*rimshot*
New York was great. I got to reunite with Tyler, who I hadn’t seen in years, catch up with a lot of people I hadn’t seen since Prague (including the beautiful bride Nicole) and see how a wedding for someone of our generation is supposed to go. It was honestly a perfect ceremony/reception/party. Kudos to the wedding planner (who apparently rolled herself up in some drapes, stapled it, called it a dress and headed off to the wedding) and her assistant (same idea, but looked more like a lampshade). Though I’d been there a couple times before, with family and passed through on my way to my sister’s graduation in upstate NY, I’d never really been there as a grown up (admittedly a generous classification for me though I am large). A few impressions:
- NYC is like LA, OC and SD all folded on top of each other several times over…everything is just right on top of everything else, which makes it extremely convenient to go out…stumble out of one bar and 7-18 feet later stumble into another
- Having everything crammed together also has its drawbacks, especially given the fact that I’m as big as I am. I felt constricted a good 84% of the time I was there and rightfully so; our $225/night hotel room was only marginally bigger than my bedroom here at home and Tyler and I had to trade off sleeping on a rollaway since they only offered us one bed and neither of us felt our friendship could withstand a “‘where is your hand?’ ‘between two pillows’ ‘THOSE AREN’T PILLOWS’” moment. I was also told on several occasions “wow, you got a great deal” and “that’s a lot of space for NY”.
- I’m convinced that pedestrians and cabbies are engaged in some sort of informal Civil War which may or may not predate the Sunni-Shiite conflict. I walked out of the subway and stood there in a daze as these two groups played chicken with each other. This conflict was clearly the basis for the game Frogger.
- The pizza really is that good.
- Everyone claims LA is a dirty city, what with the smog and everything, and I’m not prone to disagree. However NYC may be a close second. I’ve never been in a city where more random shit has flown into my eye as I walked around, maybe this is why ridiculously enormous sunglasses are becoming more and more popular. It’s not fashion, it’s safety. I’m inclined to get a welder’s mask and write Gucci on it.
So yeah, the trip, though very short and fraught with copious amounts of travel, was well worth it. I really think we have to do something about these fucking airplanes and their lack of space though. I think anyone over 6′0″ should have dibs on the exit rows or “business class” or first class. On the red-eye out to NY I was lucky enough to secure an exit row and was seated next to an elderly lady who looked as if she had just left a house full of cats and couldn’t lift anything over 14 pounds. Let me get this straight, if we’ve crashed somewhere in Kansas we’re counting on fucking Betty Crocker the Cat Herder to kick the door open and throw all the children to safety. This is a sound strategy to be sure. You can’t bring more than 4 ounces of toothpaste on board for fear that you might an extremely hygienic, all-whitening bomb but if something does actually happen we’re just gonna hope than the random people who landed in this row happen to be ex-Navy SEALs and firefighters. Well wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
On the way back I didn’t get through security in time to ask the lady at the gate to give me an exit row. As a result I was stuck next to a family of four with two kids under 6 who would alternate throwing fits when the other kid had the Nintendo DS. I felt bad for the dad and told him it looked like parenthood was exhausting and he looked at me as if he were a black man and I’d just told him “Man, that racism shit looks like a pain in the ass.” Throw in the jackass in front of me reclining right into my kneecaps for 6 hours and possibly tearing all my CLs in the process and it was a long flight home.
Whilst I was there though I had a great time, and Tyler and I had the good fortune of stumbling upon Greg, the very non-heterosexual blue starred bunny:
