Further New Yorkian Observations - February 13, 2007
I heart New York. Really. This place is so fuckin' super I don't even mind parroting back Milton Glaser ad campaign lingo--and considering my dream job has forever been photoshopping phony advertisements for these people--that's some serious love.
[My sister's birthday is "National Buy-Nothing Day. That shit cracks me up.]
You can cry on the streets. No shit. You can just burst into tears--which I've done a lot as of late, because I'm pretty sure I'm having a baby nervous breakdown--and no one judges you at all. In fact, nobody even notices! So many people walk around crying it doesn't matter. It doesn't shock anyone. I even found myself a little crying comrade in a pink coat and red leather boots at 1st and 1st who was bawling while I passed her equally as bawling though not nearly as hot. I turned and she turned and we shared a mutual crying moment that was special, but soon quashed by my desire to tear her clothes off and fuck her in the street. Anyway, that was totally nice.
I've discovered the beauty of custom saladry. There are these all-the-rage delis here featuring subpar and soggy sandwiches not even a panini press can salvage, with a fully-stocked custom salad bar, behind which a congenial man in a white apron sits with tongs. You pick your lettuce choice: mesculun (not that mescaline--boy wouldn't that be a fantastic deli!), spinach, baby spinach or romaine, and then Mr. Tongs makes a pass through the custom toppin's section of the bar. Call out your toppin's/dressing choice, and whoosh, your custom salad goes into a big metal bowl, where it is well-tossed and then packed into an ergonomic plastic container you can take home with you. And that's the important part, the take home bowl, because the salad is monstrous--a three-meal salad--and for $8.95, it's a steal! Beat that Wegmans!
[My only issue with this is that Mr. Tongs usually doesn't speak English, and thusly fucks up your toppin's choices. Now I'm not picky about my toppin's, surprise me. It's all groovy. But when I ask for scallions and you give me a bowl full of asparagus, that fucks up tomorrow morning's shower-pee pleasure. We all know what asparagus pee smells like, and I've got a roommate. If he smells the asparagus pee, I'm screwed. No more shower pee pleasure for the duration of my stay in wonderful New York City].
Now I know what you're saying, "Bunny come on. Be real. You don't wear shoes like that." Motherfucker, I wear heels! Sometimes...occasionally. Okay, so my pendulum has swung Lesbianic--in light of recent events it'll stay there for a great while--and right now I'm more interested in seeing them than wearing them. On not-snowy, not-windy winter days, this is the Soho shoe of choice, and I go there to write, but really to catch these creatures in their natural environment, maybe toss some balled up bread bits at them and see if I can't get one to come home with me. They just make legs...so...wow.
[Aside: I've been having this recurring nightmare that I have a super-hot, high-maintenance girlfriend who I can't buy enough jewelry to keep. I buy and buy until I have no more money, and then she calls me a loser and dumps me. If this is what its like to be a guy, I'm sorry. I feel for you.]
Wegman's. I missed you. People not from upstate New York will need this Wegman's word elucidated. I guess you could say that Wegman's is a grocery store, because that's the brush they paint themselves with--and its true they sell groceries and grocery-like sundries there--but Wegman's the concept is really much bigger than that. It's a feeling, a heartbeat. It is an orangey epicenter, a hub where community bonding is not the foregone American concept we think it is. It's a place where the front-porch chat is still going strong. It is warmth and artistic signagery, hot dishes and cold, yin and yang, an all-welcoming place where one can buy 79 cent Goya beans or delicate little $500-a-pound French truffles, and--no matter the tally--one's cashier will still smile with a genuineness that comes from having health insurance, a 401k and a fair manager. And the greeter is generally retarded, which I think we can all agree is awesome.
[What's the deal with New York grocery stores? An entire aisle is dedicated to the canned bean, but no soap? I'm confused, and running out of soap. Am I going to have to go into one of those Duane Reade thingies? Drug stores befuddle me. I get lost, confused.]
It is winter, and the news is all about my people--my poor, poor people. A few days prior I wrote till 7am, and it was the morning after a big upstate storm. I was tired as shit and about to go to bed when the pretty newscaster on the telly--pretty in a Noreaster newcasterish way, as opposed to LA newscasterish, which is slutty and orange--said, "Residents of Oswego County were hit with eleven feet of snow over the weekend..." Their programming swapped to shots of Oswegoans on their roofs, hacking away at six feet of accumulated, heavy-ass, lake-effect flakeage, and seeing this brought all kinds of memories back to me, for I was born in Oswego and lived my first eight years in a nearby suburb. Back in the days before global warming and El Nino--when storming was a weekly occurrence beginning in October and ending in April--the snow would cover the door, and my sister and I would fight over who had to hold the trash bag open so daddy could shovel some snow in and make a hole for his body to fit in so that he could shovel out. The sooner he cracked an escape hole, the sooner we could play in it all, and the one who didn't get stuck with trash bag duty got a head start on suiting up. I had a nice moment there, remembering the snow-playing and how I preferred peeing in my snowsuit to going inside and losing precious snow-fort building time.
But then I remembered the asparagus and the moment was gone.
Posted by The Bunny at 9:58 PM
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Comments
Hahahahaha! I'm so glad you live in my city now.
Posted by: Gemmima at February 13, 2007 11:14 PM
Bunny you're hysterical. You should just walk around and write wahtever you run into.
Posted by: Le Mondo at February 13, 2007 11:15 PM
Oh my god that's so true about Wegman's! I love that place. Wait does that make me gay or something? No?
Posted by: WrathofJohn at February 13, 2007 11:16 PM
I hate it when you don't post, so thanks sweetie pie.
Posted by: Herbie at February 13, 2007 11:17 PM
Bunny don't fear Duane Reade. If you want, my girlfriend can take you there (She'll be gentle she swears. ;)
Posted by: Jagermeister at February 13, 2007 11:22 PM
AHHHHH Wegmans.. wish we had that here in Baghdad! Cause daddy could go for some Wegmans mac salad dammt!
Posted by: squid at February 13, 2007 11:38 PM
"[Aside: I've been having this recurring nightmare that I have a super-hot, high-maintenance girlfriend who I can't buy enough jewelry to keep. I buy and buy until I have no more money, and then she calls me a loser and dumps me. If this is what its like to be a guy, I'm sorry. I feel for you.]"
One of the funniest things a woman has ever written.
Posted by: Brad. at February 14, 2007 05:17 AM
This made me want to book a flight home and hang out at Wegman's with Mom.
Posted by: TheTrixie at February 14, 2007 08:29 AM
Damnit..I miss Wegmans tooooo. My best friend worked at the one in Dewitt in high school! You also made me miss NYC. I just moved from there a year ago. You following me? haha
Posted by: lil'bit at February 14, 2007 11:54 AM
I'm from Rochester, NY originally and I miss me some Wegmans! What I wouldn't give to spend an hour at the market cafe, gorging myself at the pizzeria, sub shop and asian bar. delicious.
I also applied to SUNY Oswego, but opted for warmer temperatures in North Carolina.
Posted by: Laurie at February 14, 2007 12:01 PM
I need to visit. Mamma needs some new Manolos.
Incidentally, you can cry on the streets of Boston. People think you're a performance artist from one of the artsy fartsy colleges here.
Posted by: M at February 14, 2007 02:28 PM
I like the new banner. I didn't know what asparagus pee smelled like... then I found out on my own. Not cool.
Posted by: Jahed at February 14, 2007 05:54 PM
Ah, peeing in the shower.
I guess I need to go to NY to find out about Wegman's, since EVERYONE seems to love it.
As much as I love the new picture with the pups and you, I miss the other one!
Posted by: Kelsness at February 15, 2007 05:29 AM
My parents were from syracuse and reminisce about Wegman's with an unusually warm tone in their voice. I think my mom purposely forgets to pack necessities like toothpaste and contact solution when we visit family up there, just so we'll be forced to stop and pick up some things at Wegman's.
Posted by: may at February 15, 2007 12:45 PM
I've missed you Bunny. Good stuff.
Posted by: Sugar Kane at February 15, 2007 03:20 PM
Crying does bother people. As much as New Yorkers say that the homeless and the unhappiness of other people does not bother them anymore, it does. Why do you think everybody cries so much?
Posted by: diem at February 16, 2007 12:39 PM
Oh, WEGMAN'S. Ever since I moved to Canada, I've been trying to find an equivalent, but no go. I grew up with the massive DeWitt location, too. Every time I go to our local Canuck-o-Mart and stare with dismay at the soggy cucumbers and $12 packs of cheddar cheese, I think to myself, "It will cost less to drive from Toronto to Buffalo and fuckin' go to Wegman's."
Posted by: Anna at February 16, 2007 03:44 PM
It makes me so happy to think that you're in my city even if I don't know you! If you're starting to fall in line with our sort of footwear, check out Anbar shoes at 60 Reade st right near City Hall--you'll fall in love with $300 shoes for $40 at least once every trip. Also, get something for your sister at the Barneys sale! Going on until March 4th.
I've been a fan since you started writing, you're brilliant and beautiful. Also, the Anbar tip is a good one, share it wisely.
Posted by: Kate at February 17, 2007 04:05 PM
Ahh yes, Wegmans. Since moving to North Carolina in the summer of '00, Wegmans is one of the top 3 things that I miss most about Rochester. The other 2 being Brother Wease and Nick Tahou's garbage plates.
Posted by: Scottyboy at February 20, 2007 01:06 AM
LMAO.. kinda true about the crying. But I'll tell you one place that crying IS noticed in NY, as demonstrated this past Monday when I had jury duty down at the Kings County courthouse in Brooklyn. In the middle of juror questioning this woman breaks down and started crying...I guess the pressure of being a prospective juror was too much for this woman to handle. Either that or the man next to her had chronic halitosis. But I digress..
first time stumbling across your blog.. excellent!
Posted by: kimba at March 21, 2007 02:33 PM
