Is This the End?

My de facto office has been Cafe Habana on Elizabeth Street. Not that I work there, but it’s where I meet everyone. Advantages: there are benches outside, there is corn inside, it’s a straight shot down 2nd Ave on a bike for me. Basically my range this summer has been “anything up/down 2nd Avenue or maybe off the L train.” Going across town to Chelsea or the West Village has been too much of a hassle, and Brooklyn, forget it!

Although I have been to Williamsburg more times than I can count over the past week — including a night with the douchetastic crowd at Freehold. Still, if we’re meeting up, it’s starting off at Cafe Habana and then probably a walk around Nolita. And of course I’ll buy a corn and then carry it around for a few hours thinking I’ll eat it but then I toss it in the trash. Food waster, that’s me!

I’ve trolled those few blocks around Nolita at least three times, and I still don’t actually know exactly where I am. Who am I without my trusty compass? Also, as if you had to ask, but of course I’ll all up on this Pokemon Go craze. I can’t stop talking about it, I can’t stop making people download it (Team Instinct/Yellow please!), I carry every single portable charger with me nowadays, and I’m waiting for all the features like trading to get into the game. My main worry about leaving New York is that anywhere else won’t have the density of Pokemon, gyms, and pokestops.

New York is the perfect city to go Poke-hunting and without the easily accessible walking spaces, I’m worried my collection will never be complete. So far my best place to find stuff has been at Pratt, where the sculpture garden was full of interesting stuff to look at. But enough about Pokemon…

The rundown the past week included Fourth of July celebrated from the comfort of my room, which just so happens to look over the Hudson River. Nice view, but my interest in fireworks is nil. So I just stood back while my cousin and aunt peered outside.

After going through a pizza, ramen, sandwiches, Cubanos, and salad phase, I’m now squarely into my diner life. I’ve eaten at three diners recently and while each experience was squarely a B- or a C+, I still loved it. (In case I’ve never mentioned it, Malibu Diner in Chelsea is my favorite one, because it’s got really the best food for a diner.)

I have dreams of just sitting in a diner, quietly reading or writing, but that’s happened zero times so far. I read that Rembert Brown did a lot of his Grantland writing from the old Bauhaus, which I can’t even imagine. I wish I was one of those people who could be productive at cafes or eating places, but mostly I just get all paranoid about the foodstuffs and potential spillage around my computer.

I've learned, over time, that the only way I can get any writing done is in a controlled environment that has little in the way of distractions (or dirt). So much for the image of a traveling writer who parks it all day in a cafe!

An epic half-rainy Saturday unearthed five straight hours of karaoke. To be honest, that’s not that much, because in Taiwan I’ve had people go karaoke for like eight hours. I couldn’t do that back then — due to the dearth of English songs — but I could have gone even longer on Saturday night. We started off with Madonna, whipped through some classic Eighties, got even deeper with the Eighties, moved onto ballads and lite R&B, and then had a sprinkling of Les Mis and Aladdin. Categories skipped that I hope to return to: pop, duets, alternative songs of the 2000s, Guns N Roses.

Till next time...