He's back!

Wow, I had such an incredible five days visiting my little sister up in New York. The last time I was there was a month (to the day) after 9/11, and Kristin's cat Barkley died the morning of the day I arrived, so there was a lot mourning in the air. And while I had a good visit, both Kristin and the city were trying to get over profound losses, which tended to mute the good times we tried to enjoy.

But this time, over two years later, I had an absolute blast. I stayed with Kristin and her bunny Snickers (who looks like a small donkey, plays with the spastic attitude of a puppy, and has a more voracious apetite than a goat of twice the size) in her one-room studio in Brooklyn (city of my birth), and to my surprise, I did okay with my allergies. There were a few sniffly, itchy-eyed, labored breathing moments, but they were very few.

On New Year's Eve, we met up with Kristin's fried Ryan, who was in town from L.A., as well as a mutual college friend and her cousins. I got to party with my sister, a kewl gay dude, and some beautiful Indian women. We had dinner and some drinks at Chevy's, the Mexican restaurant where Kristin's boyfriend Derek works as a bartender, then left at 10:00 when they kicked us out. We headed uptown to Union Square (in Greenwich Village) and the W, a swingin' bar at the bottom of a hotel, which was just a bit too crowded and noisy for our tastes. (I can't even imagine if we'd tried to go to Times Square.) But around the corner was the Union Bar, which was a little more laid back, and had an area where we could actually sit and chat (well, we would have chatted if the music hadn't been so loud). There was champagne and dancing and watching the ball drop. Once again, I wasn't kissed for New Year's. Sigh. We left around 2:30 a.m. and amazingly weren't hassled on the subway back to Brooklyn.

On Thursday, we slept in, and Ryan came over around 12:30. More subway and walking until we found out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was closed. So we headed back into the city and must have walked every square block of it, at least that's how my legs felt. We saw the Ed Sullivan theater and took a picture of the Late Show sign. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was beautiful and tall. I bought a black sock hat to match my kewl scarf and gloves (all of which were necessary the whole time I was there; I don't think the temps ever got above 50F). The Colony had more sheet music than I've ever seen in my life, and a few people were singing softly to themselves, most likely as pieces for Broadway auditions. We stopped off at Miles's flat in Times Square (where Ryan was staying), and I got to see how well gay men decorate their apartments. Both The Strand and Forbidden Planet were closed when we got there. Since we were back in Union Square, we took a bus to Derek's apartment to see if he wanted to join us for dinner, but he'd just woken up. We were all wiped, so Ryan headed back to Times Square, and Kristin and I went back to Brooklyn for fish and chips and Pirates of the Carribean on VHS.

Friday started with perhaps the most delicious bagel I've ever had, then it was on to The Caretaker on 42nd Street (Times Square). Patrick Stewart as a homeless man, and he did a phenomenal job. He made that play, and showed what a versatile actor he is; the dude can definitely do more than Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Aidan Gillen was also amazing as a fast-talking London con-man, full of energy and intensity. Kyle MacLachlan, however, was about as dynamic as a block of wood, and not nearly as exciting. I like the film and TV roles I've seen him in, but his performance here was disappointing. In a three-man play, each actor has to have a presence, and it surprised me to see how stiff he was. Kristin was at least clever enough to wonder if his character was mentally-challenged, which it turns out he was (though we didn't find this out until a long monologue at the end of Act Two), but there are ways to portray this that wouldn't make me fall asleep. Apart from that, I loved the play, and if any of you go to see it, pray that MacLachlan's understudy is on that night.

We then headed to the upper west side and the American Museum of Natural History for the live jazz and tapas bar underneath the suspended plane-arium. The Winard Harper Sextet played some fantastic and fun jazz, and we ate some cheese and funky spicy chicken-things on a stick. At 7:30, we headed upstairs to the plane-arium for Sonic Vision (which Kristin and I kept calling Sonic-care), a kick-ass digital animation show set to the music of artists like Radiohead, U2, Coldplay, The Flaming Lips, Zwan, and White Zombie, with the whole set mixed (unevenly) by Moby. This will be the show that replaces Laser Pink Floyd, I guarantee it. It was so freaking cool, and I wasn't even high. After the show, we went down to the gift shop (I bought some astronaut ice cream that was actually pretty good), then we headed back to Brooklyn for some amazing wheat-based pizza.

Saturday was much more relaxed, though it began at 9:00 with the handyman banging around and drilling things in the apartment below, all of which I heard through the earplugs I was wearing. We got up later and walked a few short blocks to Ozzie's, a really cool coffeshop where my novel starts off with a bang. Kristin had to write up some procedural things for work, so I brought my notebooks and Zoran's The Fourth Circle to keep me occupied. I took copious notes on the coffehouse (thinking that I'd like to end the novel there as well), even drawing up a modified floor plan that merged Ozzie's with the coffeehouse in my head. This will help a lot with the blocking in the first chapter. I also wrote a few pages of "In Jurong" in my moleskine, stopping just at the point where they'll be taking a dirigible to meet the Undine. And I read a few chapters in The Fourth Circle. We were there for a few hours, which was nice; it was good to just sit and rest my ankles and shins, which were killing me from all the walking we'd been doing. I am so out of shape.

We left for Union Square around 4:30, and I got to visit The Strand for the first time. Oh. My. God. If you are a bibliophile like myself (and I know a few of you are), you would love this place. I picked up a copy of the latest Fence Magazine (which has published cool people like Ol' Mike) for a dollar, Ha Jin's collection The Bridegroom: Stories for five bucks, and brand new deeply-discounted copies of Milan Kundera's latest novel Ignorance and Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Interpreter of Maladies. Janet warned me to budget myself in there, and man, was she right. I've never seen such a huge and comprehensive used book store, and I'm glad I'll be partially setting chapter two of the novel there. Yay research!

Around the corner was Forbidden Planet, patronized by more geeks than you could shake a lightsaber at, and which didn't really have anything I couldn't live without. I did see a new printing of Violent Cases by Dark Horse, but all they did was slap a new cover on it. There was also a phenomenal collection of all the prints of Yoshitaka Amano, including some of his work on The Sandman: Dream Hunters, but I just couldn't see paying 40 clams for it right now. Beautiful, though. At that point, Kristin was feeling a little weak and nauseous, so we went back home and got some Chinese food: roast pork lo mein for me, and chicken noodle soup with egg roll for her.

This morning, we woke up at 6:15, got cleaned up, did final packing, gave Snickers a last scratch on the nose, walked to the bagel place for some breakfast and tea, then caught a taxi to La Guardia. My flight was at 10:00, and we got there earlier than expected, but we got to hang out and talk a little more while munching on bagels and muffins. Then at 9:00, we said our goodbyes, and I went through security. The flight back was smooth, and because I was in an emergency exit row, I had mucho leg room (I suppose as a reward for being asked to assume such a big responsibility). My parents picked me up at RDU and told me about the wedding show they'd gone to over the weekend.

Man, what a way to start out the new year. I had so much fun with my little sis, and it impressed me even more how strong a person she is to be able to make a living up there and survive in the big city. Her place in Park Slope is in very safe neighborhood and she's within walking distance of so many cool shops and restaurants that it boggles my mind. Last time I visited New York, I was infected with the ceaseless energy of that city and things ran at ninety-million miles an hour for weeks after getting home. This coming week, I have a lot of things to do, including interviewing officiants for my wedding and finding a new job, and I'll need that energy to get through it all. Right now, I'm so exhausted that I think I'll go to bed early tonight.

Now Reading:
The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivkovic

Stories Out to Publishers:
6

Books Read This Year:
0

Zines/Chapbooks/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
0