July 24, 2007
I'm trying to remember the things I told myself to remember. On my walk this morning before most of the world woke up, I finally felt free--free to be not a tourist but a simple observer, if there is such a thing. I don't know. I was lamenting in my head that I felt like a tourist all the time, even in my "regular" life. I've lived in California, Connecticut, Morocco, Boston, the wilderness of New Jersey, New Orleans, and Idaho. I've worked at The Witch House, I've been a dogwalker, I've bartended from the driver's seat of a golf cart. Nothing is permanent. Everything I do is an attempt to escape the ordinary.
Lighting and thunder, oh my! It's after 7pm during rainy season, and the daily afternoon rain hasn't even started. Clouds have been looming for three hours...if the rain starts now, will it ever end? My blood blister on my finger has turned black and dried up. No, with some prodding, fresh blood rises to the surface.
Anyway, this morning, before I turned a random corner in a less touristy district of Oaxaca and ran into Shannon O'Grady, with whom I rowed in college (small world!), I wanted to remember the broken glass guarding the roof of a home. And a cigarette in a cape--a kind of superhero ad. And the gorgeous graffiti on a torn-up building in a dug-up park: a woman's face in black, with purple spray paint uncoiling around her, as if she were silently singing her pain away.
And the dog in the sky!
The well-groomed boxer's head appeaerd on top of that beautiful old, ornately trimmed concrete roof--he looked as if he were going to jump. I'd believe it. Wouldn't we be vain if we thought humans were the only animals capable of suicide?
Monday, January 19, 2009
Redhead: a Recommendation
I'm not talking about your hair, although I've harbored a desire to go a fluorescent fire-engine shade ever since that German chick panted her way through Run Lola Run. I'm talking about the bar/restaurant tucked away in the East Village on 13th St. between 1st and 2nd Ave. That's where I met a pair of friends from high school on Saturday night. I recently missed my ten year reunion back in Fallbrook, CA (avocado capital of the world, or so we like to say), so it was nice to catch up with a visitor and discover that one of my friends is a New York transplant, too (I'm four months strong; she's going on a year). The Redhead is a small joint, and despite the mind-numbing temperature outside, people had flocked to the place. I got there first, and no one batted an eye as I edged into a seat at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, and in order to pass the time, pulled out a book (The Man With the Golden Arm--the first National Book Award winner). No way was I going to try to make conversation with my neighbors, two ladies who seemed to be competing on who could eat the least number of carbs on her plate, which was a feat, considering they both had ordered a hamburger with home-made, ornate criss-crossed potato chips. The naked buns crowded their plates, giving, at first glance, the illusion that they hadn't eaten at all.
My friends showed up and started to peruse the cocktail menu, which I had ignored due to some prior disappointment with expensive, convoluted drinks in NYC, including a $10 muddled strawberry-and-balsamic vinegar-tini. Don't get me wrong, I love fabulous fancy concotions, but you have to be willing to take the risk. At $9 a pop, the cocktails at Redhead may have been considered a bargain, and I convinced my friend to get a Ginger Snap, which I sampled and subsequently ordered, risk-free. This was better than the cookie, my friend, and possibly even better than a Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer). After that indulgence, I switched gears and asked for a PBR, which, at $3 a can, was approaching my budget. The owner, who was bartending, passed me a cold one, smiled and said, "It's on me," thus earning his establishment a permanent position in my heart.
I didn't pay much attention to the menu, which was not vegetarian-friendly, and plus, I was only frittering away my hard-earned money on booze. However, my friend did order perhaps the sole veggie option, an appetizer of porcini-mushroom flatbread pizza. I was dubious--the flatbrad looked really flat--could something that thin taste like anything? My fears were unfounded: the texture was crisp in a way I didn't know was possible, and my little square was bursting with garlicky and buttery goodness. A professor of mine once said something along the lines of, "Garlic is the intellectual's opiate." Then call me a raging intellectual.
After the PBR, I went on to find one of the downsides of this place--a sole bathroom. (The only other downside? Too many white people.) After plodding through the line, I returned to find that my friend was a true friend and had ordered me one more drink, a hot spiced cider spiked with rum. It was only lukewarm but truly spicy-sweet and delicious, worlds better than a hot toddy (which I will continue to order at times just to say the name). By this time in the night, the crowd was starting to get a little loopy, and one girl-woman, who apparently had wandered off her normal circuit of college bars, sidled up to the bar and asked the owner for a series of shots, she didn't know what, but something "tasty," she squealed. The bartender frowned, shrugged, and suggested "Johnny Walker Blue with a few drops of water?"
I love this place. If I ever get a real job, I'm going back.
My friends showed up and started to peruse the cocktail menu, which I had ignored due to some prior disappointment with expensive, convoluted drinks in NYC, including a $10 muddled strawberry-and-balsamic vinegar-tini. Don't get me wrong, I love fabulous fancy concotions, but you have to be willing to take the risk. At $9 a pop, the cocktails at Redhead may have been considered a bargain, and I convinced my friend to get a Ginger Snap, which I sampled and subsequently ordered, risk-free. This was better than the cookie, my friend, and possibly even better than a Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer). After that indulgence, I switched gears and asked for a PBR, which, at $3 a can, was approaching my budget. The owner, who was bartending, passed me a cold one, smiled and said, "It's on me," thus earning his establishment a permanent position in my heart.
I didn't pay much attention to the menu, which was not vegetarian-friendly, and plus, I was only frittering away my hard-earned money on booze. However, my friend did order perhaps the sole veggie option, an appetizer of porcini-mushroom flatbread pizza. I was dubious--the flatbrad looked really flat--could something that thin taste like anything? My fears were unfounded: the texture was crisp in a way I didn't know was possible, and my little square was bursting with garlicky and buttery goodness. A professor of mine once said something along the lines of, "Garlic is the intellectual's opiate." Then call me a raging intellectual.
After the PBR, I went on to find one of the downsides of this place--a sole bathroom. (The only other downside? Too many white people.) After plodding through the line, I returned to find that my friend was a true friend and had ordered me one more drink, a hot spiced cider spiked with rum. It was only lukewarm but truly spicy-sweet and delicious, worlds better than a hot toddy (which I will continue to order at times just to say the name). By this time in the night, the crowd was starting to get a little loopy, and one girl-woman, who apparently had wandered off her normal circuit of college bars, sidled up to the bar and asked the owner for a series of shots, she didn't know what, but something "tasty," she squealed. The bartender frowned, shrugged, and suggested "Johnny Walker Blue with a few drops of water?"
I love this place. If I ever get a real job, I'm going back.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Let's get this party started.
When blogs first made an appearance years ago, I thought to myself, who would actually read these? Any idiot can go on and on about his daily life as though it might be interesting to anyone other than himself or a desperate telemarketer. Blogs felt unseemly to me, kind of like when you leave a too-long message on someone's voicemail or when you realize your pants are sagging, exposing your underwear--which happens to be inside out. I thought blogs would just be a fleeting internet phase, burning themselves out when bloggers realized that people only used the internet for email and porn.
Clearly, predicting trends is NOT one of my strong points. So here I am, the straggler-blogger. I'm a narcissist as much as the next person, and as an aspiring writer, I'm much less inclined to write for myself than I am for an audience, imagined or otherwise. I figure if I have a b-l-o-g (I'm still kind of embarrassed to say it out loud), I'll at least exercise the writing muscle, since *** knows I'm not exercising any other muscles right now. But remember, this is a safe, casual environment to flex my word-mavericks, ideas, and impressions, so DON'T judge me please, unless it's to deem me as awesome. This is my writing not dressed-to-the-nines for a Gala of publication, but rather sporting my jaunty but ruffled clothes I pulled off the floor before running out the door. This is no polished, triple-distilled and elegantly bottled liquor. This is my home brew. Unfiltered.
Clearly, predicting trends is NOT one of my strong points. So here I am, the straggler-blogger. I'm a narcissist as much as the next person, and as an aspiring writer, I'm much less inclined to write for myself than I am for an audience, imagined or otherwise. I figure if I have a b-l-o-g (I'm still kind of embarrassed to say it out loud), I'll at least exercise the writing muscle, since *** knows I'm not exercising any other muscles right now. But remember, this is a safe, casual environment to flex my word-mavericks, ideas, and impressions, so DON'T judge me please, unless it's to deem me as awesome. This is my writing not dressed-to-the-nines for a Gala of publication, but rather sporting my jaunty but ruffled clothes I pulled off the floor before running out the door. This is no polished, triple-distilled and elegantly bottled liquor. This is my home brew. Unfiltered.
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