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no crack staff on the humpday shift
Wednesday, July 25 2001
I got a burrito today from Taco Express somewhere near 21st Street and 7th Avenue. It was good, but it wasn't wrapped very well. It had been assembled like an embryo with spina bifida, a wide track of exposed lettuce running down a dorsal cleft. Is it really so hard to find people skilled at creating burritos in this town?
My workplace computer, which had been shipped from Santa Monica, still reads Pacific Time on the right side of the task bar. I try to operate in Pacific Time when at work, even eating lunch at 3pm Eastern Time so as to be coordinated with my co-workers on the west coast.
But occasionally there are local realities that force me to act according to the Eastern schedule, and one of those is happy hour. Gretchen wanted to go to happy hour at a supposedly famous Howard Johnsons in Time Square, and if I stayed at work until 8pm I was going to miss it. So I left work today at 6pm, which would be 3pm Pacific Time. Gretchen actually came to my workplace to pick me up. She seemed to think it was a lot better than my old place in an office building on Olympic Avenue in Santa Monica, though that place was actually pretty nice and spacious compared to the cubicle-less work space where I'd sat for the past couple months (in the main company building in Santa Monica).
Out of the overly-cold air conditioning the streets of New York were unimaginably hot, almost the kind of heat one normally uses to disinfect. We went down into the subway station and it was even hotter down there, but we knew we'd get relief when we finally made it into a subway car. But we had no such luck; the subway train that came for us had no air conditioning. We tried another car at the next stop but it didn't have air conditioning either. During the ride up to 42nd Street, Gretchen told me about a game she likes to play when she's bored on the subway. It's called "Who would I sleep with on this train?" One of her friends has a variation of the game called "Who would I build a life with on this train?"
We got out of the subway at 42nd Street and emerged from the station in midtown, at the foot of giant buildings. The air was much cooler here than it had been in Chelsea; perhaps some of the cool, high-altitude wind is diverted downward as it eddies around the buildings.
I'd never been to Times Square before, or if I had it had been a long time ago, back in July 1989 when I walked most of the length of Broadway and back again. Something about those oversized gleaming towers and jarring, changing video images seems deliberately futuristic. I could easily imagine space ships and hovercrafts zooming around and docking up there. Right in the middle of it all there is this cylindrical building which serves as a big video screen, perforated here and there by windows, a slight concession to its occupants. Times Square seems to be one of the few places on Earth where buildings have been designed more for people outside of them than the people within them.
The streets throughout Times Square were mobbed with people (and this was something of an off day), and at times getting through them was not easy. A lot of them were clearly from out of town, not behaving as New Yorkers do at crosswalks. New Yorkers, unlike people in other cities, never obey crossing signals. The only thing that keeps them from crossing a street is the imminent passing of a car. But even when there are cars, New Yorkers generally wade as far into the street as they can without getting hit.
The Times Square Howard Johnsons was unremarkable in all respects. Inside we didn't find many customers and most of the decorations and furniture were shabby in that yellowed, greasy manner familiar to anyone who patronizes luncheonettes and diners. We went directly back to the bar area, beneath a large sign that read simply "COCKTAILS" and ordered a couple happy hour drinks.
Gretchen proceeded to tell me all about a major break she'd received in the poetry world. Her former teacher had recommended her poems to one of the few living kingpins of American poetry publishing, and he had expressed a willingness to look at her work. Naturally, then, she was very excited. Reflecting on this and other things in a long list of recent good luck, we had to ask ourselves, "Why is everything coming up roses for us now?"
Out second was a more expensive round of frozen fruity drinks. I didn't watch the lady bartender as she made my drink, but Gretchen did, cringing at each incompetent step (and there were many) and then raising her eyebrows at the injustice of the stingy shots being poured. "They don't exactly put their crack staff on the humpday shift," I observed in resignation. What made me want to leave the bar more than any other factor was the funky smell of the place. It was a combination of the fragrance of old dirty water under a sink and a hint of dilute disinfectant.
We caught the subway back south into Greenwich Village in search of a place for dinner. The moment I used the term "Greenwich," Gretchen was quick to point out that no one in New York calls the neighborhood anything other than "The Village." Walking from one vaguely unsatisfying restaurant to another, we eventually found one, the Hudson Street Café, that suited me okay (even if Gretchen thought it was a little unexciting). It was an Italian place with that smelled funky in an Italian funky sort of way inside. There was also a baby in there, so we chose to be the only people out on the patio, despite the intense summer heat which was persisting into the evening. We both ordered linguine, though mine came with mussel shells and little squids in it. After a time the heat and humidity couldn't go on as it was and a rain consisting of large widely-space drops began to fall. We happened to be beneath an awning and were spared any discomfort.
Back in Park Slope, we learned from the realtor Jesika on the answering machine that the couple who had bid 300K on my condo were having concerns because of a building inspection which had highlighted some of the earthquake damage inflicted back in 1994. I called Jesika and told her that I'd had a building inspection done a year ago and the earthquake damage hadn't seemed unusual to my inspector. When one buys reasonably-priced homes in Nebraska, one can expect them not to have earthquake damage. This isn't true of the overpriced homes of crowded Los Angeles.
Having any uncertainty cast over such a large transaction isn't pleasant, but since there's nothing I can do now but wait and see how this issue plays out, I'm not letting myself become upset.
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