No matter if you do not live in New York or if you did or if you are living there now, there is this excitement that runs through your body when you first see that historic skyline.
I love New York.
I hate New York traffic.
New York was not made for the automobile driver. Sort of a blessing and a curse since it forces people to utilize other means of transportation and it’s sky doesn’t look like barf like the L.A. skyline does but if you are a driver in New York…watch out.
Anyway, first things first, I have to go utilize the water closet…so of course we went to my favorite place in the whole wide world…the starbucks I used to work at.
Kay and I went inside….this is NOT the same starbucks I used to work in. The furniture was all different, the walls were a different color (a color I really didn’t like) and all the workers were people I DID not know. woah….where did everyone go??
Then I saw her. In her jean jacket and her blonde hair…it had to be her. I go up to her.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?”
“Yes, it is about 3:30 p.m.”
then she turns around then she turns back
“Sharon?!”
“LAUREN!”
Lauren is a nyc starbucks homegirl (homie? I’m not sure if I’m utilizing the phrase correctly)…but she is a good one and obviously she was real excited to see me.
She takes Kay and me on a tour and told me of her exciting (yes, lauren, EXCITING) yet dramatic love life. The best thing about her is she tells me all this stuff about her women and such as if I never left.
I love Lauren.
She took us to where my asian (heh heh heh) sister Ellie was working at. Apparently she left our starbucks home and made a new one on a frenchy (?) quaint coffee shop on Bleecker Street. I go in and lo and behold..there she is.
We go out on her break and have a little reunion and talk and talk and talk. And the best things about my new york friends is they treat me as if I never left. I just love that feeling. The feeling that you are still the same fantastic person and they can’t wait to tell you how their life is going and assuming that I know who is who and so on and so forth. They should have that feeling in drug form. Yum. I’d probably be an addict.
So I’m talking to Ellie and Lauren and Kay is just enjoying the conversation. Along comes Timothy and Sarah down the street. Sarah is still her kooky self and Timothy has grown a lot of hair. On his head. Tee hee. Timothy is one of the funniest people i have ever known or as Kay describes it “He only says something that is meant to be said and it is the funniest thing to say” It takes someone of a brilliant intelligence to say that.
Lauren has to go and meet Becky but gives me her number and we decide to see if I can make plans later that night but first I must see my buddy in crime. My confidant. Michael Scott.
Michael Scott is somebody I would see about 40 hours of the week. A little back story. We both worked nights at starbucks. It was usually me, him, and some other guy (usually chucky, dee, or Danny) but i needed extra money so he got me a job at a literary agency. So I would see mr scott at both jobs monday through friday. Mr. Scott would treat me like on of the guys (i was always the only girl at the “guys night out” outings) but yet still make me feel like the smartest and sexiest girl in a starbucks apron. tee hee. (whilst being able to show his undying love to his woman gretchen) but every girl needs a platonic friend who can make them still feel sexy and smart. I’m so glad to have him a part of my life.
I go to the literary agency and ask for mike. Mike is not one to be easily excited so when he saw me he was like “oh, hi sharon” as if I was still living there and going to work. I was like, okay, be a little more excited but I knew deep down he was happy to see me. It was just an understanding I had. We went outside to smoke our cigarettes (which is now 7 dollars a pack in NYC. Yup. 7 a pack) so they were liberally sharing them which was nice and I walked with a book called “The Ultimate Sex Diet” …it’s an interesting one. Mike says I should stop by starbucks to see teh boys (meaning him and chucky) and I say ok.
so we go to Gray’s Papayas (the best hot dogs EVER!) and I can’t help but reminisce of all my memories in new york. Poor Kay. I was like “This is where I fell. This is where I used the bathroom. This is where I made out with a guy. This is where I bought some toilet paper…etc..etc” But it was just so exciting to show a part of my life to one of my san diego best friends and sort of relive my memories. You can describe and describe things, places, and people to your friends but it’s not as effective as showing them the actual shite.
Anyway, we buy hotdogs, some hats, and for my first time, roasted cashews (they ARE the bomb), and I go see Ground Zero for the first time since the whole 9/11 thing.
I am really not going to go into it and such but I still can not handle the fact that something of this magnitude happened. I suppose the best thing I can say is that it was a wake up call of what I really wanted, what I stood for, what I am going to stand for later in life and what is actually going on outside the microcosm of the U.S. I’m trying to avoid saying anything political or whatever because I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is going on within myself and outside and how I am a part of this whole mess….does that make sense? But I will just say the whole experience of seeing the whole thing was surreal. Kay was crying her eyes out but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cry for reasons still unknown to me. I wonder if it would have been different if I was not living in new york at the time.
Anyway, after that, we went to see one of my bestest girlfriends on this side of the country, Angela Ortiz. Angela has this biting sense of humor and attitude that I absolutely adore. She is opinionated, angry, and sassy (sassy?). Whatever, she is almost everything I want to be. I say almost because i used to live with her and I’m not sure if I would want her wake up regime (hahahaha. I kid angela) Anyway, she is a hostess at the American restaurant at the tip of manhattan and she hooked us up with some food. Woah. She got me SHRIMP. and these were like expensive shrimp. Angela was the person we are staying with for the night.
We hang out with her for a couple of hours and then I go back to starbucks. And lo and behold, there he is. The first person to ever corrupt me. Chucky. and as he was making his drinks and as I approached him as much as he “tried” to hide it, I knew he was happy to see me. It makes me happy to see I still have some sort of effect on that bastard.
So we hang out with mike and charles (as kay would put it, Charles is “dark dude. He is majorly dark”) Charles, I think, would be the antithesis of me. Completely and utterly opposite except for our love of getting physical of sorts. I think that was the attraction for both of us but I think that could only last so long.
Anyway, it was like old times. We smoke out in the basement and talk about stuff and more stuff. And all the while, Kay is meeting the guy I have always talked about in the year of 2000. It’s weird when you finally meet somebody people had made reference to.
Then we had to haul ass over to my old apartment. My old apartment is completely transformed and for some reason, I don’t mind it because it doesn’t feel like somebody is living in my room. The way I have it in my mind is the way I will remember my brooklyn days.
Well, we haul major ass and move a LOT more stuff than I anticipated. So much stuff we fill up the trunk and the backseat and we have to move our chairs in an upright position (like in an airplane) and we don’t mind but man, was I sweating. And thus, I close the chapter of living at 128 Meserole. I am moving on.
We go back to Angela’s apartment and lo and behold, Kevin and Becky have tracked me down and want to have beers. Ooh those two lovely people. I will talk about our night in the next entry…to be continued….
Minimal Effort 