/life/nyc/People Watching
At 6th Ave, on the L. The doors sit open; we're blocked by train traffic.
A man, seated, perks up surprised and shouts a name muffled by my iPod. He bustles out of the train, gives the named woman a handshake and a hug. A few gestures later the wander off down the platform. Random encounter worth changing plans for? Absent-minded rider-man? Confused meeting point?
Who knows. City livin'.
New Albums from the Gallery
/life/nyc/City Livin'
"You go to hell! Like yo' motha! You an' you motha are goin' to hell!" -- Angry man yelling at another angry man outside my building
/life/nyc/The Gentlemen Must Have Pants
Josh and I joined a bunch of my workfolk for a dinner out, and then went with one of them to a bar her friends were at, called (and located at) 230 5th Ave.
We walked in the door, a little confused 'cause it looked very residential. Once we decided we could just go through, a an short, elderly man said "Excuse me, ma'am. The gentlemen must have pants."
And so we left.
/life/nyc/Montauk
[Written on the train back from Montauk yesterday morning]
I went to bed early last night, depleted from an accidental century from Babylon to Montauk point and with an early rise to catch the only morning train back to NYC.
I woke up at 4, then 5:20, then 5:59, just in time to silence my alarm with waking anyone up. I'm on a train now, for which I was short on cash, and rescued by a stranger to the tune of $5.25. He's American, she's Japanese, and they're headed back to Tokyo.
The ride was one of the finest I've ever done -- long, good company, gorgeous sunshine (from whence came some good tan marks), 25km/h tailwind, wide shoulders with only occasional rough spots, and a tasty (but overpriced) lunch in "The Hamptons".
We got to the campground after 80 miles (ahh! 128km) and were told it was 4mi (6.4 in sane, metric units) to the lighthouse. Off we went! 10 miles (16km) later, we got there. Surreptitiously, we had celebratory beer on the rock beach (which had awesome surfing waves, except that each of which ended up with death on some hidden rock).
By the time we got back, a century was completed. We collapsed, took off our most uncomfortable clothing, then began eating everything in sight. This was a supported ride, in that some other folks had driven and trained down with our stuff, which was lovely.
I feel super-awake this morning, with only minor soreness. Still going to nap my way through the train ride, though. =)
Hurray summer!
/life/nyc/I went to the Bronx!
You know sometimes if you haven't called your mum in a while, and you know you need to catch up, you feel like you need to find a good chunk of time before you pick up the phone?
Yeah. Blogging's like that too. But too bad.
I went to the Bronx!. By bike. On Monday. Just barely went over the bridge to touch down, and then came back. I've now finally been to all five boroughs, four on bicycle, two only to touch down and return (Staten Island ferry being the other one.)
Two more parties, a bunch more cycling, been across the Williamsburg bridge, ...[looks at last entry]...oh boy! Been to California by bus (64 hours. Not that crazy.) for three weeks of couchsurfing and working..then flew back. Went wine-"tasting" while I was there (I was the designated drinker). Lost my iPhone, started using my gPhone, started liking my gPhone a few weeks later, had my team shuffled a bit at work, and many other important things I'm forgetting. Oh, had a friend and his gf visit from Germany, had Paul come for a few days, and Josh is coming this weekend and my parents are coming next weekend. D was here somewhere in there, too. =)
/life/nyc/48 kilometers
I rode to what seemed to be the north end of the West Side Trail today, at about 155th St. I'm not sure if it actually was, but the path turned to dirt. Incidentally, that means I've now been to the Bronx, though I didn't realize it at the time. The transition between neighbourhoods as you go along the trail is palpable: on the Upper West Side there are lovely benches and nice wide spaces; through other parts there are people playing basketball on courts tucked under overpasses. Sometimes the path was side and split between pedestrian and cycle/roller traffic, and sometimes there was a half-meter wide pedestrian "lane".
I had my first proper random encounter with someone I know, while cycling back down the path when I bumped into someone
I'd met two nights before. Wait, actually, second random encounter, 'cause I met her after randomly encountering two
friends at the cinema. It's almost like I live here.
The return over the Brooklyn Bridge was by far the worst I've ever had, with people leaping out in front of me and not looking even when they were walking facing me. I accidentally scared one older woman ('cause I didn't realize she was older) who was walking right towards me as I yelled and gestured and she noticed rather late. Oops. It was my moment of being a jerky New Yorker, though only by accident.
Tonight I had a long chat with the founder of EcoSanity, a Toronto-based organization that I like a lot for their uncompromising spouting of the truth, and their attempt to push the term "Climate Emergency" into the public consciousness. As an act of support I'm going to start using the term.
Yesterday I had a Pi/Pie party for Pi Day and that was pretty good. Less than half coworkers (partly because of lots of spouses [spice? spousen?]), which is good. I think people had a good time, and hopefully there's some momentum building. I really need to do something course-like to extend my social range, though. Maybe I'll go back to Yoga for a bit.
On Wednesday I went to see "Soul Samurai and it was totally excellent — the kind of stage show I like the most: slightly edgy, cheap and innovative, funny and well-acted. There was an incredible amount of stage fighting, which I think people fail to appreciate in this era of special effects.
A very New Yorkey week, with a sprinkling of Toronto.
/life/nyc/18 Degrees Celsius
Freedom is spelled b-i-c-y-c-l-e.
Weather warm enough for shorts is awesome. So is sitting in the park with my sis & nephew. I've never wanted wintry weather to go away as much as I do right now. (My knee still seems sub-par from a run two weeks ago, but I think I'm going to ride home sometime this week anyway and see how it goes.)
24 hours of oncall and no pages so far. And a clean-ish apartment to show for it. Oh, also, I finally have a reasonable approximation of curtains in my bedroom, to replace the unreasonable approximation made of string and the squishy wrapping bag that my TV came in. It only took me 4 months, people.
Baingan bharta (= Indian eggplant curry) under preparation.
'sgood.
/life/nyc/Experimenting with Schedules
On Monday, I got back at 7:25 on an overnight bus returning from a trip to my parents' place north of Toronto. Straight to work I went, in by 8am (and in time for breakfast at work like a spoiled weenie) for the first time ever. I left at a reasonable time mostly 'cause I wanted to go home and shower/change after an overnight bus trip.
Tuesday started with a 7:50am wakeup from oncall who wanted a bit of help. I'm the lead for my team now, so this kinda falls to me automatically. Dealt with that, and got in to work in time for breakfast again.
By Wednesday I had decided this was a habit, caught breakfast despite catching the train the wrong way for one stop thanks to confused signage at my under-construction subway stop. (Yes, dear reader, I'm sure it was the signage and not me that was confused. One stairwell said "Manhattan/Flatbush" (i.e. two different directions depending on which of the two tracks down that stairwell you got on a train) and the other said "MANHATTAN" in big letters. Not wanting to get confused, I went down the Manhattan stairs, and got on the first train that came, which was headed for...Flatbush. Wednesday night the power went out. In the old days, I'd like up a candle and do in-the-dark things. But these days as a fancy pants oncall must-survive-everything guy, I have a laptop with a spare battery and a 3G/EVDO USB wireless internet magic. By 10:30 my first battery was dying and I didn't want to dig into the second one, so off to bed I went.
Thursday's commute was brutal: too-full trains that you couldn't get on, slow, and generally unpleasant. This is what happens when you sync your clock with the other 8 trillion people here, though I'm not sure why it was so much worse than Wednesday or Tuesday.
Today (Friday) I got up early and I'm trying to work from home 'til 9:30 or so, when things should calm down. I'm not sure if it'll work, since I've mostly been reading blogs and..err..writing blogs.
Despite the fact that this week's experimentations were mostly the product of serendipity, it's good because my commute is really bugging me. The narrative right now is that I'm waiting until I can cycle for about four weeks straight, and if I still don't like my commute then I'm moving closer, either in a closer part of Brooklyn or more likely into Manhattan. That will take a while, since I have to find a new 'hood, weasle out of a lease without losing deposits, etc.
