In which I dive into my vacation in earnest.
Sunday I got up at the ass crack and showered and dressed, and G’ma graciously drove me to the airport for my 6:50 flight to Seattle. The flight was as short and uneventful as always. (I like Horizon Air.) At SeaTac, I had a breakfast sandwich at a Wolfgang Puck’s. It cost ten bucks, but the eggs were good.
The non-stop from Seattle to Newark was too long; the flight attendants did three entire beverage services. I did not get my requested window seat on either flight (although on the Horizon flight my long-legged seatmate swapped with me so he could stretch) and sleeping perfectly upright doesn’t really suit me so I napped only briefly. The captain landed us at EWR an entire half hour early, bless him, but it still seemed like I’d been in that center seat between two sleeping men for sixteen hours.
Grabbed my bag, deplaned, followed the signs to Airtran. Eventually got to airport station, caught a NJ Trans train heading toward Manhattan.
Deboka met me at Penn station and took me to her place to drop off my luggage. The F went out of service six stops from her own stop (it was Sunday night so I guess they decided to do maintenance) and we had to take a bus to her neighborhood but we got there eventually.
Then we went out for garlic pesto fries (I wanted something greasy) at a pub with the game on (Deb’s a hardcore Yankees fan) and talked our faces off.
It was AWESOME. I slept like a dead person on a nice futon with lots of down pillows. IN BROOKLYN.
Monday: got up and bathed and dressed and went out for Peruvian. Got Deb’s errands run – laundromat, dry cleaners, paper products – bought giant chai lattes, stopped by the apartment, then went into the city to meet her BF and BFF for an early dinner at Olive Garden at four.
Brooklyn looked so much like Brooklyn that it started to do some kind of self-referential loop in my head and practically seemed like a caricature of itself; I felt almost as if I were on a soundstage rather than a real place because all my previous experience of this place is through media… but then we stood in line at the corner Rite Aid for ELEVENTY HOURS to buy a freaking package of toilet paper because they have no competition and don’t have to offer anything resembling customer service and I snapped out of it.
At some point during the early afternoon, I started having PVCs (arrhythmia) and trying to have a panic attack. I kept having to consciously relax and breathe and get the fuck out of the interior of my body and start interfacing with MY FUCKING VACATION IN NEW YORK.
Despite my pushing the turnstile instead of stepping into it, and having to be buzzed into the subway by an attendant who could tell I was a tourist, we got to our four o’clock early and I spent half an hour getting the five-cent tour of Deb’s school. (She’s studying Oriental medicine.)
We sat at Olive Garden for a long time. The conversation was wonderful. (I love Deb’s friends. They’re seriously beautiful fucking people. I’ve never had so much fun at an Olive Garden in my life.)
We left to see Love Child. As we walked through Times Square, I told Deb I was trying to have a panic attack. She allowed as to how I didn’t actually strike her as being about to die, which relieved me, but I did keep having annoying PVCs. They’re scary. I don’t like them.
We picked up our tickets at will call. After nachos on a bar patio next door, we went into the theatre – great seats! second row! – and during conversation right before curtain, I began to have something of a personal meaning-of-life epiphany. Then the lights came up and I got sucked into what turned out to be a really great show. (And we only had to pay $4.50 for tix, because Deb’s a member of some club that gets her cheap seats. Bitch is hella cool, yo.)
Afterward, Deb took me to Don’t Tell Mama, a cabaret club. I love that place! So much FUN! I want to fucking work there: the staff consisted of a piano player and three singing bartenders with wireless mics, and they spend their shift doing show tunes and pop songs, with customers sitting in every few songs. An awesome, 60-something French woman did La Vie en Rose, a younger wannabe stage starlet did a hilarious and possibly original song about her gay boyfriend, a guy did some Oklahoma! numbers operatically, I did Skylark (pretty badly – I’ve never actually sung it before in my life) out of the standards book. I met two awesome chicks from the next table and the actor G. W. Bailey. One of the bartenders bought me a drink. It was a really, really fun place. I mean, if you have to tend bar, you might as well get to sing while you’re doing it. In New York. In the theatre district. Srsly.
We finally left the club and headed back to Deb’s neighborhood. We had omelets at a greasy diner at two in the morning and continued to talk and bond and communicate. I wasn’t in bed until after three. Fun, deep, intense, WHOLLY SATISFYING night.
Although my tummy was a little pissed about the late-night diner food. It was all, Um, hello? Why are you acting like you’re twenty-eight? Those Whirl-soaked eggs weren’t strictly necessary, thank you very much. I’m trying to work down here. Quit it.
