the upper east side & then some

our host was this lady named michelle. michelle has a small, grey, fluffy dog called 'pee-wee'. this is an apt name because he often peed/did small poos on the floor. a lot of people on the upper east side have dogs but they all live in apartments so you see them on the street a lot. people take their dogs for walks in their pyjama pants which i thought was nice given that it was the posh upper east side. it is weird that so many people treat their dogs in this way, taking them outside only a few times a day, and not everybody has small dogs like michelle. and even still, it is weird keeping dogs cooped indoors all day. apartments in new york are usually pretty warm because of pipes that go throughout the whole building, so air isn't fresh and all the smells stay in unless you open windows. 

monday was spent mostly in the american museum of natural history. it was a really cool place that most people might recognise from 'night at the museum'. it was really cool and huuuge and you gotta allow a whole day to experience it. there are some disturbing things about it like the fact that a lot of the animals in cases are taxidermy. weird. it was a good experience though. our feet hurt a lot by the end of the day. 

we started buying breakfast from a nice bagel shop on 86th. i had jelly and cream cheese on mine which was pretty delish one day and my first experience of calling jam 'jelly'. tuesday was an unexpectedly legit day. we went on a tour of the UN and learnt about its role in international relations. i think we all felt a bit empowered by possibilities afterwards. our tour guide was peruvian. i want to roll my Rs like he does. lunch we used my zine guide of nyc to take us to this japanese place called menchanko tei and it was just what we needed, filling but not grossly and felt good for us as opposed to all the mexican and pizza we'd been eating. that evening i went to long island city to catch up with my cousin and go to a free comedy show. i felt like i mastered the subway. the show itself was pretty good. we had some beers then went to flux factory where they were having a birthday party for somebody. sam only wanted to stay for one beer but we ended up having some shots of rum and dancing around the kitchen. there was this one guy dancing really awesome and he had a beard and i asked sam if he was married because that's how i enquire about people's marital status. he was very tall and dancing in short fluoro green shorts and a salmon pink polo tee. that is not why he was attractive though. idk. he was ridiculous and uninhibited, i think that was attractive. i had not eaten dinner so i ate 2 donuts that were on the table. they were really delicious, cinnamonny things mm. we kept trying to leave but having conversations with people instead. i talked to a nice girl from canada and told some of the flux artists who i saw speaking last week that i liked their artwork. 'this charming man' by the smiths played and we got excited about english music being played then i said it was definitely our last dance and then we walked to the subway. i met the girls in the city and got pizza on the way back to our apartment. i was a bit drunk and kept exclaiming about how crunchy the pizza was. 

we had a big sleep in yesterday and woke up around 12pm and went to katz's deli for brunch. we ordered a pastrami sandwich, philly cheesesteak and cheese blintzes to share. it was all pretty good, but the pastrami was the best. katz's is overpriced. it wasn't too busy. it was raining a lot and i didn't have a raincoat or an umbrella so my jacket got quite damp. we split up after brunch (which was in reality a v late lunch) and i walked to a nearby salvation army thrift store. they had no fitting rooms so i could not try anything on. i walked back into soho to check out a wool shop, stopping in other pretty stores on the way. i walked past some nice looking galleries on west broadway. i like a lot of things about soho but i felt as if i looked too much like a drowned rat to go into many stores. the wool shop was a dream and is actually the store of a blog i read sometimes, the purl bee. emma came into the store while i was there, purely by coincidence. i thought she had already been there that day. we bought some wool and then went to meet caroline at mcnally jackson bookstore. we had a sit there for a while as our feet were very sore plus we were cold and wet. then went to hampton chutney co for dinner. we all had dosas which looks like a giant pancake with fillings of indian varieties. very tasty and filling. 

we went home to get gussied up to go to a zine launch that brodie told us about. there was a long line at the zine launch and we smoked cigarettes to have something to do in the line. we saw tao lin walk to the front of the line and get right into the store. we played a game that i know called 'end of the world' which is where you look around you and work out who you would sex if the world was going to end in five mins. we made it inside and drank syrupy red wine. brodie and anton were leaving as we arrived. it was nice to see them, however briefly. inside we bought a copy of the zine and stared at tao lin a bit and spotted ryan o'connell who writes for thought catalog. occasionally i overheard people saying '....tao lin' it was funny/weird. we went for a drink at a bar called botannica. the girls were drinking spirits so they got a bit drunk. my drink in nyc was 'brooklyn lager'. i felt weird in botannica. i suggested we leave to get second dinner or go to another bar. we went to a bar i had noticed after the sunday night comedy. it was called 'the scratcher'. lots of the people from the zine launch were there. there were more good looking people there than at the other bar and we played 'end of the world' again. we decided to go outside smoke the last cigarette that caroline had and also talk to emma's end of the world boy. instead, we struck up a conversation with his friend, jackson. jackson said he worked for the third best art auction house in new york. i was interested in this. he was from tennessee. we got a taxi uptown. caroline and emma called their friend laura who is doing student exchange in arizona. we ate the same pizza that i had eaten the previous evening. again, it was really good. we each had two slices. 

i woke up around 6am this morning and felt awake enough to do some emailing and other internet items. we had to leave the apartment to pick up tickets to our bus at 9am. caroline woke up, we said goodbye to sleepy emma and we were organised enough to get to port authority by 8.30. it was too early and we were bored and tired. it was cold today so everything was misty and looked grim out the bus window. we talked about how things seemed rundown as we were driving out of nyc. the bus journey took 4 hours. it was cool seeing more parts of america. as we drove through baltimore i kept thinking of that song from hairspray. we got to DC and carolyn decarlo picked us up and took us to her place. she lives in a really cool flat. she is an easygoing and nice girl, i think we will have fun staying here. she surprised me by saying that a lot of nice int lit people are coming over to her place on saturday night for a ustream. i got really excited and caroline said 'what's a ustream?'. we walked to get some food and coffee at a cafe near caro's house. caroline and i were both very excited to be out of nyc, which is a cool place, but its bustle became tiring after 10+ days of being there. it's nice to see sky and for there to be trees and less people. 

so we are staying in dc for a little while now, going to do some touristy stuff but also have some chill time and hang with nice lit people. i think it will be good. i am hungry now.