Tuesday + Thursday = Winning

This seems to be the case a lot of the times in New York City--going out on a weeknight is better than going out on Friday or Saturday. Some possible reasons--more interesting things going on, less B&Ters infesting the bars, or the fact that you know you have to get up in the morning so you better make this night worth it. Whatever the case this particular week proved this theory correct. Both my Tuesday and Thursday night were pretty interesting.
Tuesday: The Tribeca Film Fest. It is held annually in New York and is similar to Sundance. New independent movies are shown in venues across Tribeca and JM had scored some extra tickets through her work. She had invited me and a few other friends, including Flower, who I hadn't seen much of since NYE. We were all meeting at Macau Trading Co, an Asian/Portuguese fusion restaurant, for dinner and drinks before the showing. Of course JM and I made friends with the bartender, who gave us a free shot of aged rum in our way out. Not too shabby. We all walked over to the theatre and stood in line. Apparently two older women did not get how a line worked and kept trying to move in front of us. Now I am not a real stickler about many things, but I am with lines. You get there, you wait your turn, it's very simple. So needless to say these biddies were pissing me off and every time they tried to make a move for it I would block their way, ensuring that they were never able to get in front of us.
We finally made it to the entrance, walked down the red carpert (no celebs present, not as fancy as it sounds) and took our seats in the theatre. None of us really knew anything about the movie we were going to see, except that it was a documentary about a famous rock star who had killed himself on stage. See trailer here. Needless to say, we were expecting a bit of a downer. We were wrong. SPOILER ALERT--I'm giving the ending away. The story was absolutely amazing. An American singer named Rodriguez who never made it big here, but became extremely famous in South Africa, but never knew it, due to the political conditions there at the time and corrupt record companies. In South Africa they thought that he had killed himself on stage. The truth was, he had retired from music and worked as a laborer in Detroit for years. No one in South Africa knew this until some journalists there uncovered the truth. They contacted him and brought him to South Africa, where he and his three daughters were treated like royalty. He performed a few sold out concerts and the South Africans basically flipped their shit. It was awesome to watch and by the end we were all enthralled. And it got even better. After the screening there was a q&a with the director, who actually brought the real Rodriguez onstage to perform. We were all close to tears at that point--we started out not even knowing who this guy was, and by the end we were like the South African fans. We exited the theatre afterwards starstruck, and even though I didn't get home until 1am on a weeknight, it was totally worth it.
Thursday: I was very wary about going out this night, since I had already had a late night a couple nights earlier. But it was Russian Rocher's Polish friend's bday and she had specifically invited me at Russian Rocher's bday a few weeks prior. She was doing a booze cruise, which did not start until 10pm. I was not happy about this, but after much prodding from Russian Rocher and Yahtzee, who was interested in the friend, I decided that I would go, but would not partake in the open bar. Surprisingly, I actually stuck to this decision and still had a good time. Russian Rocher, Yahtzee, Deux and Khia were part of the cast of characters. The boat was a bit tacky, and had a buffet with some gross, steaming hot dogs. But it also had a dance floor and an open section on top, where you could get a decent view of the landmark buildings and bridges. And lucky for me, the Polish friend had invited some dudes she had met the night before, one of which was very attractive. We ended up talking for most of the night, while Khia and Deux danced around like idiots. He seemed pretty cool, though a bit narcissistic. Not surprising, considering his good looks. He was apparently a musician with no other job. I smelled a trust fund (turns out, I was right...more info to come). We took pictures of us in the sailor hat I had brought for the nautical occasion. I could see Deux eyeing me from the dancefloor and when the guy left for the bathroom, Deux took the opportunity to saunter up to me and ask where "Mr Skinny Jeans" was. I couldn't believe the nerve, considering almost every time I had seen him since our unfortunate date, he had been with some girl. I waved him away just in time for the guy's return. We talked more and at the end of the night exchanged numbers and made tentative plans to hang out that weekend.
I shared a cab with some of the crew, including Deux, who was extremely wasted, while everyone had managed to remain relatively sober. Khia warned him that he couldn't go home and break shit and he promised that he wouldn't "break any....drugs", among other fairly incoherent statements.We all laughed at him and I hopped out at the subway to go back to the Shwick. When I rolled in, once again after 1am, I was pleased to have a text from the hot guy. Being exhausted at work the next day was totally worth it.

'Ound Town

Another weekend in NYC and I had things all planned out. That's the thing about New York though--things rarely go to plan. I was not too excited for Friday night, as Jersey was expecting me to meet his little sister who would be in town. Why the hell this was taking place I was not sure. We had only been seeing each other for a few weeks and I wasn't even really sure if he was for me. But I liked being driven around in his Range Rover and going out to dinner so I reluctantly agreed. I was running very late, as I trucked from the Shwick into Hell's Kitchen because I had changed my outfit about 18 times before finally deciding. I was basically running through Times Square to get there, since the train I was on had stopped. It was humid, I was in platforms and I was hot as shit, so I took my jacket off. While waiting on a corner to cross the street, a large group of very ghetto gentlemen began to cat call me. I stood nervously, ignoring them, but their calls increased in strength and number. When I heard "I'm going to fuck the shit out of you", I decided enough was enough and booked it across the street, almost being hit by a car. I showed up to meet them pissed off, sweaty and a half hour late. A really good first impression.
Not like it mattered, since the sister was 19 and pretty caught up in all the partying she was going to be doing that night. She was nice enough but had brought up a huge bag of coke with her from GW (how appropriate). I don't have a sister, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't allow that behavior. After dinner she headed out for her big night and I reluctantly dragged Jersey to Meatpacking, to meet Russian Rocher. Turns out she was at Revel, the bar where JM and I had met the old dudes. (See Oh, Dating). Jersey stood around sulking, while I chatted with Russian Rocher, who wasn't feeling that well. Mid-convo, she stopped and shakily said she needed to go to the bathroom. She disappeared and when she returned decided she had food poisoning. I knew that was the end of our night and our plans tomorrow to do a Bushwick Day so we put her in a cab and then headed back to Hell's Kitchen.
The next day seemed to be promising. The weather was nice and GF was down to day drink, to make up for my broken plans with Russian Rocher. I called up Prom and JM and figured we could have a Poundtown reunion. JM was in Long Island for the day but said she would meet us later so I headed to Tribeca to meet up with Prom. Our plan was to sit out on Stone Street in the sun. Except when we arrived the sun had disappeared and was replaced with a brisk wind. We tried to sit anyway but eventually had to head inside of Beckett's, Prom's home away from home. GF finally met us and we sat around, listening to Prom and his boss who had shown up, recount their night before at a Puerto Rican wedding and then eventually a strip club in the Bronx ("biggest asses I've ever seen"--direct quote). Eventually growing bored, we decided we should change up the neighborhood. We took the train up to the West Village and headed to one of GF's fav spots, a lesbian bar called the Cubby Hole. The three of us knew full well we stood out. Prom surveyed and his dead-on observation: "Well, I can tell you what their isn't a shortage of in this establishment--comfortable footwear". Boom. We took some shots and I perched on a barstool, where eventually a girl decided to share it with me. The three of us were cranky that our fourth wasn't present so we sent JM the following sweet text: "Team Poundtown is reunited except now we are Team Oundtown. You are the P because you are a PUSSY for not being here. Love, Us.".
At this point it was still very early in the night and since we had feasted on bar food at Beckett's none of us wanted to go to dinner. We stayed at the Cubby Hole for as long as we could stand it until Prom eventually decided to break off from us as well. There was a UFC fight he wanted to watch Uptown and since GF and I were not interested we walked over to our old stand-by, Employees Only. Even though it was only around 9:30, there was a line and the bouncer informed us there was a "bit of a wait". We cursed our luck and were debating where else to go when two people walked out and the bouncer pointed to the two of us to go in, before everyone waiting in line. A gift from the heavens! We stood around and drank for awhile but we weren't having as much fun as we had that one time. We debated what we should do with the rest of our night, and since we had had a few drinks and were feeling ambitious decided we may as well try Le Baron. This was a bad idea from the getgo. We had been wanting to go for awhile, but it has one of the toughest door policies (aka a "no people" policy) in New York, complete with a bouncer who sometimes wears a bunny suit. Russian Rocher had recently gone, but her visit was mid-week through a work function. GF and I were heading there at 11pm on a Saturday night. And as soon as we exited the cab, in the desolate part of Nolita where the unmarked club was located, it began to pour. We only had one umbrella so we squeezed under it and showed up looking like soaked rats. No one was in line, since it was far too early for anyone to be there, and quite frankly if you have to wait in line at this place, you aren';t getting in anyway. The bouncer (sans bunny costume) took one look at us and shook his head--"guys I wouldn't even waste your time". We already knew this, but the fact that it was now pouring out just added to the humiliation. We scuttled down the sidewalk towards another club we knew of in the vicinity and since we were both completely soaked at this point, we were treated similarly by this bouncer. We needed to escape this nightmare immediately but trying to find a cab in New York when it's raining is like trying to find a seat on a Greyhound bus to Atlantic City--they are all taken. We were forced to the 25 plus blocks back to GF's apartment in the Lower East Side. We were soaked yet both trying to squeeze under my tiny umbrella, and shouting obscenities about the bouncers, which I will not repeat. It was pathetic. We made it back to GF's by 11:30, with no desire at all to go out anywhere else. I passed out on his couch and was forced to repeat the scenario again in the morning--the trains were all effed up so I walked 20 blocks in the rain to another line. And with that, I will erase that night from my memory.

The Shwick!

You've probably heard me refer to it many times throughout the 9 months that I lived there-the Shwick. Short for Bushwick, the not so nice neighborhood where I lived in Brooklyn. It could be described as "gentrifying" or "up and coming" but I feel a more accurate description is "shithole". It was filled with dilapidated warehouses, hipsters and poor Latino families. The L train wasn't running literally 9 weekends while I lived there, which made escaping very difficult. I would have to walk 15 minutes through a neighborhood where I  felt like I had entered a third world country to get to the nearest subway, which didn't run after 11PM. My last month living there a girl was raped at the station.
Now why the f did I choose to live there you may ask. Good question. To escape my last roommate situation in Astoria, which had quickly soured. See The Roomie. This whole disaster hadn't left me with a lot of time to find a new place, and I needed something cheap, since I was only working part-time at my museum. This didn't leave me with many options and the place I found was definitely the best of the bunch. See The Apartment Hunt. Looking back, it did definitely work out for the best--my roommate and I got along well and she was also unemployed so there was no pressure as to why I was only working a couple days a week. I also got to hang out with the adorable Baby Kitty:

                                                                                     Like a bawce

Though there were some mornings when I did want to kill her--she would throw bitchfits outside my door with her nonstop meowing. Then when I finally let her in she would tap me in the face with her paw until I opened my eyes. But other than that I am going to miss that little fatty. I was probably already grumpy in the mornings for another reason. I had failed to look out of the window when I saw the apartment for the first time. So it was an unpleasant surprise when I discovered right below my window was the trash area. And since those who resided in my neighborhood did not work, the things that were being thrown away at all hours of the day and night were bottles. And every morning our super, who may or may not have been legally retarded, emptied the trash, while screaming into his cell phone in Spanish. For the rest of my days I will now have a complex surrounding the sound of clanking bottles. Add rapid-fire Spanish to the mix and you may as well forget it.
One of the culprits of these empty bottles were a group of dudes who would once a week have a party on my building's stoop with their pit bull. The one that lived there was always very polite to me, but get him riled up on Coqui and add in a few of his boys, and it was a whole different situation. There were quite a few weekends when I would leave my building, dressed to go out for the night, and would be greeted by "Yo Snowflake!" and "Come drink with us beautiful!". No thanks.
Then there were our neighbors across the hall. We could never quite figure out the situation there but I think we've gathered that it used to be a couple who lived there who used to get in epic screaming matches. We had the police come to our door a couple of times asking if we had heard anything suspicious and one time we even had a couple of attorneys show up asking if we could tell them anything. Who knows what happened there because not long after a new rotation of rowdy residents moved in. They were a few trashy, disgusting women, with a toddler. They were rude as shit and always left their garbage in the hall. And apparently one of them was a heroin addict--one night my roommate and I took turns watching through our peephole as the paramedics took her out on a stretcher and into an ambulance, yelling something about opiates the whole way. Claaaaassy.
But the worst of the worst was the bedbug incident. See The 48 Hours from Hell. A month after all this we had to go through the whole thing again (minus the laundry) because the exterminator company failed to tell us that they needed to spray twice. Once again, we cleared everything out of our rooms, put all our clothes in plastic bags and almost gave Baby Kitty a heart attack.
Now it wasn't all bad in this "up and coming" neighborhood. The rent was cheap. There was a delicious taco stand a couple blocks away, as well as a 24 hour organic grocery store, with delish breakfast sandwiches. The subway stop was a 30 second walk away (when it was running) and I had a laundromat on the same block. There was even a good restaurant (Northeast Kingdom) and bar (Pearl's) close by. The downside to all of these things is that they were jam-packed with hipsters. And not your typical skinny jean and Chuck Taylor wearing ones. This was a whole different level. Ponchos, huge beards, Lisa Frank backpacks, bouffant hairstyles and  ripped tights were just some of the accessories I would see, and that was just on my short walk to the subway. The L train offered further fashion-watching, none of which was trendy or flattering. Though I'm sure it exists somewhere, I have never seen an area with such outrageous hipsters. And I wouldn't have minded--I respect the arts and challenging the status quo. But their bad attitudes! Right up there with JAPy girls if you ask me. Wherever I went, I was stared down and made to feel like I didn't belong. And I'm not even that preppy. Perhaps I just oozed not wanting to be there and they could tell. Maybe they are still socially awkward from high school. Or maybe they were just rude. I think I had a hipster hold open a door for me twice, I never had one try and talk to me, and once when I stepped onto the L train with roughly 145 pounds of groceries in my arms, not one of them offered me their seat.
I gave both hipsters and Brooklyn a chance, but I was more than ready to leave. From now on I will act like a true Manhattanite and venture back only when I want to get wasted in Williamsburg and entertain myself with some good people-watching.

The Apartment Hunt....Once Again

Except unlike last time I wouldn't be trucking all over questionable neighborhoods in search of a temporary sublet. I finally had a real person job and I was not staying a minute longer in the Shwick. I had found a roommate in my coworker's friend moving up from Atlanta and since GF was a real estate broker he was going to find us a place. And the place we were looking—Manhattan. I was tired of spending my life on the subway and it taking forever to get anywhere. I hadn't moved to New York to live in a shitty neighborhood in Brooklyn and even though I still couldn't really afford it, I was willing to make sacrifices. Our price range was just on the cusp of being able to live anywhere decent in this magical borough besides Spanish Harlem, which quite frankly was not going to be happening. So I knew the places we would be looking would be far from luxurious and had prepared myself for some real dumps. Good thing I had because the first couple we saw certainly were. I arrived to meet GF and the new roommate on St. Marks and was extremely pleased with the location since Criff Dog/PDT were directly across the street. We walked up a tiny, dark stairwell and arrived at the “apartment”. The living area/kitchen were so small that the loveseat barely fit in it. The bedroom door had shutters that some people put on closets. And how appropriate, as that was about the size of them. New Roommate and I peered in to one halfheartedly, where one of the guys' girlfriends lay sleeping in the twin bed wedged into the room. “Good Morning” I whispered before we realized that there was nothing else to see besides the airplane bathroom. We saw ourselves out without commenting.

GF led us to the next place, which was a few streets over. This was an open house and there were already people in line. After a few minutes the realtor walked up and I chuckled to myself since he looked like a complete douche. And we all looked at each other in horror when he opened his mouth and had the worst lisp I have ever heard-- “You guyth are here for the open houthe?”. We thertainly are.

The group of us were led inside the “apartment” and could all barely fit in at once. The place was a bit bigger than the last one but the girls that lived there must have been raised in a barnyard since there was shit everywhere and they clearly hadn't cleaned in months. The “apartment” may have been doable if it weren't for the patio off the back of apartment. It was shared—meaning it was a shared party space since it was littered with beer bottles. It was off one of the bedroom windows and I knew immediately that we could not live there because I would definitely murder a drunk NYU student one night.

We were all feeling a little dejected after those two holes but luckily the third was a pleasant surprise. It was in Alphabet City and the building had some cool architectural details, like a gargoyle out front and marble stairs. One of the guys who lived in the apartment led us up. He was hot as shit and had an adorable mini-greyhound so I already liked the place. Confirmed once we walked in—exposed brick walls and actual normal sized bedrooms at opposite ends of the apartment from each other. Plenty of windows, tall ceilings and all in walking distance from plenty of bars. We were sold. As soon as we left we made arrangements to try and get the application in but figured we should at least go look at the next two places we had scheduled in the Lower East Side. The next was in a great area but on a busy street and was a 6^th floor walk-up. The apartment was just as nice as the one we wanted but it was also way more expensive so we ruled it out. The next one was absolutely laughable and looked like it was probably a crack den not too long ago.

With that settled we headed up to GF's office to fill out the application and some other paperwork. On the way there I had a sneaking suspicion that I may see Mason, since he worked with GF and I knew he went in on the weekends. Aaaand I was correct—GF turned to give me a horrified look as soon as he walked through the door and saw him at his desk. I silently thanked God that I had sent that email and walked over to say hello. He gave me a hug and we talked awkwardly for a few minutes. With that over with, I went to fill out some paperwork for my big girl apartment, then went and had celebratory bloody marys with my new roommate in Murray Hill, where we witnessed a bar fight.

I decided since I was going to be making the big move into Manhattan, I might as well try and go out in Williamsburg as much as I could, so that night I had a birthday party scheduled for one of Polish Princess's friends at a new bar there. This plan was quickly revised after the night. The bar was in a ghetto ass part of Williamsburg off the JZ train (they don't call it that for nothing) with no other bars around. The party was filled with hipsters with a bad attitude (generally goes without saying) and since PP and her crew are so tight I felt a bit awkward. Or maybe it was because after the past couple weekends, I had decided to cut back on my drinking. Either way I didn't stay too long and was happy that I was going to be putting Brooklyn behind me.

The next day I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to take on my day. It's amazing what not being hungover will do for you. I got ready and headed back into the city, to take care of some more paperwork for the new apartment. It was a nice day so I decided that this was going to be my first bare legs day of the year, despite how pale they were. I really went for and wore one of my shortest skirts. Bad move. The men of New York must have had a long winter. I could feel myself being leered at and I was hollered at more than a few times. And never by decent looking people but but by bodega staff, sanitation workers, and questionably homeless people. I felt like I was revealing too much in an Arab country and was a bit scared for my well-being.

I made a pitstop on the way to GF's office and met Yahtzee for lunch. After wandering all over the East Village, we finally settled on Criff Dog. I did not mind one bit as I was pleased to have a male escort. I then headed up to Grand Central to sign the paperwork. After enduring the always-crowded 4,5,6 where I had a guy's dick literally pressed against my butt I emerged from the subway pretty pissed off. Luckily GF was down to grab a drank after the signing so we headed to a nearby patio bar, which was for some reason, almost completely empty, besides a group of old people eating dinner. I had plans with High School for the evening, whom I hadn't seen in forever. He met us there and we all chatted before GF departed and the two of us headed back down to the East Village. Our plan was to go to the Ninth Ward but the patio was all filled, as was every other one in the entire neighborhood. We wandered all over (my second time that day) until we finally ended up at a German beer garden a few blocks from my new apartment. There was no space outside so we decided we had to settle for inside at the bar. A few steins later and I was chatting with the German bartender. He refilled our steins and we stayed much later than we should have, chatting and cracking up about who knows what. He had still never mentioned his girlfriend to me, who I knew existed. He even received a text from her while we were looking at something on his phone which he immediately ignored. I say nothing, he says nothing and nothing ever happens with us, which is just the way I like it. After I took the L back to the Shwick and was pleased that it was one of my last weekends having to do so.