Yes, I was out until 4 AM

"Hi, I'm Kaya Oakes," I proffered, my hand shooting into my plastic handbag. "I wrote...not this," for I was about to show the bouncer The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey Into the Secret Societies of Hatian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic, "this book on the development and permeation of Indie Culture from its roots in Portland to the rest of the nation."

The bouncer, a soft butch with parallel piercings in her nose and lip, didn't look at my hand, which now held a copy of Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture. "Yes, and while I respect that, it's Pride weekend and no one without proof of age can come inside this bar."

"That's too bad," said Kim, "We're doing marketing research."

"Thank you for your time," I told the woman.

We walked away, towards the west. "See? I'm not drunk," I told them.

"That was a woman?" Kim said, turning it lightly with her tongue into a question.

"That was a woman," Keenen clarified.

We now had a vast array of potential facebook album titles, the sources for which had emerged earlier in the evening, when we were at our third dining establishment. "Mush," Kim said, as she mashed the remains of her flourless chocolate torte into the blue clay dish. Soon after that was "My butt is actually a sphere,"--which referred to Keenen's potential list of excuses should he end up crashing that night with a gay man from a bar-- and now there was, "Hi, I'm Kaya Oakes."

They strode through St. Mark's square, leaving me to jog after them. Damn them skinny people. They get everything, and I get a muffin top.

"Fuckin' puddles," said a trashed guy behind us, "They don't have puddles in Jersey."

"They don't have SHIT in Jersey," said his friend, "FUCK Jersey."

"Hey, do you know how to get to the PATH trains," the first one asked me.

"The what?" Said Kim.

"The PATH trains," I repeated.

"What?"

"Jersey," he said, "sucks. You're not from Jersey, are you?"

"No," I said.

"I know a lot of nice people from New Jersey," Kim told him.

He softened. "Yeah, we're just trying to get home."

I tried to tell him he needed to get to fourteenth street, but Kim was telling him to go to Port Authority and eventually Keenen took over and if they hadn't been so drunk I'm sure they would've been fine. As it was, we can only hope for the best.

"Good luck, Nate," said Kim.

"Shit," said the other, "How do you know his name?"

Kim began waving her arns, half indignant and half drunk. "Because you said it, guy-in-red-shirt!"

I think he's probably still confused about that. But they said bye, and Kim shouted "See ya, Nate," when we were about a hundred feet away and everything was fine.

10

10 Things NOT to do when in Manhattan:

1) Walk in puddles. The sky doesn't rain as often as dogs do.

2) Stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the escalator. You will spend the three minute ride trying not to cause a domino effect as you stand on one foot to allow people to pass.

3) Leave an open box of protein bars in an open suitcase on the floor of your apartment. You will hear a *nom nom* right as you're dropping off to sleep. ROUS? I believe they exist.

4) Wait until you're in front of the turnstile before you look for your metrocard. If you do this, you will be faced with a homeless man begging your bemused coworker, who has already swiped through, to open the emergency gate and let him in. She'll look a little freaked out, but you'll keep rummaging through your purse until the homeless man somehow manages to open the gate and you sneak in behind him.

5) Accept wine from art galleries at 9:35 PM on a Thursday night. You will wake up late to work by half an hour.

6) Sneak into Otto's Shrunken Head, even though the sign on the door clearly forbids entry to those under twenty one. Get thrown out, and sneak in again half an hour later with a tambourine. Get thrown out again.

7) Get roped into setting up a conference call. You will be on the phone with sprint for twenty minutes trying to tell them it doesn't matter to you if callers are announced with a short dial tone or a long one.

8) Try to eat a dosa using just your hands.

9) Attempt to start a conversation with your coworker about how you tried to cut paper but "that thing....you know, the thing" *waves hands like spastic robot* it...well, you know..."

10) Write a list like this.

Observations

Things I have encountered in my Manhattan neighborhood this week:

An old man peeing in the street, behind a car.

A woman pointing at an oversized universal remote and asking me "what the hell is this?"

An edition of the magazine House and Country that managed to obscure with models and borders precisely the wrong three letters.

In other news, it bothers me that the words gluten and glutton are so perversely similar. 

Lady Godiva, children at your feet

Ever wonder about something your whole life and never really bother to look it up until it looks you up first? Yeah, so Lady Godiva --whose real name was the less-than-luscious Godgifu--was actually some greedy guy's wife who rode naked on a horse because her husband joked that he'd reduce taxes on his townsmen if she did so. That's pretty kickin', but completely ruins my former conception.



Naked Women + chocolate = HIGH FIVE!

Thanks, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Thanks a lot. Also, why did you make it so cold today. WHY, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich?!?

High Intelligence

Don't you hate when you type a URL the length of a tapeworm and hit enter, only to learn you ended it in .coom?

Now every time I try to visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, I'll end up at the google help desk.

So yesterday, I saw the movie I Love You, Man and felt that Paul Rudd's character is a lot like me. This is no egotistical boast, as anyone who has seen the film can tell you. You see, his character is also accustomed to making up ridiculous words in lieu of sounding deliciously intelligent. Yesterday, for example, I was ruminating on how thick and clumsy I felt my first week of intensive dance classes two years ago. I told my mom--of course it was my mom--sleepily that I felt like a trinoceros.

Which must be nothing other than the love child of a triceratops and a rhinoceros, right? Ugh.

Talking Guy

Okay, what is it with older guys talking to themselves? I'm in the library, checking my email, and for like the fifth time this week, I hear a man say, "oh, boy" to no one in particular. Later he says, "oh, crap". That's when I decided to write this post.

Wait! I just heard another man sigh audibly! Why is this an old guy phenomenon? And waiting on the train platform last summer the same old man would come by every day and say "oh, what a day, oh boy oh boy oh boy what a day." It's as if they have to convince themselves they're still alive or something.

Coughing Guy

Those of you who know me in "real life" (tm) are aware that since I moved across campus I have been plagued by Coughing Guy--an unidentified resident who stands outside my window day and night intermittently and lets loose. His superior disguise mechanisms have made it impossible to identify him--until tonight.

I was walking back from dinner when I heard it--that infernal result of a ruptured lung. I froze, and scanned the quad. I saw a man in the distance, walking towards the dorm, and I hurried to catch up with him. I had seen him before; he's about my age with a premature bald spot. Lovely.

So he walks up the stairs, and I crouch in the stairwell, and I hear it again. It definitely emitted from his mouth. I have identified the perpetrator.

There has never been any mystery surrounding Burping Girl, though. She's my roommate.