Ah New York, it’s been good to be back. It was hard for me when the bus pulled in to Port Authority in NYC to turn right around and head back out of it again to my mom’s place in north Jersey, but such was the arrangement and I wanted to see me mother. I got in just in time for dinner and then we settled into TV afterward, as is their custom. Finally, at long last, I could retire this ridiculous ensemble of the tent and big, flat, square red genealogy bag I’d been toting about.
The interesting angle at this part of the trek relates back to anyone who might have followed along on the old walking days, or have since read the pages of its chronicles. While in Seattle I randomly got an email from ole Ingrid, my ex-girlfriend who walked through Georgia and Alabama with me. We’d completely lost touch and I was quite excited to hear she was up for speaking to me again. There wasn’t much communication past that random email, but I had told her I was coming to New York, where she’d just returned to Columbia, so we arranged to meet up.
Our meeting was intended to go down that next night after my arrival to the area, but we ended up meeting two days later because I had a spasm of weirdo-ness and pushed it back. When we did finally meet up it was absolutely great. It was the first time I’d seen her since I put her on the plane back in Nashville, Tennessee for her bum knee. It was a great visit not only because we were comfortable with each other again, but because we were quite honest with each other in a comfortable sort of way. We had a fun night as well as a cathartic one, for me at least. Later in the evening as we got to drinking, my friend Awol, from my old film days, came out as well and the whole night was simply merry.
I stayed over at her place then headed off in the morning since I had some running around to do. Before meeting up with her the day before I had putzed around the city, returning to local haunts of olde. The main one of these was my old coffee shop, Auggies, as well as my friend Craig’s coffee shop, Local, which he opened around the corner from Auggies. On this morning I had a wedding to get to, but I had to get back downtown to Local again to pick up a book from one of my regulars there on photography for a wedding gift, then out to Jersey for my suit, and back into the city again for the actual ceremony.
I should explain this wedding. While down in Millville tapping away at my studies I got an email from a friend of mine, Shawn, who was the best friend from childhood of an old girlfriend of mine, Margo. The word had traveled that I was heading east and she’d just found out, so she emailed me a last minute email invite to her wedding which coincided perfectly with my arrival to New York where she was to be married. Thus, I had a wedding to get to and had not planned well to do it. When I finally did get back into the city again I was stuffing my shirt into my pants to look nice as I wandered down 37th St. with no address looking for any sign of limos or receptions or anything at all of where to go.
Lo and behold there was a sign right in front of the building down the random direction I had hoped it would be in. The Gods of Timeliness were with me as I showed up just in time to be seated before she walked down the aisle. It was really a beautiful wedding and afterward I mingled awkwardly among a sea of unknowns since Shawn is a friend of a friend really, until I found Margo at dinner time and sat with her and her parents. This was when I discovered the primary reason for my hasty last minute invite was for my notorious form of dance.
It was a grand evening over all. I did my part and danced the night away, mostly with I believe the groom’s aunt who I accidentally knocked over at one point. She seemed fine with it though, but it confirms that I really am not good at dancing with others. Best to plop me off on my own when the funk comes on. Afterward Margo shuttled off with some other friends that were staying with her as well, and her husband, Walter, picked me up off a corner and drove me to their place. The next day we all funneled back in for a top of Times Square, rotating restaurant breakfast and visit, then I drifted back home to mothers.
At Ma ma’s I stayed for the rest of the week. It was really quite nice as far as a visit goes. She was having a very distressing time all that week and I was so pleased I could be there for her, and the distress lent itself well to having many a meaningful talk from when she got home from work until she went to bed each night. It was also just her and I the whole week since her husband, Musty, had flown off on a business trip that whole while so we really got a lot of good chatting done.
During the days I would hang out around the house and generally go online to chat with Jane of England, who I mentioned before. She and I also had many a good talk about the things going on in life, and she helped me resolve an issue or two of my own as I was helping me mum work out her problems. All in all it was just a really nice week of figuring things out and getting the world straightened a bit. Other than that, I’d spend the nights making copies of family pictures for my records and getting all of that sorted.
By the end of that week Musty returned home and I was ready to head back into to town. First I popped into my old bar, Shades of Green, to see if Mary the bartender was there. Finding out she wasn’t I had a drink then headed up to Columbus Circle to meet up with Ana, another ex-girlfriend of mine from days past whose become a good friend. I maintain that I think some of the best friends you can have are ex-girlfriends, they have that brutal honesty in them that’s just unmatched and quite insightful. Anyway, we met up for dinner and spent the weekend together at her place.
For the most part the visit consisted of going out to eat and drink, then laying about through the day downloading TV shows and watching them on her computer. The two we really got hooked on were Lost and Gilmore Girls. An interesting combination, but somehow they worked well together, or maybe they appealed to the adventure monger and sap in me.
When I left a few days later I intended to meet up with my friend Cox but my folly lay in not calling before I showed up back at Local for a coffee. My friend Joe, who had also worked at Auggies, was working that day so there was much catching up to be had as I sat and sipped telling the tales of the day. One of the regulars, Sabrina, got worked into chatting with us and soon Joe was closing and we were all heading out for a post-work drink. That went from one bar to the next, we picked up another straggler, Gaba, had some diner dinner after which we lost Sabrina, but the three of us carried on to the East Village. By midnight or so Joe and I found ourselves wrapping up the night over a pint at Shades before he head way uptown and I was left realizing I never called Cox.
Not only had I not called Cox, but I hadn’t arranged a bed that night, which I had planned on asking Cox about while visiting. I popped into one more bar to figure this plight out then by 2am wandered back to my old neighborhood of the West Village where I’d lived right before leaving New York for the last time as a resident. Not more than two blocks from that old apartment I was walking along with my big ole pack on again when I noticed a gate to an alleyway unlocked and slightly ajar. Beyond that gate was a fire escape, and up that fire escape was a low flat roof only one or two stories up and it seemed perfect for nap time up there. Up I went and put my bag down as a pillow in the perfect 70 degree weather outside for a night under the stars in the city.
Around 9am the next morning I awoke comfy and spry, ready for the day ahead. Finding my way back to the sidewalk I meandered back toward Washington Square Park to discover that that last bar I’d gone to that night had given me back some other guy’s credit card. Along with that, there was an issue with my phone again that I thought required my credit card and thus my day was cut out for me. I hung out between the park and the coffee shop working out how to contact this other guy, coordinate a switch since I figured he must have mine, and then resolve the phone deal. In the end, hung over and a bit tired, I still managed to figure it all out, but by then I figured I was no good company for Cox at that point so I went back to Jersey.
That next day I stayed holed up at my mom’s chatting most of the day with Jane online. I still find it quite hilarious that with all this talk with Jane I still have no idea what she sounds like, or what she’s like in person, yet we have about two months of plans worked out together in England together. Adds a little zing to the trip I think, and I’m dead curious and excited to meet her. Mind you this has been nearly daily talk via email, IM, or texting since I decided to go back in April. Kooky.
The day after that Mom and Musty were heading down to North Carolina for a weekend with his son Marcello, so I called my friend Maddy to see if she was about for the evening. Maddy is a dear old friend of mine also from back in the film days, but from the very beginning of the film days at SVA where we went to school. When I met up with her that night she introduced me to all her friends as her former employee from when I used to run her and her boyfriend’s vintage clothing store. It was like old times again.
We ended up cabbing to a birthday party in Brooklyn where we drank somewhat half heartedly as the night waned, but the next morning over coffee we did get a good visit in. Maddy and I have such a strange quilted past together that it was really nice to get that visit in and get a bit of remembrance back of what I was doing back five to ten years ago. This has been something I’ve been having more and more difficulty with oddly, and I think is truly the underlying catalyst for this trip. Sorting out the genealogy of my family I think is the topside busy work for me as I sort out what a regular day in my life really consists of, and Maddy’s a pretty good guru for such sorting.
Anyway, after that I popped back in for a coffee at Local with Joe, then hopped a bus further north to my dad in Massachusetts.