weekend in new york

intro
this weekend i agreed to prepare a small office in nyc for a planned power outage [i.e., unplug everything and then plug everything back in after the power outage]. in exchange, i was rewarded with dollars and the added bonus of adventures in the city

friday
spent five hours on the fung wah bus to new york. nearly froze to death due to a combination of summerwear and extraordinarily effective air conditioning. read parts of a "cultural resistance reader" and started reading cat's cradle, both of which i borrowed from rian when i was about to leave to catch the bus and realized i didn't have anything to entertain myself.

some things i read:
simon reynolds from generation ecstasy account of a lynching in 1920 "huge mob tortures negro"
dick hebdige "the meaning of mod"
riot grrrl "riot grrrl is..."
kathleen hanna interview in punk planet
virginia wolf from a room of one's own
radicalesbians "the woman-identified woman"
jean railla "a broom of one's own" from bust
janice radway from reading the romance
john fiske "shopping for pleasure"

when i arrived in new york's chinatown i took a cab to the office, did the unplugging thing, and after a few scary moments when i was convinced i was locked in the office for the weekend [there was a button on the wall you had to press to unlock the door to leave], i was on my merry way.

however, alone in new york i wasn't quite sure what course of action to take next. i ended up walking about eighteen blocks to a movie theatre and seeing eagle vs. shark. which i liked a lot, but i arrived at the movie theatre like an hour before the showtime, so i kind of felt pathetic wasting away the time by myself on like the fifty millionth floor of the theatre, eating pretzel bites and fruit snacks. but whatever.

after the movie i took the subway to 14th & 7th to meet the friend from school rian and i were going to stay with. [rian had to work on friday, so he took a much later bus.] i dropped off my stuff at his [mike's] apartment, and then we walked around greenwich village. we stopped in a couple of smoke shops to look for a shark pipe, but the closest we could find was a fish. which obviously is not even worth it.

after much wandering around we ended up at the corner bistro, where, surprise!, mike ran into some people he knew. we got a table with them in the back and created some fine art out of the salt shakers and ketchup bottles. rian showed up eventually, had a couple beers, then it was back to mike's apartment, where we met up with still more of his friends and hung out until it was finally time for bed [on his classy fold-out couch, cha-ching].

saturday
we awoke at noon and went to possibly the best pizza place in new york, at least in the top three. one mushroom pizza later, we were back out in the shining sun. i got a [delicious] tiramisu ice cream cone next door and i must say i can't recall a happier time in recent memory than strolling down the street in my purple dress, licking my ice cream, holding hands with r hunter. the weather was gorgeous.

apparently there is such a thing as a mermaid parade and apparently it was happening on saturday. so we went to coney island, meeting up with two of mike's friends we had met the night before. the parade part had ended when we got there, but there were still tons of people in various interpretations of mermaid costumes, from cute little girls to old fat men and more. definitely check out pictures.

we went on one of those rides that slowly takes you up really high and then drops you all of a sudden. scary. and the cyclone which was also incredibly scary, in that it made a pretty convincing case that it might fall apart at any second as only an eighty-year old wooden roller coaster can. and obviously it was ridiculously fun.

after the rides, we got some boardwalk snacks [cotton candyyyy!] and sat on the beach with [even more of] mike's friends. dipped our toes in the water, but obviously it was freezing cold. also i got some sun because the top half of my boobs are now just a shade lighter than the rest of them.

after coney island, we all had sushi for dinner in brooklyn. yum! then we went back to mike's friend sarah's house who we had met on the beach. she was really cool. we played a huge game of uno [eleven people, i think] that went on foreverrrr. but was also exciting in that competitive card game for ages 5+ way. rian and i were pretty exhausted at that point, so while mike went out for still more fun, we crashed.

sunday
sunday we had a pretty late start. our original plan was dim sum, but on our way we realized the gay pride parade was much more interesting, so we walked along the parade route for a while. everyone is having so much fun it's infectious. in a good way, not an std way. i couldn't help smiling the whole time.

we ended up at benny's burritos and as we waited for our food, eating the chips and dip, i realized how starved i was. my plate of beans and rice and cheese was perfect.

after food, we relaxed. i read the feministing post and comments about street harrassment. we played wario ware and watched paprika which did not live up to rian's expectations. later we ventured out for falafel.

monday
woke up. went uptown and plugged everything back in. took the bus home with rian. played kirby. napped. went to sr haus for tyler's birthday.

THE END