Merry Christmas

but i forgot to tell you of the time Heather and i went out to Rockefeller Center to see the famous Christmas tree. just last week, after work (and before the strike), we braved the wind-chilled Manhattan air to find ourselves in midtown, surrounded by tourists, to bask in the glory of the prettiest tree i've ever seen. after our gawking, we turned a corner and happened upon St. Patrick's Cathedral, wherein we listened to the choir practicing their carols, and it was good. next, we ducked into a Dean and Deluca for some hot cider and mosied our way to the NBC store to find they still sell Friends and Frasier paraphenalia. With our curiosity satisfied, we took the train home for what turned out to be (i can only assume due to the strike) our last mutual trip to New York City-proper of 2005. We leave for Colorado on Saturday morning, and come back in time for New Year's Eve, but will we be stranded in Brooklyn? Is this the untimely end of Milhouse?

Strike!

the transit system is on strike, merry fucking christmas, New York. of course, i could sympathize with the transit workers, had i been briefed on the nuances of their expired contracts and failed collective bargaining, but really all i know is that there is no bus to take me to work, and so everyone i know will be getting a big fat lump of coal that i had to make myself from burnt cork and rat droppings. oh, and the mayor's brilliant contingency plan of "get a ride" or "stay on someone's couch" is fucking brilliant. his plan might as well be, "get into a stranger's car and hope you arent' raped by lunchtime." the city is slower than that corky kid from life goes on, and there's no hope in sight.

Vodkas Tonic

Saturday evening was quite fun. We made it to a going-away party for a City friend which included, but was not limited to:

1) cupcakes
2) many vodkas tonic
3) an unfortunate playlist of Britney and Mariah
4) drinking a bottle of tequila in a circle of friends in the middle of Tompkins Square Park
5) amazing pepperoni pizza on the subway home

and the fact that, while in line for a dive bar on First Avenue, we were inundated with pleas from three very homely homeless men who were carrying and offering, quite inexplicably, trays of appetizers. they offered us freshly cut vegetables and dip, cheese and fruits, crackers and spreads. it amazed me they were carrying such obvious payloads of food, but what got me more was that they were offering the snacks for a donation of $1. were i a lesser man i might have been obliged, but as i have a rule against eating food offered by hobos, i thanked them but declined, and they eventually moved on.

the next morning we met Pat (not hungover) and Jay (newly arrived from Pittsburgh) at a place called Libation in the Lower East Side, which, while a pretty trendy and hard to-get-into-joint by night was a relaxing and quiet place to find an extremely affordable (i'm talking 3 mamosas and eggs florentine for $15) brunch. we stayed and talked for what seemed like hours, after which i accompanied Jay back to LaGuardia Airport and saw him off. I caught the M-60 back into Manhattan and eased my way back to the East Village to meet Heather and Dana at Winebar for an evening drink and conversation. The evening was serene until, inexplicably, another patron's hair caught fire from the candles on the bar. we took this as our cue to leave and Heather and I returned home for Chinese food and Futurama DVDs, Jay's gift to us (and by us i mean me).

as you can see, i didn't paint my face...

My friend from Colorado, Jay, made his way out to the east coast in order to see his (and my) favorite team, the Avalanche, handily trounce the New Jersey Devils. Upon arrival we drove (in his rental) directly to the Seinfeld Diner (aka Tom's Restaurant on 112th and Broadway) for a quick lunch and then, after a coffee at my apartment, it was off to Port Authority Bus Terminal to catch the 15 minute bus to the Meadowlands for the game. It was, hands down, the best game I've ever witnessed in person (with three unanswered Colorado goals after the first period, a tie at the end of the game decided by a shootout in the Avalanche's favor). The next morning I went to work and Jay drove to Pittsburgh for the Colorado game against the Penguins at which he ran into the Great One, Wayne Gretzky.

Well I just had to laugh, I saw the photograph...

it's the 25th year anniversary of John Lennon's death. in Strawberry Fields, in Central Park, there will be a barrage of fans and ex-hippies, all crowding around the small tile mosaic that reads, "IMAGINE." would-be artists will adorn the memorial with flowers and flags and albums and candles. many people will bring their stereos and guitars. the youngest of attendees will mistakenly play Hey Jude, at which point they will be beaten with War is Over protest signs. at 10:50pm (the time Lennon was shot) they will have a moment of silence and once more at 11:15 (the time he died). at 1am the Park closes and people will have go home or look for other gay men for anonymous sex.

Funny HaHa?

The Importance of Being Bushwick

the major line that takes me into New York City proper (Manhattan, that is) is the L train. it's not a bad commute, the 15 minutes to Union Square go by quickly when reading or listening to the iPod. these two passtimes, by the way, seem to be requisite duties of any New Yorker using public transportation.

i asked someone, once, at what point did she feel like a true New Yorker [as you may know this city is made of natives and transplants, this person being a transplant] and she noted that when one can sleep on the train and wake up at their desired stop unprompted, this is the moment of achieving New Yorkdom.

i believe i am only weeks away from this. i take the L train many, many times a week, usually to explore the lower east side and the east village, union square and so on. what i have learned about the subway system is which stops or transfers i prefer compared to others, which platforms contain which performers and food vendors, which stations smell like feet and which stations smell like urine.

i won't lie, there are many gross things about this city, but many great things too. the thirft stores, for instance, are great (though evidently thrift in New York means the exact opposite of what it means in the dictionary) and the flea markets, i am just discovering, are prime venues in which to anger grizzled old men by offering obviously naive and offensive pittances for otherwise expensive, if used, camera lenses.

but i love this life i lead with Heather and find a certain solace in living here in Bushwick. it's a nice little place, even if it is disengaged from what people normally think of when they think of New York. i am among puerto ricans and ecuadoreans, families and singles, and an obvious influx of young, white, would-be artists and poseurs. we leave the windows open so the sounds of our neighborhood (and flies) can compete with NPR when we make dinner. those sounds frequently include:

• the rumbling of the elevated M train up the block
• children playing in the street
• honking horns from cars and busses
• squealing police cars and ambulances, either going to an emergency or trying to mimic a hiphop track on their siren
• construction crews here and there
  
• the wind, the wind, the wind
  

walking down the street, everyday, we watch as a funnel cloud of pigeons circulates above one house, prodded by a man waving a large pole to command them. they are multicolored and when the sun hits them just right, they look like falling ticker tape, and heather and i are the only ones in our own parade.

Give Thanks

last night heather and i went to see the inflating of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloons, which takes place near 77th street and Central Park West. it was a wonderful time: once we got there we noted the huge crowds and both decided to simply view from afar and go home. but we got in the wrong lane for the subway during our walk and inadvertantly wandered smack-dab in the viewing area, bypassing a line of thousands. and so we took it all in.

today's Thanksgiving was the best one i've ever had, simply because it was my first time ever away from family but solely with my love and we made it work. we cooked our turkey and baked our pies and had a quality feast. later we watched The Godfather and a Marx Brothers movie (does it matter which one) and just basked in each other's glow.

I'm thankful for Heather, I'm thankful to be happy again. I'm thankful to be in New Yok City and living a life I thought would never be, and thankful to be able to share it with someone who has taught me that love is the best thing to give (and receive).

In a station of the Metro

three homeless people were sitting in the subway station, one of them had a large laundry tub on wheels (like you'd see in a hotel) filled with empty soda cans...

MAN:
yeah you know, so i gotta fill up this cart and then take it on down to the center and they pay big money for this.

WOMAN:
yeah, a lot?

MAN:
oh you know, i got to go to different centers to drop off, otherwise if i be taking in too much they start to ask questions and make receipts for the money. and next thing you know, they take out taxes on that shit.

WOMAN:
oh yeah, you gotta watch out for taxes. that's what did me in.

Daily blog

many interesting things and goings on afoot, the most recent of which was my trip to the Daily Show today. it was a simple enough task to get in: simply call them on Friday between 11 and 11:30, leave a message and expect a call back later on that day. it was a really great time, fun to see how they make that show. the comic who warmed up the audience was funny enough, jon stewart was hilarious (as was the day's material) and the guest was Al Franken. the only con was the studio is way the hell over on 11th avenue in Hell's Kitchen, not a great trek in 40 degree weather. we were explicitly told not to ask for autographs or take pictures, so you'll have to make do with my camera's little snapshot of the set.

i would have rather gone when Kurt Vonnegut was a guest, though i found solace in the fact that i was going to see him last friday during a reading at the Union Square Barnes&Noble...to no avail. he cancelled, though i don't blame him, he is like 83 years old, after all.

the one author i have seen, though, was one whom i admire greatly: Jonathan Safran Foer. heather and i saw him a couple of weeks ago at the Brooklyn Public Library during their "Brooklyn Writers for Brooklyn Readers" series. he was great, he was young, he was my would-be doppleganger, and i have to say i was just a little bit turned on...

there have been parties (kudos to Mark in greenpoint) and comedy clubs (kudos to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Gotham Comedy) and amateur sketches, dinners, drinks, just a little bit of dancing, and many many hours lounging on the weekends writing letters and reading the paper. heather and i have been growing fonder of each other over the weeks, carefully making our apartment the way we want it. we've got internet in our place finally, cable...we finally got a TV, and so i've started my netflix account again. surprisingly, heather has not seen a huge catalog of movies anyone from our generation would deem necessary and definitive.

heather and i have been crafting our own language, our own culture here in our apartment. this is something couples do, i suppose, and after awhile we may get to a point where we won't understand anyone who isn't us, who doesn't live in (what Kurt Vonnegut would call) our nation of two. but that's ok with me, because i'm willing to be a citizen here. i'm in love.

Framingham, MA

went to a bachelor party for an old high school friend. and from what i remember (and i think it's a lot!) i'm pretty sure i'll never look at bottled water the same way again.

time out of mind

currently, as i am ttyping, drunk in framingham, massachusettes, at a bachelor party. we're drinking beers and of course i'm out of my gourd on onlyl 4 beers.

tap the rockies my ass

the details of My life are quite inconsequential

i know it's been a while since i rapped at ya, but things have been pretty busy in my world. so many things to share, not the least of which was that i made a trip to my old hometown of queesbury for labor day weekend. a lot of my old friends were there, sort of a homecoming for me in the sense that i hadn't been there for like six years. and to tell you the truth i don't think i ever would have returned had it not been for the promise of seeing people with whom i still love to laugh.


in other news, i've taken a part time job at the local barnes and nobles during the down time of my tutoring escapades, but as September is upon us now, i assume that i'll have to quit in order to make even bigger bucks as a tutor.

aside from that, new york is full of charm (if not grace) and the importance, history, emotion and ethos of this town are not lost on me, just, seemingly, on the locals.

She's a MAN, BABY!

INT. OFFICE - DAY
NICK is at a table with three other girls, all of whom are casually checking the Village Voice.

GIRL 1
Man, there are A LOT of ads for porno!

GIRL 2
Tell me about it, the prostitution ads are right next to the horoscopes, so everyday when I check my horoscope it looks like I am looking up call-girls.

NICK
Yeah, I just moved here and I've noticed that New York has an inordinate amount of she-males.

GIRL 3
(SILENCE)

the times, they are...

one of my favorite things to do now is poke myself out my 4th (and top) floor window and take a gander at the neighborhood. up the street there are kids playing baseball amidst regular traffic and ambulences, behind them the high-risen M train pounds the night's shinanigans flat like a penny. down the street many busses flash by, the same bus, tailgating its doppleganger for the sake of making their rounds on time. many puerto rican families just inhabit the sidewalks, showing off their babies and smoking. their music can be heard for blocks, sometimes, and it's all very authentic. the neighborhood is also inhabited by the likes of me and heather, young couples hoping to take the city by storm. our music only fills our apartment, but is authentic all its own.

we've painted one room red, one room green, and the other have been left white. it's not as christmasy as you may guess, and once we're all moved in i trust our authenticity as new yorkers will be as heart felt as the couple in Edward Hopper's "Room in New York," which i've mentioned before.

i'm rambling, but that's how i know i'm home.

Splinter

We're slowly but surely getting things in order: we've recently acquired a bed, painted a room and are in the process of settling some hash down at the NYC Board of Education.

there are so many things to blog about, but all i want to say is this: if someone ever tells you a sewer rat won't bite your pinky finger, they's lyin'.

Ringo No More

i'm not sure if you are aware of this, but we initially flew out here July 18th, on the premise that our apartment would have been ready by then. upon arrival we were assured by our agent that the unit would be ready no later than august 1. that date got pushed back to august 15, which then in turn got pushed back to september 1. at this rate, we would be in our place by september 15, meaning we would have squatted at my cousin's place for 2 months inconveniencing everyone we know in the process.

so last week we walked around Bushwick all day and found another place: a little better, a little cheaper and A LOT newer. so here it is, in all its glory. we move in today, you may ship your well wishes and care packages accordingly.

by edward hopper...

there's a painting, if you can find it, by Edward Hopper. it's called, "Room in New York." it shows a couple: the man reading his newspaper intently, the woman casually tapping keys on her piano. and all i want is to capture this moment (forgoing any insight one might cull from a deep reading of the blocking of the characters, and the way light plays not with them but on them) in my own apartment with my own girlfriend, piano or not.

it's been almost four weeks since we've arrived in new york, and we have not one word on the move-in date of our coveted apartment, except that it theoretically should be happening soon. i'm starting to wonder if we'll ever get in there, as it's the only one we've deemed perfect for our purposes.

minus the apartment thing, everything else in this city is grand.

the Ocean State

we've been in Providence, RI since Saturday visiting my parents and other family. the Atlantic is a wide dream.

one night we went to staten island (the ferry is free and takes us right under the statue of liberty) at sundown, became so disenchanted with this forgotten borough that we ate chinese food and fled soon thereafter. heather does look wonderful with the sea wind blowing in her hair, though. one night we went to chinatown and had, hands down, the best chinese food we've each ever had. after our meal we walked down canal street where an ornery old coot insisted i buy his strange fruit. "i give you two pounds, one dollar!" he said, obviously doing me a favor. but i wasn't in the market for street fruit, let alone fruit i had never seen before. he gave me a sample, and i sucked its juice. it was slightly sweet, mundane if not tart. i didn't like it that much, and the man shook his fists at me as heather and i walked off. we turned north on mulberry street, into little italy. and looked at shoes and the wannabe Sopranos. if the mafia is dead, tourism killed it.

that you do so well...

i've taken on another student. he lives in the bronx, is named dennis, and is terribly bright. i take the 5 train to east 180th street and walk a few blocks to his house. on my way i pass by an old cemetary which a sign says contains the graves of veterans of 4 wars, starting as far back as 1812.

so i stand there and marvel a bit at the green lawn, unkempt and ramshackle mosoleums. as i grip the locked gate, i look down to my feet where a plate of rice and fish sits, uneaten but decaying, like it's been there for weeks. the rice is black, the fish mummified. i wretch a bit and an old man walks next to me and sees how i react to this food that someone seems to have placed there as an offering.

"voo-doo," he whispers and walks on.

the Carni Code

on sunday heather and i ventured into the fabled Coney Island section of brooklyn (which is a bit of a misnomer, as it is not an island, but rather just the the southern most coast of Long Island).

coney island is the home of the famous Cyclone (wooden) roller coaster, Nathan's Famous hotdogs, Shoot the Freak (a game wherein you shoot paintballs at a human target), the Wheel of Wonder (a ferris wheel with unhinged seats) and the most deplorable beaches this side of the N train. i did jump into the Atlantic though, my first time. i also did all of the above except shoot the aforementioned freak, mostly because the human target in question happened to be a black guy, and i have a substantial amount of white guilt for a Latino. heather kicked my ass at both skee ball and that game where you shoot water into the clown's mouth. she won a stuffed bear.

it was the best day in a string of good days for me, mostly because it had been so long since i had been to both a beach and an amusement park. people were fishing for sea bass and crab off the pier, which seemed amazing to me as they would send down whole chicken carcasses, to harvest the smallest crabs ever. i just had to ask, why not eat the chicken?

and now some gems from the wonderful world of East Harlem Sol:

[reading homework aloud]
Sol has $2000 in the bank and Nick has $1000, [interjects] which is 50% WRONG, [continues reading] what is the ratio of Sol's money to Nick's?

[pointing to my elbows, which are notoriously dry and flaking]
You ashy! You need some lotion.

[replying to my suggestion we cut across a courtyard instead of walking around it]
nah, you don't want no drama! this is the PROJECTS, they like to mess with the white people. but you mixed, so who knows.

indeed who knows?

Eating Watermelon in Harlem

today i met with my one and only student (at the moment), Sol. he's a nice kid, bright and eager, but also easily distracted and sometimes lazy. however, as he is my only client at the moment, i'll be sure to put my heart into his education and hopefully see that he does well into 6th grade. he's a little big for his age (11), stout and willing to rap during the moments that, with anyone else, would be uncomfrotable silences. i teach him in Harlem, at 130th street and Park Avenue.

it's hot in nyc, and after we studied math and writing for hours, it was time for recess. so we walked to the park where he played tennis and i wrote up lessons for tomorrow. after an hour we were both so hot and tired that we picked up some cold watermelon and ate it amongst the pigeons and children playing in the fountain.

the kid marveled that my appetite rivaled his. "no one's ever finished eating before me," said sol.

If I Can Make it There...

we've arrived in New York, with a few changes to our play:

the apartment won't be ready August 1st (it was supposed to be ready July 15, then pushed, now it seems pushed again), which is disappointing. however, i have a cousin who lives in yonkers, which is where we are staying now until the place is ready.

i've been hired as a private tutor and start immediately, adding much stress to an already stressful time

we're borrowing a friend's car to get back and forth from the 4 train into Manhattan (the only way to get to work) which is also stressful (NY drivers are frikkin nuts) but very appreciated, because to rent a car would be hundreds of dollars a week

however, upon arrival to yonkers we noted a steak house called, "Boulder Creek," and thought it would be a hoot to try it out. but the hoot, to me, became surreal as the menu items consisted of "flatirons steak salad" and "Denver strip steak" and "rocky mountain" this and "front range" that. what are the odds of two coloradoans trekking thousands of miles to start a new life only to find a Colorado themed restaurant 5 minutes from their home? i found it odd and wondered aloud if New York wasn't trying to tell us to go home. Heather posited that it was just the opposite: Colorado telling us to not forget who we are.

the Blogger of Bushwick

but i haven't told you yet about our trip to new york with two objectives in mind: 1) find heather a job and 2) find a place to live.

so we naturally split duties. she ventured alone to her own job fairs and interviews, held me in tow the following mornings when she had to audition by giving a practice lesson to live classes. i walked around manhattan and brooklyn, looking at overpriced studios and spoken-for single bedrooms and for the first 5 days of our 6 day trip it seemed like neither of us was accomplishing our goals.

then on the last day, literally just hours before our plane back to colorado was to take off from la guardia and completely independent of one another, she found a teaching gig on starr street in brooklyn, and i found a lovely 2 bedroom only two blocks away.

mission accomplished.

it's perfect! rent stabalized 3rd floor walk-up, hardwood floors, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen (with nooks) and full bathroom. natural light, lots of windows, directly across from a park, on the same block as the grocer, two blocks from the subway and a 3 minute walk to heather's new school.

i'm really proud of heather, she scored a great job teaching 6th grade which is an ideal situation for her. i'll be working on various projects, not the least of which will be my primary source of income: starting a tutoring business with my friend, the low.

our move in date is july 15.

right now we are back in colorado, visiting heather's parents. this is the first time i've met them, but already i feel at home. hayden is in the high country, a beautiful universe of the sublime.

anyway, this blog will pick up after we move in and whatnot, complete with pics, until then i'm still on vacation.