Month: October 2002

So Kevin and Becky track my phone number down and want to hang out for the one night I am in New York. I say it’s cool but it’s like midnight and I’m thinking (silly me) that they are not going to make it.

What happened was, we were going to meet at Puck’s (an Irish bar of sorts next to our old starbuks) but I had to move my shite and I had to meet angela so I essentially had no time to meet for drinks. ah well.

I call my friend John. I gave him a heads up and asked if we could hang with him on my road trip but I never called him before hand and I’m wondering would it be so intruding that I’m calling the day before? I don’t tell kay that ooops…I didn’t call people in time. John doesn’t answer his phone. I am slightly worried.

Sidenote: i miss days like these, where you have a million things to do. Nowadays I only have one thing to do. brush my teeth. I pretty much sit around and wonder how much weight I will pack on within a day…but enough of the sidenote…

Anyway, I give them directions to angelica’s place and around 1 or 2 in the morning we go to a bar down by the corner. That is the coolest thing about new york…everything you want and need is walking distance. None of this driving to ralph’s bullcrap (I hate that crap). I used to buy ice cream and chinese food at midnight if I was craving it (a weird combo, I know) Anyway, we go out for drinks, it’s on Kevin (thanks Kevin!!) and I’m worried about Becky and Kevin because they have work early the next morning. sigh.

It was great to see Kevin and Becky and we recounted our memories and such. But here is the strange part, becky and kev were recounting memories of going to concerts and hanging out and I’m like…hmmm….are they dating? I didn’t want to ask and made a mental note to ask later (and I know they read this, and don’t think I ‘m a dumb one guys..tee hee) Around 4 in the morning it is time to go. sniff. I really miss my new york buds. I never really felt very lonely. Once in a blue moon maybe (but mostly on my account of not calling people) but not as bad as san diego.

Anyway, so Kay and I go back to ange who’s left lovely notes of where we can sleep, towels, and so on and so forth. Oh, and it’s hella hot (I can’t believe I remember that since it’s hella cold now) but I volunteer to have the hella hot bedroom and kay sleeps in the a/c living room.

Anyway next day, we leave new york. I’m very sad until we hit bridge traffic. GODDAMNIT. I should be the poster girl for road rage. i swear and hit my horn (okay, I’m not that bad) but I was SO glad to get the fuck out of new york because of the stupid traffic (and a guy in a big ass truck try to pick up on me. HOW THE HELL DO YOU PICK A GIRL UP ON THE FREEWAY?!)

Anyway, we are going to Rhode Island to pick up my television (YES!!! FINALLY A TELEVISION! I AM SUFFERING OUT IN SAN DIEGO) We pass Connecticut, and some other state and we are in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island is depressing I think. It is called the OCEAN STATE. I’m not sure why. maybe cause it’s surrounded by an ocean? It should’ve been called the cemetary state. There are cemetaries EVERYWHERE. and I mean EVERYWHERE. I was wondering if I should retire in RI. Otherwise, it is a quaint state and very small town type way. I’m thinking Dawson Creek mode.

We meet up with my friend Christine (who is originally from SD but is living in RI for a couple years to go to grad school) and she gives us pizza, my television, and shows kay embarrasing junior high pictures of me (of course) and she gives us a valuable commodity… facial towelettes. Ah man, these are like god’s gift to road trippers.

John gets back to me and says “sure! you can crash here” (Thank you John!) So he invites us for dinner but christine wants us for dinner (wow, we are just wanted) and I’m just stoked that Kay got to meet these fantastic fantastic people. I absolutely adore christine as well. She is my “best-listening” friend. When you have problems, friends tend to want to solve it (for your best intersts of course) but christine knows that I’m just talking about my problems just to have someone to sympathize and understand and she consoles me as in saying that she will always be there for me. A lot of times, that is all I need, the whole cheesy (but true) I’ll always be there for you because in essence, there is no way to solve my problems other than to wade/wait through ’em.

Anyway, we leave RI and head off to Massachusetts. Oh, I am so excited because I have always wanted to go to Boston. kay has already been to Boston but I never have. I’m imagining.. like Philadelphia and I’m thinking of all those Massachusetts movies and such and I can’t can’t wait. Massachusetts here we come (but the I-495 has traffic. OF COURSE ! ARGH!)

p.s. the whole new york, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts thing happened in one day…I KNOW! I can’t believe how much you can do in one day.

No matter if you do not live in New York or if you did or if you are living there now, there is this excitement that runs through your body when you first see that historic skyline.

I love New York.

I hate New York traffic.

New York was not made for the automobile driver. Sort of a blessing and a curse since it forces people to utilize other means of transportation and it’s sky doesn’t look like barf like the L.A. skyline does but if you are a driver in New York…watch out.

Anyway, first things first, I have to go utilize the water closet…so of course we went to my favorite place in the whole wide world…the starbucks I used to work at.

Kay and I went inside….this is NOT the same starbucks I used to work in. The furniture was all different, the walls were a different color (a color I really didn’t like) and all the workers were people I DID not know. woah….where did everyone go??

Then I saw her. In her jean jacket and her blonde hair…it had to be her. I go up to her.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?”
“Yes, it is about 3:30 p.m.”
then she turns around then she turns back
“Sharon?!”
“LAUREN!”

Lauren is a nyc starbucks homegirl (homie? I’m not sure if I’m utilizing the phrase correctly)…but she is a good one and obviously she was real excited to see me.

She takes Kay and me on a tour and told me of her exciting (yes, lauren, EXCITING) yet dramatic love life. The best thing about her is she tells me all this stuff about her women and such as if I never left.

I love Lauren.

She took us to where my asian (heh heh heh) sister Ellie was working at. Apparently she left our starbucks home and made a new one on a frenchy (?) quaint coffee shop on Bleecker Street. I go in and lo and behold..there she is.

We go out on her break and have a little reunion and talk and talk and talk. And the best things about my new york friends is they treat me as if I never left. I just love that feeling. The feeling that you are still the same fantastic person and they can’t wait to tell you how their life is going and assuming that I know who is who and so on and so forth. They should have that feeling in drug form. Yum. I’d probably be an addict.

So I’m talking to Ellie and Lauren and Kay is just enjoying the conversation. Along comes Timothy and Sarah down the street. Sarah is still her kooky self and Timothy has grown a lot of hair. On his head. Tee hee. Timothy is one of the funniest people i have ever known or as Kay describes it “He only says something that is meant to be said and it is the funniest thing to say” It takes someone of a brilliant intelligence to say that.

Lauren has to go and meet Becky but gives me her number and we decide to see if I can make plans later that night but first I must see my buddy in crime. My confidant. Michael Scott.

Michael Scott is somebody I would see about 40 hours of the week. A little back story. We both worked nights at starbucks. It was usually me, him, and some other guy (usually chucky, dee, or Danny) but i needed extra money so he got me a job at a literary agency. So I would see mr scott at both jobs monday through friday. Mr. Scott would treat me like on of the guys (i was always the only girl at the “guys night out” outings) but yet still make me feel like the smartest and sexiest girl in a starbucks apron. tee hee. (whilst being able to show his undying love to his woman gretchen) but every girl needs a platonic friend who can make them still feel sexy and smart. I’m so glad to have him a part of my life.

I go to the literary agency and ask for mike. Mike is not one to be easily excited so when he saw me he was like “oh, hi sharon” as if I was still living there and going to work. I was like, okay, be a little more excited but I knew deep down he was happy to see me. It was just an understanding I had. We went outside to smoke our cigarettes (which is now 7 dollars a pack in NYC. Yup. 7 a pack) so they were liberally sharing them which was nice and I walked with a book called “The Ultimate Sex Diet” …it’s an interesting one. Mike says I should stop by starbucks to see teh boys (meaning him and chucky) and I say ok.

so we go to Gray’s Papayas (the best hot dogs EVER!) and I can’t help but reminisce of all my memories in new york. Poor Kay. I was like “This is where I fell. This is where I used the bathroom. This is where I made out with a guy. This is where I bought some toilet paper…etc..etc” But it was just so exciting to show a part of my life to one of my san diego best friends and sort of relive my memories. You can describe and describe things, places, and people to your friends but it’s not as effective as showing them the actual shite.

Anyway, we buy hotdogs, some hats, and for my first time, roasted cashews (they ARE the bomb), and I go see Ground Zero for the first time since the whole 9/11 thing.

I am really not going to go into it and such but I still can not handle the fact that something of this magnitude happened. I suppose the best thing I can say is that it was a wake up call of what I really wanted, what I stood for, what I am going to stand for later in life and what is actually going on outside the microcosm of the U.S. I’m trying to avoid saying anything political or whatever because I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is going on within myself and outside and how I am a part of this whole mess….does that make sense? But I will just say the whole experience of seeing the whole thing was surreal. Kay was crying her eyes out but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cry for reasons still unknown to me. I wonder if it would have been different if I was not living in new york at the time.

Anyway, after that, we went to see one of my bestest girlfriends on this side of the country, Angela Ortiz. Angela has this biting sense of humor and attitude that I absolutely adore. She is opinionated, angry, and sassy (sassy?). Whatever, she is almost everything I want to be. I say almost because i used to live with her and I’m not sure if I would want her wake up regime (hahahaha. I kid angela) Anyway, she is a hostess at the American restaurant at the tip of manhattan and she hooked us up with some food. Woah. She got me SHRIMP. and these were like expensive shrimp. Angela was the person we are staying with for the night.

We hang out with her for a couple of hours and then I go back to starbucks. And lo and behold, there he is. The first person to ever corrupt me. Chucky. and as he was making his drinks and as I approached him as much as he “tried” to hide it, I knew he was happy to see me. It makes me happy to see I still have some sort of effect on that bastard.

So we hang out with mike and charles (as kay would put it, Charles is “dark dude. He is majorly dark”) Charles, I think, would be the antithesis of me. Completely and utterly opposite except for our love of getting physical of sorts. I think that was the attraction for both of us but I think that could only last so long.

Anyway, it was like old times. We smoke out in the basement and talk about stuff and more stuff. And all the while, Kay is meeting the guy I have always talked about in the year of 2000. It’s weird when you finally meet somebody people had made reference to.

Then we had to haul ass over to my old apartment. My old apartment is completely transformed and for some reason, I don’t mind it because it doesn’t feel like somebody is living in my room. The way I have it in my mind is the way I will remember my brooklyn days.

Well, we haul major ass and move a LOT more stuff than I anticipated. So much stuff we fill up the trunk and the backseat and we have to move our chairs in an upright position (like in an airplane) and we don’t mind but man, was I sweating. And thus, I close the chapter of living at 128 Meserole. I am moving on.

We go back to Angela’s apartment and lo and behold, Kevin and Becky have tracked me down and want to have beers. Ooh those two lovely people. I will talk about our night in the next entry…to be continued….

I am such a dork. For the amount of time I lived in New York, I never really learned which states surrounded New York and how they were geographically to New York. For some stupido (that’s stupid in Spanish) reason, I always thought Jersey was NORTH of New York, not south. I suppose I felt like I was going north in the subway. No matter. Because if it’s one thing I learned from this road trip, I learned that New Jersey is NORTH of New York. Shit, I meant, south.

That was a sidenote. So we wake up in a city in Maryland. I forget what day it is… I think it is Tuesday.

There’s this restaurant called Cracker Barrel that we see EVERYWHERE and we’ve decided that we owe it to ourselves to splurge and go just this once. Wait a minute, did we go to Cracker Barrel on a different day? I believe it was this day because I remember it was one of the few days I showered.

I think the best thing on this road trip is learning the simplest things in life really make you happy.

Like showers. oh, man, since we only showered twice during the road trip, I could not WAIT to go home and bathe. bathe till the cows come home and my skin is so wrinkley that I could be singing in the claymation commercial about hearing it on the grapevine. Also, I’ve learned to love my car. It is a good car and it had not broken down on me YET> uh oh, now that I said that, it will.I revoke the aforementioned statement. Have it stricken from the record. (Did I mention that I work in a law firm now?)

Okay, back to the program. So I wake up in Days Inn and I check my ears to make sure that big ass gabillion legged bugger did not harvest his or her young in my brain. I am scared that I will step on it in my sandal. Yuck. There is this free “breakfast” for the hotel resident people (i forget what we are called) but Kay is too tired to get up so I go get it myself. I was imagining a little quaint restaurant with a couple of old people drinking orange juice.

It wasn’t like that at all. Just a table. With a powered donut. and some stale bagels. GEEZ. Of course I took the donut.

So we are off to New York. While we are driving for like an hour, we..SHIT…forgot our pillows at the hotel/motel. GODDAMNIT. This does not sound like a big deal to you guys but that means for the rest of the road trip going home, we have to sleep on our shoulders. (Or I sleep on my shoulder. I forget how kay sleeps like, I don’t pay attention).

So let me tell you, this day we were passing states like water (does that metaphor makes sense) The award for the shortest state we passed through goes to DELAWARE. Man, we were in there and out of there in half an hour. Wow. No, wait, it was connecticut. Sorry.

Anyway, after Maryland, thus begins the journey of TOLL BOOTHS> I did not expect this on this trip and from Maryland to our trip to Hmmm… what’s that state next to Kansas? Missouri, we were paying tolls. Man, it’s like income tax. What the fuck for? I mean, Why even show the gross pay. It’s like, taking you to a top of the mountain and showing you the ocean and then saying “Okay, that’s enough. You can’t have it” Okay, maybe not. But it’s PAIN either way. I pay taxes to California AND New York because my W2 covers both states. I’m paying 200 dollars for a 300 dollar paycheck. But I digress.

So let’s see..Maryland…eh. (expensive). Then Delaware (reminds me of what Allentown would look like in Billy Joel’s song. Yes, I know Allentown is in Pennsylvania but this is just me …nevermind. I have a headache trying to explain.) Then hmmm, it’s gets kind of blurry here. I remember Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and then New Jersey.

New Jersey. The part that I’ve been to, the side next to New York, is crappy. It’s like a hmmm….trash fest. The side next to delaware or connecticut, or pennsylvania (or whereever the fuck we were) is actually pretty nice. I wanted to have a bonnet and curly hair and work with a husband who only wore overalls as the beads of sweat start falling from his dark brown hair and over his rippling chest…but whew. I better stop, might have to bust out with the passion fruit lube (I have no shame, you know what I was referring to)

Anyway, so it’s pretty Oklahomaey on this side of Jersey. We wanted to drive up the coast to see the water and check out Atlantic city whilst driving to nyc but alas, we gotten lost and so deep in the woods, we got scared and took the New Jersey turnpike.

Quite a spiffy turnpike for a turnpike. What is really a turnpike? It looks like a highway to me. I saw neither pikes nor turns. Well, there was rarely any turns. Anyway, we are in turnpike city and it’s going pretty well, on our side of the road. Whereas, on the OTHER side, there is MAD traffic. Apparently a truck caught on fire and it was burning like a mofo. There were several fire trucks on the scene but there more coming..but they were stuck in traffic cause that other side of the turnpike was backed up for like 4 miles or so (maybe 3.5…but who’s counting?) People are on top of their cars looking to see what is going on…people are shooting people, riots are happening, people are starting to take off their clothes. Okay, I kid but it was mad crazy and I was so relieved (especially from the road rage of 3 hour traffic in Virginia) that I was on the cool side. Anyway, it was like a scene from REM’s everybody hurts. Literally… too bad we didn’t charge the damn videocamcorder thing (i can’t thing so objects have unproper names right now) cause I would’ve made my own REM video.

Anyway, we were on the turnpike for like an hour or two or whatever. I just remember eating Chad’s wheat thins and thanking the lord for the cheesee whiz he gave us (thanks chad!). And I do not know what came over us, but we were running out of cd..thus bringing us to Boyz (or Boys? I forget) II Men cd. Man, that were some SLOW JAMS. It made me sad. Then some red light special TLC stuff and then we were just busting out with all of the love jams…. at 11 in the afternoon. Hello. I guess loneliness (I knew Kay wanted some passion fruit lube to herself at that time) but oh well, it was nice to yearn.

Anyway, so we are turnpiking it, and lo and behold…the famous skyline looms in the distance. It’s New York City.

So we have no form of communication. But Kay really wanted to talk to her man (sheesh) so we decided to go to a coffee shop of some sort and plug her phone in so we can make the appropriate calls to loved ones.

So we’re driving around and we find a phone booth! HOORAY! We needed to park and it was a mad tight spot. Be reminded dear reader, that Kay was driving. Anyway, so we’re parallel parking in this mad tight spot and AHHH! we LIGHTLY bump the car behind us. OH SHIT. Just when we were stuck, a homeless guy comes up to us. Uh-oh. Since we were stuck, we couldn’t just haul ass out of there and it would look pretty rude if we were going forward and reverse in this tight spot while this guy is talking to us (let me rephrase, forward and reverse in a STICK SHIFT CAR!).

We are going to die.

Anyway, he motions us to roll down the window and Kay being the smart girl that she is, rolls it down an inch and says “Yes?” (btw, Kay did all the talking here hehe)

“Hey, are you guys trying to head to the club?”
“Uh, no”
“Then why are you parking?”
“Uh…just to park”
“Oh.. well,if you didn’t know, there’s a club over on that corner”
“Thanks”
“Hey, where are you guys from?”
“Um..” Kay looks at me desperately “California”
“I thought you guys weren’t around from here. What are you…Asian?”
“Um.. we’re filipino”
awkward pause. I want to leave.
“Oh…that’s coo’ that’s coo’….Hey, can you spare a brother some change for food?”
“Sorry. we don’t have money” (We really don’t. we’re sleeping in parking lots for gawdsakes!!)
“Oh, thanks anyway… are you sure?”
“we’re sure”
“Okay, there’s the club” and he leaves.

Sheesh. Finally we forward and reverse the fuck out of there and we drive around. There’s a woman who’s dressed in high heels and a halter top walking in the middle of the street. Kay says “Hey, let’s ask her!” and as she rolls down the window, I saw “Wait! I think she’s a hooker!” and Kay is like “oops.” and rolls her window up.

I decide I do not want to sleep in D.C. tonight.

Then I get a brilliant idea while we were in a grocery store looking for calling cards (we were on a MISSION) and say “HEY! Let’s go the airport! I know they have outlets at the airport!” So we head off to George Washington or was it George Bush? airport (some president. I’m pretty sure it was Bush because I recall mentioning that how could he have an airport named after him so quickly? He’s like, still alive.) and lo and behold with a hefty fine of $4.50, (for parking), we go into the airport bathroom and there are the outlets.

We make phone calls like crazy. The problem with talking to people in a public bathroom is that if you had to use the bathroom, the person on the phone can hear it (so says tyler…or was it Kay?) yuck. And I had to use the bathroom. and not the pretty type either. (as if using the water closet is a pretty type of activity)

Anyway, we make our calls and decide that for the betterment of our sanity and our crazy DC night, we would find a hotel. I try to contact my friend Rachel to see if we can shack up with her (I get an email later from her saying “I GOT YOU MESSAGE 10 minutes later! But you gave no phone number for me to get back to. Damn.) so we drive and drive and drive and end up in Baltimore and sleep at a Days Inn for a hefty amount of $60.00.

Btw, there was big ass bug on my shoe in the hotel. I was afraid it was going to crawl into my ear. It had a MILLLION GABILLION LEGS. IT looked as big as my shoe. Maybe it was trying to mate.