Brooklyn by Bus
Well, it's actually Chinatown in Philadelphia to Chinatown in Manhattan by bus. It takes almost exactly 2 hours to go from one city to the next. I left Friday after work and had an uneventful trip up with my head bumping against the window as I tried to nap and then an Asian girl vomited into a plastic bag at the very end. Took the subway by myself to Park Slope and Liz met me and we walked back to her place to drop my stuff and then out again to a nearby bar/restaurant where I ate 500 tortilla chips and a chicken sandwich (?) and we smoked two cigarettes out on the patio, freezing. Back to Liz's to watch MTV's Tiara Girl which is an incredible show about girls who compete in beauty contests. You'd think they'd run out of material after about 5 shows, but no, because they go to places like Lincoln, Nebraska to follow the trials and tribulations of a teenage prom queen competing for Miss Corn Blossom '06 (she was second runner up).
Saturday, we were up and ready for coffee after watching more MTV (the very stilted Date My Mom) and I bought the best best best chocolate croissant I've ever had in my life. A woman there started talking to us about the anti war rally and showed me an ad in the back of her progressive magazine that laid out the 10 rules of facism, clearly illustrating that our gov't is cleary on its way (if not already arrived) to being a facist country. We took the subway to Manhattan and met Shawn and joined the march. Everyone loves his protest sign--it's the cut out heads of Bush and Cheney with "Gas-holes" written above it and a photo of the war ship called the Condelezza Rice. People always stop him in the street to take pictures of it. Liz and I carried it some of the time and I felt very righteous and well-liked. A man holding a movie camera stopped us to ask some questions and then he told us he's working on a documentary with Michael Moore about environmentalism. I am certain we will make the cut among 500+ hours of footage they shoot for every documentary. We then sat down on the curb to people watch and did not give money to a guy with one of those index cards that reads, "Help I'm deaf and my house burned down with two kids in it." I wondered if it was a test of some kind--after all, we're at this protest that's essentially above injustice and social inequality and imperialism and we can't be bothered to give this guy a quarter. Off we went to a bar/restaurant in the West Village and then we split up and took the subway back to Brooklynn.
Stopped at Deacon's Closet on the way home and I bought this very cute handmade silky dark blue skirt with red buttons up the side and a black shirt I'll never wear and a maroon t-shirt with pink skull head on it of a girl with ponytails for which I would be complimented later by a bartender. Back to Liz's to rearrange her room so that it had more fen shui (basically, we took her bike to the basement and turned her bed in the opposite direction). Around 8:30, we changed our clothes several times and then walked a few blocks to a cute bar that was desolate when we got there and packed when we left around 1. There was a semi-cute, youngish Garrison Keiller type (Liz's description--I thought he resembled a less attractive version of Andrew McCarthy) sitting by himself at the bar drinking rum and Cokes. When Liz went outside for a cigarette, he slid one bar stool closer. I made her promise to strike up a conversation with him the next time I got up, and was happy to see after my smoke that they were talking, though I couldn't hear anything he was saying. Liz turned to me and widened her eyes when he paused--I knew it wasn't good. We made our escape into the other room shortly afterwards, him saying, Be careful going home and Liz wondering if that meant he was going to follow us and kill us (oh, Liz!). There was a Bachelorette party going on next to us--I pressured Liz to steal an abandoned bottle of booze near us, but she was a good girl and wouldn't and then it was too late because one of the girl's snatched it up. Probably for the best, karma-wise.
Must run to lunch--will try to tell write more later.
Saturday, we were up and ready for coffee after watching more MTV (the very stilted Date My Mom) and I bought the best best best chocolate croissant I've ever had in my life. A woman there started talking to us about the anti war rally and showed me an ad in the back of her progressive magazine that laid out the 10 rules of facism, clearly illustrating that our gov't is cleary on its way (if not already arrived) to being a facist country. We took the subway to Manhattan and met Shawn and joined the march. Everyone loves his protest sign--it's the cut out heads of Bush and Cheney with "Gas-holes" written above it and a photo of the war ship called the Condelezza Rice. People always stop him in the street to take pictures of it. Liz and I carried it some of the time and I felt very righteous and well-liked. A man holding a movie camera stopped us to ask some questions and then he told us he's working on a documentary with Michael Moore about environmentalism. I am certain we will make the cut among 500+ hours of footage they shoot for every documentary. We then sat down on the curb to people watch and did not give money to a guy with one of those index cards that reads, "Help I'm deaf and my house burned down with two kids in it." I wondered if it was a test of some kind--after all, we're at this protest that's essentially above injustice and social inequality and imperialism and we can't be bothered to give this guy a quarter. Off we went to a bar/restaurant in the West Village and then we split up and took the subway back to Brooklynn.
Stopped at Deacon's Closet on the way home and I bought this very cute handmade silky dark blue skirt with red buttons up the side and a black shirt I'll never wear and a maroon t-shirt with pink skull head on it of a girl with ponytails for which I would be complimented later by a bartender. Back to Liz's to rearrange her room so that it had more fen shui (basically, we took her bike to the basement and turned her bed in the opposite direction). Around 8:30, we changed our clothes several times and then walked a few blocks to a cute bar that was desolate when we got there and packed when we left around 1. There was a semi-cute, youngish Garrison Keiller type (Liz's description--I thought he resembled a less attractive version of Andrew McCarthy) sitting by himself at the bar drinking rum and Cokes. When Liz went outside for a cigarette, he slid one bar stool closer. I made her promise to strike up a conversation with him the next time I got up, and was happy to see after my smoke that they were talking, though I couldn't hear anything he was saying. Liz turned to me and widened her eyes when he paused--I knew it wasn't good. We made our escape into the other room shortly afterwards, him saying, Be careful going home and Liz wondering if that meant he was going to follow us and kill us (oh, Liz!). There was a Bachelorette party going on next to us--I pressured Liz to steal an abandoned bottle of booze near us, but she was a good girl and wouldn't and then it was too late because one of the girl's snatched it up. Probably for the best, karma-wise.
Must run to lunch--will try to tell write more later.
Comments