Making An Appearance

February 18, 2004  ::  11:45 PM

Posting only once a month seems to be my style now. I wish I had more time to write new entries everyday. I remember a time of posting multiple entries a day, links even. Now I’m struggling to find time for grocery shopping, taxes, and yes even love.

Last weekend Simon took me to Manhattan for a surprise weekend of urban joy. On Friday we had amazing food, honestly the best gnocchi of my life. Each one was like a delicate potato filled pillow, it had a creamy orange gin sauce…yeah.

Saturday we woke up early, ate breakfast in Union Square, walked through a farmer’s market, and kept walking. We walked through Soho to Chinatown. Ate at Vegetarian Paradise which was a perfect mix of authentic Chinatown and Alice and Friends faux meat. Then we walked around Canal street where I found the perfect sunglasses to replace my old shields. More walking took us through Tribeca and back over to the Soho area. We took the train up Central Park and of course walked around there as well. We went over to 5th Avenue and looked at the glamorous designer stores. Then we went to Rockefeller Center and went ice skating. What could be more comfortable after eight hours of walking? Then we limped over to Times Square, and the Empire State Building where we decided to go up to the top Sunday instead. It was around this time that the swelling in my knee and tearing feeling in the arches of my feet began. It is nearly five days later and I’m still in pain.

We made our way back Chelsea and found a great diner; it looked like Hank Williams’s mother’s kitchen and then decorated for Valentine’s Day. I had baked macaroni and cheese, and coffee with Irish cream. It was possibly the most comforting meal in years. We went to the hotel with the notion that we would take some Advil, rest for an hour, and then keep walking. We didn’t wake up until 3:30 in the morning.

Sunday was mostly painful. We waited a grumpily long time to get to the top of the Empire State Building (throughout the weekend I had Mercury Rev’s “Empire State” in my head). When we stood on the observation deck it was so cold I wanted to pee my pants to stay warm. The rest of the day involved more walking, limping, slight weeping, and a lot of rests. I did buy some new shoes that will be great for walking around Europe and hopefully save me from this kind of pain again.

Here are dumb things I did: nearly scratched my eye with the corner of a glossy brochure, thought the safe in our closet was a microwave and locked my food in it, cooked leftover gnocchi on a camp stove while using a coffee stirrer as utensil, used same stir straw to pierce and eat gnocchi while it extruded tiny tubes of pasta out the other end, went through turnstile at train only to realize I had paid $2 to enter a 3 foot wide area between the turnstile and an iron gate, shared the weight of one carry on with Simon as we walked through the airport. You know the ole’ you take one strap I’ll take the other trick. This caused me to question “What kind of emaciated creatures are we?”

I will try my hardest to post again before February ends, but in my defense it is a short month (yes I know it’s a Leap Year smart ass).