October 31, 2010

Australia Trip, Day 5: Find Your Own Chair to Sit In

Posted by mayiwrite under food, nostalgia, observations, photo, travel | Tags: , , , , |
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It’s August 16, 2010. It doesn’t feel like a Monday, probably because it still feels like a Sunday night to me where I’m from, the rightside-up part of the world.

We’re going to the City today. Wee!

It’s a gorgeous day. We eat lots of good food. We walk around the city in a leisurely, touristy way. We pass through the Botanic Gardens and along the Harbour. The Opera House is incredible, and a school group is sitting on the steps. I sit with the kiddies while Becky takes a picture.

The water is such a magnificent blue.

Becky and I meet Karl and Analiese at a Lindt café for lunch, and it’s lovely.

Becky and I wander through some fun shops and mosey on over to the ANZAC Memorial where we encounter Utahns. I want to scatter them, this flock of Utahns, and I want to yell at them to get out of my vacation. Not appropriate for honoring war servicemen. I hold back, and the Utahns eventually go away. No harm done, just a little surprising for me is all.

We end the walking tour sitting on the lawn in front of a cathedral with symmetrical spires and buttresses and roseate stained glass. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I’m using it anyway. We talk about serious things. I cry a little while Becky listens. It’s like old times.

When we get back to the apartment, we head out to pick up dinner from a nonfancy (the best kind, if you ask me) fish and chips place. I get to hold the bundle of butcher paper, our tasty swaddle. Becky teaches me to poke a hole in the package so the steam doesn’t make the chips soggy. That’s a great trick.

Click on the picture of the fish and chips to see the flickr set from today.

 

September 25, 2009

People Who Need People, and An Economy That Needs People

Posted by mayiwrite under my life, new york city, nostalgia | Tags: , , , |
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What I’ll miss: Talking to strangers
Subways, sidewalks, elevators. Elevators are probably my favorite. I like to see what choice people make when I try talking to them in a confined space and we have a moment or so to ourselves: Talk back, or not. Most of the time they talk back and it’s fun and people smile, except for the one time this happened:

Two friends and I, then a woman and her friend with her dog, and two guys were on the elevator to the ground floor. The woman and her friend with her dog got off somewhere between the 15th and 5th floors. The dog looked to be something of a Bichon Frise – white and fluffy. When the elevator door closed, one of the guys said to his friend, “My mom has a dog exactly like that. Except it’s fat. And it’s a pug.” His statement took me all the way back to high school, and how my friends and I would glower at the people who said something was exactly like  something else and then describe it to be drastically different. It happened all the time. So when the guy described his mom’s dog, and I couldn’t help but burst out, “That’s not even the same breed!” And then I laughed. And the guys got quiet; it seemed they didn’t understand what I thought was so funny. And then the elevator doors opened like floodgates, and awkwardness flowed out like runoff from a heavy, summer rain. Oh well.

There was also that one time when I asked about birthday cake a guy was holding and it was actually a piece of his brother’s wedding cake and then I asked if he was next. Then he said probably never and never looked happier to be getting out of an elevator. That was awesome.

What I won’t miss: Tourists
I suppose we’re all tourists sometimes, and I’m happy giving them directions, but people: our sidewalks are our throughways. Go with the flow of traffic, or realize you’re in my way and let me pass, and maybe stop with the fanny packs. Thanks.

 

June 4, 2009

Seems Much Longer than 71 Seconds

Posted by mayiwrite under friends, links, my life, new york city, weekend | Tags: , , , , |
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So I have this friend. She’s kind of a new friend; I’ve only known her about a month. Her name is Deena. She’s one of Becky’s roommates. She’s managed to find a nice little niche in our ever so exclusive clique. She couldn’t bribe us to join, so she convinced us she could be a backup dancer for Mechanical VIOLET. Anyway, Friday night we’re all hanging out at Becky’s and Becky had to work late, remotely from home with her Blackberry, holstered to the back of her jeans, but in order to keep from falling asleep in front of the television we decided to go for a short stroll around Herald Square. My former neighborhood. With my former neighbors, the tourists. I love the thrill, the freedom of doing silly things in public, and it doesn’t lose its magic in a place where it’s accepted as perfectly normal. But we might have gone a smidge too far when we decided to talk to some pedicab drivers, who then decided they wanted our phone numbers. I mean, they already knew our names because we told them, and they already copped feels on our calves. You know, to make sure we were in good enough shape to drive a pedicab. Because that’s always been a career option for me. So, we pretty much had no choice but to come back (escape) to Becky’s apartment and have one of the best dance parties I’ve ever attended. And Deena pretty much sealed her position as our backup dancer.

Deena tells the story much better. 

Also, be very impressed with Becky’s photo editing skills.

Don’t forget to watch the video. But I’m also giving you the choice to forget watching it.

 

July 2, 2008

An Interesting Distraction

Posted by mayiwrite under miscellany, new york city, single life | Tags: , , , |
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Yesterday while I was at Starbucks, a girl sat next to me. We sat at one of the perimeter bars along a window. She pulled out one of those NYC tourist guides. I didn’t think too much of it, because anybody could buy those and not be a tourist. A few minutes later a friend of hers sat next to her. They talked in a foreign language, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to try recognizing what they spoke. They chatted quietly, minding their own business, clearly stopping in a chain coffee shop for a pick-me-up. Then, out of the blue a few seats down from me, a guy’s voice asked, “Would you ladies like some wine?” I automatically assumed he’s not talking to me, gripped my pen extra-tightly and concentrated enough to levitate my journal from the counter if I wanted to. (I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself.)

The girls looked at each other, like, wha? and asked, “You have wine?” Then the guy sneakily reached into his bag and partly pulled out a bottle. Then he held up his cup. This man was pretty far gone. He was young. Red hair, baseball cap. Fiddling around on his iBook.

Then, all of a sudden, he got loud. He must have detected a foreign accent. ”IT DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE WINE, DOES IT? ALL IT NEEDS IS FOOD COLORING. YEAH, THAT’S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT FRANCE, I CAN KEEP AN OPEN CONTAINER AND NOT GET IN TROUBLE. I DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BEING ARRESTED.”

The girls nodded. The guy asked, “WHERE ARE YOU FROM?”

The girls said, “Switzerland.”

“SO YOU SPEAK FRENCH?”

“No.”

“YOU DON’T SPEAK FRENCH? WHAT ABOUT ROMANE?“

“No.”

“WHAT LANGUAGE DO YOU SPEAK?”

“German.”

“YOU DON’T SPEAK ROMANE? [Aren't you SO impressed I even know about Romane?] DON’T YOU KNOW FRENCH?”

“We took it in school, so we know a little.”

“SO YOU DON’T SPEAK FRENCH. HOW ABOUT ROMANE?”

“Just German.” They started toward the door. They had tickets for some show out and ready. They were ready to go, like 3 minutes ago, before Mr. Look-at-Me-Pretending-Not-to-Drink-Wine-and-Hit-on-Foreign-Women started chatting those girls up at a volume where everyone in the Starbucks felt included. I felt for them.

“ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS LIVES IN SWITZERLAND. OH, HEY, HEY. YOU LADIES TAKE CARE. HAVE A FUN TIME IN AMERICA.”

They left. He withdrew back into his iBook, like some bipolar gigolo turtle.

Then I took a few notes in my journal. Then I transcribed them here.

 

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