Tag: New York City

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Memory Lane

Not that there’s anything wrong with that

After the Firecracker and I came back from her surprise shower, we then dashed off to our local dive bar – Malachy’s – and met up with my old roomie, Buckley.

We actually lived in the same dorm waaaaaay back in 1991 (!) and kept in touch after I left.

When he moved into the city, he and I became roomies and, after a few years, he and I bought our apartment together.

I remember that my dad had questions.

Dad: You…and Buckley…are buying an apartment? Together?
Me: Yeah, why?
Him: Well…is there anything else you wanna tell me?
Me: (puzzled) No, why? (thinking) OMG! No, we’re just friends. And poor. We’re poor friends. We can’t afford a place alone, so we need to pool our money together.
Him: Oh…
Me: (quickly) Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We’re just poor.

This is us in 1998, right before we bought the place.

I dunno what we were thinking with those sweaters or my goatee.

In any case, we met up at Malachy’s because that and Big Nick’s – which is where the main picture was taken – were the two greasy spoon dives that we always went to.

It’s weird. He looks like him just…older. And I’m the same.

We were literally kids when we met – like 17. And now his son is not that far off from the age when we first met.

Rain Noe, Logan Lo

And I’ve been chatting with Rain a lot these days.

He’s just dealing with some real estate issues and that’s kinda what I do.

That’s a pic of us back in 1998 downtown. I think at a joint called Stingy Lulu‘s (or Yaffa Cafe).

Big Nick’s is long gone – it closed back in 2013 and I wrote about it. I remember chatting with Alison about it.

Stingy Lulu’s has been gone for decades – as has Yaffa Cafe.

The thing about being 51 in 2025 is that I don’t really have any pictures or videos of some of the most seminal moments of my life.

This was a little bit after he moved out and Alison moved in.

Because, back then, cameras were crappy and usually just film or – in my case – crappy digital.

Did you know that your memories aren’t replayed, they’re reconstructed each and every time you remember them?

That means that every time you remember thing, there’s a (high) chance you’ll alter that memory a bit and those alterations keep piling up until you can’t trust your own memories anymore?

And that’s why I wish I had better pictures/videos to remember my possible pasts with.

Luckily, I have my friends to help me remember those memories.

Me: He was a quant at Long Term Capital, right?
Him: No, he was a programmer – he was on his way to being a quant when it imploded.
Me: Gotcha – I didn’t know that.

Unfortunately, I don’t have Alison here to remember the memories that mattered the very most to me.

Ah, fuck…

This is what my room looked like when it was just me and Buckley – two bachelors in the city.
A dragonfly from this entry in 2008. I have questions about that day but no one to ask.

Location: this morning, looking up therapists for various reasons
Mood: messy
Music: saw my life in a strangers face and it was mine (Spotify)
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Surprising her again, but not by me

The Firecracker had a surprise party the other day

Amazingly, the very next day after I wrote the previous entry about my fixing my server hack, it got hacked again in the morning.

Super annoying, but, luckily, most of the site was pretty barebones by then so we were able to patch that part pretty quickly.

Let’s see how long this lasts.

On another topic, entirely, the Firecracker had to go to a “conference” the other day.

It turns out that it was all a sham – but the good kind.

See, her coworkers had to think of a reason to get her to come up for a surprise party thrown by her coworkers to celebrate her engagement to me.

Me: I get that. You *are* pretty lucky to have me.
Her: (rolls eyes)

She was super touched by the gesture and hit me up to swing by.

Her: My coworkers are the best! Come on by, we’ll be here a bit.

While I feel that I’m always crashing her office events, she said it was fine, so I headed up.

Everyone, like always, was super sweet.

They had hors d’oeuvres, champagne, sandwiches, salads, and a ton of desserts…

…including some homemade cupcakes to boot.

They played some games…

…and also handed out prizes.

I won a scrunchie, as did she. 

Considering my quantity of hair, I’ll most likely give her mine.

We ate our fill and then headed home because later on that night, I was supposed to meet up with my old college roomie and buddy, Buckley.

I’ll tell you about that in the next entry.

Her: Five? You ate FIVE sandwiches?
Me: Well, no one else was eating them, so…
Her: What do you have, a hollow leg?
Me: In my defense, I only ate like half the bread.

Location: the basement, cleaning out a ton of brick dust from alla the previous work
Mood: busy and beat
Music: No, you’re not late to the party, don’t worry there’s still time (Spotify)
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A Revolutionary Afternoon

Rasputin was a real wizard

Because the Firecracker and I did so much traveling the past two years, we were chatting about getting into the TSA Precheck Program.

To this end, we both met up downtown at the National Museum of the American Indian, which is – oddly – where we had our interview.

The last time I’d been down there was in this entry, 13 years ago.

What a different life I led back then.

In any case, the interview itself was insanely fast; we were both done in less than three minutes.

It’s alla the paperwork that you gotta do ahead time that’s the real time killer.

Afterward, I told her that I’d buy her a drink downtown.

Me: Have you ever been to Fraunces Tavern?
Her: (thinking) That’s like a Revolutionary War place, yes? I don’t think so?
Me: Sweeeet, ok, let’s go.

It’s a place that George Washington supposedly utilized as a headquarters for war planning.

While we were there, I got a really good mead – for the first time, ever – and she just had some wine.

We chatted with the bartender for a bit before walking around downtown.

There were so many cool shops and restaurants downtown that we had difficulties figuring out where to eat.

Ultimately, she decided she wanted a lobster roll so we found a place downtown that had an excellent one.

She was very excited.

It felt luxurious to be out and about in the middle of the day.

This meant that we had time for some important and deep conversations.

Her: Have you ever considered that maybe Rasputin was a real wizard?
Me: OK, where to begin with that statement…?

Afterward, we walked around a bit more downtown…

…before we called it and went home.

Her: This is one of those things I like best about New York City.
Me: What?
Her: There’s just so much to do and see.
Me: (nodding) Yeah. I’ve been here my whole life and still think there’s so much I’ve not seen here yet.

Location: in front of six tacos, wondering if I should have a seventh
Mood: exhausted
Music: Völlig losgelöst von der Erde (Spotify)
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Not a Millennial

Six?!

Met up with Kung and my buddy Brando for lunch the other day.

The last time I ate with both of them, I was a complete mess as Alison had just died and I was doing whatever I could to stay sane and alive.

This time around, enough time had passed that I was able to just chill out and joke with them.

Me: Is there light beer happening at the dumpling joint?
Him: There better be!

While Kung is Chinese, Brando is Australian, which is a country that has the most Chinese in the world, outside of Asia.

This is relevant because they wanted soup dumplings for lunch and Brando suggested this one joint near his gym.

Me: Kung, as the only other true dumpling connoisseur of the group, do you agree? 
Brando: He LOVED the dumplings.
Me: Kung, don’t let the white man unduly influence you; what did you think?
Brando: How dare you assume I am not an expert in soup dumplings? It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?
Kung: Legit!

So, I went to their gym first and rolled around on the mats for the first time in ages and then we made it to the restaurant where we ordered six trays of soup dumplings.

Waiter: SIX? (holds up his hands with six fingers) Six?
Me: (nodding) Six. We’re hungry.
Brando: And we need some garlic bok choi.
Me: That too.

Another buddy was supposed to eat with us, but he’s got this insanely demanding job and literally had to fly out to another state last minute, a few hours before we were supposed to meet up.

Him: Hey boys, so sorry I missed lunch the other day I severely underestimated what [my bosses needed me to do]. I haven’t seen daylight since Thursday morning!

Him: Are you really gonna take a picture of your food? What are you, a Millennial?
Me: Clearly not. (shrugging) I just like taking pics of food for myself.

It was nice seeing them; we met some 15-20 years ago and we’re still friends even now.

The older I get, the more I value the people that chose to stick around.

Location: home with the boy and dealing with literal growing pains
Mood: concerned
Music: I was bad now I’m better (Spotify)
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Fixing cracks around here

Less than thrilled

The kid cracked another tooth the other day so we had to drop everything and head to the dentist’s to fix it.

This time, however, insurance was able to cover everything, so that was a plus.

Poor guy was less than thrilled, lemme tell ya.

Him: You have no idea how this feels!
Me: Dude, most adults know exactly how it feels – we’ve all done it. You’ll survive this, trust me.

Afterward, I brought him to see his grandparents out in the wilds of NJ…

…I stayed for dinner because they were having Afghan food and we all love it.

Couldn’t really stay longer than for dinner because there’s work that needs to be done on my building that we’re (finally) doing after literally decades of putting it off.

Essentially, our building has settled, and this has resulted in large cracks in our facade.

According to an engineer that came by, while it’s not dangerous to life or property at the moment, we had a few years to fix it before it became a serious problem.

A fella that did work for us years ago just happened to be free so I jumped at the chance to have him fix it.

Just like with any other repair work, as soon as he started, he saw more issues, like, look at how much mortar is missing from the bricks above, or how rusted the internal metal is between the layers of brick, below.

He’s gonna tell me after he’s had more time to check it out if we need to do anything more for that.

Home and kid ownership is rewarding, for sure, but keeping the home from falling down and the kid in one piece is really a full-time thing.

Then again, I’m not sure I’d want it any other way.

Him: Thanks for bringing me to the dentist.
Me: Sure thing, but let’s avoid doing that for a while, ok?
Him: Definitely!

Location: meeting the Firecracker for dinner out and about like real adults
Mood: brrrrrrrrrrr
Music: I’m standing right here for you (Spotify)
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Birthdays at Sappe

Not spicy at all

Met up with my college buddies the other night for Cappy and Gar’s birthday.

We’ve been getting together every February to celebrate Gar and Cappy’s birthday since…well, since a few years after we graduated college, way back in 1996 or so.

The first time I mentioned us meeting was back in 2007 in this entry.

Back then, everyone didn’t have a camera with them 24/7 and I also wasn’t sure how much of my life I’d be blogging about.

Some 18 years later, I’m obviously blogging a lot more.

This year, we met up at a joint called Sappe downtown.

Despite a massive snowstorm that night, the place was packed…

…the drinks were killer…

…as was the food.

What’s odd was that the single spiciest thing we ate was this strawberry fruit salad.

Think I ate the most, about six strawberries. And then I was done – my mouth was on fire.

This is saying a lot as about half the table was Korean and they’re no strangers to spicy food.

The rest of the food was spicy but not obscenely so.

Well…

Her: will you try it first? It looks good but I can’t handle much spice.
Me: Sure! (later) It’s not spicy at all.
Her: (takes bite, instant red face) OMG! Are you trying to kill me?? That’s soooooo spicy!
Me: What?! There’s no spice to it. (takes another bite and starts to cough) OMG…I just got a pepper. That is so spicy!
Her: I told you!

Also, chatted up a fella that was there with a whole crew of people celebrating their friend Eli’s 30th – they all wore the same shirt.

Eli has quality friends.

Afterward, we hit up a bar close to the restaurant…

…but had to bolt a bit early because the snow was seriously coming down.

All-in-all, it was a great night. Saw my friends and hung out with my girl.

Not a bad way to start off the new year.

Location: the dentist’s, telling him he’ll be ok
Mood: exhausted
Music: all I want – I promise that it’s not a lie – is to be your friend (Spotify)
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Another Love Cover

Japanese BBQ in the UWS

The kid had his second recital the other day and played Tom Odell’s Another Love.

This is him playing in his first, if you never saw it.

I’d never heard of the song before and there’s on expletive in the original, but he really wanted to play it and his music teacher felt it was a good choice.

So, I let him do it.

Think it turned out pretty well, actually.

Afterward, we ended up having dinner at the same joint that the Firecracker and I went to a year-and-a-half ago.

And, we ended up going with the same family we went with the last time, except that they also brought a family friend along – who just happened to be Japanese.

Me: (to my friend) You could have mentioned that she was Japanese! That’s like me bringing a Scottish person to McDonalds and calling it Scottish food.
Her: (laughing) It’s fine! Actually, this food is pretty good Japanese food.
Me: You’re being nice, but I’ll take it.

The woman actually spoke perfect English; I woulda thought she was from NYC if she didn’t say that she was originally from Tokyo and lived there still.

We got onto the topic of alla useless facts rattling around in my head.

Her: Like what?
Me: Well, I see you’re wearing a Columbia jacket. That company was founded by this German family that fled the Nazis and left behind their successful clothing company. When they got here, the found someone selling a clothing company, immediately bought it, and renamed it after the Columbia River.
Her: (laughing) How do you know all that?
Me: I have no idea.

This is true.

The vast majority of facts I know are (a) useless and (b) of completely unknown origins.

Somehow, these interesting stories stick around in my brain.

And now, maybe it’ll stick in yours?

Location: Early morning, upstairs, trying to replace a shower door
Mood: groggy
Music: Words, they always win, but I know I’ll lose (Spotify)
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A Dog-Man

In the blink of an eye

I live just north of one of the few megaplexes left in New York City, which means that I have a chance to check out a lotta movie premiers – except that I’m not a huge movie theatre buff.

There’s something about being in a dark, loud, enclosed space that stresses me out.

So, I only go if there’s a particularly good reason to do so – like when the Firecracker and I got invited to the premier of Gladiator II.

But my sister told me about a premier for the first Dogman film, which is a super popular book series for kids.

So, I managed to snag four tickets for the kids, the Firecracker, and myself.

It also included a picture taken with the author, a signed copy of his latest book in hardcover, a drink, and popcorn.

It was pretty much a perfect event for the kids.

But not so much for me.

That is, until I had a chat with an old college friend that just happened to be in the neighborhood at the same time of the movie.

Him: Hey, I’m in the UWS around 6:30. Around and available for a meal?
Me: Ack, normally yes but I’m bringing the boys to a movie tonight, literally the first time ever. Raincheck?
Him: No worries, raincheck for sure – what movie?
Me: Dogman. Don’t even ask. I’m not thrilled about it.
Him: Oh, Dogman is good choice! Now that [my son] is 13 and having dinner with his friends, I’d give anything to watch a movie with him.
Me: Oh man, that’s a good point. Yeah, I should be better about things like this.
Him: Yeah. Never thought I’d say it – [they grow up in the] blink of an eye.

So, after the kid’s guitar lesson, I went to the local Japanese takeout restaurant, picked up some Karaage Onigiri and Spam Onigiri for everyone, and off we went.

It was a madhouse.

But organizers were really cool and great with alla the kids.

And the author was just a prince. He tooks pics with literally every single kid that asked…

…signed hundreds of books and even gave a little speech in the beginning of the film.

Although, one of the more interesting conversations was with one of the fellas managing the concession storage closet.

Him: …on Mondays. And then we get two more shipments that same week.
Me: You’re kidding me – you sell outta alla these every 2-3 days?
Him: Yup.
Me: This is a closet of diabetes.
Him: (laughs, nods)

The movie itself was tolerable for a 51-year-old Chinese man, but the kids absolutely loved it.

Highly recommended for them.

Like I said, it was the first movie I’d ever taken the kid to in a theatre.

Hopefully, he has some fond memories of it all.

Me: What was your favourite part?
Him: Everything!

Location: Grey’s Papaya, wondering if I should do it
Mood: regretting not having a hot dog
Music: You’re the movie in my mind to which I know every line (Spotify)
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It only took 27 years

Everything takes forever

Me: I need a weapons area.
Her: You totally need a weapons area – you have so many!

Around late 2013, because Alison and I kept losing pregnancies, our lives just stopped.

It’s part of why I stopped blogging for a bit in 2015; because it was getting too hard to hide all the sadness and bad news that we kept getting.

Maybe one day I’ll tell you some of it.

Probably not, though. It still fucks me up to this day.

My kid helping with some baking I was doing; next to him are two of the three vacuums we had.

Of course, the bad news kept getting worse until it was the worst news we could ever imagine.

Our lives, just like the blog, was off schedule. All the plans we had and suspended, were suspended indefinitely.

One little thing was that, for 27 years, the radiator in my back bathroom wasn’t working.

The old owners disconnected it for some reason and Alison and I always said we were gonna hook it up again at some point.

As usual, life kept getting in the way.

But the other day, I decided to remove two of the three vacuums that I have in my pad, mounted on a wall – why I have three is a wholly separate story that I may or may not tell you about down the line.

Didn’t match at all.

Unfortunately, the paint that I thought would cover up the removal damage dried out after 15 years of sitting in my basement.

Me: Dammit!

So, I went to my local paint store and had them match the paint. It didn’t match well at all.

Me: GODDAMMIT!!

Cutting off a chip of the drywall, the second time around, they were able to match it relatively closely.

This then led to a chain of events that ended up with a plumber coming in the other day and hooking up the radiator in the back room.

Here, this 40 second video of Hal/Bryan Cranston more adequately explains what happened, as well as why everything takes forever around here:

There’s a lot more to it but lately I’ve doing stuff around the house that’s been waiting to happen for between 10-27 years.

Told Buckley – the fella I first bought the apartment with some 20+ years ago – about what was going on.

Me: Hola! I just had the radiator fixed in the back bathroom TODAY. Can you believe that I never changed it?
Buckley: Guten tag! I recall it didn’t work. Are you telling me it stayed broken until today? If so, that’s impressive.
Me: Yup, broken for 27 years until this morning at 11am.

Hopefully, 27 years’ll be my maximum time for letting things sit broken around here.

Then again, I suppose I’ve been broken for some 51+ years…

Location: my warm back bathroom!
Mood: warm!
Music: Feels like home (Spotify)
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A mini-celebration

Dinner at The Mark

Him: Let’s get a date for dinner. With beautiful WAGs.
Me: Works for us!
Him: I was thinking The Mark?
Me: I’m more of a Grey’s Papaya kinda guy but that would work for us. We can’t do any earlier than 6:15, though, because of the rug rats.
Him: You can just leave them outside by the curb. OK, 7PM The Mark. More appropriate to the occasion.

The NFL Player and Thor dropped me a line the other day. They wanted to take me out to celebrate our getting engaged – wives and girlfriends included.

So, one cold evening, we bundled up, got our passports, and headed over to the east side of town to meet up at The Mark Hotel Jean-Georges restaurant.

I’d never been although I’ve driven by it dozens of times.

It was gorgeous inside.

It’s funny because the three of us were among the older people at our old gym; so, we immediately got to talking about alla our injuries.

Me: How’s your shoulder?
Thor: Eh, ok. How’s your back?
Me: (shrugging) Same.

On top of that, could barely read the menu because of the small print and the darkness of the restaurant so the NFL Player lent me his reading glasses.

Me: We’re hitting a new level here, fellas.

The NFL Player’s wife also deals with some back issues.

Her: You know, I could get you a pillow for your back. These seats will be difficult.
Me: OMG, I’ve reached this point in my life.
Her: (waving her hand) It’s fine. I’ll have one of the staff get you something.

And she did. And it was glorious.

The rest of the night was more highly inappropriate conversation, which I won’t repeat here.

Thor’s wife: …so lucky.
Me: (shocked and laughing) Jesus Christ, you barely had anything to drink yet.
Her: (dismissing it and laughing) Oh, I don’t need alcohol to be like this.

The food was absolutely killer – I ordered the steak…

…and got one of those tiny bottles of tabasco that I find so cute, to boot.

The Firecracker also enjoyed her dish and got dessert, which we shared, even though I really shouldn’t have.

Also tried some of Thor’s desert as well.

Afterward, we made our way back to the Upper West Side and civilization.

Her: Your friends are really nice.
Me: Agreed. I have no idea why they like hanging out with me.

Location: a winter wonderland(ish)
Mood: tired
Music: a middle aged man settled down on my soul but I’m not that old (Spotify)
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