my my my, i have finally hit the right amount of deliriousness to post tonight for the first time (the other one was a teaser post). admittedly, it has been rather difficult, b/c at this point, "in the burough" feels written strictly for you, my dear friends. those tucked away in the sweating heart of texas. prepare to be jealous when i tell you that at this moment (half past two in the morning eastern time) it is a delightful sixty-six degrees. but, remember, i'll be the one crying when it is twelve or colder in a few months. as an aside, since this is for you for now (it may transfer over to being for me at some point), let me know if this is the blog you were dreaming of...or not.
nick and i ventured out of the new cave for a short trip to the brooklyn brewery with aubrey. twas a little warm and we made the mistake of ordering some pizza to go that was ludicrously topped with three times the amount of toppings a sane one would take to go eat on a brisk four block walk. nick's eggplant and red pepper pizza was torn in two immediately by its' own weight while i kept muttering "fucking shit" as the grease and tomato sauce from my pesto, ricotta, mushroom (portabello? they were huge slices), etc. pizza kept dribbling down my arm and popping off my chest. (it's important to note that we eat pizza everyday or every other day and the delicious pizza will be described in full toppings detail throughout time.) however, the fact that this was not the first of bad experiences on the way to brooklyn may take you by surprise. (the first is so chilling, a sensitive reader my wish to skip to the next paragraph.) across from our trio on the L, a man sat fiddling with his member. and i saw "it".
the other bad experience spawned from a little false promise known as "free beer".
other than those three things, the tour gave us insight into the world of beer. the tour guide got the hiccups in the middle of his soliloquy to the beverage and flirted with the crowd. williamsburg hipsters were out in full force and not nearly as intimidating as they were in february. i'm not alone when i admit that they exude fashion cool kid vibe. which from prior knowledge leads me to either seething rage, jolly sarcasm or feeling as if i will never be worthy of living in this city. (in admitting this, i realize i really must be delirious and i give nick a few days before he discovers this and rides it for a long time.)
after the brewery, nick and i got back on the train and headed towards manhattan to go adventure down broadway avenue. tables dotted the sidewalks on our walk, covered in hilarious, brightly colored geometrically patterned baseball caps, small and delicate knit animal finger puppets, an assortment of jewelry and bags, tagged and designed made over i <3 ny shirts and even a table lined with xeroxed copies of movie scripts. nick paused over "rocky". after wchich we practiced one scene a few times until we had it down cold:
mickey (nick): are you tight?
rocky (me): no...
mickey: i got some whisky.
rocky: ...no.
one purchase of the long trip that is simultaneously uber dorky and super cool is
city walks: new york, a deck of fifty cards featuring fifty walks to take all over the city, brooklyn and queens with a paragraph or so of the nerdy historical information. the first one, which i think we might do tomorrow, takes us through battery park. we found it at a curious bookstore, strand. i only say curious b/c all of the hardbacks sat arranged in perfect alphabetical order and the paperbacks (i.e. the cheaper books) were arranged only by type. as in no order whatsoever. so i never could find my david rakoff book.
yesterday, jake and kate moved into their new place in bushwick as we helped them move all their boxes and bugs up a flight of stairs and into a window-lit apartment. with the windows open, the noise pollution below shook the house with r&b bass, honking horns and congregating groups. the four of us and fellow moving buddy chris, climbed out their window, along the narrow fire escape and up a steep ladder onto the roof. the parapets missing, leaving us close to the edge. the breeze blew steadily as the sun sagged lower into the horizon. we could see out to the city and all around, watching as a sea of birds swirled about in the distance and the other parts of the outer buroughs were still and silent.
as a cure to my steadily increasing antsyness, aubrey invited me along to a meeting hosted by the ladies lotto at l'asso. oh man, delicious pizza! the first one brought out (imagine three feet of pizza!) was covered in tomato sauce, mozarella and basil. the second, mozarella, walnuts and a walnut pesto. and the third, bleu cheese, pear and mozarella. i love it. ladies lotto meets once a month and is basically and ladyfest schmooze party where the girls get drunk, eat food, make friends and connections and plan benefits among other things. i got cards from a woman who just started her own magazine after working in magazines for awhile, a girl who owns her own showroom in a gallery and a gal who is an events manager at a restaurant (who was currently planning an event for jay-z). at the time, i could verbalize it more articulately. but it made me feel so much better seeing all these ladies doing what they wanted to do or helping each other do things they wanted to do. man, i need a job.
the difficult, and i suppose the universal, parts of being here comes up in equal force to the amazing aspects of being here. it's been tough enough to sit down, sift, pack, store, ship, fly, receive, semi-unpack and re-order everything we had or now need without realizing that by buying a few buckets of paint i am cutting a chunk into my savings buffer, crying over being lonely, worrying about wanting to stay in after already being cooped up in the cave all day, discovering that you can't eat dinner at home b/c the dishes and flatware still haven't arrived or worrying that finding a job hinges on my ability to use a program i don't understand (dreamweaver!). but that was why i was up worrying tonight and thus began to pour forth the seeds of wisdom.
ridgewood sits on the border between brooklyn and queens. our home on cornelia acts as the base between a triangle of necesseties (what is this shit i am writing). namely, the L-M stop, the rite-aid and the food bazaar with its' cans and cereal boxes piled high to the ceiling and an entire refrigerated room larger than our living space devoted to meat. the majority of the block owns their homes so anytime we walk through the neighborhood people sprawl out on their stoops, some silently observing the passing world and some chattering up a storm with family or friends. it's nearly impossible to be quiet as it was explained to us by our extremly talkative puerto rican landlady that everyone knows everyone and we better get started.
