Saturday

Yesterday Y. and I decided not to go see the gates--it was too cold, it would be too crowded, we would go tomorrow--and instead we went in search of a new coffee machine, because mine is leaking water all over the place and I have already had it repaired once. Its time has come. So we walked to the A train since we were going to go the sculpture store on spring street and inquire about buying stone to carve. (The sculpture store, if you have not been there, is amazing. All kinds of bizarre and fascinating sculptor's tools and things to use them on). But even before we got to High Street station entrance, people were coming back up the steps shaking their heads. "No trains," a grey-haired man said. "No trains at all? Yoshi asked him. The man shook his head. So we walked back to the Clark Street station. We would go to Canal Street.

Coming out of Canal Street station, we decided to skip the sculpture store--the stone would be too heavy to carry anyway--and went to Broadway Panhandler. It looked like there was some sort of party going on inside, so many people. But they were just shoppers. I took a cursory glance at all the incredibly expensive coffee machines and shook my head. I can't afford them. So I found Y. wandering slightly dazed among the pots and pans and we left and walked east. We were going to go to get dumplings on Eldridge Street. We stopped in a crowded shoe store and I tried on a pair of boots but they looked funny and I could not fit my orthotics in them so we left there and it was better that I didn't buy the boots anyway. Walking up Grand Street, we decided to skip the dumplings and went instead to this tiny restaurant in Chinatown, one of the first places we ever ate together. There are about six tables; you order you food and they go to the kitchen of the shop next door and bring it to you.

We finished our food and went back toward Soho, but turned down Lafayette and over to Canal Street. One of my New York City rules is to never walk down Canal street on a Saturday, but I had never told Y., and I was following him. We went to Pearl Paint; I had been there the day before but I wanted a large canvas and Friday, when I had also gone to Pearl Paint, was too windy and besides I was meeting Thierry and didn't want to carry a huge one with me on such a windy day. So I bought a large square canvas and then we took the R train back to Brooklyn. We decided we would go out at night. So I sent an email to Bao seeing if he wanted to join us and Y. called Hiroshi to invite him--I thought Hiroshi and Bao would get along well--and I prefer to go to a bar with a few friends, since I am not crazy about bars, rather dislike them generally, but if I am with a group I enjoy the conversation in that setting, that is if the music is not too loud. Bao had to work and Hiroshi had to go to an opening but said he would join us later.

So a few hours later we are on the 3 train heading to 14th Street where we will catch the L to the East Village. But when we get to 14th Street a tall guy comes from the L tunnel and says there are no L trains running. "No trains at all?" Y. asks and the guy shakes his head no. So we walk and I am grumpy because I am freezing and it is long walk. Y. is acting silly and in spite of my grumpiness I laugh. We are both very hungry and we decide to walk along 13th Street in search of some food. We get all the way to 1st Avenue and find a Dunkin Donuts and I ate a chocolate-glazed donut which was perfect. The guy behind the counter was a small skinny long-haired asian guy with a unbelievably deep resonant voice which sounded disconnected from him somehow, and I was fasinated by hearing him talk. But it was not busy at Dunkin Donuts, during the maybe ten minutes that we were there.

We finished our donuts and went to Phoenix around the corner or maybe it was a block away and the bartender ignored me for a long time when I tried to buy two Rolling Rocks. Finally he took my order and I felt a little annoyed because it was not crowded and it was clear I was waiting to buy drinks. This is one thing I dislike about bars. So we hung out at Phoenix but it was strange, not crowded enough to be interesting really and bad music. We walked to Starlight. That was a little better. Gary's boyfriend is the DJ there on Saturday nights. I thought maybe I would run into Gary or Nicholas, and people were more interesting to watch in Starlight, and it is a more mixed crowd, which I like. For some reason bars with nothing but men in them have never appealed to me. I like things mixed up. We sat and drank a bit, and then at 11:00 Hiroshi called and said he was too tired to go out. So we finished our beers and then walked back to get more donuts. Then, because it had been such a frustrating subway day, we splurged and took a taxi home. I woke up this morning with a headache, but miraculously I was able to fall back asleep after waking to take care of the animals, and I slept until 9 a.m., which is the equivalent, for most people, of sleeping until noon.

Today I will go see the gates with Y.