I'm drunk.
Day 2. (I know, I can't believe that was ALL for Day 1. Insane.)
I woke up later than expected, and Tiffany and I headed to Gracie Mews, a diner a few blocks away from her house, to meet her friend Teddy for brunch. After a great meal with the worst service ever, we all walked towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stopping at Alice's Tea Shop for a scone for later. After paying $1 to enter the magnificent museum, we headed to the Impressionist area where I swooned over paintings by my favorite artist, Claude Monet. My nerd side delighted in the works of Vincent Van Gogh (Doctor Who, anyone?) And Tiff and I stared at a Jackson Pollack for about an hour before deciding to go back to her house for some down time before Karaoke shenanigans and Upright Citizens Brigade that evening.
Karaoke was fun, if tinged with sadness at the passing of Whitney Houston, which was sent to every single persons smart phone at the start of the evening...except mine. My phone in NYC was technically useless. Tiffany had booked a private karaoke room in a little Korean bar, where the song selection was fantastic and the service shit-tastic. Her friends and Randi all showed up for the evening. We kicked things off with a little "Wanna Dance with Somebody"(which is an eerily accurate song for how I was feeling that night.) Typical karaoke shenanigans followed. We left the bar with 15 minutes to spare before the show at Upright started, and I was supposed to meet my cousin, Joseph, and his boyfriend, Ryan, before the show. We grabbed cabs for our group of 8, and barreled through the streets to make it on time for the hour long improv show.
Seated all the way in the back row, I could not even see the stage, with the giants in front of me blocking my view. But the show that UCB put on was hilarious even without the site gags. Using a Day in the Life type format, they took the tale of a Palestinian living with an Israeli on an exchange program and turned it into an hour long story that made me fall in love with their theater. Almost every team member had a strength to contribute to the show, and laughing along with my friends (and family) made it a memorable part of the weekend. It made me want to be part of a giant improv team again.
Afterwards, we realized that NONE of us had eaten anything and it was now almost midnight. Joe and Ryan took us to a small restaurant a couple of blocks away, and we took over the whole joint, eating burritos and guac while talking about our lives and catching up. Not satisfied with ending the evening there, Joseph told us that we should go get ice cream at the Big Gay Ice Cream, a food truck turned storefront. A giant closed sign greeted us, so we headed to Ace Bar, a loud, full to teeming bar with skeeball in the back room. Heading to the bar with Joseph, he convinced me to get a Manhattan. Armed with this potent concoction, I was feeling fine. 5 games of skeeball later, it was time to call it a night. Tiff and I grabbed a Gypsy cab, and hauled our butts back to her apartment. She leaned over and whispered to me, "He said it's $25 but we're only gonna give him $20. He knows it's not that expensive to get to where we're going." Confused, I handed her a $20 bill, and we hopped out of the car as fast as we could, power walking away from the black vehicle. Slightly tipsy, I was giggling as we went to cross the road and the cabbie yelled out, "You owe me $5, baby!" as he sped past us.
Ah. New York.
