Only in New York

Some things can only be seen in New York, and this one right in front of my work today was one of them, on so many levels.

1st Potato

I harvested the first potato from my fire escape potato box today. I've been pulling cherry tomatoes all summer, but I finally dug into the box since the potato plants are seemingly about dead. It was more beautiful than I expected. At some point I'll upload and link to the daily series I took of the plants growing for the first couple of months.

What hath Irene wrought?

Had you been under the belief that Irene had caused only superficial damages to North Brooklyn, with a few minor trees and limbs down, you were wrong! My morning constitutional through McCarran Park revealed the truly gruesome consequences of this soulless storm. Where once stood our beloved Vagina Tree, stood merely a closely shorn stump.

A fixture of the North Brooklyn community, Tree Twat, served as a reliable landmark by which groups of revelers could easily assemble in the McCarran Park “strip.” No more. For some time, navigation may be done using the relative location of the former Tree Twat, but with the transience of the population of North Brooklyn, our beloved friend will be long forgotten in but a handful of summers. The Vagina Tree did not serve merely as a reference point, she was also a blank slate for the artist in us all. Whether she was adorned with a faux piercing or a grass bush, the creativity of local denizens was sure to bring a smile to the weary pedestrian on a hot summer day.

Although her true origins are unclear, Vagina Tree sprouted from seed sometime in the early to mid-Twentieth Century and was placed in McCarran earth several years later, perhaps by some hardworking New Deal employee. Her immense girth and longevity in the face of adversity was no doubt the result of impeccable breeding from stout stock. She cooled many a picnicker over the years before gaining the scar that brought her familiar moniker. Was it a longstanding feud with the heavens or the insidious rot of pestilence that eventually deflowered her and opened up her inner beauty? Nobody knows, but whatever is was it certainly left its mark on North Brooklyn for years. She stood strong, with no hint of embarrassment at her nakedness, but in the end, the wound would be too great to withstand the fury of Irene. Sensing the peril of her people, Tree Twat threw herself squarely in the face of this Irene to hold back the force of her squalls. When in the end she collapsed under the strain, she died contentedly knowing that she had saved the city from great destruction. But she did not go out without a word. She was sure to make us remember her. So let us look upon the twisted metal of the McCarran Park fence and light pole where her virtuous body shed its mortal coil and salute her ultimate sacrifice, for freedom is not free.

Birthday and shit

Brandy and I are quite lazy and always find it very easy to sit around the apartment on our asses - me in front of the computer and her sprawled out on the couch. Then maybe later we'll head to one of our local establishments for dinner or drink. Sure, we have a fantastic apartment and neighborhood, perfect for such activities, but we also miss out on so much more that this city has to offer. So we do try to force ourselves out and about from time to time, and whenever we are out in some other neighborhood we are really happy with the choice. My birthday was on Thu and that was a good excuse to get out.
I didn't really feel like organizing anything, so I decided to make the B-day be more of a loner evening. I decided to go down to Brooklyn Heights to check out this coop cafe where they were having a few comedians and storytellers tell stories about "neighborhood", with of course, a NYC theme. It was pretty cool, and afterwards we went across the street and drank on the roof of the organizer. In her story she talked about her first Couchsurfing experience and we publicly chastened her for not having a full profile. We were the only CSers at the event, so lots of people were asking about it after.
On the way home the G train was only running part-way, but we were too drunk to notice until we were headed back towards downtown Brooklyn so we had to get out and take a cab in disgust.
We didn't do shit on Fri night.
On Sat we had a few people over for a cold food dinner party and then smoked hookah on the roof.
Yesterday we went to Governor's Island, finally. There was an event called Meatopia where a bunch of meat-centric restaurants would be grilling and you could sample. This sounded cool and we have been talking about checking out GI for a long time, so we made the trip. The boarding on the Manhattan side is a complete clusterfuck. Very poorly organized where you have to get in a line before being put into this room with everyone else where you have to rush the doors when they open and let a few people out at a time into another queue. Nobody knows what's going on, or whether they'll make the next boat (every half hour) and tensions are high. However, once you get to the island, you forget everything, or even that you are in the city. It's an old military base with mostly abandoned brick buildings and tons of huge trees. Really beautiful and relaxing. The meat thing was overpriced, so we just walked through and laughed at the people who paid huge $ for tiny portions.
We then took the ferry back to Brooklyn, which dumps you at pier 6 of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Turns out this is nowhere near the Brooklyn Bridge, so we had to walk half an hour since we were going to the Manhattan Brg to watch the World Cup final. They had this big screen set up on a street under one of the arches of the bridge and it was completely filled with people. It would have been really cool to watch there since there were about 300 people and the cheering really echoed through the arch, but we were late and it was hot, crowded, and we couldn't really see, so we wandered around trying to find a decent bar. I was getting hot and annoyed, noting the fact that, for one of my least favorite neighborhoods in the city, I find myself in DUMBO way too much. I finally crowded into a bar to watch the 2nd half, while Brandy said fuck this and sat outside. The game was really boring and I didn't really give a shit anyway, so I bailed instead of watching the overtime and we went and laid down in the waterfront park between the Bridges. This is a really nice spot with great views of the city and the bridges, plenty of nice grass, and shade if you look for it. We got a few drops of rain while we were here, but certainly not enough. It hasn't rained here since we got back from Peru 3 wks ago and everything is brown. All the trees that just got planted in McCarran are dieing b/c the city isn't competent enough to protect its investment and send someone to water them.
Later, we found a pretty nice bookstore that redeems DUMBO a bit. Then we walked into downtown Brooklyn and threw the disc in Cadman Plaza, which is a really nice park.
We took the bus home b/c we didn't want to deal with transferring on the train on a Sunday, but then it was 20 min late (after we'd just missed one) and once we got on, we went one block before a huge traffic jam somehow materialized and we sat in that for another 20 min. Thank god we had our books. I just picked up Les Miserables again after setting it down for last semester. Great book, but man are some parts tedious. And it is ridiculously long. Like 1000 bible thickness pages.

A pleasant surprise from the toilet

Our toilet must be monitored following flush since it typically continues flowing, requiring a hearty punch in the tank to cease. Today I failed to follow through with the ceremony as I discovered to my chagrin when I required its services a fair time later. An unexpected positive externality to this is that the water becomes quite cold, which in turn cools the entire unit, including the seat. A pleasant surprise on a hot summer day.

More

Monday morning we were out pretty early. I took Brandy to Roanoke
where she met up with her ride back to New York. In the process we
discovered that my phone had broken so that I could still hear, but
nobody could hear me talking. I then took a gorgeous mountain valley
road all the way to Blacksburg.
I had to check out Blacksburg b/c it's a college town and that means
they probably have a good sandwich shop and a good coffee shop. I
found a decent one of each in the same place and continued on my way
to where I was couchsurfing outside of Cincinnati.
I must point out here that I finally fixed my windshield wiper which
had not been making full contact with the window due to a faulty wiper
arm. Every time it rained or snowed was a disaster as I tried to peer
out of the little slightly clear square of window. Of course I never
thought of it when it wasn't raining. I had tried to switch the driver
side with the passenger side and had failed to get the latter off, as
had the mechanic. In VA I decided to give it one last shot with the
screwdriver, and pop, it came right off. I switched them in ten
minutes and it works like new. The bad one even actually works on the
passenger side. So, when it started raining in WV I was actually happy
b/c I could field test it.
I met up with Beth in Hamilton, OH. She couldn't host so she put me
with her friends out in the middle of nowhere. We all went over to a
neighbor's house and sat around the fire and several other people came
over. They were a really great bunch with really fun and witty banter.
Actually, I don't think I've really ever been in a group with quite
that kind of creative dynamic before.
The next morning Beth and one of my hosts, Joanna, went out to
breakfast before I took off. Beth was raving about the place, with
Joanna less excited. I fell somewhere closer to the latter.
I had brought Eric's bike, which I"m borrowing for the summer, with
the intent of cycling to most of the places I was visiting in WI. Here
at breakfast I made what would be the first of a series of decisions
that would drastically limit the utility of taking the bike.
I decided that I would go all the way to Sheboygan by car instead of
riding my bike due to logistics.

Crazy travelin'

I have been traveling quite a bit in the past few weeks. About two weeks before graduation, my step-mom's mother died. We just found out she had lung cancer in Feb and I had been expecting that she would last until I was planning to visit in June, but she deteriorated quite rapidly and made the last minute decision to ditch school and head out when they put her into hospice. I had an Austrian friend I met in Budapest, Birgit, and her boyfriend visiting and the day they left, Sunday, I caught a rideshare out to Chicago. I rode with a balloon artist, as in, she twists balloons into shapes at parties. She was picking up her car which she had purchased back from her old roommate in CT. She went to sleep and put me in charge around 11 and I ended up driving all night. I didn't think I would, but she brought along some podcasts put out by How Stuff Works called, Stuff You Should Know. They were really interesting and kept me awake all night. A couple of the podcasts were about synesthesia, which is this really interesting condition where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to perception along another. Common ones include seeing numbers as colors, seeing numbers, days or months as having personalities, tasting sounds, etc, although there are dozens of different types.
We arrived in Chicago at Liz's place around 6, where I attempted to hang out with her before she went to work, but mainly just nodded off and provided nonsensical responses. I work in the early afternoon and took her car to head to Wausau. I had been planning on grabbing dinner in Madison and seeing Annie in the morning, but then figured that my friends would be there for awhile and Annie would not. When I arrived around 6:30 I came into her room to see my dad, Dawn, her brother Wayne, his wife Kelly, my brother John and Annie's husband Harold sitting around the bed. Annie looked horrible, withered away and was basically just laboring over her breath with her eyes closed. After a bit of sitting there everyone finally gave me some privacy. I took her hand and told her how I felt and kind of said my goodbye's since it was pretty obvious she wouldn't be there long, or at least I hoped not in that state. I am pretty sure that she labored a light acknowledgement. Later that night we got that call that she had died. Everyone was kind of relieved that she was free of it, although Dawn is still having a bit of a time. I bought a return flight and spent the rest of the week with my family and even got to see my mom for a day in Sheboygan on the way out. The weather was terrible and it actually snowed on the day of the funeral, which was May 7th!
I had foolishly lugged all my books and stuff along with the intention of working on my schoolwork during the days in order to make the Tue and Wed deadlines. I did nothing of course and took the incomplete.
I went to my graduation anyway and watched my classmates walk. Afterward we went over to Starkey dorms where several of them lived and just hung out drinking beers and playing volleyball for a few hours. One of the guys from our class, known to be very lazy and a terrible group member, was visibly missing from graduation. When he came to our little hang out later he revealed that he had gotten a third C and had been told on Friday that only two can be applied to his graduation. Getting one C in grad school is nearly impossible, so he must have been unbelievably lazy to get three. To add insult to injury, they told him they had never had to deal with this before. This only furthers my belief that higher education is deteriorating due to overzealous admissions thanks to the "run it like a business" fools. As he was relating this story for like the fifth time, someone said, "well, better luck next time." Later on we went over to a backyard grad party and everyone and their mother was there. Well, not every mother, but there were a couple of them. After the party I went out with Charlie, Anna and Eric, played some shuffleboard and crashed in Anna's roommate's vacant bed.
After coming back from the trip, I had a couple weeks before I was to head back to WI for a wedding. Plenty of time to get my stuff done and maybe even apply to a job or two. Somehow I only got one class done and didn't apply to shit. I'm really disappointed about this, but I was also really burned out at that time and the class I did finish was really important to me so I let it kick my ass. I'm hopefully using the work I did for it for another publication this summer.
On Memorial Day weekend Brandy and I went down to VA right after work on Thu. We crashed with a CSer, Micah, outside of Richmond and spent the day with him and Brandy's brother Joe at a roller coaster park called King's Dominion. Joe got insanely lost on his way and had to be talked through the directions by Micah, who has learned great patience by working IT phone help. We heard him say several times, "turn right. What do you see? Ok, it sounds like you turned left..."
Brandy thought he would be in a bad mood because, "he's going to be embarrassed and he doesn't like to be embarrassed." His mood was fine though. I'm pretty sure that something made him get as lost as he did and that same something allowed him to be in a good mood. The park had some pretty amazing rides, definitely better than the 6 Flags in NJ. Unfortunately Joe got sick and couldn't ride that many coasters and I realized that my brain can't handle them anymore. I almost blacked out twice as the blackness closed around me while taking g's. The second time was really bad and I just couldn't get on the last ride. This is really sad because I love roller coasters. Just one more thing on my march toward death that I'll not be able to do again. Perhaps I have a tumor. Perhaps it is the shape of a cell phone...
After the park Joe left and the three of us joined Micah's g/f Shannon to get dinner at this suburbia brew pub-esque place. I say 'esque' because they don't actually have their own beer. The beer was damn good though although poor Brandy ordered Starr Lager, which is a local crappy beer. It was a nice dinner but I froze my ass off with the outrageous A/C. Of stupid ass A/C, this place is one of the worst I've seen. I mean, I know, I know, we have dominated nature and want to prove it by reversing the seasons, but fer chrissake I know that if that temp had been outside, everyone in that place would bitching up a storm. If I could have my choice, I would take no A/C anywhere, ever, if that meant I'd never have to wear a jacket in the summer. This of course excludes cooling for server rooms and other technology needs. After dinner we played Settlers of Canaan which they had also found at a garage sale and had been dieing to try. It actually turned out to be a fairly cool game although very long and certainly not as good as the original.
Oh yeah, I stepped on a slug on Micah's front step and it was pretty gross. I'll take my predicament over his though.
On Sat we drove to Brandy's parents' house and relaxed. We convinced them to go to this independent steak house about a mile away rather than the chain one in suburbia despite the fact that it was "high", which means expensive. It was a bit pricier than I normally spend, but damn was it good. I had a prime rib that just melted in the mouth and Brandy had some ribs that fell off the bone. On Sun they drove us up to a place where hang gliders launch, although there were none and we just looked at the spectacular view and got a couple ticks.

Later we went over to Brandy's cousin Jeremy's place and he took us fishing on his father in law's land. I hadn't really ever fished and it was actually pretty fun. I snagged a pretty big one, but then the damn hook broke and didn't have any more luck.