rained in

So I guess that I have not updated for a few days.
Monday, I mostly hung around Dumbo waiting to move back to the John Street space. I went to Choice for breakfast and to write. After asking around, I was told that it was a much better place to go than the Dumbo General Store. It was. So. Much. Better. Not only is breakfast cheaper, it is also more interesting and more delicious. It's brighter and more pleasant and there are also more cute people here. Why haven't I been writing here every morning?!?

I go and pack up my things from Jenna and Henry's place, grab a thankyou card from a local boutique and head the few blocks to my home for the rest of my stay in New York. It feels SO NICE to have a room to myself. Hurray!! I don't know why it is that I am continuously exceedingly lucky when it comes to places to stay on vacation (and come to think of it, usually also with places to live), but I am so thankful.
In the evening, when Jenner walks in the door, he yells "Altaira's back!!" and that makes me feel pretty great. We catch up about our weekends and hang out and watch tv. Later, Rian and Caspar get home and we all sit around in the livingroom. Rian makes dirty martinis and I discover that I do not like dirty martinis, but it's still nice to be sitting in a livingroom full of delightful people, just hanging out, sipping a drink and laughing. This is exactly the kind of evening that I needed, and it reminds me of exactly why I really want roommates again.
After Weeds and the Big C, they put on this show called Tosh.0. Am I the only fucking person who hasn't heard of this?!? Apparently it's #3 on the comedy network and it's FUCKING HILARIOUS. It's basically a this guy, Daniel Tosh making fun of things on the internet. Seriously, I laughed so fucking hard. I am going to download every episode ever when I get home. Sleep times, and the next day I am up (relatively early) to make my way to the Met. Hurray!!
Admission to the Met is by donation. Every person who is from New York has told me that when they go, they pay a dollar, so I do the same. I get a bit of a scowl from the cashier, but hey, it says pay what you can, and I'm on a budget here. There are plenty of museums that are NOT by donation, and the Met is so full of tourists paying full price that I justify to myself that my paying a dollar really won't busy their balls. Am I right?
Let me just say, the Met is FUCKING HUGE. HUGE.
It blew my mind.
It is definitely something that you have to see while you are in New York, but that being said, I really did enjoy some of the smaller museums more. I felt so incredibly lost and overwhelmed here. And there were just SO MANY people. If I lived here, I would probably come one afternoon a month, and pick a specific exhibit or wing to go through thoroughly. I felt the same way about the Louvre in Paris. It's crazy when you are in these amazing museums and it seems like every corner you turn, there is some incredibly famous piece of art that you have seen in art books/classes/pop culture about a million times. And then there it is in front of you. Like, Un Dimanche a la Grande Jatte by Seurat or Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, by Degas. It's so bizarre, like seeing a movie star. (Ps. I PROMISE that I will go through all of these posts later and put in photos, but I am just too lazy at the moment... even though I just discovered a feature on blogger that makes including them incredibly easy).
My favourite part of the Met was all of the furniture and period rooms. There is just such a sense of emotion that I get from these exhibits. It's the same thing as when I was talking about the jewelry from Egypt. When you see a room, recreated as authentically as possible, you can't help but think, HOLY SHIT, SOMEONE LIVED HERE. Someone slept in this bed, they wrote at this desk, they looked at themselves in this mirror when they got ready for the day. It's fucking incredible.
Five hours later, I was all Met-ed out.
I need to be outside for a while, so I took a stroll down Park Avenue. I would really love to be able to spend a lot of time exploring Central Park. This visit, it is just too rainy or humid but I hope to spend many days discovering it at some point in my future.
I get home and then trek out to Trader Joes. Once again, I am astounded by the value. Hurray! Value!
While I am making dinner, Chris texts me and asks if I want to come over and hang out and watch funny television shows. I say that I do, and half an hour later, I am on my bike heading over to Bushwick. We watch "It's always sunny in Philidelphia" and a few other things, including the first episode of "Breaking Bad", which obviously is not funny, but I had never seen it before, and I will now have to download the entire series.
We snuggle and kiss a bit, which is nice, but I decide that I want to sleep at home, so I hop on my bike and hit the rainy street. There is something so liberating to me about biking late at night. It is one of my favourite things in life.
For once, on both the way out AND home I DO NOT GET LOST! It take me 20 minutes to bike there and 20 to bike back. AMAZING!!
It's 2 am and I'm sleepy as hell, so I hop into bed for sleep. My plan is to wake up early in the morning to write and to do some work...

When I wake up it's 11 am. Turns out that sleeping in a room with no natural light totally fucks with you. Why didn't I set an alarm!? Oh well. It's not like I have anywhere in particular to be, and it's totally rainy and miserable outside, so I am in no hurry. I make breakfast and chat with Karlene on the internet and try to figure out where I want to spend my day. She suggests a place on the Lower East Side called the Cake Shop that is a cafe by day and a venue by night. It's only a few short F train stops away, so I head on over.
(PS. Have I mentioned that I am AGAIN having trouble with my debit card?!? Vancity says that there should not be a problem and they don't know what's wrong. ARGH!!)
To avoid getting lost, I not only google maps, but street view my route, which turns out to be a fantastic idea. Hurray!
On my way there, I pass a Steve Madden store that is having a huge sale, and I can't help myself, so I pop in. Turns out to be well worth it, even though I'm not suppose to buy any more shoes or clothes. I find a pair of awesome leather ankle boots for THIRTY DOLLARS!! FUCKING AWESOME!! Because I brought about 5 pairs of shoes to New York with me, I will have 8 pairs of shoes in my bag on the way back... That being said, three awesome pairs of shoes for 130 bucks?? Yes, please! Thanks for the great sales, New York!
I get to the Cake Shop and it's a little bit of a dive? I mean, it seems cool, but it also seems like they put no effort into it to "be cool". I'm not sure how I feel about it. But I get a cupcake and a beer, and both are delicious.
There is a small group of kids (not literally) sitting near me, and I am eavesdropping on their conversation and I keep wanting to break in because they are talking about getting divorced and... some other things... I forget what... but things that I definitely have something to bond with them over. But I don't want to seem like a weirdo, so I just keep to myself and type. It's 3:15, and I'm almost done this post and I am not sure what to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon. I was going to make a karaoke event on facebook but then got nervous, because I am silly, so I might make one for my last night when I know that there is a cool bar in Brooklyn doing karaoke rather than trying to sift through all of the places on Yelp and potentially choosing a place that is totally horrible. Meep!
Rain is forecast for the rest of the week and it's really putting a damper (ba dump bump) on this week, because I really just want to curl up and do nothing. During class, Lee Henderson said something about how we, as writers, really just want to sit in one place with our computers all day. At the time, I thought, "are you kidding me?? I go out and do stuff ALL THE TIME" but he was completely right. Most of the time, I am completely satisfied being holed up in a cafe, bar, in bed, on my couch, in a park, with my laptop just typing away. That is probably the easiest way in life to make me completely content. When I imagine my life partner, this is what we are doing; I mean, obviously there are other things, like cooking, laughing, walking in the rain... but the most consistent image in my mind, is us sitting across from each other at a table, with our computers, working and typing. This is my dream.
Anyays... now I have to pee, and the basementy-ness of the cake shop is making me a little antsy.
EDIT: Just a side note on the cake shop... as a night time venue, or as a place to grab a beer with a friend, it would be totally awesome. In fact, most days I would really love the wood paneling/christmas lights/broken chair-ness of it, but today I am feeling a little basement-y myself, so I probably should have gone somewhere a little more light. END EDIT.
Broke New York, signing off.