this is just to say: Proving to be lovely

27 August 2009

Proving to be lovely

After two terrible nights and a horrible last-day-of-training at work yesterday, today proved to be a lost feeling of, "This is why I fell in love with New York in March 2008, and why I didn't want to return to SF that time."

Today was lovely.

It was my first solo shift as hostess and I didn't mess up! Thank goodness I didn't have my training-hostess there who ignores/sabotages me in a passive-aggressive manner. Today was smooth--and I had fun, ongoing banter with a server I met for the first time. Even the chef quipped a joke. Hurray!

Time moved a lot faster--it does get a little boring standing at the hostess stand if no one is coming in for lunch, and I'm not really allowed to read or look at my phone. How do I amuse myself? AH!

The best part about working is that I get to pick relatively anything off the menu at the end of my shift. Since I work at least 5 days a week--I eat enough that I don't need to buy groceries/cook for these 5 days. It's pretty nice. But I guess, I miss cooking. I'm just too poor, now.

Today I tried the salmon salad, YUM!:

It's sesame crusted salmon that is cooked to the perfect temperature and texture, atop cold soba noodles with julienned vegetables. Each bite is the pitch blend of cool and warm and crispy and savory in your mouth. Thank god I work for a restaurant; otherwise, I'd never get to eat out!

My favorite dish that I can eat every day is hands down, their BLT & E (for egg!). SO much bacon, and the bibb lettuce is perfect. I'm a huge fan of their rosemary fries. It's just not the healthiest meal for me to eat daily . . . I'm content here. It's nice to have work and good food. I'm getting a rhythm going.

After my lunch shifts, it's about 3:45 pm, so I walk the couple blocks over to Washington Square and read in the park. It's wonderful--all the people, the music, and there's nice trees and benches. I like that it doesn't feel weird or dirty or touristy. Just . . . very New York. Metropolitan.

While I was reading, an older man asked if he could take my picture as he's doing a documentary on Washington Square or parks in NY (I forget). He said he really liked my red bow, and I was really flattered that he wanted to take my picture! Too bad he can't send them to me. He assured me these images wouldn't end up all over the internet or for creepy use. He didn't actually say "creepy use," but I got his drift.

I felt light-hearted and carefree so I walked to the amazing Whole Foods on E. Houston in Soho which is amazing mostly for their sheer collection (a whole damn room!) of beers. On the way to the subway stop, I spied the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck, and tried their Gianduia flavor, and was overall disappointed by their ice cream. It doesn't even begin to come close to Humphrey Slocombe or Ici. I feel like ice cream isn't a priority for New Yorkers. There's so many soft-serve trucks (ugh, god forbid that I ever dare eat soft serve in my lifetime) . . .

I felt like Van Leeuwen failed because they boast "artisanal" ingredients that are fancy and come from all over Europe, etc. There's no point in fancy names and origins for your ingredients if the final product tastes mediocre. They should have poured more energy into the actual cream and ice and intensity of the flavor itself.

I miss Rainbow Ice Cream. The Whole Foods here (near my house, at least) doesn't carry it. But they make the best dark chocolate ice cream . . . ever. I cry, thinking about my ice cream adventure failures here. I guess it's time to bust out Mindy's birthday present to me (ice cream attachment for Penelope) and do ice cream right. For myself. I really need that food blog name.

I wanted 'emperoroficecream' or 'concupiscentcurds' as per the Wallace Stevens poem, but they're taken! Dang it!

I don't know if I can live in a place that doesn't pay proper respect to ice cream . . . (Sweden did! SF 100% did!). NY does love its cupcakes.

It was a whimsical day. The weather has cooled down (finally, thank GOODNESS!), and I'm eager but not overly impatient for school to start.

I hope I don't have nightmares tonight. At least dinner was/is ice cream and fancy beer.

from "Euphoria," by Sina Queyras

1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age
Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as
November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant
As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,
Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco
Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your
Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment
Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery
Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten,
My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones
Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves
Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing
Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,
You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching
The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways
In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness
Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all
Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,
You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

3

Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton
Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless
Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe
All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying
Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who
Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or
The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better?
Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes
I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes
Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago.

4

To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field
My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not
Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag
Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic?
In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay
Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the
Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is
Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible,
Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret
Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid.

5

The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of
Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera
Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all
The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward,
Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you:
We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor
Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse
Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red
Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar,
My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

27 August 2009

Proving to be lovely

(underbed stor)age