ם On the Road Again

Posted on August 30, 2007 at 4:46 pm

I just got back from a week-and-a-half long roadtrip around the Northeast. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the last summer break of my academic career.

The itinerary was roughly: New York, NY → Rye, NY → Providence, RI → Plymouth/Duxbury, MA → Boston, MA → Salem, MA → Chatham, NY → Willow, NY → Rye, NY → New York, NY → Philadelphia, PA → Wilmington, DE → New York, NY. Or if you’re more visually inclined, this.

More soon. Perhaps pictures if you behave yourselves.

ם I’m… Lovin’ It?

Posted on August 18, 2007 at 12:08 am

I haven’t eaten fast food in roughly five years ¹. This wasn’t so much intentional as just… common sense? Why on earth would anyone want to eat that molded and deep fried offal?

Well, tonight, for the first time in five years, I ate McDonald’s.

Please, let me explain.

So Deb and I were riding the 7 train (I know, right? The seven train! The 7 is one step above a myth), and next to us sits this young-ish girl, roughly our age. She’s holding a Burger King bag, and whips out this big, beefy, very-powerfully-scented heap of a burger. Oh man, that fragrance. It just filled the train, and our mouths salivated. We didn’t want them to salivate, but boy did they.

I don’t know how the fast food chains do it. My brain didn’t want that food anywhere near me, but my stomach was jonesin’ for it.

I had to have it.

I dropped off Deb and set out to find me some of that beefy goodness. I figured that of the “Big Three” (McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s), Burger King and Wendy’s were waaaaay better than the Golden Arches themselves. Our friend on the train was eating BK, so I figured I’d try for that. A quick Google search revealed that there wasn’t one within thirty blocks. Alright, Wendy’s it is then. Score, Google says there’s one right down the street! My quest begins.

I head to where this Wendy’s is supposed to be, and there’s nothing but a café, a theater, and a bunch of red-brick apartments. No red pigtails anywhere in sight.

By now, I’ve got the shakes and I’m scratching my gums. I need me some of that hamburgery lovin’. Off in the distance, I see through the haze… the soft glow of The Golden Arches. At this point I’m desperate, so I hang my head, avoid eye contact with anyone who might judge me for my sin, and head inside. I buy a big beefy burger with some sort of forgettable yet trademarkable name and a small order of fries. Almost as quickly as I pay, it’s bagged and ready for me.

I didn’t overly want to eat in a hard plastic booth in a dirty McDonald’s, so I elected to just walk the five blocks home so that only I would have to see my shame. But just knowing what I held in my hands, I could barely take the walk. It was the longest five blocks of my life!

Finally home, I unboxed my burger and bit in. It was greasy, fatty, salty, damn near nauseating…

…and delicious.

ם Things I Saw Today…

Posted on August 17, 2007 at 12:49 pm

• Two police officers with an untwisted wire hanger trying to break into their own squad car that they had locked themselves out of.
• Two construction workers swordfighting with rebar.

ם I’m Back

Posted on August 15, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Hi there. It’s me again.

Sorry for the extended absence. In the viciously fought battle for my attention, New York City in the summer has been defeating the Internet hands down. My sincerest apologies.

The good news: after two months of searching (including five days of homelessness), I found an apartment! It’s much bigger than the picture lets on, and it now has significantly more furniture. And the location is downright fantastic, so I think the two month search was worth it. The jury’s still out on whether the hefty broker’s fee was worth it. Eeeesh.

Also, Jimi Hendrix used to live in my building, so that’s pretty neat.

Moving on, you know when you’re watching Law & Order, and Jerry Orbach knocks on some apartment door or stops some random dog walker, holds up a mugshot, and asks him if he’s seen the guy? And the tenant/dogwalker/shopkeeper/underpaid extra invariably answers something like, “Oh yeah, I know the guy. He owns a bakery down on 51st and 10th.” Preferably he’s a walking stereotype, sporting a thick Brooklyn accent and doing something like carrying a crate of oranges from a delivery truck down to a basement wearing fingerless gloves. Then Jesse L. Martin writes down something in his little police notebook thingy, and Jerry Orbach makes some kind of lame, could-only-be-delivered-by-Lennie-Briscoe joke like “his pastries are going to be stale tomorrow” or some pun about how “soon he’ll have a lot less dough”. Then the screen fades to black (dæung dæung!), and we never see our friend the extra again.

Well, after three years of living in New York, I finally got to be the real-life equivalent of that guy.

I was at home, just putzing around my apartment about to head out the door, when my buzzer rings. “NYPD! Buzz us up or come downstairs.” Now, I’m not one to just buzz up anyone, so I head down. Through the glass I see two detectives (one of whom was wearing an unexpectedly-powder-blue bulletproof vest); they flash some badges and I open the door. Out comes the mugshot of a 50–60ish year old woman.

Him: You even seen this woman before?
Me: Oh yeah, I know the guy. He owns a bakery down on 51st and 10th. Um… no?

Blah blah blah, they ask me some more questions. Turns out the woman did something-or-other, is out on parole now, and the address she gave the po-po was my address. I tell them I’ve never seen her before, and no one lives in the building who looks remotely like her. (The shopkeeper next door chimed in at this point to say that he’s never seen her either, which actually carries a lot of weight, because he just sits out on the sidewalk in front of my building on a stool roughly 28 hours a day. He’s also very tall, but that’s a story for another time.) Anyway, satisfied with my answers, out comes the little police notebook thingy, and they take down my name, phone number, address, date of birth, shoe size, favorite movie, blood type (O+), GPA, fondest childhood memory, etc. Then they hopped in their unmarked car and took off. Dæung dæung! [Fade to black.]

There was unfortunately no Lennie Briscoe-esque quip.