Two Weeks of Updates Summarized
Yes, I've slipped into a lax state of updating the journal. Yes, full updates for each day are coming soon. Here's a preview:
A new roommate; a new job; a trip to Buenos Aires; a blind date that hasn't ended for seven days; Fatboy Slim; Soho; Tribeca; The Village; Too many all-nighters to count; new friends; old friends; a week catsitting Mr. Cha Cha aka "El Diablo" and last but not least...
AxL gets Acupuncture!
Day 49: Sleepless in NY
It's 1 a.m. and there are four of us piled into a cab, my friend from Seattle, her friend, my blind date - Elle, and myself. We're bombing along on unknown streets in unknown directions while trying to scream into a cell phone and figure out where a club called "Centro Fly" is located. It turns out to be just blocks from my shoebox apartment.
As we're piling out of the taxi, my friend Yuen just happens to be walking down the street after a night out. We ask him to join us, but he's heading home with some excuse about getting his MBA that he conveniently uses to avoid all-nighters with people like me.
After bidding him good night, we're kept outside what I call "the magic line in the sand" which is a black velvet rope. Behind this magical club line that one must never cross, a muscular but sweet tempered transvestite is standing guard. Eventually, we're let in after stating the proper name regarding the guest list, from there, we're slightly hassled inside before being let in for free.
We step into a huge club complete with a miasma of about 1000 to 1200 people...shoulder to shoulder with zero space for walking. And there he was up on a little stage just pumping out his stuff -
FATBOY SLIM- and I truly know that yes, I'm living in New York City where one can just be out on a blind date one minute...and the next you're in a club with Fatboy Slim spinning the house into frothy oblivion.
Elle yells into my ear, asking what time it is, just after my Seattle Friend yelled into the other one that she was leaving for the night. I reply that it's now 2:30 a.m.
"Okay, zen. Jest one more song...zis is sooo good! I loave eet!" she screams above the thumping music. I just shake my head wondering how this went from my plan of one quick drink to being entertained by Fatboy Slim six hours later.
As he spins song after song, Elle keeps repeating her line: "OOOOOH!!!! Jest one more song!!!!" We finally decide to step outside as "The Funeral" celebration of the last night ever for club "Centro Fly" keeps pumping. We check the time once we're heading down the sidewalk...5:30 a.m. The perfect time to get a chicken kebab on a hoagie from a street vendor.
While we're waiting, I ask Elle out for a second date on a whim. She says, "yes." It IS another day after all. We have some sort of hilarious conversation with another customer at the stand for ten minutes, then we walk toward my apartment but are stopped short with unintended excitement.
A black man has stopped his car and is yelling at four white guys who must've been crossing in the crosswalk as he tried to make a right turn. He promptly marches up to one of them and punches him in the face so hard the white guy goes down and almost does a backward somersault as his feet fly back up over his head to touch the sidewalk. I am somehow in the middle of the four white guys who are spread out all around me. I'm thoroughly enjoying my chicken kebab on a hoagie while soaking up the spectacle.
Having much more common sense than me, Elle disappears across the street at the first sign of violence. The black man walks past me, over to the next white guy and promptly drops him with one shot to the face as well. Then he walks over to a third white guy and asks what he's looking at before cracking his nose with a hard left hook that sent him down. The fourth white guy escapes unscathed by running over to tend to the bleeding nose of the first, somersaulting white guy.
I guess I sort of woke up and realized that A) Elle was not standing next to me any longer, and B) despite my journalistic interest in all of this, I could be next. I turn and look around, while chewing away. I spot Elle and stroll toward her. We make our way toward my place, not having any "next plan" now that the sun is rising. She has to be back to her store in an hour to undo the chains around the doors for the next locksmith who will attempt to fix the lock. As we near my apartment, "JP the roomie" just is coming in from going out as well. Yea...New York...the city that never sleeps.
Since Maria is out of town and I am technically cat-sitting Mr. Cha-Cha, we stop in to see him for a bit and watch him bounce around the walls until it's time to head back to the boutique to meet the locksmith. This guy knew what he was doing. At one point, he even stops and wiggles his fingers, saying..."see these? MAGIC! Dat's why I drive da nice cah!!!"
Oddly, we're not tired despite dancing all night. Regardless, I retrieve coffee and some scones from "Cafe-Cafe," an overpriced coffee shop on Greene Street between Spring and Broome in Soho, just around the corner from Elle's store. I guess if you're located near a store selling $187 tshirts, you're entitled to sell $2.50 drip coffees that go for 80 cents anywhere else. One of her employees is late so Elle has to stay and wait for her to show up. Meanwhile, the locksmith finishes up and I decide to stroll around Soho for a bit. It's an utterly cool neighborhood and I check out the restaurants nearby - Cipriani, Barolo, Dos Caminos, Felix...vendors are putting out their art and photos and jewelry everywhere up and down the sidewalks and tourists are beginning to fill the streets.
Eventually, the employee shows up and Elle and I taxi back to Chelsea. I had left Mr. AxL with Madeleine, Tom, and Cody the Husky as I had told them I would only be about two, maybe three hours tops the night before. (I ended up calling at midnight saying it would be the next morning due to the Fatboy Slim invite.) We now retrieve Mr. AxL and he meets Elle for the first time. Embarassingly, he doesn't seem overly enthusiastic about her. Then again, it's been his way with life in general for quite some time now. Of course, she loves him and begins rubbing his ears while talking in an unintelligible French babble she calls "the International Language of Dogs And Babies."
We grab some eggs benedict at Cafe Fillippe and burn off the rest of the day just walking about at "AxL Speed" through the neighborhood, visiting stores like "Details" and others that have been featured on "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy." Somehow the day ends around midnight with my favorite comfort food - Chinese and a bit more catsitting of Mr. Cha-Cha who I now dub "El Diablo" due to his ability to be nice one second and attack your hand in a rage before racing around Maria's apartment like a furry ping pong ball on steroids while AxL snores away in the middle of the floor, unaffected by the antics. At least one of us is sleeping...
ZeNYC: During a NY weekend, sleep is a formality, not a necessity.
AxL-O-Meter: 6 - still doing great after acupuncture and walking much, much better in general.
NYC Degree: 8 - Fatboy Slim, early morning chicken Kebab laughter with total strangers, a street fight...definitely a morning to remember.
ESB: I think it was white but don't actually recall seeing it during the night out.
Heart Rate: 1 - despite expecting the worst, even a blind date can turn out to be fun.