Little New England towns

I went to a wedding this weekend, as well you know, and wore my new dress and old shoes, and made nice with the bf's family, and danced the hora (ok, just watched because I was afraid someone would point at me and say GET OUT YOU'RE NOT A JEW), and went canoeing on the Charles and got invited to the Hamptons and ate at Cracker Barrel (which is still the most American thing I have ever seen, though not in the way intended), and went to the best outlet mall ever where I bought sunglasses at Saks and a tee shirt at Barney's and later nodded seriously as the bf's grandmother's told me about the, um, holocaust and then caught the Amtrak home.

For $15 you can come too. No you can't.

I'm off to Boston on the Chinatown bus for a society wedding, so you people will have to entertain yourselves for the weekend.

Mermaid Parade

Once a year at Coney Island. I was too busy sitting on a kerb eating a soft-shell crab sandwich and garlic fries to muscle my way to a good view - you know how my version of tourism is to eat my way through something - but I did see the porn star mermaid float and the Mayor of Brooklyn float and the goth mermaids and the Uncle Sam and I won't even mention how wonderfully queer it all was. Travelling in a big group meant spending a lot of time trying to hook up with each other after someone would go to get a hot dog and go missing for an hour, until eventually Suz and I decided to hit the boardwalk and the beach. I didn't have my suit but I put my feet in the water and my feet on the sand - you know how that's 80% of the beach experience for an urbanite anyway - and some guy came by selling cheap Coronas and I basked in the company of some of the people whose invitations I had been turning down for a month in favour of moving. Then I took a sunned-out, head-lolling, open-mouthed nap home on the F train. There is a fab, fab, hot, sandy beach a subway ride away. Shit.

In a few days, I will have an entirely different life

I miss my blog too, when I don't post. It's my very own internet diary.

Thursday or Friday: Drunken end-of-semester farewells in the dorm include an impromptu turn naming as many African countries as you can in three minutes (on pen and paper, each to his own). Oddly enough, all three of us came up with 24. I thought I had 25, but I named the same country twice, once under the colonial name.

Saturday: Brunch at a South African place in Fort Greene. I read James Michener's The Covenant in grade 9 in Belgium. I finally know how to pronounce bobotie.

Sunday: The nearly yearly ritual of sorting through everything I own - that is, my life - determining what is significant, what is worth remembering, what I will look at again, what heuristic ornaments I do and do not need. Programs from the Rockettes: out. Ticket stub from the ESB: in.

Staten Island

Friend and I went to Staten Island on Saturday, since that is a borough we hadn't yet seen, and because we both appreciate the need for random adventuring, and because we heard you can get $2 beers on the (free) ferry. It was windy and cold and hilly and very suburban but scummy at the same time. We stopped locals on the street to ask them where we should go if we wanted to see or eat something, and they all said, "Back to Manhattan." Friend says that we should give Staten Island to New Jersey, in exchange for the Nets.

We did find a great thrift store - the kind with items that you will clutch as you fall to the floor, laughing so hard you're trying not to pee. For example, friend found a tie-dyed, zodiac-themed Long Beach shirt - wider than it was long - to wear to the two houseparties in Brooklyn that night.

America marches, goes home

Saturday - henceforth known as J27 - I went to Washington, D. C. and protested the war in Iraq. Four of us were supposed to go, but only two of us had the fortitude to board a Chinatown bus (only $35 return!) at 7:00 am. (As one bailer said, "I don't think the revolution is supposed to start before brunch.")

Four hours and a quick stop in Baltimore later, we were there. It was a beautiful 20 degrees, perfectly calm and sunny, wonderful compared to New York's brutalizing ice wind.

Washington truly is a city by, for, and of the bureaucrats. The subway system is so convoluted that even friend - who is from there - couldn't explain to me what ticket to buy.

We arrived at the Mall to find tens of thousands of people: union members, peaceniks, socialists, families, Dems, Jane Fonda, raging grannies, etc. The program was outrageously bad - too many Congresspeople on the campaign trail yakking about their victory back in November and claiming the moral highground and boosting proposition RH 5.3.8.3.Z.1.8b. The only speech worth listening to was by an Iraqi guy who got up there and just said, unequivocally, that the US needs to get out of Iraq, that democracy will not break out until they do, that Sunnis and Shias and Kurds have been living together for thousands of years and can mind their own affairs. You could hear crickets. Because Americans - even the ones attending "End the War Now" peace rallies - think Iraqis are better off occupied.

Now, I had already decided that my job in that crowd was to raise awareness (read: heckle), so I punctuated the stilted silences with "Believe it, people!... Yeah!... Woo!... Listen to the Iraqis!" Galvanized no one.

I also got into a fight with this guy:
ISRAEL WANTS PEACE
PALESTINIANS TEACH HATE

He made his little sign right in front of me, and I waited - I gave him the benefit of the doubt - until it was good and jiffied out before telling him I didn't think there was any place for racism at a rally like this. We went on to conversate a little, during which I informed him that yes I have been to the region, and yes I can name the two main political parties in Palestine. He explained that all he meant was that Hamas was not a reasonable negotiating partner, and that factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah would have to be resolved before the peace process could resume. Now, leaving aside the gigantic pot-calling-kettle-black-osity of that analysis, I asked him how on earth that translated to "Palestinians teach hate." In the end he admitted his sign was inappropriate, rolled it up, and promised not to display it. I'd give him a big gold star, but it was clear he was being disingenuous. Nobody changes their mind that fast; he was just shamed.

Then Jessseuuhh Jaccckk-soonnn got up to talk, and by then we were bored, so friend and I walked around to the top of the Mall, where we found the anarchists, who were just then advancing on the Capitol building. At this point, for sheer comedic value, I will defer to the AP newswire:

The rally on the National Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling and wrestling with some and setting up barricades along the front steps. Protesters chanted "[Whose Congress?] Our Congress" as police faced off against them. Their ranks grew and several dozen shouting "We want a tour" broke away and tried to get into a side door.

Lol, that's pretty close to how it went down, although we didn't so much try to rush the Capitol as we did rush the Capitol. Now, every time the crowd broke through another barrier, the cops would sort of stand back after a minute as if to say "Sure, come on in" - which sometimes is the lead-up to everyone getting corralled and arrested with those little plastic ties. Luckily, that didn't happen. But we never did get our tour.

After that we went for a really nice lunch - friend had the black bean soup and tomato panini; I had the scrambled eggs on sourdough - saw the White House, and wandered around some of the trendier areas. With an hour to kill, we capped of the day by accepting a tour of a Scientology church/manse (whatever they call them). I know, right? Let's just say those people are white, middle-class, and of reeelly average intelligence.

Vanguard out.

Gran Turisma

Tonight Grace and I went to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular Starring the Rockettes. Jealous much? We drank $8 rum and cokes with glow stir-sticks the better to let the spectacular wash over us. Santa was played by a gay Jewish man, but I don't think the under-ten set knew that. The show catered to younger kids in parts, and to the post-9/11 fundamentalist demographic in others. I shit you not - after an hour and fifteen minutes of crazy Santa shopatMacy's Rockette broughttoyoubyCocaCola action, they dimmed the lights, locked the doors, and put on a dead serious nativity pageant. They actually read the gospel - including the 14 verses about registering all the taxpayers. They named each of the Magi. And the crowd, until now completely normal, went crazazazazy with the flash photography.

But I have to tell you, those Rockettes were something else. Grace and I loved them. There were like, 400 of them in a line, doing their high kicks perfectly in synch. Actually, one of the coolest things they did involved toy soldier costumes with floor-length pants and no high kicks at all. Can't describe it, but it was robot-like, it was amazing, and it was obviously completely coked out. Just kidding! We were north of 42nd street!

Afterwards we went and ate in Times Square, because when Grace's parents were in town, they went to a taping of a really bad show that has probably already been cancelled called "Dr. Bob" or something, and watched a parade of pregnant teenagers and slutty moms and were given $50 in gift certificates to Planet Hollywood for their trouble. Doesn't buy nearly enough $9 rum and cokes, but we had a great time anyway.