hipsterdom

Back from NY.

Saturday, 2am: Wake C up, because my plane just landed and I'm on my way to your place. Thanks! Cab drive from La Guardia through Harlem in the middle of the night is... interesting.

Saturday afternoon: G's bridal shower in Westchester. Champagne, canapes, and cake (say that five times fast) at 2pm? Yes please. Reuniting with college girlfriends while doing so? Even better.

Saturday evening:
1) Dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Indian place in the East Village, complete with mildly hallucinogenic live sitar music, kitschy decor, and thick clouds of incense. BYO Captain Morgan, artsy architectural grad students, and lively social commentary.
2) Digitalism concert at the Bowery. I am blown away. I even wore uber-skinny jeans for the occasion, though the pearls and heels (see previous: bridal shower) likely gave me away.
3) Continue drinking at Black & White in the East Village. Meet up with Chilean and Australian ex-pat architect friends of friends. Love that they play Van Halen and Boston in this pub. Euro-electronica indie architects are less amused.
4) Late night munchies at Bon-chon in Ktown. Continue drinking: beer goes with food, right?

Sunday:
1) Wake up exhausted but not hungover. Victory!
2) Lox and cream cheese on an everything bagel before beginning my contemporary art Museum Marathon! New Museum, Whitney, and MoMA all in one day. My head spins with the grandiosity of it all. We visit the architecture exhibits in the MoMA, where I exasperate C with my utter lack of modern architectural knowledge. I am wholly inspired - albeit unrealistically - to create something original and great. I suddenly entertain (and not for the first time) fantasies of a starving-artist/musician lifestyle. Coffee, cigarettes, creative vision, angst, and Xanax. And then I remember that I have sold my soul, and the better part of my 20's, to medicine. Demerol, anyone?
3) I buy a laser-cutout band ring at the Young Designers Market in Nolita and lust after beautiful unaffordable things that are probably too trendy for me anyway.
4) Dinner with L and C at the cozy Westville in (need I say?) the West Village. Cozy is actually too generous. Our unruly-haired, endearingly quirky waiter looks to be about 20 years old. Holy crap, when did we get so old?
5) T joins us in Brooklyn at a dive bar to hear L's band play. It's called Hank's Saloon. Disappointingly, no wood-slat swinging doors, though there is a large tattered American flag, smoke-stained posters, and a bust of Elvis gracing the tiny stage.

Monday: Bloodshot bleary-eyed flight home. Now I know why celebrities are always wearing sunglasses in airports.

The verdict? I love NY. And love that I keep discovering new parts of the city despite what feels like hundreds of visits. Good thing I'm returning in a month or two.