Pour a Little Liquor

Cruising in from an expensive sushi dinner that was worth every penny. My friend had said, "It's the best sushi in New York." I waited for the disclaimer. Usually, when discussing sushi, people add something like "most affordable sushi, most authentic sushi, quality but worth it sushi." No, my friend just said "best."

I had almost forgotten when top end sushi tasted like. The dragon roll was ridiculous. And I don't even normally like eel.

Being in New York is often about the hunt for a "best" of everything. Finding the definitive best food item is first among these. Already I have been informed that I live quite close to the best red velvet cake. And I know I'm already blocks away from the best corn. What else could be around? I better start a best of me list. I'm disappointed that I haven't had one of these going already. It's like I've failed myself.

Relationships man, why do people get in them? People around me are having all sorts of relationship issues. If it ain't the same thing, it's that other thing. I've been lending my ear to a few tales of woe recently and here is what I've distilled my relationship advice down to:

• You'll do what you feel like, so just go for it. There is no more right or wrong. Just do it.
• There's a chance shit will all go bad, now or later, so just be ready.
• If you can't handle being alone, it's better to be in something at least, than to have nothing.
• If you're not enjoying it, plan an exit strategy.

This seems to be cynical in many ways, but really it's all about me believing in the power of love. See, I've decided to stop giving actual relationship advice awhile ago, because people won't listen anyway. Everyone will just follow their heart. They can't stop it, you can't stop it, nothing on Earth can stop it. The only thing is to just speed it up or slow it down some. Make the ride less turbulent.

Personally, I'm of the philosophy that you just go full bore until you know what's at the end.

We're celebrating five years of moblogging this summer. I started mine in July 2007, right after acquiring the original iPhone, and JMZ came heavy with his that September. Prior to the official moblog, I had a year and a half of Sidekick photos on their proprietary platform, but those are now mostly lost forever. Here is the first and last pic from the Sidekick. RIP.

As with all blog things, most people have fallen off but those that remain stand as near daily archives of the things that have happened. Nearly everyone who has started a moblog has expressed, at one point or another, how much they like having such a record -- even if they don't keep up with it. In the age of Instagram, Facebook Timeline, and other such things, it could be argued that moblogging is outdated. However, it's still hard to beat the organization and versatility of having archives and permalinks.

The question is, where does the moblog go now? Does it just remain a glorified food blog and a record of who I'm hanging out with and what we're doing? Or should it be something more? These are the kind of trivial questions that keep me up at night. That and procrastination.

For the first year or two, I stubbornly refused to stray from the one photo per line format, until I caved and went to the superior side by side alignment. With such an arrangement, everything looks good. And the magic of moblogs is that even if your life is mundane and terribly boring, having all these pictures organized neatly makes things seem like they were exciting. Heck, I moblogged almost seventy five times from work -- the last real job I held -- and even that looks super fun in retrospect. Oh wait, that job was super fun in retrospect, that's right!

If I had a child, I'd moblog him/her all day long. And since I don't have a child, here's Kevin's son's, which will document his journey from baby prodigy to NBA superstar. You can say you knew him when.

Blossom

Three Hendrick's gin and tonics, three B-52 shots, all consumed in two hours without any dancing to be had. Toast time, as in I was toast. (The B-52 is Kahlua, Baileys, and triple sec layered out all nice and neat.) The other night I went to a reading event that among others, featured actress Amber Tamblyn. You know her from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Or um, maybe you don't. Tamblyn was on stage to share some of her poetry -- an upcoming series about child actresses who died in their twenties, think Brittany Murphy -- and she brought up four shots to drink before each piece. Her poems were not long and I wondered what kind of drinking fortitude she had. It was an impressive display.

After my own almost as impressive display, my friend and I went to her apartment down the street and watched the back half of Adventures in Babysitting -- she had it saved on her DVR -- and ate sushi. Then I made the semi-long subway ride home and took two Tylenol and called it quits for the night. My plan to "play by day/evening and work after midnight" will suffer badly if this keeps up. There is just too much to do in New York, too much.

Also, I am gushing money. You can't walk out of the house here without expecting to drop a hundred dollars. I'm going to have to move to an all cash system to limit my spending. And I'm seriously not even doing anything. Just eating and drinking. And I don't even really drink.

For example, today was big box retailer day, and JMZ and I went to Target and IKEA. Making a firm commitment to staying here for longer than a month, I was in the market for a bed. It it were up to me, I'd just sleep on the floor, or the use the couch, or continue air mattressing it, but that's not proper. Thinking way ahead, I had brought sheets with me from San Diego, knowing I would make that big adult purchase of a mattress once I arrived. Plus, guests can't be expected to sleep on the floor right?

Well, after a bit of princess and the pea, and caving to my thriftiness, I am now the proud owner of a twin bed. Yes, you heard me right. I am pushing my middle ages and rocking the twin. There was some thought given to going with a full but the price difference just wasn't worth it. And really, who do I have to make room for? The last time I had to buy a bed was probably ten years ago. Since then I've been gloriously bed-less.

Somehow I rang up $350 at Target and IKEA -- the bed without frame was $89. This is what happens when you decide to stay awhile. I bought cleaning supplies, two lamps, a six dollar light bulb, extra towels, a fluffy blanket, a mini-carpet to put our dirty shoes on when we climb out on the patio to smoke, a 50 count bottle of generic Pepcid AC for all that drinking, extension cords, power strips, a small trash can, detergent, a lint roller (I'm recently incorporating black into my wardrobe), and hangars. I can't believe I bought hangars. But AMR told me he hangs up all his t-shirts to avoid center creasing so I'm gonna have to do that too.

And this was really nothing as this apartment is already well stocked with 90% of what we'd need. But when you go into something like IKEA, you're just forced to re-think your lifestyle choices. I made myself rationalize how much I didn't need. Handy buckets to hold things, organizers for my random tidbits, a big plastic tub to put clothes in, wet Swiffer pads, these were just a sampling of items I put in the cart and left behind. People don't believe me but I used to overdecorate my rooms. I had jars for my jars. Picture frames for my pictures frames. LACK tables for my LACK tables. I can consume with the best of them.

I need to find a fucking dollar store.

Also, I cleaned like crazy tonight. My room smells like biodegradable all purpose cleaner. I want to turn this scent into a cologne. Last week, during mid-afternoon sangria, we decided that we were basically the Househusbands of Brooklyn. It's the most boring reality show you've never seen. I can't cook but I'm so Tony Danza when the mood strikes. And those smoking gloves are just the thing for not getting your hands dirty. While I was perched up high, wiping down the big windows facing the street, someone walked by and gave me the double thumbs up. That must be the universal greeting for post-midnight, semi-OCD, cleaning people.

Come visit, I have a bed for you now.

"I have slept in 26 locations in the last seven months.This was never my intention, this peripatetic life, but looking back now at the age of 40, I can finally see I have been doing it for decades. I wanted so much more for myself at some point, though I cannot even remember what exactly it was that I wanted anymore."
-Where I've Laid My Head-

Dance on Glass

So the soundtrack of my short few days so far is Q-Tip's Renaissance. It came out in 2008 but somehow I missed it until maybe earlier this year. I think everyone gave up on Q-Tip after Amplified. I don't even know what his albums sound like after that. But if you're slugging through the subways of New York, nothing's better than ATCQ. Or at least nothing's more appropriate and reminiscy. And here's the thing, Renaissance is a great throwback album. It's what ATCQ fans wanted from a solo Q-Tip, even if he wanted to move himself artistically in a different direction. Here's a track I've been having on repeat: "Manwomanboogie." What's going to follow is a "what I've been doing" post so really, skip it unless you care about this kinda stuff.

Des is visiting New York for a few days, and she was part of the reason I rushed out here and popped up so suddenly. Vacationing in New York with nobody to play with during the weekdays? Oh me me, choose me! As it turned out, we didn't actually hang out all that much. Our first day in the city was a marathon. Chinatown for Taiwanese breakfast at two, mid-afternoon sangria followed by karaoke, then I split from them as they went to a beer garden and I went to a book thing. Then we followed up with Susan Sarandon's ping pong bar, SPiN Galactic. And finally a clean up session for late night Korean food.

Thing was, it was only midnight and we were dones. Also, hanging out in New York necessitates a whole lot of drinking. I can't go from zero percent to three mid-afternoon drinks so soon. It just made me sleepy. Luckily the cure for any sleepyness is karaoke, and this new place we went to dished out the songs via iPad and had a ton of current stuff. Yes, even some Frank Ocean -- which JMZ performed quite credibly. "I think I started something / I got what I wanted / did didn't I can't feel nothing."

But the first day's lesson was that going ten hours in the city is freaking exhausting. All the noises, the people, the physical act of walking up and down stairs, of being hot, then hotter, and just all of it. I do this every time I come back, the adjustment. But this time was rougher than most, because I think I've been away for too long. I've been a hermit in San Diego for almost a year, I can't handle this much stimulation.

Friday was a late start, as poor Des had to wait for me and JMZ to gear up. If I was on my normal NY schedule, I wouldn't even head into the city until 9 PM or later. But she was ready and prepped to go at noon. In the end we settling on a compromise of meeting at five for an eating tour of Soho. Which stopped after two locations -- meatball parm rolls and Cuban corn -- because while the sandwiches at Parm were amazing, they were bigger than anticipated. No stomach for lobster rolls, or even dessert!

We parted ways as she went to go fancy rooftop drinking on the Upper East and I hoofed it over to Chelsea to meet some people. They were eating tapas so naturally I had to try a few bites. After a jaunt through Chelsea Markets for tiramisu making items -- my friend was making it for her Sunday pig roast -- we settled into a Chinatown alley for Malaysian. At the table behind us, someone was talking about how his friend was a postmodern belly dancer. Yeah, exactly.

The rest of the night ended up being my impromptu birthday celebration because the fact it was my birthday pretty much was sprung on everyone. They were nice enough to insist on celebrating me, which was very big of them as I popped up in New York out of nowhere and didn't even inform them I was here until that day. Thank you friends, for your consideration. Clearly I lack basic human values and like to guerilla guilt people into celebrating. Anyhow, part of their niceness was hitting up an Italian dessert place that dropped like eight different desserts on us, which was +3 more than we had people. Won't complain about that.

The only thing I had wanted to do for my birthday was go find some music and dance, but that proved harder than imagined. The only places I knew were from a year and a half ago and you know that's outdated info. We ended up at a place that was filled with absolutely the wrong crowd, and then went to a place that had the right crowd but the harshest rap currently out there -- none of which we knew -- which was regardless fun to dance to for a sec. A quick getaway meant we met up with my cousin and her boyfriend who is also cousins with my good friend and so on and so on.

Then we karaoked until late/early. They had "Gangam Style." I requested my friend sing "Save the Best" for last, and three hours later it was a wrap. JMZ and Jenn have a car in New York so the whole experience of being in the city is a bit different. Sitting in a car makes New York seem much less New Yorky. High marks for convenience though. Driving home at dawn is a heck of a lot easier. Especially if JMZ is doing the driving.

Saturday I woke up with the back of my jaw area completely swollen. I seriously thought it was from too much karaoke. I'd never had this before and my face looked like it had gained thirty pounds. Turning one year older really did make a big difference this time. After some research, it was determined that I just had swollen lymph nodes. It could mean that I was getting sick but outside of being tired, I felt perfectly fine. More karaoke! Actually, I did go to karaoke again a few hours later, but I refrained from participating because, well, because.

This recap is going nowhere. It should end soon. Suffice to say, Saturday was spent crawling around at some more bars, after a freak tornado blistered through Brooklyn (and nicely cleared the humidity and the streets), and we ended the night at a tucked in bar filled with beautiful black people. I know what that sounds like but it's exactly what I mean. It was like when you read about 1940's Harlem. Only instead of jazz, it was incredible hip hop. Even though it was a very slow night, people were dressed so stylishly, and the crowd was just so damn good looking. I was like, "Where are we?" Chelsea, of all places.

And at the very end, my friend was accosted by the cutest Puerto Rican dude, who was trying to play it off like he didn't ever talk to girls but you don't get to just stand here at our booth for thirty minutes talking to a girl and also protest that you never do it. Puerto Rican Ken, complete with accent, was twenty one -- he showed us his ID -- and I was hoping for a How Stella Got Her Groove Back story. Alas, probably not. I need to return to this bar though, because the music is so damn good. And when a certain spazzy friend hits NY, I know just where to bring her. It's going to be my opening salvo in the campaign to move her out here.

While I was sitting down talking to my friend, a girl walked by and literally fondled my ear/ring. I didn't even react I was so shocked. I don't know if you know this but there's this whole online thing with testimonials about AMBW couples. Actual videos where black women talk about how wonderful their Asian boyfriends and husbands are. Like this is real life. My friend just told me about it the night before, and I had spent some of my afternoon Googling this phenomenon. The common factor seems to be anime. And asserting/defending the masculinity of Asian men. It's really something. You can decide how to feel about it yourself.

Sunday we went to a pig roast. And I had $7 rice pudding. Outrageous. The pricing, and the extravagantly durable packaging it came in. It was pretty delicious though.

Tomorrow I need to get my life back together. My computering has been neglected and I'm behind on everything. My life can't handle this much activity, it's too much.

Oh yeah, Fun's "We Are Young" is the new official karaoke closer. No debate. And please, no more Journey, ever.

Check the Scenario

If this were a movie, it would just throw together all the montage bits and that would be my move from SD to NY. It would start with the two desperate nights of staying up to pack and write, then stumbling to the airport and getting a middle seat and not being able to sleep. It would then transition to showing up in New York and getting picked up by JMZ, and us cruising to Frank Ocean on the way to my apartment in Fort Greene. Then it would just be a ton of fast cuts as it shows the next few days of running around Manhattan while I try to squeeze in settling in.

The credits would roll as I do a voiceover about how I miss my double screens and my speakers. I've been living in luxury too long with my computer setup. Now I feel so inefficient online and my music doesn't sound as nice. I know, totally #loservilleproblems. It's disturbing how much "#" has permeated our thoughts processes isn't it? Twitter is really quite a thing.

So, Fort Greene. I haven't explored much of it because I've been hopping to the city but everyone tells me it's a great place to live. It's like the midway point -- both literally and figuratively -- between hipster capital Williamsburg (where I lived last time I was here) and boho parent capital Park Slope. It's like the older hipster people who basically moved south and west a bit from Williamsburg. Expressed as a percentage, I would say it's 70% gentrified, and you get advice like "don't cross the park at night." Also I read that people get their iPhones jacked a lot coming off the subway, so clearly I'm very cautious about when I head up the stairs. There will be nobody reaching over the railing to grab my iPhone and run, no sir.

On a side note: There has to be a neighborhood gentrification percentage model right? Or is that, like, just the census? After having a conversation with JMZ about when/how people use "gentrification" versus "ghetto," I'm trying to cut both out of my vocabulary. JMZ and Jenn live two miles away from me in Bed-Stuy, and they are the only Asians on the block, sandwiched in-between the blacks and the whites. They have a much more impressive roster of rappers who hail from their area. Although we have a few too. My other friend also lives only two miles away from me, which is vastly exciting. I've begun bike shopping so I can shuttle myself between their two locations.

Bikewise I am looking for something very cheap and basically disposable as there are many carcasses of bikes when you walk around. If only I could skateboard or be confident enough to use my Razor. Awhile ago, my friend bought me one -- he knew I wanted one very badly -- when they were super popular that one summer, but I've never been able to use it much. I would look so cool now, skimming across the sidewalks.

My apartment is right above a very coffee geek coffee shop, where they are serious about their cold brew coffee or something. Reviews claim it's amazing but I've yet to try it. There is also an excellent indie movie theater around, and I know there's a fantastic bookstore somewhere nearby too, so really I'm all set here. I hope to become a Brooklynite who eschews the city and laughs at going anywhere above Chinatown. I hear that's the cool thing to do.

Mary, my roommate has long been one of my best friends, and while we've never spent more than a week together, this is clearly the move that will brings us oh so much closer. Already we have misassembled an Ikea coffee table. We are destined for great things. Sidenote: If nineteen year old me would have known that Mary and Jennifer -- then my two best friends -- would now be living within walking/biking/scootering distance of each other, he would have been thrilled. And panicked. They were the yin and yang of my inner world, and I couldn't even conceive of what it would be like if they met and interacted. And now we're all here. Plus JMZ!

The actual apartment I'm in has super high ceilings, a wonderful smoking balcony that looks out into lushy backyards and fire escapes, and while I do not have a bed, I may make a bold mature move and buy one. Yes, I might buy a bed. I've been advised that a twin bed is not the move for a man of thirty four, so I'll be in the market for something bigger.

Oh yeah, I just had a birthday. To be discussed. The takeaway is that I'm in New York and that I'm paying rent. Please, hold the applause until intermission. No flash photos either.