Yeah, don't

Don't go for beers with your ex-roommate in the East Village, even if it is sunny out and you can sit on a patio, before going to pallots, because all you'll want to do is lay back on that mat and exhale, and not do the part where you inhale and do the hundred.

Spring break your will

The only way I can tell it is Spring Break is the fact that I haven't been on a subway in two days. I've just been doing errands in my own neighbourhood and sticking close to my laptop. I have to recover from the abject humiliation I suffered last week when I wasn't able to do my scheduled presentation in a seminar. That's right, I dropped the ball.

My friends are trying to convince me to go to Long Island tomorrow, though. The Hamptons, in fact. Hmm... Hmm... Either that, or my one remaining roommate and I can continue to duke it out in this passive aggressive rhubarb, pleased as we are that the other is still here.

Feng Shui

My daily routine for an interminably long time has been:

Wake up to roommates making oatmeal, sleep, wake up to roommates doing dishes, sleep, wake up again, drag laptop onto bed, read email and celebrity gossip, shower, scrounge for food, watch a few minutes of y&r, train it to school, drink coffee, chat with friends, cig, read philosophy (repeat), train it home, scrounge for dinner, read email, go out, get back, watch movie, sleep.

And every day a fresh layer of philosophy readings, borrowed CDs, coffee napkins, dirty laundry, and metrocards settles on my living space.

But today was different, because Katherine is coming tomorrow. I tidied and dusted and swept and bought groceries, and now it's actually really nice and homey in here. Katherine is going to *love* eating pizza pops and sleeping on my exercize mat under a pile of jackets.

OMG, I am so excited.

Last night's audition

Just as the Village and the Lower East Side lie below Midtown, a class of waifish twentysomething New York hipsters lies below the fashionable fortysomething Manhattan gentry. These hipsters go out any night of the week - but not until after midnight - get spectacularly drunk, and do freaky New York things, all in the hopes of being seen. It's just like that FLL or Tijuana spring break crap, except the kids are much paler and better dressed, and instead of screaming and lifting their tank tops for Girls Gone Wild, they stare sultrily into the camera and have a nipple slip for blogs like Last Night's Party and the Cobrasnake.

Now, you know that my underfunded friends and I usually opt for a houseparty in Brooklyn or dollar PBRs in dive bars. But believe me that is not representative of the (white, middle-class) New York scene. It is all one big society page entry waiting to happen. And last night, I found myself in the midst of it.

It was for a friend's birthday party, and it took place in a former full-service massage parlour that had been shut down, only to reopen a week later (with minimal renos) as a club. There was a DJ, there was bubble wrap, and there was supposed to be an open bar from 11:30 until midnight. I ordered a G&T, you know because I was really thirsty and wanted something refreshing, and the guy charged me. Said the open bar only applied to vodka. I snorted.

Now, this wasn't the most happening party in the city, and I did have fun with my friends, but I realized, as we drank in a white-tiled sauna and listened to recycled New Order and watched people make out and occasionally had our picture snapped unrequitedly by a blog photographer, what this scene looks like live. When I was your age we had a word for this: tryhard. Wait, maybe it was two words.

I have a new roommate, and no table manners

So Grace moved out and a new roommate moved in. She is a young, sweet-tempered woman from India. She Skypes with the family back home from 10 pm until 2 am most nights, which makes me feel like less of a skid for keeping similar hours.

Shortly after she moved in, she saw me eating heat-and-eat Indian food from Trader Joe's, so later that week she made me a real dinner. Tandoori chicken, which involves sautéed onions and peppers which she did in the convection oven of all things, since she (like the dorm authorities) didn't know about the electric frying pan, and raita and nan. Was it good. She had set plates on the table, but no cutlery or napkins, so in an effort to be helpful, I jumped up and got us some - and she graciously accepted hers. Then she proceeded to eat with her hands, using the nan, and saving the washing up for after dinner, and I tried to conversate normally while shooting sheepish glances at the idle fork taking up room on the side of her plate.

Anyway, I came home tonight after a long day, starving, and there was spinach and tofu, chickpea salad, and spicy chicken sitting on the table, which she insisted I partake of. Then we had chocolate cake and hazelnut tea, and talked about how people who simply eat to live have something profoundly psychologically wrong with them.

Houseparty in Fort Greene

Hah hah! Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls, nigga shit ya drawers
(Where we from?) Brooklyn goin out to all
(Bushwick...) You don't stop
(Fort Greene...) You won't stop, niggaz!

Bushwick I've mentioned, but last night I was in Fort Greene, which despite what Jay-Z says is actually very hipster and cute with tiny restaurants (all filled with 30-somethings wearing black sweaters), and well-kept brownstones. As with almost every apartment I've been to, there were no internal walls or rooms, so all the partying takes place around the bed/kitchen sink/small open floor area. There's no storage space either, so it makes me wonder where they put all their shit when people come over. There was a GIANT bass case in the front alcove - apparently it belongs to the bassist for the SNL house band; he lives upstairs. I brought a tiramisu cake that I had bought at Ferrara, which is a bakery in Little Italy that is supposedly world famous. Meh. Cake was not that good.

The night before, well... The most dangerous thing in New York is to go out with people who actually have money. In this case it was to "Beauty Bar", which is set up like a beauty salon but is actually a bar, see! Although you can get a manicure for $10. It includes a free drink. Anyway, someone was buying us drinks all night, and roommate and I can't believe how much we imbibed and lived to tell. Also, Grace left her wallet and cell phone there and got both back the next day. I myself have left my (pre-paid) phone in the back of a cab and got it back. Had to find the garage in Soho where the cabs get fixed, but there it was, as promised.

P.S. I have discovered another New York thing: "giving someone a ride home" means splitting a cab with them and not making them pay their fare. Hee!

You heard me

So I am a very few hours away from a big trip home (10 whole days)! Literally: it is 1 am because I stayed up all night with my roommate watching S&tC (how apropos) and drinking vinho verde and talking about this city. This city. It's unreal. To quote a fragment of a conversation about me the other night between Grace and our friend:

Grace: She's not bitter!
Friend: No, I said the city bit her.

I've travelled, you know, and it's nothing like here. Roommate and I talked about the fact that when we go home and try to tell people like this, it can only come off as outstandingly pretentious. Ah, well.

Looking forward to seeing the Calgary and Edmonton humans, of course. But I am addicted to this place and it will not be hard to return.

Because, for example, a woman can walk down the street and have a 100 decibel conversation on her cell phone saying "Let's get something straight here, this conversation is between you and me. You hear me? I don't want anybody else hearin about this. No one." And there is nothing inconsistent about it.

That, and the hobos. Best hobos here in the whole wide world.

Almost famous

Good god. I've been out of commission for a few days, since my very bad influence of a friend took me all over the East side and Brooklyn, in a drunken haze of meeting up and parting with various people, from bar to rooftop to bar, getting home finally at 4:30 am courtesy a cab driver who inexplicably turned off the meter and only charged me $10 for what should have been a $20 cab ride. Yesterday was spent in pennance, curled up in the 18 square feet of personal space that is my twin bed, watching true crime all day (I love you Court TV), and wishing that the roommates didn't have to file past my wretched self every time they needed the kitchen or bathroom.

Today I'm all business. Okay, so I took myself out for breakfast at this little diner around the corner - called "Andrews" [sic] - and had a remote date with my own Andrew, which involves doing the same thing simultaneously in our respective cities, and conversing about it via cell phone text messages. He had sausage and eggs; I had the ham and cheese omelette.

But since then I've been reading and cleaning the house, all the while squealing with excitement because I just received word that my first publication - a book review - is officially slated for next month's issue of the journal in question.