evening update

After reading yelp reviews to find the best nearish coffee shop; after google mapping my route; after walking there... I discover that McNally Jackson Books has now become a liquor store? Which doesn't really make sense, because they appear to have events running through August... either way, 52 Prince street was NOT a bookstore. Even on google street view, it is a clothing store... definitely NOT a bookstore and cafe. Ho wells! I walk around window shopping for a while, and find one of the most amazing stationery stores in life. I want to buy everything. They have scrap boxes (like books, but for less organized folks, like me!) that look like little vintage suitcases. They have every kind of paper you could imagine. They have a god-damned photo booth for christsake. I forget what they are called, but I have a photo on my camera, and some day I will upload it here.

I get home and eat dinner and have a beer and watch television. A few hours pass and noone has come home. I realize that my roommates all have lives and that they MIGHT in fact have plans. If I do not DO something, I will be sitting here in front of the TV and the Internet all night. YOU'RE IN NEW YORK, ALTAIRA!! FUCKING DO SOMETHING!! So I do. I go onto the Time Out New York and go to the "free things to do today" section. The first interesting thing is a show at the Knitting FActory that you have to RSVP to. I click on the link, and... it's full.
The second interesting thing is a book reading, "How I Learned to Live on the Road: Tales of Travels, Travails, Wanderlust and Out-of-Town Hijinks"; four authors will be reading here. Sounds awesome, and it's in China Town, which is just a hop skip and a jump across the Manhattan Bridge. Hurray!
I get to the address of the venue and all I see is a sketchy looking building; the sign reads "Happy Ending Health Club". No joke. The awning is faded and gross looking and I double check the address and wonder if I got it wrong. But no, I haven't. After a few bookish types pass me, I go inside and turns out that there is now a swanky little bar in place of a jerk-off joint. I'm there early so that I can grab a seat and I sit and read my book while I wait. An irritating couple sits down next to me and I want to punch them in the face. A different couple in front of me ends up blocking my view a bit, and when I ask them if they can move a smidge to the left they ask if I would like to trade seats, and I am so relieved that I no longer have to sit next to the boring/irritating/loud assholes for the entire book reading.
A little after 8 pm, the host goes on. Apparently this is part of a monthly event called "How I learned..." where various authors who fit the category read from their work. What a fantastic event to stumble upon. It was HILARIOUS. The authors were so clever and funny and just fucking rad. I can't give a breakdown of them all right now, but they were just amazing. I was blown away, and was so thankful and glad that I checked out the internet rather than being a bummer and staying in all night. Hurray!
Two hours later, satisfied with my evening, I bike home. On the way over the bridge, I am reminded of the sheer pleasure of COASTING. I have had a fixed gear for so long, which I love, but there are few feelings more pleasurable in life than coasting a bike down a hill at the end of the day. After reaching the peak of the bridge, I can coast almost the entire way home. In fact, these past few weeks, i take great comfort in those last seconds before I reach the door. Days or nights where I have been biking around lost for hours, and then I find it, a familiar street that will lead me under the manhattan bridge, then I coast the whole way down High Street, and I know that I will be safe and comfortable at home in a matter of seconds.
Jenner is at home and he's talking on the phone in his room so I turn on the TV and noddle on the internet. When he's done his conversation, he comes out of his room and we chat about friends and work and life and figuring things out and life in our respective cities. ROOMMATES!
I can't believe that in less than a week, I will be boarding a plane to come home. And I can't believe how long it seems that I've been away; it really does feel like an eternity. That being said, I wish that I could stay longer and figure things out here more. It's a strange length of time and a strange way to travel. When you try to immerse yourself in everyday life... it doesn't feel like I have been on vacation here for three weeks; it feels like I have LIVED here for three weeks. Maybe that distinction only means something to me. But I don't feel like a tourist. I am having my own mini-life played out in New York, and I wish that I had more time to see where it would go; to develop friendships that I have started to touch on and to really know these streets.
Meep!
For now, it's 1 am, and I'm up early tomorrow for the MoMa.
Totally stoked.