nyp1

it is very early monday morning and I am sitting in the toronto bus terminal after just having a long conversation with a older irish homeless drug addict who would not admit that he was not going back to ireland as soon as he got his passport from ottawa. I am somewhat confused as to whether he is in denial or has his story down so well that it just feels wrong to deviate from it. He was intelligent and obviously missed ireland. i wonder how he ended up here.

last night I was in NY. Nicholls and I planned a mini-vacation and met up. We could not have picked a better weekend. The sun was out and the weather was gorgeous the entire weekend (well, except for one rained-out patio breakfast which, in all fairness, we were willing to endure). We stayed at Sahm's place on an amazing street called St. Mark's. It was so quintessentially community. We would sit outside on the fire escape, basking in the sun, and just watch the multitude of people and types do their thing.

It was a high school reunion with Colin, Mike, Francey, Sahm and I (and both Dan Otero and Gilbert Nye were on the cell phone at some point in the weekend). It is relatively unusual to have such a close high school clase, I think. Most people seemed to have hated high school.

So, what did we do? It can be summed up succinctly with the word consumption. We ate and drank a lot. Colin noted that ovens in NY are usually used for storage.

Friday's festivities started out at 3:00 with margaritas at a small mexican place across from S's with C, F and M. They had 2-for-1 drinks, so we had 4 each. By 4:00, the conversation had turned to sex. F noted that it was way to early to be having that conversation. Somehow that initial drinking binge lasted until 4 in the morning. We went to a back room bar where a minor celebrity was in an even more back room. I tried to convince a girl that we could get in if she came with me. We continued on to a japanese themed bar where we worked really hard to get a seat in an somewhat coveted area and the onto Francey's work where it was decided that the full plates of food on the table next to us were probably up for grabs. They were not. We determined this when the owners came back from the bathroom to find their food on our table. Francey brought us a lot of alcohol. Silly francey. Onto a bar where we apparently met Sahm's girlfriend and colin and i realised that we were too good for other people. This is where my recollections end. According to sahm, after a few more bars, we ended up back at his house where he and I ate ice cream and watched porn. I am skeptical but know it could be true.

Next day. Hangover. Breakfast outside fails. We hold off starting to drink until 6 when we have retardly expensive margaritas at a terrible place called Senor Swankys. We are surrounded by drunk jocks. We realised we are in the middle of a giant Greenwich Village pub crawl. We try to join but it is too late, so we just drink in the same bars. Back to Sahm's. We head out around midnight after taking in 8th and Ocean. TV is terrible.

To a small bar where I force mike to do a whisky drink keg stand. I forget that he is tall and ungainly. People are kicked. We leave. We find a matress which entertains us for at least 10 minutes. It entertains everyone around us. I find my own personal bar. There were actually attractive single ladies sitting at the bar drinking just waiting to be picked up, picked up. I decided that it would be my local if I ever moved to the city. Then to the final bar of the night, where I ended up pouring B52s because the bartendress did not understand layering. Talked to Sahm's girlfriend for hours. Walked home. No porn.

Next day was the best. The whole crew met up, ostensibly to go furniture shopping, but francey, mike, colin and I took the soccer ball and disk into central park. We wandered for hours looking for green space. It doesn't exist so we improvised. When an uncaught throw hit a lady in the head, we knew it was time to leave. Whole Foods in the rotunda and then a walk home. We didn't go to any museums, any special shows. In fact, the weekend was pretty ordinary, but there is just so much life.

Still, I couldn't live there. No green space, no outdoor soccer. I would go nuts.