5/16- An Ex-Girlfriend Tour of New York

The first order of business in getting back to the city again was something I should have done immediately with Todd, but, alas, didn't get to it for whatever reason. I went straight to Pick-A-Bagel on 3rd Ave. by SVA to get myself an everything bagel toasted and laden with cream cheese. These are the treats we need to survive in the world these days.

Having accomplished that I made my way back down to Local again, Craig's coffee shop on Sullivan in SoHo, and plopped myself down for a coffee. My old friend and former co-worker Mike D. was working so we spent a bit catching up on what was going on. I also ran across a few old regulars from our old job around the corner at Auggies. One of which, Hat Lady Linda, I spent a good long time talking with about her regular sojourns to Kenya. She told me to look her up if I got there and people would know who she was.

Soon enough it was about 1pm and I was off to meet Marion in Queens. I was very uncertain as to how this was going to go. She was another Facebook discovery, and the few emails we had between one another were nice enough, but our last conversation we had together entailed her chucking a hat in my direction following me breaking up with her. Granted this was as far back as the winter of 1996, but none-the-less nothing had been said, seen, nor heard between us since. The meeting was a very pleasant surprise.

We met over lunch at a funky gallery in Long Island City built out of an old school called PS1. It was one of her favorite places to go due to not only the contemporary art inside, but a bit of nostalgia since she had grown up there in Queens. Talking was easy right from the get go and in place of the half hour, maybe an hour, lunch that I had anticipated we sat wrapped in conversation for about four hours. This was okay though since the next friend I was going to see canceled dinner on me for health reasons and it turned out I just wasn't going to see him this trip.

What was hilariously intriguing to me was what it was she and I ended up talking about for four hours. The obvious start, once over the brief small talking, was getting into why I broke up with her and all the things surrounding that. She eventually confessed that she had been annoyed with me for some time from that, and I think there were still vague ghosts of it when we were first greeting each other that day. Sort of a feeling out if I'd matured into a major jackass or somehow become an okay person after a bit more than a decade. I then also liked exploring the idea of what the actual reason was for me dumping her way back when. The general concensus was that we were 18 and 20 and that we do stupid things then. The undertones, that were understood, was that I was still obsessed with my old friend Allyson from high school and that would erode any attempt at a relationship until I got myself over it. This would take another 4 years after Marion to fully achieve and would lend insight to some of my sexual activities throughout college.

This breakup talk was not the hilarious part to me though. What was hilarious was that when breaking up with her, in my mind, I was thinking there was no way we would ever be compatible. What we talked about mostly was her love for travel, her photography which she does for a living now in any capacity she can, and her stubbornness to grunt through and learn things simply to one up someone else. I was just really surprised at how similar we were and had a great time comparing notes on her travels and adventures to mine.

We parted ways around 5:30 or 6 and I made my way up to Harlem where another ex-girfriend/friend of mine lives, Ana. Ana and I have long made up to be friends since our breakup back in 2002, though she does like to evoke the lingering anamosities of it at times simply to make her points with me. This is a prime reason why I've always said exes make great friends. You've already gone through the adoring phase and the discontent phase, so they are much more likely to tell you squarely what they think. Despite my stubborness, I do really like hearing these things so I value the friends that speak with such cander in high regard.

It was a good night just hanging out that night with her in her apartment. She had a lot of things going on socially and work wise, so most of the night was spent talking about that. Friday morning was another early one as she had to get to work.

I went right back to Local again where I picked up another coffee and sat on the bench outside talking to Roger, who I'd run into the day before, and my old friend Joe, who was my boss at Auggies. It was a nice lazy morning as people came and went and I caught up on the goings on in their lives, and they in mine. After a few hours I felt like I should get a move on to do something, so I wandered back uptown to Union Square. Todd called somewhere along the way, so I talked with him about his stay in Santa Fe for about an hour. Afterward I dove into Barnes & Noble where I spent the next three hours reading various things.

I needed to use the internet in hopes of updating, but also getting in touch with people so I left the book store and hopped another train. I had a bit of a weird experience there. It could either be one that I completely made up in my head, or something that was a study in following signs.

On the train I was intending to get off at 42nd St. and go to the smaller library across the street from the big New York Public Library. I had been reading about the Mayans and the 2012 calendar predictions in Barnes & Noble, so that was likely what put me in the mindset. Across from me on the train this guy's forearm was a few feet from my face and had a tatoo of something Mayan looking on it. I tried to get a picture, but it came out blurry. Anyway, I got an impulse to follow him out when he got off at 34th St. so I did.

Once out on the 34th St. station he headed south and I turned north, not really thinking about anything. I walked quickly north following this subtle pull that had dragged me off the train and when I got up on the streets I headed east toward 5th Ave. where the library would be. In my head I was getting this feeling like I was going to run into my friend Lica who I'd been trying to get in touch with. When I hit 5th Ave., however, I started to turn up north on it but it felt wrong, so I crossed the street and kept heading east to Madison where I turned north.

All the while I was now scanning over the crowds passing me seeing if Lica, or Stephanie, were heading home in them. Stephanie, because she was a bit of my link to Lica and logically it made sense because I was thinking she worked in that area. Anyway, I found neither of them, all I found was me heading up Madison Ave. now trying to turn down a few streets to get back on 5th and go to the library but feeling like I was making a wrong turn every time, so I'd turn back on Madison again. Finally I think it was 38th St. or so when it felt right to turn back on toward 5th. I got about half way down the block when I was drawn to a crappy little internet place where it was $1 for 15 minutes. I really didn't want to pay for internet with my money levels and being around the corner from the library, but I did it anyway figuring its just a buck and I've been following this weird impulse this far.

I paid the guy and sat at my computer. I honestly now had no idea what I was doing there, and had given up the idea of somehow randomly running into Lica. Instead I went on Facebook, figuring I'd check in and see if she had left me an email, which she hadn't. Instead, Marion had sent me a picture of her feet in Romania that she'd told me she'd send and on old friend Derek was online. I wrote Marion back with enough time to say hello to Derek on the chat thing. I walked out of there 15 minutes later now with Derek's number and a vague haze of a plan to try to get together before I left the city. Maybe that's what it was all about, I don't know. Like I said, it could have very well have been all in my head, or maybe all of that will mean something in a bit. The odd part was that when I went around the corner to use the internet at the library for a bit longer the library was closed, and had been for about forty five minutes by then.

Ana had also called in the midst of that wander. She was on her way home from work and seeing if I was looking to head back up right away, or did she have time to go do something for a bit. Since I was on this odd quest I told her to go do what she needed to do and I'd meet her in a bit, so when I called her back she was on the Upper West Side having a lazy post-work hot dog. I grabbed the train up that way and soon we were hanging out next to the Hudson enjoying the sunset over Jersey while we lay in the grass.

That night we went grocery shopping and experimented with making lentils and rice for dinner. Ana is on par with cooking as to where I'm at. We're both sort of blindly feeling our way around and teaching ourselves how to do it. Our methods, however, differ from her being a recipe sort of girl and me just a playful experimenter by taste sort of guy. After some chopping and boiling of various things we compiled our meal, which looked nothing like it was supposed to, and settled in for the night to watch Reds. The meal was delicious, as was the movie, though Ana passed out and the last disk skipped so I couldn't get to the end.

Saturday morning I was supposed to head down to Red Hook to see my friend Maddy. We'd made the arrangements Thursday and I think I had misinterpretted the timing on the visit. Ana and I slept in a bit that morning and when we got up we did everything in our power to try and see the skipping part of Reds. For a 2 and a half hour movie, when all you're missing is the last 20 minutes it becomes a critical issue to see it. We failed. Not only did we fail, but I called Maddy while making the attempt only to find out where she was in Brooklyn was about an hour and a half from where I was in Harlem. I got this information over voicemail so I said my good byes to Ana and gave Maddy a call on my way out to see if meeting would still work. We pushed it to Sunday.

Instead I went back to midtown to use that library I was denied the day before. As soon as I walked in the door I was hailed by a librarian to write a letter to Mayor Bloomberg so that he wouldn't cut back the budgets of their particular branch. Libraries have become sacred grounds to me in my travels, so I felt duty-bound to write my piece for them. I spent about half an hour cranking out a letter for all the libraries in America and the budget cuts they will undoubtedly suffer. The main focus of this paper was to detail the importance of library's as a resource and education in general over immediate industry investments. If there's $750 billion for washed up corporations there should be twice that for education. I'm quite positive no one will ever read that letter, but its there if they do.

I then sat on the internet for an hour checking emails and such, followed by sitting at a table for a bit writing postcards to various people. On my way outI talked to Ingrid, as she was on her way back from Boston, and arranged to hang out with her that night. That arrangement left me about an hour or so downtown to figure out if I could get my Nashika film developed. I had meant to do that earlier but had completely forgotten about it. My worry now was that places wouldn't be open on Sunday to be able to pick it up, if they even did 24 hour developement with this type of film.

I ended up calling Marion for the locations of the places she'd recommended which resulted in another good long chat with her. Its nice to know I've made a new friend in her. I think we talked for about half and hour.

I caught another train down to the Village to swing by Maddy's bar to just say a hello in case we missed each other Sunday as well. Its one of those places of casual swank, so backpackers and lingering old friends are probably not so welcome. I managed to find it amid the wandering tourists and popped in for a quick kiss on the cheek and a promise to get together the next day. The strange part was, right before going in my phone rang. Lo and behold, it was Lica. We made a quick plan to get together for coffee at 3pm the next day, which I was then able to quickly clear with Maddy for our previous plans. From there it was time to meet up with Ingrid.

High tailing it to the Upper West Side I made it to her apartment where I dropped off my pack for the night. It was nice to see her again on my own this time. Not that Todd impeded on our visit last time, on the contrary, but it is a different visit when its just the two of you again. We didn't linger long at her place regardless, though. She had plans to meet up with Perri for dinner which I joined them for, after which we were right back at 1020.

The dinner with the two of them was really nice. Mostly they talked, but I expected that, and I like to listen and throw in when it feels right. The bar, however, was different. We were meeting up with Ingrid's old friend Dave and his sister Danielle. I'd known Dave before when we were dating and really like the guy. His sister I had also apparently met on my swing through NYC in '07 before heading to England, but I was really drunk that time. Ingrid and Dave had a lot of catching up to do, and I found myself sitting off to the side most of the night.

What had been fun about the week before was that it was a constant rotation of different friends of Ingrid, all the while conversation was flowing and shifting around. This time I found myself sitting back most of the time since the four of them knew each other all quite well. I think I probably put myself on the outside and just ended up drinking. I ended up going against my recent decision to avoid hard liquor and, though I was still mindful of bourbon, I switched to drinking gin and tonics by the end of the night. My other theory on the night is that I think the urge to get a move on again was pressing on me as well. I'd over stayed my own welcome in the city and it was time to go. Overall, though, I am really glad that I got to see Ingrid one more time before leaving.