Bits and pieces from the weekend:
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I tried blowdrying my hair straight using a paddle brush and the fun new products this morning and all I got was a ball of fuzz. I’m bummed. Clearly, I am going to need much more practice to get my hair all smooth and shiny. And I refuse to believe Magic Hair can only be acheived via a professional blowout or a certificate of cosmetology.
That said, I am sittin’ my ass back down in Black Hair Mommy 2′s chair Thursday night and paying attention to every damn thing she does when she blowdries my hair. If she so much as arches an eyebrow or holds her breath while she works, you best believe I will be doing the exact same thing.
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My friend was supposed to visit this weekend. She and I were really looking forward to having fun running around acting buck wild in NYC. But her flight was cancelled due to (imaginary) bad weather. There were no problems weather-wise, so we haven’t figured it out. We’d been counting down the days for a month. That sucks.
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I learn little things everywhere I go now. It’s very strange to be an adult in a new city with no social network or even any real sense of geography to get you from place to place. It’s like not having store-bought foods available and having to make bread from scratch every time you want a piece of toast. At home, if I found myself with an unexpected free weekend like I did this weekend, I’d have all these friends I could call. I could hop in my car and go hang out with them.
When I was faced with the same situation this past Friday night, I was happy that I had a new friend to call and see if she wanted to grab a drink. She and her roommate met me and my coworker out. Another friend met us and a drink turned into dinner which turned into a movie and then a brownie sundae and vodka tonics at a bar. At 2 a.m., we found ourselves coordinating on how to get home – one of us lived on the Upper West Side, one lived in Jersey, one lived nearby and I live in Brooklyn.
It was never really like that in NH. If I was unsure how to get anywhere, I could just mapquest it or call a friend. Here, not only do I need to figure out the street address of where I’m going, I have to figure which train/bus combo to take. I also have to factor in the weekend shenanignans of public transport directors who have nothing better to do than to make a Brooklyn-bound train run on a Manhattan-bound track. Or make it stop running entirely.
But sometimes fun things happen. I walk too far and find myself on W. 14th Street instead of E. 14th. I turn my head and see the Chelsea Antiques Market. I see dogs dressed in little outfits. I see miles upon miles of Starbucks instead of the homey, personable coffee shops I had in my old city. (Okay, so that last one is not fun at all. In fact, it’s really annoying. What I could use is a Target, though. Can we replace all the Starbucks with Targets?)
It took this long for it to sink in that I’m being a little hard on myself. I’ve only been here three months, so I can’t really expect to be able to have the kind of social life here that I did at home. NYC is the place to live if you never want to run out of things to do – it’s just a little hard for me right now while I meet enough people to do them all with. Even going to Target is more fun with a friend tagging along.
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One thing I knew I’d miss (besides my hairdresser) when I moved was my little organic grocery store, A Market. It was next to my regular grocery store, so I could do my main shopping at the big chain-type store and do my fruits, veggies and grains at A Market.
I enjoy everything about food, including spending an hour in the grocery store on the weekend picking up pineapples to sense their heft and squeezing tomatoes, peaches or avocados to gauge their ripeness.
Living here, though, it’s a challenge to get groceries home without having a car. A lot of times, it’s easier to just order your groceries to be delivered. The delivery charge is only $5 or $10 and the food quality is even better than at the cracker jack grocery store a few blocks away. I’m lucky that I even have a grocer within walking distance. But sometimes it’s just nice to pick up my produce and make friends with it before I take it home.
Yesterday, I went into the city to work on my laptop and visit Whole Foods (which has the prettiest produce outside of a farmer’s market or farm). After not being able to find a seat at not one, but two Starbucks, I gave up and just went to Whole Foods. Holy hell – it was packed. The line to get one of the six or seven express checkouts wrapped all the way back into the produce section. Using a cart was out of the question. It was so stressful, I may never go to that location again.
I picked up chicken thighs and the fixings for cacciatore – just what I needed for dinner, and split. Since I needed stuff for the rest of the week, today I made my first visit to the organic grocer by my train stop in Brooklyn. I walked in and was comforted by the tiny carts and cramped aisles. It wasn’t crowded at all, and it reminded me of A Market. But it didn’t smell the same. And I was surprised that they didn’t have as much variety as A Market does. After all, this is the big city. I thought almost everything was supposed to better. (Joking.)
But it was really nice to pick up a pineapple. I bought what I thought were green onions, but they were actually organic leeks. I forget that a lot of organic fruits and vegetables are much tinier than their hormone and pesticide-pumped cousins over at the chain grocer. The diminuitive leeks will taste just as yummy in my stirfry tonight.
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There are all sorts of crazy people on public transportation. It’s awesome. There was a homeless dude trying to sling crack on the B61 bus Thursday night. He was big and tall, wearing an oversized shiny Padres jacket, with sunglasses and a white plastic cross dangling from his neck. The skin on his face was cracked and ashy. His teeth made a mockery of his smile, which was earnest and seemingly genuine.
He sat down in a seat up front by the driver. I was a few seats behind him. Speaking to no one in particular, he said, “You ain’t black like me. None a y’all are n*ggas no more. Y’all are African-who? African-Americans?”
And then he said he had 20s and a 16th. I don’t know what that means, but I know I’m not black like him. I never knew there were so many different ways to be black until I got here.
