Friend has a Costco membership, so we jumped on the subway and went. And then schlepped our hundred and ten pounds of loot home on the subway (up and down the stairs, transfer at Atlantic). Costco here
a) is double-decker
b) has booze!
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.
As part of my poncy NewYorkification, I now get my pommade at Kiehl's, whose flagship New York store is in the East Village, and staffed by white-coated salespeople whose official title is probably "grooming scientist" and who take what they do VERY SERIOUSLY. Anyway, on my first visit to this store, my grooming scientist filled my little tote 
bag with a bunch of samples he hand selected for me even though I was only buying one overpriced pot of hair wax, and yes mom this may be because I clearly don't wear makeup or moisturize or comb my hair (once I have applied the wax).
I didn't think you were going to come through, but you did.
Yeah, um... Let's see. I will tell you what I did yesterday. I had the quintessential New York white urban middle-class 20-something couples day. I went to Best Buy in Noho so the boy could get some HD external hard drive antenna thing (whatevertf), and then we got an iced coffee and went shopping at UNIQLO (I forget how good I could look if I actually dressed properly, especially now. Taking off my old jeans and putting on the new ones, I lose 20 lbs.) and then we went and got frozen yoghurt - just to keep you up to speed on the New York frozen yoghurt scene,
Tasti d-Lite is so over, and Pink Berry is so on, what with the fresh fruit they put on your yoghurt; here is a picture - then we walked home through Soho and Tribeca and I bought pork chops and potatoes and lettuce and walnuts and blue cheese and pears and made dinner.
Yours in breathless anticipation of C's wedding on Saturday,
Marianne
Also, I now live just a few steps from Tribeca. I guess I did before, but I didn't really explore it much, because it was west of my path uptown, and whenever I did happen to stumble through it, it seemed kind of deserted. Now I've realized that it's cunningly that way - the streets are very quiet, but around every corner there is a fantastic dimly-lit bistro or wine bar or cucina with, nowadays, a spill of tables outside. No wonder the celebs hang out there.
Last night I went to one of those unassuming places and hung out with some lawyers - by coincidence the only non-grad student type I ever associate with here. Probably everybody around us was somebody, but what do I know. We drank wine and tequila until they put all the chairs up and turned the lights on and swept us out the door.
It's a factory in the neighbourhood that makes all the lox you see in the grocery stores. Acme. On Friday mornings (that seems right in the Polish neighbourhood, huh?), they sell direct off the line to walk-in customers. The woman who helped us kept generously slicing off and handing us samples with her wet, fishy rubber gloves. You actually can tell the difference between the wild and the farmed. When it came time to buy, she cut us off a half-pound sized chunk like we asked, then threw the other half in for us as well.
Look, the NYTimes made a video about the place.
Went out tonight with some friends, Lower East Side, drunk drunk drunk, etc. Friend with the drugs tells us about the trouble he almost got into in getting them. He's from out of town - living in L.A. - and so had to call an unfamiliar pager number, and knew he wasn't going to recognize the deliverer. Apparently it's not a good idea, even in broad daylight, to stand on a streetcorner in the Bronx and say "You looking for me? You looking for me?"
Tonight I gave a hobo in the ATM vestibule some change and he threw it back at me, yelling "What will this get me? Fucking candy?" So I picked it up again and went and bought myself a latté and some tomato bocconcini salad.
12:30 AM:
1 box of frozen chicken nuggets
1 package of Ichiban
1 pack of cigs
Friday the city was innundated with 6 to 8 inches of snow cone material, which cancelled all flights and made the streets a mess. I hung out with my neighbours whose spring break plans were rapidly falling apart. The next day, I went with one of them to Century 21, which is a big department store down the street that sells discount designer stuff, and as we were standing outside finishing our lattés (cuz the security guards wouldn't let us into the store with them), a giant chunk of hardened snow cone material fell off a high ledge and smashed to the ground inches from my friend's head.
The store calls itself New York's best kept secret, but the bargain hunting hordes reminded us why, as residents, not to mention as students with copious free time, we should NEVER GO SHOPPING ON A SATURDAY. Among the horde though was Patricia Field, the clothing designer behind Sex & the City. Very skinny, fire engine red hair, very wrinkly, dressed 20 years too young. My friend recognized her and told her she was a big fan. Patricia Field told her to fuck off. Well, not in so many words.
I am trying a new thing. I am going to try to post every day. This is not so much because fantastic and interesting things are happening to me all the time, and not even because I am always looking for another reason to blow off work, but because there's just something about this format that lends itself to daily upkeep. Set your homepages!!!
Today it was fuh-reezing. Like, kind of fun at first when the sun is shining and you just step outside, but after dark, with the wind blowing, it's all WHERETF IS AMSTERDAM? I HATE YOU UPPER WEST SIDE WHY AREN'T YOUR AVENUES JUST NUMBERED.
And I bought some $5 gloves on the street last week, but left them at a party the very next day. That was pair number 3, and I refuse to continue the vicious, consumeristic cycle of buying cheap gloves and leaving them places because who cares they were so cheap. Also, I am broke.
Speaking of which, today between running errands uptown (buying Katherine train tickets at Grand Central, and a Hegel reading group at Juliard), a friend and I drank champagne in the hotel bar at the Waldorf Astoria. Now Mom, before you start criticizing, you should know that
a) I had packed a lunch that day
b) I've been letting other people buy me a lot of stuff lately
c) it was actually house label sparkling wine.
Returned my videos to the only video store below Houston, apparently - took me four months to find it. It's in Battery Park City, which is a very upscale neighbourhood west of here, a world apart from the peddlers and steaming sewer grates of Fulton St. Instead, it has cute gelato places and cafés, gyms facing the waterfront, upscale Italian groceries. Go on a weekend and watch the trim, L. L. Bean-wearing yuppie 42-year-olds take their toddlers to the park. Go on a weekday and watch the Filipina nannies take them.
I then went up to 34th to Macy's, and took a picture of the Empire State Building nearby. It really is spectacular, non? Despite its fancy holiday windows, Macy's only has half a floor of toys. The rest is dedicated to women's clothing, shoes, cosmetics, etc. Twas boring, but the escalators are perfect.
1. Pay the list price for a book, and not the jacked-up local currency price which they print on a really gummy sticker and mask over the list price hmm I wonder why that is...
2. Order your groceries and have them delivered, and I don't mean using Fresh Direct or some other specialty service - you can literally call your own corner grocery store and tell them to bring you a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce what you forgot not 5 minutes ago when you were down there damnit.
3. For that matter, you can have a coffee delivered. I said "a".
4. PUMP YOUR OWN BUTTER ON YOUR POPCORN FOR FREE FROM THE MACHINE THEY HAVE RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN NEXT TO THE STRAWS AND NAPKINS
5. Buy a $20 cell phone and fill it with minutes from a different cell phone company every month.
6. Get your dog a membership at the dog gym.
7. Go to a quaint little arthouse cinema on a Tuesday afternoon and watch a truly terrible little arthouse film.
8. Go to a club that only sells "bottles" and drop a minimum of $1000.
9. Go to a restaurant that serves nothing but PB&J sandwiches ("Peanut Butter & Co.", 240 Sullivan St). Or rice pudding ("Rice to Riches", 37 Spring St). Or macaroni and cheese ("S'MAC", 345 E 12th).
10. Leave your wallet at home and just soak up the sights, smells, and sounds of this fabulous city.
That last one is bullshit. You can't move in this city without spending money.
Do you like it? It’s my first knock-off. Now when I am forced to travel in a business suit, I won’t have to carry along my green army surplus bag.
Speaking of which, I am coming to Calgary and Edmonton November 17 to 26. A good time will be had by all.
Also, I have posted a few more photos under “Where we live” if you want to check back (accessible through the September archives).
New York to Tarare, come in Tarare. Kate, what the hell has become of your blog?
Yes, it’s a scandal. I haven’t posted in ages. Most of that has to do with Mom being here, and spending a lot of time haggling for my cargo shipment, which I have finally got a hold of. Apparently it was at Laguardia all along. Hmm.
So last weekend I went to the “Bodies” exhibition at the South Street Seaport (http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/intro.html). Even more interesting than the genuine human bits was peoples’ reactions to them. Teenaged boys were fascinated by how small a two-month-old fetus is. Women crowded in silent reverence around the cross-section of the female pelvis. Kids started out wide-eyed and grossed out and ended up as bored after half an hour as they are with anything else.
Sunday the gals on our floor of the dorm all went for Dim Sum. We had invited the boys too, but they had assumed that “meet in the lobby at 9:50” meant 9:50 pm – since who in their right mind gets up before noon on a Sunday?
Mom’s visit was great – I got to eat in real restaurants and shop at Bed Bath & Beyond! (And, in a real Manhattan first, got my stuff delivered!) She may or may not be back, since she had to do the entire trip sans luggage (toiletries, change of clothes, pills) – the entire time she was here, her bag was in L.A., presumably having a GREAT time – and I think that may have soured her a bit on the experience.
I finally have a cell phone. I shopped all over town – way more providers here than up North, of course – and couldn’t seem to get around paying an enormous security deposit, seeing as I don’t have a US social security number. I eventually avoided all that by buying a phone and doing the pay-as-you-go thing, which everybody thinks is really weird, seeing as, like, I’m totally going to run out of minutes – NOBODY uses a land line anymore, that is so 90s. Sometimes, especially around quitting time, you find yourself walking through a forest of people talking loudly into the air while wandering down the avenue, each figuring out exactly where their interlocutor is, and what restaurant or watering hole they will be meeting at post-work.
I also now have all of my philosophy books – prices are pretty reasonable when you’re paying the publisher’s set price and not some exhorbitant Canadian markup. It feels good to read grown-up philosophy after a year of teaching 100-level material.
Tomorrow is the big day – the five-year anniversary of 9/11, which happened very nearby to where I now live. Bush was even rumoured to be there at noon today, so I went down to see. Besides the usual crowd of tourists/gawkers/rememberers, there was one lone protester – a guy with a huge banner, screaming about how Bush *planned* the WTC attacks. With a dozen news cameras trained on him, of course. (No sign of Bush - he was inside somewhere.)
The rest of the past week has been filled with bureaucratic misadventures, attending my first classes, visiting Brooklyn (on purpose) and Queens (not) for the first time and getting very, very drunk in the East Village once again – this time with a bunch of lawyers willing to compensate for mine and Grace’s inability to afford drinks. And the drinks – they’re a little pricey, but I tell you, you get your money’s worth. Every one is made with a very long free-pour of premium (and decidedly not watered down) spirits. I had to change my drink from gin & soda because I can’t stomach the taste of several ounces of gin with a thin slice of lime.
And on that note, I will talk to you all later.
Okay, okay – I have been very negligent with the promised New York blog, and apparently it’s highly anticipated. So here it is…
Things have been going pretty smoothly. Our place is spacious, our neighbourhood has a 24-hour grocery, Trader Joe’s has $4 pinot grigio and vinho verde, and the subway is user-friendly. Our roommates have yet to check in, which is nice, except that we could use their broom and their cutlery and whatever else they may be bringing with them that we are trying to avoid having to buy. Also, half of my stuff is being held up in the Toronto airport waiting for stand-by cargo room on a flight to Laguardia.
New Yorkers are eminently, consummately, unabashedly open and helpful. Whenever I ask someone a question on the subway or the street I always get a big, enthusiastic answer back – and of course even better when it’s in a thick Brooklyn accent. People aren’t TGIFriday’s-nice, and they aren’t Southern hospitality-nice, they’re just friendly and direct: “You want the L-train, sweetheaht. That’s ovah theah.”
Of course living in Manhattan, Grace and I have both discovered, to our horror, that we are pathetically unfashionable and frumpy, that every article of clothing we own is old and tired, that our hair is boring, and that our shoes are worn out. So we’ve both given ourselves haircuts and taken advantage of the cheap fashions. In fact, the walk from school to home is probably only about 40 minutes, but we’ve never made it in less than 2½ hours, because we are unable to walk past a single shoe or clothing store.
Despite all the walking, I’m not sure whether I’ll be losing a few pounds here, or gaining a few since Grace and I have taken to eating several Oreos before and after every meal. And yes, that includes breakfast.
There have been some truly New York moments, like hailing a cab in the rain and listening to Frank Sinatra all the way down 5th avenue, or seeing a young woman step on a giant rat and scream in City Hall park. I made the mistake of asking for 100g of black forest ham at the deli the other day. The guy looked at me like I was being a smart ass. I guess if you trade in ounces and pounds, asking for 100 of anything sounds a bit absurd.
School has yet to start, but I managed to get into the class being taught by Julia Kristeva, which will be sort of like getting to watch Freud lecture. There’s no New School university bookstore per se, but the old men selling used books on the street have multiple copies of Kierkegaard and Sartre.
I will post again soon. Do email since it’s always nice to hear what’s going on back home.
