I'm buying a humidifier tomorrow - today!
Apr. 9th, 2007 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluelovesorangeWell we all know what happened when I got home from my vacation (plague, pestilence, and tears), but here is a recap of what went on the Great Escape 2007.
the Laughing Girl Revue World Tour 2007 (now with more glasses!)
My mother gave me the usual advice she gives me when I'm leaving the house for any length of time: 1) Don't get robbed! 2) Don't get raped! 3) Don't buy extravagant crap!
If my grandmother was still alive, she would have had her helpful newspaper clippings as illustration why being a girl in the big bad world would lead me to getting: robbed, raped, or worse, both. Or killed, but mostly the two r's.
I was shuttled to LAX on time, spent most of the three hours there trying to listen to my audiobook of Assassination Vacation and discreetly people-watch, but I am sorry, dear friendslist, I did not see any Hiltons or starlets with gaudy Louis Vuitton luggage.
I stopped at Detroit Airport (yay! Murder City! I mean, Motor City!) and the first sign that I may have underestimated the dropping temperatures eastward, was from the walk off the airplane to the airport lounge. I was wearing knit sleep pants and a thermal shirt, long sleeves and a jacket, and I still thought the airport was inadequately heated.
I would long for that airport once I landed in La Guardia, believe me.
I get through security fine, I walk through the revolving doors, and OH MY CHRIST, IT IS WINDY AND FUCKING COLD.
There is SNOW on the ground.
I call my friend C on my phone and ask how to get to her place - hop the M60 Bus, lalalalala dear god, I think my ear just froze over.
After successfully getting on the bus (you need to have 2 dollars in exact change if you don't have a metrocard) it was a pretty scenic ride to Harlem. I was surrounded by Central Casting type of people, Sassy Black Women that you see all the time in NY, parts of Long Beach and L.A. and of course, the South. I absolutely loved it. Awesome women with their kids all bundled up and they'd sit down and then they'd just start having conversations with the entire bus/train and there was "Oh no he didn't," and I kind of dozed off listening to them speak.
I woke up in time to jump off at a stop near my friend's apartment and walked a few blocks there. Through the snow. May I just note that violin music is now playing solemnly in the background, as wind is blowing through my laughingly inadequate jacket, and my hair is not enough protection for my head? Yes, well, I get there, and I call her, and she is not picking up, and I'm kind of...."Well, fuck, what do I do now?"
Never mind that the place is not exactly a fortress - I later found out I could have buzzed myself in and sat in the foyer and waited like a sensible human being, but I had just taken two flights, it was EARLY in the morning, and alright, I wandered around the streets of NY like a HOBO. There, I said it. A few frantic calls to other NY friends, "Yes, I'm here. Yes, it is a mite bit chillier than I expected. No, I don't have a place I can go to right now, because I have no actual idea where I am now."
Yes, I will probably DIE COLD AND ALONE.
Well, I don't (sorry, anticlimactic) but I do take advantage of the light and take some pictures of the neighborhood.
There was snow, I wasn't lying.
After popping into a so-so panini restaurant to get a grilled something and some warmth, I go back out into the chilly embrace of NY. I play some more phone tag. I try to envision myself as a corpse, and whether I could make it onto an episode of CSI:SVU. Hours later (I am unfortunately not kidding - I got to NY about 10 in the morning, I don't actually get inside a warm apartment until about 3 o clock) I am escorted into C's apartment by her very lovely, angel-from-heater-heaven friend S, and I spend the next couple of hours in a heat coma, lulled by the Food Network.
C comes and gets me around five or six, we take the subway to Rockefeller Center, we have dinner in the underground food court, she goes to work, and I wander around Rockefeller for a few hours (see a theme here? it's called Saff in Wonderland) and I call up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monimala who is nearby and I get to see my twinkie for the first time in a million years. Before that, I go into Kinokinuya Bookstores and immerse myself in Zen, neatly appointed retail calm.
Mala and I meet up, and after the hugs and the giddy screaming, I tell her that I am a bit on the cold popsicle side, and maybe, perhaps, she would know of a merchant around here that sold hats? Or hoodies? Or scarves? (Clearly, I packed so efficiently that I FORGOT THINGS.) I had been debating whether I should go into J Crew and spend 80 dollars on a scarf that I would wear once and then have huge stupid consumer shame about - but we walk into Duane Reade's instead and I buy a nice grey knit beanie and OH SOOTHING WARMTH YOU ARE NOT ESCAPING MY HEAD FOR ONCE, and Mala wonders aloud on where all the street vendors are, because usually they're around, and naturally they're not. We also talk of politics and worldly things and I show her a video of my boyfriend on my ipod being incredibly cam-whorey (Happy Birthday, Boyfriend!) and we somehow end up back in the underground food court/mall where we get Starbucks hot chocolate.
M recharges her metrocard, I have purchased one for the week already (I learn!) so after seeing her off to hail a cab, I meet up with C after her work shift's over, and we walk the streets of NYC properly.
C takes me into the H&M (one of the few places that were still open) and I buy a hoodie and a scarf, and do the dance of joy when I find out that NY doesn't have clothing taxes on goods under a hundred dollars (and apparently this changes from season to season) and thus strengthened, C takes me to one of her favorite NYC hang outs - Serendipity. We walk past Dylan's Candy Bar on the way, and I have to say, over-rated (just by looking on the outside of it).
We attempt to split one of their signature frozen chocolates. I also ordered a banana sundae, not expecting it to be, well, the size of my head. Seriously, that was a huge frozen hot chocolate.
We stumble home and I have visions of getting up early in the morning for a real NY breakfast and then it's off to the Bronx to hang out with my girlie B. Best laid plans and all that.
I wake up and it's a little hang time between me noticing the time on the clock and then the time on my watch and realizing the two are the same time and that it is the middle of the afternoon. C gives me some granola bars and crackers for the trip, sleepily waves me off, and I take a bus to get to B's.
HA HA HA HA HA HA. As if that would be so simple. What was supposed to be a 45 minute bus ride to the subway station turned into about 2 hours of finding the right bus going in the right direction.
But I did get to see more of Harlem (I bussed right past the Apollo theater!) and finally I got to see this.
HUGH GRANT CIRCLE, people. How is that not the MOST AWESOME THING EVER?
This is Tonino, or Mr. Wink, or ton of fun, or, the sluttiest cat I ever did see, bar that kitten in Ireland.
B and I hug the kind of hug you hug when you haven't seen someone in a hundred years and you want to assure yourself that the other person is real.
After teasing me about my epic skillz in transportation, we are in the Bronx. The Bronx (at least the parts where B lives) is a perfectly lovely, nice place (and come on, J. Lo sings about it. How hardcore can it possibly be?) and I really enjoyed my stay there.
It was definitely the company. I meet B and her boyfriend's cat, the (in)famous Tonino. By the end of my 2 day stay, I will know him fairly well. That picture doesn't really adequately describe his presence, but it does capture his heartless sluttiness.
After the smash and run of HII'MHEREBYEI'MGOING! part of my trip with C, I pretty much just wanted to be coddled and adored and fussed over, because I am a big baby, and luckily B provided that in spades. I ordered in takeout (oh fancy!), and had a nice long chat with B. Her boyfriend came home from his seminar and was basically a zombie (poor guy) and I assured him that he did not need to entertain me as Tonino and B were enough.
Now begins the tale of the Futon. At C's, I slept on an air mattress...that was more C-sized than it was Saff-sized in terms of length. I wasn't actually hanging off the edges, but I did start sinking during the middle of the night, so I was basically on the floor. At B's, they had prepared a whole room for me, and there was a futon, that technically was supposed to fold out into a bed. We got the part where it rolled out, but then if you put a foot wrong, it would magically spring back into futon shape. While comfortable for sitting on, it's not the most ideal shape for sleeping against. We must have flattened that thing four times, and when it was time for me to go to bed, and heeding S's advice "Just don't go in by the middle," I prepared to launch myself at the futon.
In a gentle, not poking the middle partition way. I put my foot at the head of the futon....and can you guess what happens? It rolls up while I'm on it. I go, "well, FUCK." B comes rushing back in and I say, "No, forget it, this is fine, I'll be okay."
And I am. A little stiff, but it's better than being on the floor. The next day is what I like to think of as my ideal day in NY - I get up, B gets me breakfast, we make plans - I call Cyn, we discuss where to meet up (FAO Schwarz)and then after showering, taking pictures of Tonino (who despite previously lavishing affection all over me, refuses to look at me today), me and B are going back into the big bad city.
Snapshots of our Day. FAO is having a Mardi Gras theme, with jugglers and people on stilts and loud swing music, and I meet Cyn and her mom (who we have to assure in the manner of all asian moms that we are not taking Cyn and robbing her and etc. etc) and then we go to Central Park, where I get to geek out over Strawberry Fields, and just how lovely and desolate the park is. And there are horses, and people selling Beatles memorabilia by the sidewalk and random junk, and people walking their dogs and squirrels, and commemorative benches and cyclists, and B retelling the story of how she nearly got whacked by the Chinese Mafia, and me and Cyn laughing our heads off. Oh, and there was a guy on a rock playing a BANJO, and it was very Deliverance-y, except for the part where we weren't killed by mountain people and their raping, thieving in-bred cousins.
And then there was Mid-town comics, which is very impressive but very narrow - it's basically a flight of stairs that all the geeks have to file one by one to get into, and we also went to Pearl Art (very awesome art supply store), where B and Cyn bonded over their love of crafts, and we made fun of Marie Antoinette, because really, we don't like The Dunst, and we had a Gray Papaya's Recession Special, which is two hot dogs and a drink, and it was HEAVENLY, and I really wished I had gone back before I left, but next time -
and then we ended up in Chinatown, which was fabulous and touristy and loud and full of my people shouting at each other and bargaining, and I bought some extravagant crap (sorry, mom), and saw things that are just so typical of any Chinatown - the roasted animals in the windows, the lanterns, the shoes. We did a lot of window shopping, we walked into a strip mall and C and B teased me about my ever accumulating pile of cellphone charms and gadgets (for someone who hates to talk on the phone, I sure have a hell of a lot of crap for it, which reminds me, I have a new phone now. Yes, another new phone.) and we looked at all the silly Japanese stuff (SEKRIT MAGICAL ALGAE POWER!) and the hilarious: pneumatic stress relieving breast-shapes, that you...well, squeezed to relieve stress. We also looked in all the candy emporiums, and that's where B's boyfriend picked us up for dinner, because he saw my pink hair, and went, "Hey, I know that hair!"
See, it's not just fashion, it's a homing device.
Dinner was awesome - it was a soup dumpling house and I definitely want to go back again - you know a Chinese restaurant is good in NY if there are a) a lot of Asian people waiting to get in, b) a lot of Asian people inside eating. But before dinner, S took us on a semi guided tour of the area, and we saw the harbor, and the bridges, and it was all terribly magical and lovely, and none of my pictures turned out very well to capture said loveliness, but really, you had to be there. It was one of my favorite NY moments.
We walked Cyn to her stop on the subway, and then went home, where I packed, and set up camp in the living room. Tonino came and joined me sometime in the morning and slept on my feet, so I rolled over and fell, because I wasn't expecting a weight there.
After many tearful partings (the cat wouldn't look at me, AGAIN, just like some heartless slutty boy that loves on you and then won't call you the morning after the Great Make Out Session), I hugged them both good bye and got onto a subway for Manhattan.
Then there was walking, and finding out which direction the numbers were supposed to be going, and hilarious back-tracking, and more walking, but I found the Pod hotel and lo, it was super cute. I may have misjudged space at the time, or just a little surprised, but I did call Rebe and may have mentioned the word, 'closet' but really, it was fine. And cute.
And that is all for today, because I have to go to work in a few hours, and I have not yet eaten.
the Laughing Girl Revue World Tour 2007 (now with more glasses!)
My mother gave me the usual advice she gives me when I'm leaving the house for any length of time: 1) Don't get robbed! 2) Don't get raped! 3) Don't buy extravagant crap!
If my grandmother was still alive, she would have had her helpful newspaper clippings as illustration why being a girl in the big bad world would lead me to getting: robbed, raped, or worse, both. Or killed, but mostly the two r's.
I was shuttled to LAX on time, spent most of the three hours there trying to listen to my audiobook of Assassination Vacation and discreetly people-watch, but I am sorry, dear friendslist, I did not see any Hiltons or starlets with gaudy Louis Vuitton luggage.
I stopped at Detroit Airport (yay! Murder City! I mean, Motor City!) and the first sign that I may have underestimated the dropping temperatures eastward, was from the walk off the airplane to the airport lounge. I was wearing knit sleep pants and a thermal shirt, long sleeves and a jacket, and I still thought the airport was inadequately heated.
I would long for that airport once I landed in La Guardia, believe me.
I get through security fine, I walk through the revolving doors, and OH MY CHRIST, IT IS WINDY AND FUCKING COLD.
There is SNOW on the ground.
I call my friend C on my phone and ask how to get to her place - hop the M60 Bus, lalalalala dear god, I think my ear just froze over.
After successfully getting on the bus (you need to have 2 dollars in exact change if you don't have a metrocard) it was a pretty scenic ride to Harlem. I was surrounded by Central Casting type of people, Sassy Black Women that you see all the time in NY, parts of Long Beach and L.A. and of course, the South. I absolutely loved it. Awesome women with their kids all bundled up and they'd sit down and then they'd just start having conversations with the entire bus/train and there was "Oh no he didn't," and I kind of dozed off listening to them speak.
I woke up in time to jump off at a stop near my friend's apartment and walked a few blocks there. Through the snow. May I just note that violin music is now playing solemnly in the background, as wind is blowing through my laughingly inadequate jacket, and my hair is not enough protection for my head? Yes, well, I get there, and I call her, and she is not picking up, and I'm kind of...."Well, fuck, what do I do now?"
Never mind that the place is not exactly a fortress - I later found out I could have buzzed myself in and sat in the foyer and waited like a sensible human being, but I had just taken two flights, it was EARLY in the morning, and alright, I wandered around the streets of NY like a HOBO. There, I said it. A few frantic calls to other NY friends, "Yes, I'm here. Yes, it is a mite bit chillier than I expected. No, I don't have a place I can go to right now, because I have no actual idea where I am now."
Yes, I will probably DIE COLD AND ALONE.
Well, I don't (sorry, anticlimactic) but I do take advantage of the light and take some pictures of the neighborhood.
There was snow, I wasn't lying.
After popping into a so-so panini restaurant to get a grilled something and some warmth, I go back out into the chilly embrace of NY. I play some more phone tag. I try to envision myself as a corpse, and whether I could make it onto an episode of CSI:SVU. Hours later (I am unfortunately not kidding - I got to NY about 10 in the morning, I don't actually get inside a warm apartment until about 3 o clock) I am escorted into C's apartment by her very lovely, angel-from-heater-heaven friend S, and I spend the next couple of hours in a heat coma, lulled by the Food Network.
C comes and gets me around five or six, we take the subway to Rockefeller Center, we have dinner in the underground food court, she goes to work, and I wander around Rockefeller for a few hours (see a theme here? it's called Saff in Wonderland) and I call up
monimala who is nearby and I get to see my twinkie for the first time in a million years. Before that, I go into Kinokinuya Bookstores and immerse myself in Zen, neatly appointed retail calm.Mala and I meet up, and after the hugs and the giddy screaming, I tell her that I am a bit on the cold popsicle side, and maybe, perhaps, she would know of a merchant around here that sold hats? Or hoodies? Or scarves? (Clearly, I packed so efficiently that I FORGOT THINGS.) I had been debating whether I should go into J Crew and spend 80 dollars on a scarf that I would wear once and then have huge stupid consumer shame about - but we walk into Duane Reade's instead and I buy a nice grey knit beanie and OH SOOTHING WARMTH YOU ARE NOT ESCAPING MY HEAD FOR ONCE, and Mala wonders aloud on where all the street vendors are, because usually they're around, and naturally they're not. We also talk of politics and worldly things and I show her a video of my boyfriend on my ipod being incredibly cam-whorey (Happy Birthday, Boyfriend!) and we somehow end up back in the underground food court/mall where we get Starbucks hot chocolate.
M recharges her metrocard, I have purchased one for the week already (I learn!) so after seeing her off to hail a cab, I meet up with C after her work shift's over, and we walk the streets of NYC properly.
C takes me into the H&M (one of the few places that were still open) and I buy a hoodie and a scarf, and do the dance of joy when I find out that NY doesn't have clothing taxes on goods under a hundred dollars (and apparently this changes from season to season) and thus strengthened, C takes me to one of her favorite NYC hang outs - Serendipity. We walk past Dylan's Candy Bar on the way, and I have to say, over-rated (just by looking on the outside of it).
We attempt to split one of their signature frozen chocolates. I also ordered a banana sundae, not expecting it to be, well, the size of my head. Seriously, that was a huge frozen hot chocolate.
We stumble home and I have visions of getting up early in the morning for a real NY breakfast and then it's off to the Bronx to hang out with my girlie B. Best laid plans and all that.
I wake up and it's a little hang time between me noticing the time on the clock and then the time on my watch and realizing the two are the same time and that it is the middle of the afternoon. C gives me some granola bars and crackers for the trip, sleepily waves me off, and I take a bus to get to B's.
HA HA HA HA HA HA. As if that would be so simple. What was supposed to be a 45 minute bus ride to the subway station turned into about 2 hours of finding the right bus going in the right direction.
But I did get to see more of Harlem (I bussed right past the Apollo theater!) and finally I got to see this.
HUGH GRANT CIRCLE, people. How is that not the MOST AWESOME THING EVER?
This is Tonino, or Mr. Wink, or ton of fun, or, the sluttiest cat I ever did see, bar that kitten in Ireland.
B and I hug the kind of hug you hug when you haven't seen someone in a hundred years and you want to assure yourself that the other person is real.
After teasing me about my epic skillz in transportation, we are in the Bronx. The Bronx (at least the parts where B lives) is a perfectly lovely, nice place (and come on, J. Lo sings about it. How hardcore can it possibly be?) and I really enjoyed my stay there.
It was definitely the company. I meet B and her boyfriend's cat, the (in)famous Tonino. By the end of my 2 day stay, I will know him fairly well. That picture doesn't really adequately describe his presence, but it does capture his heartless sluttiness.
After the smash and run of HII'MHEREBYEI'MGOING! part of my trip with C, I pretty much just wanted to be coddled and adored and fussed over, because I am a big baby, and luckily B provided that in spades. I ordered in takeout (oh fancy!), and had a nice long chat with B. Her boyfriend came home from his seminar and was basically a zombie (poor guy) and I assured him that he did not need to entertain me as Tonino and B were enough.
Now begins the tale of the Futon. At C's, I slept on an air mattress...that was more C-sized than it was Saff-sized in terms of length. I wasn't actually hanging off the edges, but I did start sinking during the middle of the night, so I was basically on the floor. At B's, they had prepared a whole room for me, and there was a futon, that technically was supposed to fold out into a bed. We got the part where it rolled out, but then if you put a foot wrong, it would magically spring back into futon shape. While comfortable for sitting on, it's not the most ideal shape for sleeping against. We must have flattened that thing four times, and when it was time for me to go to bed, and heeding S's advice "Just don't go in by the middle," I prepared to launch myself at the futon.
In a gentle, not poking the middle partition way. I put my foot at the head of the futon....and can you guess what happens? It rolls up while I'm on it. I go, "well, FUCK." B comes rushing back in and I say, "No, forget it, this is fine, I'll be okay."
And I am. A little stiff, but it's better than being on the floor. The next day is what I like to think of as my ideal day in NY - I get up, B gets me breakfast, we make plans - I call Cyn, we discuss where to meet up (FAO Schwarz)and then after showering, taking pictures of Tonino (who despite previously lavishing affection all over me, refuses to look at me today), me and B are going back into the big bad city.
Snapshots of our Day. FAO is having a Mardi Gras theme, with jugglers and people on stilts and loud swing music, and I meet Cyn and her mom (who we have to assure in the manner of all asian moms that we are not taking Cyn and robbing her and etc. etc) and then we go to Central Park, where I get to geek out over Strawberry Fields, and just how lovely and desolate the park is. And there are horses, and people selling Beatles memorabilia by the sidewalk and random junk, and people walking their dogs and squirrels, and commemorative benches and cyclists, and B retelling the story of how she nearly got whacked by the Chinese Mafia, and me and Cyn laughing our heads off. Oh, and there was a guy on a rock playing a BANJO, and it was very Deliverance-y, except for the part where we weren't killed by mountain people and their raping, thieving in-bred cousins.
And then there was Mid-town comics, which is very impressive but very narrow - it's basically a flight of stairs that all the geeks have to file one by one to get into, and we also went to Pearl Art (very awesome art supply store), where B and Cyn bonded over their love of crafts, and we made fun of Marie Antoinette, because really, we don't like The Dunst, and we had a Gray Papaya's Recession Special, which is two hot dogs and a drink, and it was HEAVENLY, and I really wished I had gone back before I left, but next time -
and then we ended up in Chinatown, which was fabulous and touristy and loud and full of my people shouting at each other and bargaining, and I bought some extravagant crap (sorry, mom), and saw things that are just so typical of any Chinatown - the roasted animals in the windows, the lanterns, the shoes. We did a lot of window shopping, we walked into a strip mall and C and B teased me about my ever accumulating pile of cellphone charms and gadgets (for someone who hates to talk on the phone, I sure have a hell of a lot of crap for it, which reminds me, I have a new phone now. Yes, another new phone.) and we looked at all the silly Japanese stuff (SEKRIT MAGICAL ALGAE POWER!) and the hilarious: pneumatic stress relieving breast-shapes, that you...well, squeezed to relieve stress. We also looked in all the candy emporiums, and that's where B's boyfriend picked us up for dinner, because he saw my pink hair, and went, "Hey, I know that hair!"
See, it's not just fashion, it's a homing device.
Dinner was awesome - it was a soup dumpling house and I definitely want to go back again - you know a Chinese restaurant is good in NY if there are a) a lot of Asian people waiting to get in, b) a lot of Asian people inside eating. But before dinner, S took us on a semi guided tour of the area, and we saw the harbor, and the bridges, and it was all terribly magical and lovely, and none of my pictures turned out very well to capture said loveliness, but really, you had to be there. It was one of my favorite NY moments.
We walked Cyn to her stop on the subway, and then went home, where I packed, and set up camp in the living room. Tonino came and joined me sometime in the morning and slept on my feet, so I rolled over and fell, because I wasn't expecting a weight there.
After many tearful partings (the cat wouldn't look at me, AGAIN, just like some heartless slutty boy that loves on you and then won't call you the morning after the Great Make Out Session), I hugged them both good bye and got onto a subway for Manhattan.
Then there was walking, and finding out which direction the numbers were supposed to be going, and hilarious back-tracking, and more walking, but I found the Pod hotel and lo, it was super cute. I may have misjudged space at the time, or just a little surprised, but I did call Rebe and may have mentioned the word, 'closet' but really, it was fine. And cute.
And that is all for today, because I have to go to work in a few hours, and I have not yet eaten.
