A Glimpse into Local Life

The high wine content of my system got me up way too early, but at least it allowed me to get a bunch of work done -- probably one of my most productive days. Dispite getting up before the sun I still made plans to have lunch with one of my clients. "Building the business" is one of the main reasons we're here in the city, at least in terms of the IRS, so I'll probably be running around a bit trying to meet with people over the next few weeks.

This client's office is relatively close, but with the lack of sleep I decided to take the subway. I really enjoy the subway. It's safe, fast, and there's always something interesting to see. In a short few minutes I arrived at the building and began the search for the office. The building they're in is really neat -- not sure how old it was, but there are 12 foot ceilings and everything that's not a window has neat oldish ornamentation. I finally found the office I was looking for and it seemed to be straight out of the dot-com era. Lots of light, open spaces, new equipment, and young enthusiastic workers.

I quickly identified the person I work with (Jay), by his beaming voice. It was coming from around a corner, but we've spent so much time on the phone together I probably could have tracked it down from across the city. Jay looked nothing like I expected. I sort of anticipated a short rotundish sales guy in a grey suit, but Jay is tall and skinny with dark hair and a general East-coast look about him. He's also very loud and animated. Contrasting that with Laurie and I scooting around in the shadows and I started to become a little concerned about lunch.

We made our way towards Union Square. Jay walked slow and frequently stopped in the middle of moving crowds to wave his arms wildly as he got to a critical point in a story. Though I heard a huff or two it was comforting to see how far you could push behaviour without getting pummelled.

We decided on a restaurant called the Republic (as in chinese). Walking in immediately overwhelmed me with a sterotypical New York restaurant. Lots of well-thought out lighting, a bright long transparent bar, and flurries of activity. We were shuttled between hostesses (it's a big place) and finally settled at a long wooden table. The Republic theme was taken as far as possible with peasant food (with a fusion twist of course), simply dressed waitstaff, and the communal tables. I had no problem with this and actually it reminded me of hanging out at the Southern Sun. New Yorkers were a different story -- as I watched people get seated they would pause and ask the hostess for a new table, she'd explain the communal seating, and they'd hesitantly sit down. Though you're constantly packed into large crowds, there's generally something that forms an imaginary dividing line and that was completely missing here. Jay wasn't too pleased about this as the hostess asked him several times to remove his jacket sitting next to him and he'd just stare back. Quite entertaining.

Through lunch I peppered Jay about things to do in New York. He explained his lifestyle -- basically get up, get online, go to work, get online, go home, order in, and go to a late movie. Jay's not an introvert or shut-in by any means, but it was interesting to see how you could live here and easily get into a rut that keeps you from exploring all the things the city has to offer.

We left lunch and he paused in front of a nearby Starbucks and headed in without explanation. He immediately shouted "Does anyone in here know Hackle?". "What's Hackle?", I thought to myself. A guy sitting at a laptop in the corner facing the door turned his head, looked up, and smiled. This was apparently one of Jay's friends and they immediately shot into a conversation that was hard for me to follow. The guys name was Alex, and he made his fortune by registering domain names back in the mid-nineties and now spends his time working at Starbucks on whatever projects he finds interesting. One of the most relaxed people I've ever met. I expected him to nod off at any moment. His and Jay's coversation was very entertaining, culminating in an explanation of his choice of work locations. "Elite Models is just up the street." Almost on cue a 6' girl wearing hot pink pants on roller skates got up and left with her cup of coffee. With that, we said our goodbyes and I headed back home.

Laurie and I set out to find a true New York bagel and were pleasantly surprised by a little shop a few blocks from our apartment. The bagel was everything I expected and I have to say it's probably the best bagel I've ever had. We decided to wash this down with a little Boy Band coffee and quickly found a cool place just around the corner. We're slowly figuring out all of the good shops and every place is neat and unique enough to be recommended. We also checked a major item off our list and went to the original Strand bookstore. Strand really is an amazing place and I would believe their claims about having 8 miles of used books. The store is large, yet cavernous, and the floor to ceiling shelves form a near tunnel that seems ready to collapse at at time. You can find almost anything here, though I tested the limits and was not able to locate a book on Bambara -- a West-African language spoken by my drum teachers.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful and Laurie and I made plans to find something interesting to do for the evening. We decided to go see Loudon Wainwright (a very entertaining musician that recently made it on to my iPod with Dan's help), but quickly backed-off after realizing how expensive and short it was. Instead, we just headed out for dinner and found a nice little mexican place a few blocks into Chelsea. Chelsea is honestly the gayest place on the planet. I grew up with your standard jock homophobia and though I realized it's sillyness quite some time ago, hanging out in Chelsea is still overwhelming. It's like being on a different planet where couples of all ages and styles come together and are completely free and open about their sexuality. It's not at all in your face, but it's just weird to see two old grey-haired hunched-over men holding hands as they walk down the street. Considering the difficultly of being gay in any other part of the country (even liberal Boulder) it's nice that people can come to a place and be whoever they want without even registering a glance from passerby. Our dinner was fairly decent and we enjoyed it with the mix of couples. Still warn out from the night before, we decided against pushing it just for the sake of doing "something" and headed home for the night.