Tonight I

I don’t know how this chick got away with it.

She boarded this car on a Downtown-bound 4 train with her cat in its box-thing and not a peep was uttered by any of the other passengers. People didn’t even stare. On the SUBWAY. I was aghast. It’s just not fair!

Because, damnit, reason number 4,324 why I think the world is against me: Every time that I’ve ever had to lug my stupid cat, Rufus, on the train people have had a whole lot to say about it. Rude-ass people tellin’ me I’m not allowed with a cat on the train, even in a carrier. Bitch-faced people complaining to me that they’re allergic to cats and about a whole bunch of other none sense. Stuff like, “Excuse me, I spilled my open container of coffee, which is actually illegal for me to have on the train, because of you and your stupid cat.” I’ve heard it all.

But, as much as I want to, I can’t blame the people. Really? I bet if Rufus didn’t think his life was in jeopardy while on the subway, jutting his paw out from inside his carrier and thrashing it about, we probably wouldn’t be noticed.

Oh, and there was that time when he peed and his urine leaked out of his carrier. On someone. Mortifying.

Going on class trips in the city are unlike going on class trips anywhere else. Or, they should be – instead of going to the local nuclear power plant or chocolate factory (okay, I saw that on The Simpsons; does anyone really do that?), we find outselves in the Dia Center for the Arts, or the Bronx Zoo, or the Brooklyn Botanical Garden or (ugah) the Intrepid (where I haven’t been able to return since). More often than not, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which has art for every unit, from pre-Greco-Roman to past the Renaissance) and ended our trips with lunch at Cleopatra’s Needle. If you’re unfamiliar with the structure, its an obelisk outside Temple of Dendur that (if memory serves) was airlifted from Cairo. All around the obelisk, there are hyroglyphics relating, well, something, and on the base, there’s the english inscription, courtesy of egyptologists. In my twelve-year-old memory, the hyroglyphs are clear as day, but on visiting the site recently, most of the glyphs on one side are practically worn away and saddest of all, you can see the indentations where they had been expertly carved millenia ago. I guess, you have to take into consideration that my memories are from almost a decade ago – nearly ten years of New York City rain and snow. The Egyptians were bright and the obelisk was built to last, but I’m sure that even they couldn’t have factored Mid-Atlantic weather patterns into the equation during construction. Then again, given how bright the Egyptians were, they probably knew (unlike me) that not even stone could last forever.

Boo-fucking-hoo. This kind of shit drives me insane. Cyndi Lauper only wants to pay $508 a month on rent when she has been paying $3500. Wow, if that

Sorry for the short notice, but if you are still looking for something fun to do tonight since you don

The last issue of New York magazine that I read (note I did not say, “the latest issue” – I have a bad habit of reading magazines out of order) had a snippet about the rise of non-Japanese sushi chefs. Specifically, the article highlighted two, up and coming sushi masters of Mexican descent. All of which struck me as, well, not strange at all. That whole fusion thing, now, that was strange: taking two cultures who didn’t have anything in common and then smashing them together on my plate. This is just egalitarian.

This week, I found myself at a pizzeria staffed completely by … Dominicans, if I heard the Spanish right. The pizzeria went above and beyond the regular pizza pie call of duty to offer ginocchi on the menu, a vat of pasta e fagioli, and arangini displayed on the case above the slices. Now, I’ve seen everything from Sicilian stromboli to Jamaican beef patties on this oft used shelf, but I almost had to jump for joy when I got my very own arangine, an orange ball of risotto and meat, encrusted with bread crumbs. So while purists probably turn up their noses at Mexican-made sushi and Dominican-thrown pizza, I say well, at least they’ve done their homework.

Identifying with strangers can be painful.

I can’t help it. I dwell on shit. And, I still want one.

About a year ago, I was seeing a guy who my musical re-education upon himself. As a result, I could throw out any number of indie rockers of various prestige, popularity and pretension, but the point is somehow, this fellow skipped over Jeff Buckley.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a friend and I were stumbling around the East Village and found a girl as lost as we were. Eventually we directed her to her final destination – Sin-E – before meeting up with our host/tour guide at Delancey Bar. He happened to be about a degree away from both Elliott Smith (who I love) and Jeff Buckley (who I as yet didn’t know) and told me about the latter’s disc, “Live at Sin-E.”

Jump to this week, when I finally got it together to listen to the disc. And although I’m trying to direct this post away from being a shameless plug, its incredibly difficult. I feel as though it would be silly to refer to “Live at Sin-E” as a virtual topography of his neighborhood but by gum, it is: the songs are as long as a leisurely stroll down some of the super long blocks, the lyrics themselves are familiar but original and at the end, you just feel at home. So yes, check it out.

Appropriately enough, now that the Times is doing a series of articles on Class in America including a story on an illegal immigrant from Mexico, I experienced my own glimpse of immigrant life in NYC. Not that this is uncommon. They bring us our Chinese food on a bicycle in the middle of a blizzard, they bus our tables, they make our bacon egg and cheeses. Yet, this was a glimpse of a different kind.
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This might be little late but if Grand Central is on your way to commute, check out this huge exhibition of wedding cakes there.

“This one-of-a-kind event celebrates the latest trends in artistic confections with gallery exhibition of 50 exquisitely decorated wedding cakes created by premier sugar artists from across the United States.”

A Tasting Lounge offers free petit fours and a glass of MARTINI & ROSSI Asti. A towering 15 foot tall sparkling fountain made from 4000 champagne flutes and draped with Swarovski crystals to resemble a fantasy wedding cake!