Post 4: A very good night

Very good night last night. Went to a talk in the philosophy department which they followed up with wine and pizza – those giant, floppy slices of pizza that are stereotypically New York. (The trick to eating them is folding them in half.) Then went uptown to Murray Hill/Grammercy to meet the lovely Karen near her hotel, and drank margaritas at a place called Dos Caminos. Real, limey margaritas like you get in Mexico. The best part of that place though was the guacamole truck. There is a guy whose job it is to wheel a tea trolley around with ripe, fatty avocados, fresh tomato, cilantro, garlic, etc., and make guacamole for you to your liking. We devoured two bowls and what must have been 6 avocados, because let’s face it, no indulgence – not cake, not wine, not chocolate – is better than avocado.

Then we went crosstown a little to a rooftop party at someone’s walkup (see how I can just drop those New York words right in there?), where there was all manner of substance abuse and fun and frivolity with the other philosophers. Actually, we have been socializing a little, but this party really congealed the scene quite a bit, which was good. There had to have been 80 bedroom windows in the immediate vicinity and I don’t know how or why the neighbours let us get away with that crap: a raucous chorus of “Happy Birthday” for a guy who, upon closer inspection of his driver’s license, was born in March. Accidentally smashed glasses. A naked guy. We split a cab home with that guy, since he lives in our building. As we were walking towards where we hailed the cab, we chided him to get naked again, and before we could even turn around he had done it. And then did a naked backflip. And the guy nearby loading baked goods into his street vendor stall at 3 am was so delighted with our antics that he gave us doughnuts and pound cake.