2003-10-24
Autumn in New York
So then Gregory called me Thursday night and asked if I could meet him in New York Saturday afternoon.
I was already back in Rhode Island and he was still in Halifax. I had picked up a few shifts at Shelter Harbor and still had an entire bedroom to pack up.
Naturally, I said �yes.�
We met at sunset a day and a half later in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. Cheesy, which we both loved because we could be self-deprecating about it.
We headed out for a drink. American drinks are great and I didn�t know how great until I went to Canada.
In Canada, the shots are premeasured by mechanical black devices at the bottle openings that allot exactly one shot per drink. I�m used to a generous shot, and from now on I will be eternally proud of my homeland, the Land of the Three-Ounce Pour.
(Canadian drink prices are low, but I wound up spending more just to get the same buzz. At one point---after attending a particularly dull class of Moira�s---I had a bartender line up five gin and tonics.)
The weekend in New York became a blur of humanist and philosophical conversation, drinks and dinners (including, at Greg�s behest, the Oak Room at the Plaza), all mixed in with walks in Central Park and a two-hour wait to get to the top of the Empire State Building.
We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Long Island City, partly because the trip was so last-minute, but mostly because Greg made the reservation while drunk at his own keg party. (A seven foot tall bouncer at a strip joint helped us find our way, but not before saying that we were like the handsome couple at the beginning of the movie right before something bad happened. He also said that Greg would have gotten killed during scene one, but then chummed up to him when I told him Greg was from Canada---�Even the brothas know who Wayne Gretsky is!�)
He accompanied me to Penn Station Monday afternoon, as I had a train and he a plane to catch.
We ate mediocre Krispy Kreme doughnuts (his first time to try them) and I marveled that he had never heard of Sponge Bob Squarepants (I even sang him the song!).
I left feeling like a million bucks---Canadian, but a million bucks nonetheless.
betholindo at 6:24 p.m.