds reel and flock on the wall above your head, responding to your movements. I stood behind the installation and watched a girl jump and wave a hat above her head to scatter the birds.
Just enough time and proximity to squeeze in a stop for coffee and chatter about travel and work travel and how they are not the same thing but sometimes they are enough alike to make the latter one a bit of a temptation-laden balancing act, a thing unto itself.
A row of pictures on the wall, where the table used to be, in the eyeline of the high chair that used to be next to the table. My friends hold their one-year-old daughter in front of the row of pictures, and they say goodnight to each of the pictures. Some are of babies, one is of a Scottish woman notable enough to be on a postcard sent by the one-year-old's grandparents but not notable enough for me to remember why. The one-year-old has an enormous stuffed dinosaur toy, somewhat bigger than she is, and she grunts like a weightlifter when she lifts it off the ground. Her t-shirt has robots all over it.
In the basement of a bigger venue is a just-my-speed vinyl-only dance night that involves almost no ass-grinding and one tuneless shouty rendition of "Happy Birthday" for one of the DJs. A girl feeds me orange slices and a guy I recognize from TV borrows another girl's slouchy white hat and dances with her, grinning. A German dude asks if I am from New York City and then, when I say no, guesses "Brooklyn?"
I keep adding to a list of addresses and nearby subway stops, and in the middle of the list is a string of four different Turkish places serving gozleme, which I've been more-or-less consistently craving for 3-plus years now. One of them is convenient and, it turns out, celebrating an anniversary with an across-the-board discount that just about covers the price of a glass of raki. I add water to the glass, partly because raki is strong and served straight, and partly because adding water turns the clear liquor a cloudy white and the chemical reaction amuses me. This gesture draws the approving nod of an older guy at the next table over who laughs explosively when I greet him in Turkish.
I'd stayed in the hotel before, but must have used the shared bathroom at the other end of the hallway last time, because I didn't notice before that you can look at the Statue of Liberty from the window while you are brushing your teeth.
At 4 AM, while walking from the subway to my hotel after the obligatory post-dancing late-night slice, a well-dressed guy in the general vicinity of the Standard approaches me, asking for directions to Scores. "I know this is a bad idea," is his lead-in, and I am expecting something more obnoxious. I tell him, sincerely, that I'd help if I could. He looks like he could stand to redistribute a little wealth. I have no guidance to offer, though, other than a general wave in the uptown direction. He may have doubted my sincerity because I was laughing at the time. My laughter attracts the attention of another guy who offers that he likes my stockings. "Fuck the stockings!" I say. "What about the boots?!" and get a mumbled response.