OPaD: Mad? Bite it.
Heather didn’t want to do the bouquet toss. I’m not sure why, probably along the same rationale as her hatred for opening gifts in front of friends.
Eliot’s girlfriend caught the flowers and it was all over in a half a minute, and then everyone forgot about the whole thing.
OPaD: Sun Country’s free cheeseburgers
1. includes a pickle. one pickle per burger.
2. phil ate three. ouch.
OPaD: The Twilight Zone of Kenka
This is the menu. Half of the cover is reserved for the rules. My favorites:
“No sake-bomb at all.”
“Graffiti or tagging only japanese. No other language at all.”
And, not pictured,
“No sex or masturbation.”
The food was just as weird. We had raw octopus in wasabi sauce (which was okay, but kind of looked and felt like, as Shank put it, ogre boogers), Japanese BBQ beef (which was meh), octopus, an egg omelet thing which was awesome, and some rice balls which were ricey. And cheap beer, which was awesome. As a parting gift, the restaurant gives each guest a swish cup’s worth of sugar to put into the cotton candy machine outside. A) I saw the host picking through the garbage for the used cups, B) I am pretty sure that the cotton candy sticks were used, washed chopsticks and C) despite knowing that, I gave it my best shot and aimed to pick up as much debris from inside the machine as I could. Outcome: a nasty pink glob.
Overall, Kenka was good, but not spectacular. I’d go again happily (if for no other reason that the bill for six people was $87) but probably wouldn’t suggest it myself.
OPaD: First NY Bagel
I’m still living in a time of exciting firsts…new york firsts, moving firsts, living with phil firsts, D. firsts…and today I had my first bagel as a resident of the city of bagels. But what does it say that I was more excited by the napkins underneath. What kind of a multimillion dollar company doesn’t provide its employees with napkins? So I grabbed a stack and ran. And the bagel didn’t do anything to elevate itself up the ranks; salted too heavily, no flavor otherwise, and the cream cheese LOOKED really vegetable-y, but wasn’t. A la basura, bagel!
OPaD: Amazing springtime flower tree
I don’t know what these are, but they are stunning. And there’s one in our backyard; we can see it from the livingroom window. These trees are just part of the deep exultant breath that this city is taking. Spring is here!
OPaD: America, New York, McMannis…the melting pot.
This is kind of a shitty photo (so I made it small) but the story behind it is good.
Brian, Phil and I went to a bar called Peter McMannis. Brian said he was nervous because he didn’t know if we’d like it, that it was a kind of dive bar. A dive bar in Chelsea? I wondered about how divey it could be.
Well, there we found your most local union bar crowd. Some big-pecced guys almost got into a fight in the bathroom. Then they stomped after each other outside; the bar craned from the windows and out the door to whisper and analyze their tough-guy hand movements…but no punches (cause they’re not really that confident).
Then we saw a group of three grizzled hippie gay dudes who had maybe, maybe not recognized their gayness. They were still gruff and ruff to fit in with the crowd, but then they softened like pussycats, treating each other with utmost decorum.
And finally, we saw an actress who defines the psychological condition of sensation seeking. A risk taker, a thrill seeker, a person who voraciously seeks the new…and someone who craves attention. So much that, if it wasn’t so nakedly apparent, it would be comical. But instead, it’s disheartening and confusing-what happened in her childhood that made her so fucked up?
So the bar, an average-looking Irish bar in Chelsea, turned out to be a swarming hive of weirdos. So yes Brian, I liked it.
OPaD: I think I’m a salt lick
Friday night, at about 9p, I sat down for dinner after an unbelievably busy week.
Train-work-train-sleep-train-work. And while on the train, work.
And it took its toll. I felt like I could actually feel the water deprivation in my shriveling body…and the rising salt content that also seemed to come with the territory (thank you night after night of take-out).
The waiter set a bottle of water in front of me, and I could tell I was going to down every drop of it before he even brought the bread. And then, I was switching to wine.
