Serve Chilled

Since college, my friend Pam been bouncing around New York (and a bit of Europe) working in the food industry. A lot of my fonder New York memories are visiting while the nights are warm enough to hang out and following Pam from food place to food place, not questioning a thing as she orders up a storm. If I had any talent in the kitchen, I'd like to think the food prep world could be for me. Late hours, no ties and suits, lots of tattoos, and a wide range of characters. Of course, I probably wouldn't have the work ethic required. Chefs slave over their career, as detailed in Bourdain's No Reservations, and my apron would probably be stripped from me by day two.

Pam used to work at this place called Room 4 Dessert where the head guy was a big figure in the molecular gastronomy movement, which mixes science and food for a unique eating experience. What this translates to is lots of foams and ices, experimentation away from traditional cooking techniques, and combinations of textures/flavors truly unexpected. I'd actually never been to Room 4 Dessert, even though all of my friends had gone multiple times. There was a period of three years, starting in 2004, when I didn't visit NY at all and I missed its heyday. R4D closed a few years ago but had a pop up revival Sunday night. Amit, being the go-getter that he is, got four tickets for the dessert and drinks pairing.

The old Room 4 Dessert space in Nolita is now Veloce Club, which serves as Amit's unofficial clubhouse. On normal nights, you ring a buzzer to get in and the service and drinks are top notch. We go there a lot. I mean, I only know about four bars in Manhattan and three of them are Veloce branded. The entire experience was interesting but I was really just excited to see Pam doing her amazing work. Watching friends do something they care about, job-wise, is something I don't get to do often. Pam's actually one of the only college friends I have who chose to buck the traditional career route. It makes for inspiring conversations.

Afterward, the group of us retired to the Mexican eatery next door for margaritas and miscellaneous (possibly malicious) gossip, my favorite kind.

In Alignment

I enjoy the nights in New York where you wander from place to place. While the same experience can be duplicated in other cities, it just doesn't feel the same. Because everyone is always socially obligated in a few different directions, there's this feeling that people are comets whizzing back and forth, and you’re texting each other to see if there’s some time you could meet up, or if they’re at a better occasion than you are. I can imagine this getting old after awhile, but for now it’s bliss.

Saturday night, after my book event, we had dinner with the other authors, some book bloggers, and accompanying friends and family. Quite a few of my people showed up to the signing, much to my appreciation. I happened to be seated next to an author whose blog I read and whose work I’ve admired. He just moved here a year and a half ago, and hearing about his experiences with the young adult book community out here was uplifting. This is essentially the reason I moved out here, to meet and attend book things.

The night before, I wandered into a room of twenty strangers on the Upper West Side. People were jammed into every corner and seating area, and everyone was in the quiet of writing. I found this group online, one of two I plan on checking out. After an hour of writing time, this group takes a break before engaging in a round of readings and critiques. The guy in charge, Zach, told me he’d been running this group for over eight years and there was over three hundred people on his email list.

I later found out he writes books about baseball, and is a serious stats geek. That explained why he knew exactly how many meetings everyone had attended. I recommend that a stats obsessed guy like him would probably really appreciate the Feltron Report. The writing group meets semi-weekly in various locations, and everyone seemed to be really chill and relaxed. The readings covered non-fiction, poetry, film criticism, alcohol reviews, excerpted blog entries, and a nice variety of things. I'll be back.

The rest of our Saturday adventures was spent stopping by a bar, a house party, and then a lounge to dance. Finding a venue to dance is a serious challenge, and I do miss the SF people's constant desire to go out and find a dance floor. The bar we were at was playing some very danceable Phoenix music, but it wasn't the right sort of vibe. Given the chance, I would have taken control of the music at the house party and dimmed the lights and thrown on Girl Talk. "Like a G6" gushed on repeat as people got louder and drunker.

By the time we hit the Korean place to eat and finish out the night, most everybody was exhausted. We aren’t young bucks anymore. In the future, may I recommend a three o’clock shut down time? The city never sleeps but people tend to peter out around four.

Help Yourself

One thing I’d forgotten about being a teen is how your day is never quite your own. If you have particularly ambitious parents, you’re likely to have activities and events lined up each and every day after school. My cousin, whom I’m visiting this week, is a sophomore in high school and when she gets home at three, she’s almost immediately tossed into a squash lesson, an art class, Chinese tutoring, or perhaps a bit of practice with her pipa. With a bed time of ten o’clock, she has only a few hours to cram in her homework, a bit of relaxation, dinner and shower, her treasured manga comics, and whatever extracurricular activities her mom has planned out for her. George and I had a similar experience growing up.

When I look back, what did the kids who didn’t have an itinerary built for them do after school? They came home in the early afternoon and just hung out? It seems incomprehensible now to me that children would be left to their own devices for such a long time. I realize that this was something my friends and I could relate to: our immigrant parents forcing us into all sorts of activities. We might have griped but we never stopped doing them because that was life as we knew it. Everybody had piano and violin lessons, tennis coaches, Kumon worksheets, and Chinese homework on top of regular homework. The grind of primary school seems incredibly long to me now, even if it’s hard to fault (or thank) our parents for pushing us through those years, trying to cram in as much as possible.

Most of my week has been spent slumped on the couch in front of my laptop, the position Tiana found me after school, after her activities, and before bed. Being an adult means you get to plan your time however you want. In theory.

Standing on the Shore

Having recently read an article about loneliness in urban cities, specifically New York, I've been asking all my friends how lonely they feel here. Some of them aren't lonely at all, with social obligations that pack up their schedules and solid friendship circles. Some of them are lonely even admist the busy-ness. A few of them have to get back to me on the question. Most everyone agrees that having things to do has nothing to do with if you're actually alone or not. I find that for some peopke, loneliness often comes down to just not having anyone around for a Saturday night or a Sunday brunch. When you feel like doing something but can't find the right people to do it with, that's lonely, right?

Unrelated to the above, my Saturday was spent in a most unexpected fashion. I thought I was going to an indie film fest, and had various people and events lined up -- which eventually all fell through. The day started with a baby shower. Baby showers are good for free food, not so good for non-baby making people. There had to be once upon a time when baby showers were just for women right? I object to this "bring the men" mentality to baby showers and bridal things.

The divide between single people and married people with kids seems to be incredibly huge. It's no wonder friendships stall and social lives shrivel up. What's there in common? To witness a baby shower in Manhattan was kind of interesting though, as I've increasingly been told that the island is mostly a kid free zone. It's true actually. Unless you count teenagers as kids, there's hardly any children about. I don't know how I missed this before.

Related to this, a friend who recently had her first child sent a few of us a many thousands of words email detailing her experience. It was epic in scope and detailed in description. Ladies, if you are thinking of birthing a child, allow me to share this piece with you as it's really a must-read item. Hopefully I won't offend her by excerpting a bit here: "Birth was terrible, agonizing, and it nearly destroyed me mentally. I want to slap all the people who told me 'don't worry, you'll forget all the pain once the baby is born -- it's all worth it!' I will never ever say 'it's worth it' to anyone, this is my vow."

As Saturday night's plans fell apart, I found myself trailing along to two birthday parties. We didn't really know any of the people in question but they were good exercises in getting to know people. The first one, hosted by someone my friend had met just hours earlier, was an awkward mess in the beginning. I wasn't entirely sure why we were at a quiet bar with a cozy group of nobody we knews but eventually the ice was broken and somehow we ended up having them drive us uptown to the other party.

That other party was in Murray Hill, and the almost club was packed with lame-o's and people that would normally make me turn heel and run. But the space in the back was better and there was some dancing involved. The real problem wasn't the venue or the crowd, since I've spent many a night in this type of environment, but really how I should probably learn to just suck it up once in awhile. I have this face, the face of distaste, that I tend to wear in these situations. It's sour.

After waiting at the bar for thirty minutes -- "water, on the rocks" -- I had no interest in dancing and sat down to chat with a random. My friend was having fun though, so that meant mission accomplished. Afterward we trekked over to K-Town for late night eats. My friend's friend, whom I've met twice over the course of this week, does a nice combination of sweet, sheltered, impassioned, and feisty. I think they'd go well together.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Going to the Nuyorican is something I do every time I come to New York. Most people can only bear it once with me; slam poetry tends to be the same after a few visits. This time around it was almost exactly the same as any other time, with the themes and styles being similar to anything you'd hear on an average episode of Def Poetry Slam. Usually I go to the Nuyorican in the hopes that one poet will really capture my attention. Despite it being the semi-finals, there wasn't any poets of particular interest. One performer, a student from NYU, was incredible though. She was offered to the crowd as a sacrificial lamb but her piece was the only one that drew deep sighs and oooohs from the crowd. It was a poem about love and it was original and brilliant. Never got her name though.

Afterward we had a grand time talking about what sorts of poems we'd like to perform. It's rather rare that I get to hang out with more than one writer friend at a time. Two would be a luxury, three an unprecedented experience. In fact, if I had wanted to assemble a hang out team for a literary Friday night, I don't think I could have done any better.

When people talk about interpersonal chemistry, I wonder what it is they mean. Some people, who I think we would have every interest and topic in common, are impossible to talk to. Some people, after meeting them for ten minutes, immediately are elevated to instant friend status. There are people I've hung out with twice in my life and I feel like we're besties already. Perhaps this is more a function of having all that newness and exploration ahead, but I'd like to think that it's just a sign that when you get along you get along, even inexplicably.

Maybe it comes down to banter. If you can talk about something, we can at least start somewhere. As I get around to meeting people, I should really pay attention to the things that make people connect or feel at ease. There has to be something more scientific aside from just "We get along."

Let's hope I never say "besties" again.