away-home-away
I know I’ve been doing a lot of “random thoughts”-type posts, but here are only five thoughts about my time back east that I’ve tried to make beefy:
Philly-love
Here’s the thing I’ve always thought with Philly: I’d never settle there. Never, ever, ever. I love my family, but I like them being just far enough that they can’t stop by unexpectedly. I love my friends there, but I like making an occasion out of seeing them (i.e. “Mulgrew’s home – let’s party!” or “Let’s go visit Mulgrew in New York – and party!”). I love the food there, but I like having arteries that are only 40% clogged, as opposed to the 85% clogged that they would become if I were to spend any significant amount of time in Philly.
In short, I love Philly at arms length. I like knowing it’s there, close by if I need it, but when living in NYC and in Boston (during college), I liked knowing it was down there, and I was up here.
Maybe it was because when I got there I was homesick for just about everything, or maybe I’m just getting older, but after this most recent visit, for the first time I could see myself moving back to Philly. Yeah, it gets ragged on a lot, but it’s an hour from the shore, an hour from the mountains, two hours from NYC and two hours from DC. It’s the sixth-largest city in the US, is walkable and compact, and has a burgeoning arts scene, loads of restaurants (and BYOBs!), and four major sports teams complete with a rabid fan base. Not only that, do you know what $400,000 will get you in Manhattan? A studio apartment in Yorkville with an additional $900 a month in maintenance. Do you know what $400,000 will get you in Philly? A sweet two-bedroom apartment in the most hoppin’ part of the city, right downtown, or a home – a real-life, actual home with a lawn and stuff – in the suburbs (I won’t point out that for $1000 a month, you can get a sick – yes, sick – one bedroom apartment; nor will I mention that people in my neighborhood – two miles from Center City, Philadelphia – pay around $450 a month for their one bedroom places). Finally, personally – and this is definitely the age talking – there is something to be said for keeping those who have known you your entire life close by.
Though being back there made me appreciate the city of Philadelphia in a whole new light, I’m not sure me going back there will ever happen. There are no big law firms in Philly (as if this blog didn’t already make me unemployable for the rest of my life), there’s no way I’m commuting on Amtrak to the tune of three hours a day (probably four door-to-door) and at the cost of $1100 a month (for a monthly Amtrak pass – I have friends who make the daily Philly-NYC commute), and lastly, I am simply unprepared to take the physical steps necessary to extend my life expectancy past the age of 36, steps that the increased consumption of meats, dairy and various fried foods would necessitate should I return to Philly. Still, it’s funny to see something you’ve known all your life in an entirely different light. Amazing what a little distance can do.
NYC-love (but different)
I can’t say anything more about my time in NYC than it was spectacular. Absolutely, bravo, 100% spectacular. Though I missed a couple of friends and by some incredible fate did not eat at Rosario’s once (more on this later), I went out every single night (every one!) and experienced just about everything that I love about NYC:
- I walked to and from work every day, enjoying the new, crisp weather in the mornings as I trudged 2.4 miles from the West Village down to Wall Street. Kingsley Amis wrote, “Anyone who walks up Fifth Avenue (say) on a sunny morning without feeling his spirits lift is an asshole.” Replace “Fifth Avenue” with “Sullivan Street in the fall” and I am totally on board with that.
- On Monday evening, I did something I haven’t done in ages: hit up a normal, pub-type bar to have some beers, all alone. You all know that I am a simple man: give me a beer in a pub-type bar and leave me alone, and I can sit contently for hours and hours. In LA, I don’t do this, both because I drive everywhere and because I haven’t found a single pub, even a lame pub. But on Monday, I walked through the East Village, stopped at Dempsey’s (really a charmless place, but it hit the spot) and polished off a few beers while I was waiting for my take-out from Sea Thai to be ready. I enjoyed my beer session so much that I actually left the bar, picked up the Thai food, and returned for a few more beers. I sat there, all alone, for almost three hours total, just loving life.
(When magic happens, you have no right to push it out the door, you jerk.)
- I saw and hung out with friends – lots of different groups of friends. In NYC, I have those friends I met in high school/are from Philly, my college buddies, buddies I’m friends with through work, people I met during my time in NYC outside of work, etc. This is different than LA, where I can list my best friends: 1) My buddy/old NYC roommate Brian; 2) my iPod; 3) my roommates Mark and Selena; 4) my iPhone; 5) Longing and Desperation (tie). I know other people in LA, but geography dictates we will never hang out – an NYC buddy suggested that I hang out with his friend who moved to LA the same time I did, and when she and I discovered over gchat that she lives in Silver Lake and I live in Redondo, we determined that we have a better chance of hanging out when we’re both back in NYC than we do while living in LA. We weren’t even joking.
But in NYC, one night it was dinner and drinks with Nicole (origin of friendship: college), the next dinner and drinks with Pat and Tracy (OOF: Philly/high school), the next some beers with Jeremy, Tim and Rachel (OOF: NYC), etc. So much variety, so much catching up, so much more fun that playing pool on the iPhone for three hours on a Thursday night.
- I actually watched a sporting event with other people who care about the team I’m rooting for. On Sunday, we had planned to get the band back together and head to Ship of Fools, our home base for Eagles games last year, but at the last minute we were able to snag a private room at Public House in midtown which would show both the Eagles and Phillies games. There, surrounded by 35 other Philly fans (our crew combined with two others, all friends or friends of friends) we watched the Eagles’ season end before our very eyes and our Phillies continue their improbable march toward the World Series. A magical day that was, for the most part, loads of fun.
(Seriously, though: the Eagles are done. In that division and that conference, you’re going to need 11 wins to make the playoffs. The Eagles have three losses already, two against division rivals, with two games against the Giants, at home versus Dallas, and at Washington still to come. Looking at this team the past three weeks, do they look capable of going 9-2 the rest of the way out – or even 8-3, which would put them at 10-6? No way. No way in hell. This season, and probably the McNabb era in Philly, is over. Mark my words. I hope I’m wrong, but mark my words.)
(Go Phils – more on this another time.)
Best hosts ever
For almost my entire time in NYC, I slept on a couch in two-bedroom apartment, on the sixth floor of a walk-up building, in a living room that is, generously, 7′x10′. Me, a giant, bearded, snoring man who, every night when he went to bed, had at least four beers in him. And yet not once – not once! – did my friends Jeremy and Meredith, my wonderful hosts, complain. Sure, Jeremy did once mention how much hair I was leaving all over the bathroom, but that’s ok – I deserved it. Of course, when you’re as hairless as a baby it’s easy to say that a few chest/back/beard/pubic hairs left around are an “unbelievable” amount, but still, I took his constructive criticism and worked on it. I can never repay them for their hospitality, although I tried my damnedest with cupcakes from Crumbs.
Sickness at the end
On Sunday night just before 10pm after the games and then some, I stumbled out of the new Brother Jimmy’s around 31st and 3rd (don’t ask). It was then, in my not-quite-drunken-stupor-but-probably-can’t-unwrap-a-condom state that I realized I had had neither Rosario’s pizza, which I ate drunkenly just about every weekend during my entire tenure in NYC, or Katz’s, the be-all and end-all of Jewish delis – both of which are within two blocks of each other on the Lower East Side. Once I got my bearings, I hailed a cab and was en route to the LES. On my last night in NYC, this was going to be fixed.
I stopped at Katz’s first, because it was close to closing time, and got my standard: pastrami, Swiss and mustard on a hero. I figured I would save this sandwich for lunch the next day and eat the Rosario’s that night, since the sandwich would keep and since Rosario’s, like penis, always tastes better after a dozen beers.
When walking to Rosario’s, I realized my problem. I had gotten a hotel room for Sunday night. I did this because I knew I’d be boozing all day Sunday and the following day I’d have to work a full day and then take a 6.5 hour flight back to LA right after work. After sleeping on a couch all week, I pricelined a hotel and got one for $100. Good investment, I thought.
But the catch was that the hotel room in which I was staying didn’t have a fridge. Therefore, I had nowhere to store the two-pound pastrami sandwich I was holding in my right hand. So I could eat the sandwich that night and forego the Rosario’s – there was no way I could eat both (this is not mine, but an actual sandwich from Katz’s), or throw the sandwich out. The former it was, since there was no way I was throwing out a perfectly good $17 sandwich.
So there I was, living the dream: 10:30pm, filled with Guinness and PBR, laying in bed in a hotel room in midtown Manhattan with my shirt off, the AC blasting, baseball on the TV, eating a giant pastrami sandwich. If a woman had come into the room and started blowing me, I would have immediately had to take out a gun and blow my brains out, since my life would never get any better from that point forward.
But this nirvana was not meant to last. I feel asleep around midnight and woke up at 2am with intense, double-over-worthy stomach pains. I immediately jumped on the toilet, but after several contractions, there was nothing in the chamber. I tried to go back to bed but was shortly up again, dealing with more contractions. My beautiful brown baby was finally born at approximately 4:16am (four pounds, nine ounces), and was eventually joined by a sister and two brothers, but the net result was that I was up from 2am until after 7am, in pain and pooping. Therefore, at just about 6:30am I emailed my boss and said I wasn’t going to come in. He’s a smart guy, and I’m sure he thinks I was just hungover, but this…this was no hangover. This was someone’s revenge; this was personal.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression…
The last time I returned to LA from visiting the east coast, I was overcome with rage about my move to LA. Why did I move to this terrible city? Why did I leave all my friends and all that fun back in NYC? What the hell was I thinking?
But my return this time was different. Because I took something important away from this last trip to NYC: it’s still there. It’s still all there, all the bars, all the restaurants, all the friends, all the good times, all the beers – everything is just where I left it. And I know now that I can go back at any time and pick up right where I left off (literally – I landed at 11:30pm on a Thursday night, took a cab straight to the bar, and was out until 2:30am).
In the meantime, I have to try to make the most of my time here in LA – because it will be short. I don’t know what this means and I’m sure it will ultimately backfire and piss me off/make me hate LA even more, but that’s for later. For now, I have to accept the decision I’ve made and make the most of it. I’m a grown-ass man and this is what life is about: accepting your fate and dealing with it, whether it’s a the end of your team’s season, eating a pastrami sandwich that makes your butt kill itself, or moving across the country and away from your friends and family.
