New York State of Mind (Pt. I)

My flight back to Chicago has been delayed by two hours, so I might as well write about my NYC weekend, since I've got nothing else to do. I briefly thought about liveblogging from the wireless lounge here at the JetBlue terminal, but that would be funny for about two seconds. If at all.

My friend Krista and I had planned this weekend for awhile, and the timing was great since I've been pretty stressed out from school and work. Although I've calculated that I've slept about eleven hours over the last three days so that fucking cold I've had over the last three weeks probably ain't going way any time soon. Isn't the point of a weekend getaway to relax? I'm returning more tired then I was when I left. But whateves. This is New York we're talking about here, bitches.

Krista and I arrived into JFK Friday around the same time. We haven't seen each other since May, and the first thing she says to me is that I look like I should be in Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" video (I've got a black coat, jeans, black boots and a hat that she thinks looks rather military - kinda like this, I suppose - but she's of course wrong). This is just the first of several comments to be made by Krista and others about my appearance all weekend.

Because we spent most of the afternoon trying to get tickets to a show (we ended up seeing Avenue Q, which was great), I didn't make it down to visit my old co-workers. We really wanted to see Spring Awakening, and almost did, except my "connection" fell through at the last minute (not getting tickets to Spring Awakening would come back to haunt us Saturday, since most all of that afternoon too was spent hanging around Times Square, standing in line outside in the cold, and then later filling the void left by not going to a show Saturday night by drinking too many vodka lemonades and listening to Pebbles and Roxette in our hotel room. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

After Avenue Q, we headed down to the Meatpacking District for dinner and ended up at some bar with a pig" or "barbecue" (or both) in the title. How we ended up there is rather a long story that involves us not wanting to get into another cab (it was cold), a pretty solid buzz (an alarming amount of good beer and martinis at dinner), a supposedly good chance at a celebrity sighting and a miscommunication/bad cell phone reception with a friend. It turned out to be a solid choice as we made new friends with some people from New Zealand and got tequila shots from some kids from Jersey (one of whom was highly complementary by saying he thought I "looked British" and also "about 25" -- I wanted to buy him a tequila shot). There was also the threat of me getting my ass potentially kicked by a woman in a nasty white leather coat (trust me, it was hideous) and/or her boyfriend.

When I went to scope out the jukebox, Krista got hit on by some sad middle aged business traveler from London, who was celebrating his last night in town and was desperately trying to get laid. He told me I was a lucky man to have such a lovely girlfriend, and then let it slip out that he was married (Huh? You were just hitting on my friend.). A little later, when Krista scoped out the jukebox (for some "These Dreams" by Heart and something by REO Speedwagon -- I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out of the bar), he came back to our corner and then told me that Krista was lucky to have such a lovely boyfriend. I'm thinking: Are you that desperate to get laid that you're now hitting on me? Sadcakes.

The evening ended with us closing the bar and me later making friends with two women at a bank of ATMs in Times Square (because frankly, I can't get enough of Times Square*) around 5:15 in the morning. One of them had just broken up with her boyfriend, and as she's talking to her friend about it, I blurt out "Men are bastards" and then they're all "I know, right?" and next thing we're just talking and hanging out for about 25 minutes in this bank lobby and one of them is inviting me to hang out with her at the Hudson Hotel for Saturday night (I tell her I love the Hudson and dude, I'll totally be there!) and they're both giving me their digits. And yeah, I totally forgot to call them Saturday (not that it was likely going to happen anyway) which is too bad because they were pretty cool.

OK, enough for now. Time to grab some dinner at the Papaya King and start praying that I won’t be stuck here all evening.

* I'm of course being sarcastic.