Tuesday, February 14, 2006
new york stories
(which, btw, is rather a good film.)
i returned yesterday from another fun-filled weekend in the big city out east. the impetus for the trip was the freek factory 1-year anniversary party--the bassnympho's ball. it was a whoooole big deal and i was not the only person journeying cross country to attend. and the planned focus for the weekend was definitely FREEKS. when i was out for halloween i was highly disorient-centric and stayed way up in harlem and spent most of my spare time lounging about with julien and some other disorientals at various points around manhattan, so this time i vowed to spend my spare time lounging about with haji and tiggrrr and sefirah and other freeks around brooklyn.
[note: there is actually a relatively interesting story that i'm going to tell in a few paragraphs. if you're bored or short of time, skip to that. i'll mark it with ~*~* or something.]
disorient friend ted from santa barbara had a flight into jfk scheduled to land 2 minutes before mine, so the weekend started purrfectly as we found each other and headed into the city to meet up with alex and have dinner. after food i headed up to the party venue (a club by the name of downtime) to say my hullos and give a rather half-focused hand to the set-up effort.
i don't think i wrote about halloween, but this incredible thing happened both that weekend and this one. between episodes with my ny crew, see, i lose track of where i'm at with all of them. i downplay the connections, forget about people i haven't talked to in a while, start filing lackluster phone moments as the primary memories with my close friends... so when i come to a new in-person experience, i get absolutely blown away AGAIN by how great everyone is. when i walked into downtime thursday night, i was literally swept off my feet. as i moved through the club to say hi to everyone, i was given such a welcome that even if that had been the extent of my social activity for the weekend i still would've felt sated.
i stayed at lowroad's house in brooklyn on thursday night so that i could get a full night of sleep before the party, then headed back to the club to help in earnest until it was time to change. we threw together a greenroom downstairs for the dancers and such to use for prep, so hair and makeup and costuming were more fun than usual. it's so funny to watch the freek girls get themselves put together for a group night... no one really has particularly similar styles, and everyone has her own couple of things that she always wants to incorporate, but somehow there's always cohesion. this time in particular--we didn't have a planned theme, but a stranger walking through the party asked to guess who was a freek dancer would've probably been able to find all of us, and without adding anyone extra.
the party was, of course, quite wonderful. i did less dancing than i would've ideally wanted, but i spent so much time connecting with far-away friends that i can't possibly have any regrets. there were two rooms of music, and everything happening in both rooms was worth dancing to. i managed to miss everything except lorin's set, a quick piece by spiro and blacklight, and half of tipper's set, but during those couple hours i worked my shit oooout. i hadn't heard lorin since the middle of october, and i was READY to make the best of it. and i hadn't platform danced in quite a while, so that was fanTAStic, especially since i got a solo platform for most of lorin's set. i got good dancetime with a bunch of the other freek girls, which i had been craaaaving, and after tipper had been on for a bit i went to find k8 and el nino and had a completely, utterly, perfectly joy-filled dance moment with them.
the rest of my night was spent in various cuddly positions and locations with friends. for a while i was trying to rouse myself to go back to dancing, but the conversations and connections were of such import and interest that i gave up on the party and focused on the people. it's hard to do a party 'right' when you're visiting, you know? every time i looked up i saw someone else i wished i could spend the whole night talking to...
so yes. great night.
the morning involved much in the way of half-asleep lounging, a moderate amount of tear down, way too little caffeine, and the most amazing sandwich i've ever had in my life.
~*~*
yes. this is the story part.
so at like 12:30, we're about ready to pull up the rental truck (a HUGE uhaul) and start load out. given my total inability to lift ANything, i am elected as the best person to stay with the truck. my job is explained to me: 'okay, so see the fire station across the street from the club? and see this reeeeally obviously not-ok-to-park-in zone with red stripes going through it and actual physical barriers that we had to move so that we could put the truck here? the no-parking-or-even-stopping-on-pain-of-death zone? yeah. so we're not really supposed to park here. in fact, we just got a fat ticket about 5 minutes ago, and we came *this* close to getting one yesterday. so that's where you're going to be idling while we load. and your job is to be ready to drive off INstantly if any cops or traffic folks come anywhere close to us.'
great.
first, though, i must sit in the (stereo-free) truck by myself in a *normal* no-parking zone for, oh, about *two hours* while the load out gets finalized. not a big deal, right? right! i can handle it. i'm doing great. no cops, no hassles, no problems. what's a little stupefying bordeom among friends? cool.
so then the truck gets moved to the no-parking-on-pain-of-death spot. (not by me, of course--i'm not really actually expected to drive at any point--i'm totally just the only-in-an-absolute-emergency driver. i mean, what--have i driven in manhattan before? NO. so no once expects me to. cuz that'd be scary for everyone involved.) and i'm sitting there being uber-vigilant in the cab while people run to and from the club throwing large heavy things in the back of the truck. after about 10 minutes, i see lights and hear sirens. i also hear like 15 people start yelling, mostly at me. go! GO!! GOOOO!!!!!!!! apparently, there's a fire engine directly behind me. so i'm on a one-way street that's barely wide enough to allow two cars through at once, with cars parked on both sides and people double-parked all over the place, and this bitchy little fire engine screaming about wanting to get into its driveway, which can't possibly be all that important. but i calmly put the vehicle in drive and screech forward...sending the box of the truck RIGHT into the van that's double parked in front of me.
MORE yelling. but mostly from strangers this time. i extract the truck from the van--still with sirens blaring behind me and masses of people frantically waving their arms--and barrel down the street. at the corner as i'm turning i notice that blacklight is hanging from the back of the truck. oops. so i yell to him to get in and now at least i have a partner in crime. yes, CRIME. since i am now ON THE LAM, having HIT a car and then RUN away. so we're like, ummm, what the HELL do we do now?! we've got a bigass truck with the back open, cruising through midtown manhattan in saturday rush hour, and we can't go back to finish loading or we'll get arrested or some shit. and for those of you who didn't get it, 'midtown manhattan in saturday rush hour' implies several important factors: 1. NO parking ANYwhere, even for tiny vehicles with experienced drivers, which we are NOT. 2. TONS of cars. 3. TONS of #$&@ pedestrians. 4. VERY aggressive drivers. 5. ALL one-way streets. 6. comPLETE disregard for most basic traffic rules. so i'm basically feeling a bit panicky.
and then it starts snowing.
so the next hour was straight-up goooood times. (especially the 20 minutes when we were on this two-way street in traffic that was already barely moving when not one not two not three not four but FIVE fire trucks blared up from behind us, scattered cars all willy-nilly, then parked DIRECTLY in front of us at all crazy angles blocking the entire street, raising ladders, opening hydrants, and making lots of noise. no...actually i liked that part--really--cuz for those 20 minutes we could just sit in the middle of the street without having to worry about getting a ticket. that was the most serene part of the afternoon.)
so that's it. i was stuck in a multi-ton uhaul for a full four and a half hours on saturday afternoon. and i hadn't slept. and i REALLY had to pee.
~*~*
the rest of the weekend was uneventful but fully cozified. spent the duration of it in brooklyn, avoiding the snow. had a few lovely hours with whiteheat at her place, then the rest was almost entirely composed of puddle time with tiggrrr and sefirah at grand space. had some nice baths, some good food, and some great conversations. technically, i was supposed to be out partying on saturday night, especially because i am on the record stating my scorn for new yorkers' inability to play hard two nights in a row. but, um, it was cold. and the parties were were far away. so i promise never to mock them again. until the summer. (sooooo lucky we are in sf to be in such a tiny little town with all our parties so close by...)
oh yeah. one last thing... i made the possibly-less-than-excellent decision to let myself be convinced that the best thing for me to do on sunday night at 2am was NOT to get some sleep before leaving for the airport at 7am...but to trip my head off with my girlfriends. and this decision of course led to me obtaining the absolute maximum level of satisfaction from the SIX hours i spent at jfk monday morning waiting for my plane to get off the ground. sheesh.
the end.
p.s. i had NO boy (or girl) situations to contend with at all even once alllll weekend. none. not even a drunken midnight kiss or anything. zip and nada. i am so proud. good job me.
i returned yesterday from another fun-filled weekend in the big city out east. the impetus for the trip was the freek factory 1-year anniversary party--the bassnympho's ball. it was a whoooole big deal and i was not the only person journeying cross country to attend. and the planned focus for the weekend was definitely FREEKS. when i was out for halloween i was highly disorient-centric and stayed way up in harlem and spent most of my spare time lounging about with julien and some other disorientals at various points around manhattan, so this time i vowed to spend my spare time lounging about with haji and tiggrrr and sefirah and other freeks around brooklyn.
[note: there is actually a relatively interesting story that i'm going to tell in a few paragraphs. if you're bored or short of time, skip to that. i'll mark it with ~*~* or something.]
disorient friend ted from santa barbara had a flight into jfk scheduled to land 2 minutes before mine, so the weekend started purrfectly as we found each other and headed into the city to meet up with alex and have dinner. after food i headed up to the party venue (a club by the name of downtime) to say my hullos and give a rather half-focused hand to the set-up effort.
i don't think i wrote about halloween, but this incredible thing happened both that weekend and this one. between episodes with my ny crew, see, i lose track of where i'm at with all of them. i downplay the connections, forget about people i haven't talked to in a while, start filing lackluster phone moments as the primary memories with my close friends... so when i come to a new in-person experience, i get absolutely blown away AGAIN by how great everyone is. when i walked into downtime thursday night, i was literally swept off my feet. as i moved through the club to say hi to everyone, i was given such a welcome that even if that had been the extent of my social activity for the weekend i still would've felt sated.
i stayed at lowroad's house in brooklyn on thursday night so that i could get a full night of sleep before the party, then headed back to the club to help in earnest until it was time to change. we threw together a greenroom downstairs for the dancers and such to use for prep, so hair and makeup and costuming were more fun than usual. it's so funny to watch the freek girls get themselves put together for a group night... no one really has particularly similar styles, and everyone has her own couple of things that she always wants to incorporate, but somehow there's always cohesion. this time in particular--we didn't have a planned theme, but a stranger walking through the party asked to guess who was a freek dancer would've probably been able to find all of us, and without adding anyone extra.
the party was, of course, quite wonderful. i did less dancing than i would've ideally wanted, but i spent so much time connecting with far-away friends that i can't possibly have any regrets. there were two rooms of music, and everything happening in both rooms was worth dancing to. i managed to miss everything except lorin's set, a quick piece by spiro and blacklight, and half of tipper's set, but during those couple hours i worked my shit oooout. i hadn't heard lorin since the middle of october, and i was READY to make the best of it. and i hadn't platform danced in quite a while, so that was fanTAStic, especially since i got a solo platform for most of lorin's set. i got good dancetime with a bunch of the other freek girls, which i had been craaaaving, and after tipper had been on for a bit i went to find k8 and el nino and had a completely, utterly, perfectly joy-filled dance moment with them.
the rest of my night was spent in various cuddly positions and locations with friends. for a while i was trying to rouse myself to go back to dancing, but the conversations and connections were of such import and interest that i gave up on the party and focused on the people. it's hard to do a party 'right' when you're visiting, you know? every time i looked up i saw someone else i wished i could spend the whole night talking to...
so yes. great night.
the morning involved much in the way of half-asleep lounging, a moderate amount of tear down, way too little caffeine, and the most amazing sandwich i've ever had in my life.
~*~*
yes. this is the story part.
so at like 12:30, we're about ready to pull up the rental truck (a HUGE uhaul) and start load out. given my total inability to lift ANything, i am elected as the best person to stay with the truck. my job is explained to me: 'okay, so see the fire station across the street from the club? and see this reeeeally obviously not-ok-to-park-in zone with red stripes going through it and actual physical barriers that we had to move so that we could put the truck here? the no-parking-or-even-stopping-on-pain-of-death zone? yeah. so we're not really supposed to park here. in fact, we just got a fat ticket about 5 minutes ago, and we came *this* close to getting one yesterday. so that's where you're going to be idling while we load. and your job is to be ready to drive off INstantly if any cops or traffic folks come anywhere close to us.'
great.
first, though, i must sit in the (stereo-free) truck by myself in a *normal* no-parking zone for, oh, about *two hours* while the load out gets finalized. not a big deal, right? right! i can handle it. i'm doing great. no cops, no hassles, no problems. what's a little stupefying bordeom among friends? cool.
so then the truck gets moved to the no-parking-on-pain-of-death spot. (not by me, of course--i'm not really actually expected to drive at any point--i'm totally just the only-in-an-absolute-emergency driver. i mean, what--have i driven in manhattan before? NO. so no once expects me to. cuz that'd be scary for everyone involved.) and i'm sitting there being uber-vigilant in the cab while people run to and from the club throwing large heavy things in the back of the truck. after about 10 minutes, i see lights and hear sirens. i also hear like 15 people start yelling, mostly at me. go! GO!! GOOOO!!!!!!!! apparently, there's a fire engine directly behind me. so i'm on a one-way street that's barely wide enough to allow two cars through at once, with cars parked on both sides and people double-parked all over the place, and this bitchy little fire engine screaming about wanting to get into its driveway, which can't possibly be all that important. but i calmly put the vehicle in drive and screech forward...sending the box of the truck RIGHT into the van that's double parked in front of me.
MORE yelling. but mostly from strangers this time. i extract the truck from the van--still with sirens blaring behind me and masses of people frantically waving their arms--and barrel down the street. at the corner as i'm turning i notice that blacklight is hanging from the back of the truck. oops. so i yell to him to get in and now at least i have a partner in crime. yes, CRIME. since i am now ON THE LAM, having HIT a car and then RUN away. so we're like, ummm, what the HELL do we do now?! we've got a bigass truck with the back open, cruising through midtown manhattan in saturday rush hour, and we can't go back to finish loading or we'll get arrested or some shit. and for those of you who didn't get it, 'midtown manhattan in saturday rush hour' implies several important factors: 1. NO parking ANYwhere, even for tiny vehicles with experienced drivers, which we are NOT. 2. TONS of cars. 3. TONS of #$&@ pedestrians. 4. VERY aggressive drivers. 5. ALL one-way streets. 6. comPLETE disregard for most basic traffic rules. so i'm basically feeling a bit panicky.
and then it starts snowing.
so the next hour was straight-up goooood times. (especially the 20 minutes when we were on this two-way street in traffic that was already barely moving when not one not two not three not four but FIVE fire trucks blared up from behind us, scattered cars all willy-nilly, then parked DIRECTLY in front of us at all crazy angles blocking the entire street, raising ladders, opening hydrants, and making lots of noise. no...actually i liked that part--really--cuz for those 20 minutes we could just sit in the middle of the street without having to worry about getting a ticket. that was the most serene part of the afternoon.)
so that's it. i was stuck in a multi-ton uhaul for a full four and a half hours on saturday afternoon. and i hadn't slept. and i REALLY had to pee.
~*~*
the rest of the weekend was uneventful but fully cozified. spent the duration of it in brooklyn, avoiding the snow. had a few lovely hours with whiteheat at her place, then the rest was almost entirely composed of puddle time with tiggrrr and sefirah at grand space. had some nice baths, some good food, and some great conversations. technically, i was supposed to be out partying on saturday night, especially because i am on the record stating my scorn for new yorkers' inability to play hard two nights in a row. but, um, it was cold. and the parties were were far away. so i promise never to mock them again. until the summer. (sooooo lucky we are in sf to be in such a tiny little town with all our parties so close by...)
oh yeah. one last thing... i made the possibly-less-than-excellent decision to let myself be convinced that the best thing for me to do on sunday night at 2am was NOT to get some sleep before leaving for the airport at 7am...but to trip my head off with my girlfriends. and this decision of course led to me obtaining the absolute maximum level of satisfaction from the SIX hours i spent at jfk monday morning waiting for my plane to get off the ground. sheesh.
the end.
p.s. i had NO boy (or girl) situations to contend with at all even once alllll weekend. none. not even a drunken midnight kiss or anything. zip and nada. i am so proud. good job me.
# posted by orange @ 6:25 PM 
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don't think that question didn't occur to me... ;P
really, though--it was weird. good for me, i suppose...but weird.
i'll try not to let it happen again.
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really, though--it was weird. good for me, i suppose...but weird.
i'll try not to let it happen again.
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