Springtime in New York City

April 16-20, 2025

Prologue

    I’d been in New York the October before last, but for the past few months I’ve been itching to see my friend Nicole again. I had been hesitantly plotting a trip to Long Island when Andrew mentioned his intention to visit the city over Easter weekend. The tension of work had grown to the point where I could identify several different firearms by mouthfeel alone, and thus I gratefully accepted his offer to tag along. Nicole would be traveling that weekend, but I could see her Saturday night if she could find the time. I would stay with my friend Jerry.
    “It’s okay if I come stay with you?” I messaged him prior.
    “Of course.”
    I booked my ticket.
    “By the way, where do you live? East Village?”
    “Well… technically I don’t have an apartment yet. I’m staying in Airbnbs. But I’ll have an apartment by the time you get here, don’t worry.”
    “You— why don’t you have any apartment? You work in New York now, no?”
    “I’m waiting for David. We’re going to be roommates, so I don’t want to sign a lease until he gets here.”
    “Oh. When will he get there? Before Easter Weekend, I’m assuming.”
    “Yeah, probably. Whenever he gets his offer.”
    “His offer? Wait. He at least has an informal offer, right?”
    “Well… no. But he said his interviews have been going well.”
    
    I checked my ticket. It wasn’t refundable.

Wednesday, April 16th

    The Wednesday before Easter arrived. The news that Jerry was still hopping between Airbnbs was not unprepared for, and Andrew and I flew into JFK after work, arriving at midnight. We took a slow, late-night commuter from Queens to Brooklyn, and reacquainted myself with the flavor of people you’ll not find outside late-night commuters from Queens to Brooklyn.

    A dozen stations deep into the morning, man and woman in black coats entered the train, followed by an impossibly small man in beige, perfumed with vodka. The woman, sensing she was being followed, turned suddenly to face the little man.
    “What the— Chickadee! This ain’t your train! Get outa here!”
    The man in the black coat, now leaning against the other door, laughed. Chickadee slurred some response in Spanish, but I suspect I wouldn’t have understood it at any level of fluency. He found a pole and gripped it tight. I wished he’d chosen a pole further away from me.
    “Man, Chickadee tryna follow you home! Come on Chickadee, go on!”
    Chickadee’s response was to clench the pole more tightly.
    The woman moved to hold the door while the man and some zealous strangers fought to peel Chickadee, finger by finger, from his grip and shove him from the train.
    The woman stood in the car vestibule to prevent it from closing and watched Chickadee stagger pitifully onto the platform.
    “Go to your bed, Chickadee! Go on! If you don’t go to your bed now you’re gonna lose it!”
    She did not move from the door until the tiny man slowly began climbing the steps back to the street.
    Rather than be annoyed by the delay or the commotion, I felt oddly impressed by this woman’s firm patience with Chickadee. It was vaguely maternal. I don’t have that level of patience with the drunk and disorderly, even when they wear the masks of my best friends. I really hope Chickadee found his bed, if only for the efforts of that woman. I felt impressed by the flavor of people you’ll find on the late-night commuters from Queens to Brooklyn.
    Suddenly, a towering homeless man bumped into me from behind, staggered, and fell on the floor in front of me. He rolled over, staring into my soul with his sunken eyes, removed his shoes, and presented his feet to me. I hate New York and everyone in it.
    We arrived at Park Slope a while after, and Andrew took the couch while I slept on the wood floor. I didn’t have a pillow, so I slept with my jacket under my head. But using that verb is a stretch.

Thursday, April 17th

    An hour after dawn, the sunlight crowded through the windows with the sole purpose of highlighting the crayon yellow of treebuds outside the loft. It was quite beautiful. I’m not a spring enjoyer, but that’s probably because I’ve never lived in New York.

    “Good morning guys. What do you guys want for breakfast?”
    Andrew pulled out his phone. “Maybe a brunch place or a bagel place around here would be good.”
    Jerry rubbed his eyes. “Why don’t we go to my office to get food? They have food there.”
    Andrew and I exchanged a glance. “I think… maybe we should get food at somewhere around here instead. I don’t particularly want to eat office food.”
    Jerry looked perplexed.
    After parting ways over our differing breakfast philosophies, Andrew and I headed downstairs in search of caffeine while Jerry made for his office. I saw a sign for Grand Army Park, and demanded we divert.
    “We took the train out of Manhattan to the Grand Army stop,” I told Andrew.
    “What the hell are you talking about,” he answered back, not too curious.
    We wandered the park a bit, but I couldn’t find any benches that looked like the one we sat upon a thousand years ago, when I felt such love for you I thought my heart was gonna pop.
    “Oh. Mountain Goats.”
    But the park was still lovely.

    We acquired some incredibly mediocre coffee and pastries from a coffeeshop called Hungry Ghost, and then traced the opposite route of our toxic Mountain Goats couple by going into Manhattan. Emerging from the earth on the west side of Central Park, we crossed the park and found Cleopatra’s Needle. Flanked no longer by temples but by trees in their best pink outfits, it looked strange and more like the Washington Monument than a 2000 year old obelisk.

    From the Needle we went to the Met, the true reason Andrew wanted to see the city. His favorite artist, Friedrich, had a special exhibit for the month of April. Andrew and I have been to many museums before, and has some awareness of how much I like them. Therefore, he handled things quite tactfully.
    “Let’s go to the Friedrich exhibit first. Then we can slowly wind our way back to look at everything else.”
    “Okay,” I agreed hesitantly, turning my back on the impressive array of Graeco-Roman artifacts.
    The Friedrich exhibit was admittedly a little disappointing. I found very little of it spurred any emotion. Even the legendary Wanderer in the Fog painting felt more like a stock image than a masterpiece.
    We finished the exhibit after about half an hour.

    “Alright, I’m probably gonna go now. Looks like Jerry will be here soon. See you.” Andrew left.
    After convening with Jerry, we perused the Egyptian exhibit. Unlike the obelisk outside, many of the Egyptian artifacts were of the Old Kingdom, so I was able to read their inscriptions. They say reading Old Kingdom hieroglyphics is a bit like riding a bike, just with fewer bikes.
    In the Native American wing, we came across a pair of Thule snowglasses, which made me irrationally excited. In February, I read Raven Todd’ DaSilva’s excellent The Other Ancient Civilisations, a survey of several cultures that don’t receive much academic or media attention. The Thule people earned a chapter, and to be able to appreciate one of their artifacts in the full context of their history is every archaeologist’s dream. The Thule people were the ancestors of the Inuit, and were brilliant technological innovators, producing many clever devices like the photographed snowglasses.

    After leaving the museum, Jerry and I wandered around Central Park for a bit. We found a little platform surrounded by budding trees. Jerry nodded in appreciation and turned to me.
    “These are really pretty. Do you want me to take your picture?”
    “Oh yes, that would be fantastic. I’d appreciate that, thank you Jerry.” I handed him my phone and positioned myself under the branches. My parents are always nagging me for more pictures of myself when I travel.
    Jerry took my phone, but then followed me under the branches. He held the phone up in selfy mode to capture us both.
    “Uhm… dude…”
    “Huh?” Jerry said, snapping a few pictures.
    “Never mind.”
    As I’ve mentioned before, Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is the closest thing I have to a Bible, and traveling, but moreso New York brings out the urge to connect myself deeper to the book. My delight exceeded expectations when we found a pond with a few turtles and mallards mulling about in the water. We set up camp on a bench nearby. After a while, Jerry informed me that he was thirsty and needed water.

    “There’s a halal cart right there, I’m sure they have bottles.”
    Jerry looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. “Yeah, but that water is four dollars. Absolute ripoff. Four dollars for a bottle of water? No thank you.”
    “Damn, I didn’t realize Meta wasn’t paying you enough to afford water. Making twice my salary sure is tough.”
    He ignored my jab. “My office is just ten minutes downtown on the subway. They have free water there. I think I’m gonna go get some.”
    Now it was my turn to be perplexed.
    “Dude. It’s four dollars. A subway ride is two ninety. Just go buy the damn bottle.”
    “But four dollars man. That’s, that’s, that’s too much. I’ll just go to the office and get a quick drink. Rai.”
    “Okay dude. Fine. If you can’t afford to buy water, I’ll go buy you a bottle.”
    I stood up, but Jerry rose to cut me off and headed to the food cart. He returned a few minutes later with a plastic waterbottle, muttering about the price.

    Around five o’clock, Andrew appeared with a preposition for dinner. I was in agreement; having missed lunch, I was starting to get peckish. We found Ivan Ramen. I wish I had taken a picture of my ramen. It was so aesthetically pleasing that had I not been so hungry, I would have joined the ranks of the dozens of out-of-towners photographing their food, but instead I just ate. I’ve been vegetarian for four or five years now, and one of the few concessions that come with vegetarianism is that vegetarian ramen is generally quite mediocre. Even in Japan, I wasn’t too impressed with the (extremely scarce) offerings. Ivan Ramen offered an exception– the mushroom dashi base made the broth basically indistinguishable from standard ramen, flexing a shocking depth of flavor. It made me realize how unlucky those that grow up in New York are– no matter where they go, when they leave, food gets worse.
    I had warned Jerry that baseball is not easy to get into, but he insisted on going with us, which I appreciated, but felt guilty all the same. I have a goal to visit every ballpark in the US, and $25 to see the Mets play (and check Citi Field off my bucket list) is as good as a deal as any. So we took the subway into Queens.
    The deeper we progressed into the burrough, the more and more people entered our car, all wearing Mets attire. Eventually, when it was time to transfer to the train towards Flushing, we encountered the turba. Dozens of people, wall to wall, writhing in one blue-and-orange mass on the platform teetered dangerously close to the tracks below. A steady stream moved up the stairs to join the mass while an equally meticulous flow moved down the stairs to disengage. While our group was slowly ascending, we overheard some chatter on the other side.
    “Damn train is never going to come. The sign says eight minutes. We wait eight minutes. It still says eight minutes. We wait another eight minutes. Still says eight minutes. Train’s not coming.”
    Andrew made the call. “It’s probably not going to come. Let’s go outside and call an Uber.”
    We descended from the platform and exited the station. As we left through the turnstiles, we heard the train arrive behind us. We called the Uber.
    Traffic on a game night, in New York, meant we were late. Two innings late.
    “We’ve probably missed a quarter of the game by now,” Jerry moaned.
    “Actually, just two-ninths,” Andrew replied.
    “How long do games usually last?”
    “Usually fourteen hours, split between two days. We’ll only stay for the first seven hours though.”
    Jerry’s face looked pale. “What?”

    We arrived, found our seats, then found the nearest empty seats, then acquired some beers that cost literally twelve times more than the PBRs I drink at home. We were way up in the top of left field, and the April winds were cold. I love sitting in the cheap seats at baseball games, because you’re always with the locals and baseball fans. We sat immediately in front of a chain of high school boys.
    “Lars Nootbaar up to bat. Laaaaaars Nooooootbaaaaaar.”
    “You know he’s Japanese?”
    “He’s not fucking Japanese, his name is Lars Nootbaar. Does that sound Japanese to you?”
    “I don’t know, he plays for Japan.”
    “Maybe he plays IN Japan, dumbass. He’s not Japanese.”
    “Maybe he has a little Japanese in him?”
    “He sounds like he has 20 grams of protein in him.”
    “LETS DO THE WAVE EVERYONE, ONE, TWO, THREE, WOOOOOO!”
    “Dude, nobody wants to do the wave.”
    “Shut up and do the wave.”
    “Okay but– BAN THE SHIFT! BAN THE SHIFT GOD DAMN YOU– you can’t do the wave if nobody else does it, and nobody else around here wants to do it.”
    “Guys, I just looked it up, Lars Nootbaar is half Japanese.”
    “Dude, I just looked it up, and shut the fuck up. That was like four topics ago.”
    “MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!”
    “Bro why did you just yell mustard?”
    “I dunno, Kendrick did it and I thought it was cool.”
    “Yeah that was pretty cool. SEVENTY MILLION PER YEAR TO GO OH AND THREE? SIT DOWN, BUB.”
    “WHO WANTS TO DO THE WAAAAAAAVE?”
    Jerry turned to me, his eyes somewhat glazed over.
    “Aren’t there home runs in baseball?”
    “Yup.”
    “Why aren’t they hitting any?”
    “It’s hard.”
    Jerry thought about this.
    “How many home runs per game? Like, on average?”
    “Less than one.”
    Jerry checked the time.

Friday, April 18th

    Last time I was in New York, I was with my friend Nicole. Nicole does not like bagels. When Andrew woke up, I asked him what he wanted to do for breakfast.
    “This is New York, man, we gotta get bagels.”
    We went out for bagels. It was awesome.

    From the bagel shop, we took the train to Hudson Yards and saw the Vessel. Since it was built on top of a train depot, I suppose, they chose an ugly modernist sculpture that didn’t look like much of anything, and Vessel is as generic a name as one might need, so they called it that.

    “I kinda like it. What do you think, Zach?”
    “I kinda hate it. What do you think, Jerry?”
    “I gotta take a shit.”
    “Go take a shit.”
    “I can only take a shit in the office. I’m gonna run over there, see you.”
    Andrew and I found a Uniqlo while we waited. I entertained purchasing an Evangelion shirt, cause you can never have too many Evangelion shirts, but you can certainly have too many graphic tees. For the past few years, I’ve been trying to retool my wardrobe to be more stylish. One of my commitments has been to avoid graphic t-shirts to the extent that I can, except in only the most casual situations.
    With Jerry’s movement finished, we trekked the High Line until we ran out of Line, wandered midtown, and eventually found the New York Starbucks reserve roastery. I’ve been to two now, Andrew three. I ordered a Sakura Float. I figured that things that are expensive and look good are generally terrible. But since the Sakura Float was expensive and looked mediocre, it had a very good chance of being delicious. I was wrong. Andrew stared at his six dollar sip of espresso.
    “This is a six dollar sip of espresso,” he announced.
    Jerry looked positively sick.

    Returning to motion, our trio headed south to the 9/11 memorial. I’ve seen the memorial before, so I did a lap around the mall. I was wholly unimpressed by the strange designer stores, as for some reason I’d expected a Pokemon store, or a Lego store, or literally anything that catered to my demographic. I was ready to leave when I passed a plateglass storefront with sheets of printer paper plastered all over the facade. A few people stood outside. I joined them.
    “What’s going on, you sexy New Yorkers,” is what I didn’t say, because a scribbled, spidery handwriting stole my attention.
    
    ```
    “Today the girl I love moved to Paris.”
    
    Then, about 30 words scribbled over.
    
    “I’m going to move there to be with her. I don’t even speak French yet. But she’s extatic, so that’s all that matters. Thats all there is.”
    ```

    I read every writing displayed outside, then went inside the shop. There were hundreds of these messages, hanging from clothespins in orderly rows and columns from the floor to the ceiling, framed with fairy lights. A bearded man in a ballcap sat at a desk, probably formerly a checkout counter, reading a book. Gentle acoustic music played over the speakers. I continued to read.
    
    ```
    ‘I work this hard because one day, when I’m old & sick, you’ll take care of me.’
    Dad
    Well Dad, you won’t stop doing ductwork even though you have a pacemaker, diabetes, and stage 4 cancer. When will you accept my help? When will you realize that you can’t work your way out of this one?
    I’m 30, Dad. I’m ready to help. But you have to know, I can’t help you if your plan is to work yourself literally to death.
    ```
    
    Some of them were empty ramblings about the assignment. A good many were written by people in love. A particularly rough one described a woman recounting a morning where she made coffee, deciding on taking her husband and son out for a family breakfast, sending her husband upstairs to wake their son, and then hearing him scream for the first time in her life. Some of them seemed like they were trying too hard to be artsy, but I think the deeply humanizing handwriting made me appreciate them anyway.
    
    ```
    VIDEOS I SAVED ON TIKTOK:
    THE BEST VEGAN AND VEGETARIAN RESTAURANTS IN NYC
    HOW TO TIE A TIE
    
    I AM NOT A VEGAN NOR A VEGETARIAN. AND I HAVE NEVER NEEDED TO KNOW HOW TO TIE A TIE.
    
    THIS IS HOW I LOVED YOU.
    ```
    
    I continued to read. After half an hour, I started having to skip the ones below eye level, because lowering my head would cause the tears accumulating in my eyes to succumb to gravity. The only other person in the exhibit, beyond the man at the counter, was a girl with dark hair and thigh high boots standing next to me, so close our elbows touched when she turned. I found some unread messages conveniently on the other side of the room where she wouldn’t notice my eyestrain.

    Eventually I remembered to check my phone, and saw that Andrew had given up looking for me and left for Wall Street, where he wanted to see the bull’s balls and pray for his portfolio’s success. I found him on a bench in Bowling Green Park. I joined him and watched the birds.

    My friend Drew had recommended I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s, after she had seen it on my 2025 booklist, so that we could talk about it. I had planned it for later in the year, but since I already owned it I had slipped it into my backpack before leaving Texas, and I now had it with me in my front jacket pocket. I started reading it, and was delighted to find the book took place in Manhattan. There’s something extraordinary about books set in places you know well, or at least places you’ve been. There’s something exciting about books set in places in which you are.

    Once the sun slipped behind the minimalist facades of the financial district, we met up with Jerry at Aragvi, a Georgian restaurant near Murray Hill. Years ago, Sameer took Jerry and me to the Diplomat Cafe, a Georgian restaurant in Chicago, where I fell in love with Georgian food. Since that meal, I’m always on the lookout when I travel, since there isn’t a single Georgian restaurant in Texas. Andrew, despite never having Georgian food before, was quick to pick up on my interest, as I’m rarely excited about food. We ordered the menu.
    The restaurant was somewhat classier than the joints Andrew and I frequent in Austin, and we took advantage.
    “Could you recommend a wine? A red, preferably sweet.”
    “A semisweet for me.”
    Bemused, the waitress brought out two glasses with a swig in each. Trying to be classy, I inhaled the scent of the wine, swirled it in the glass, slipped it into my mouth, held it on my tongue, nodded intelligently, and swallowed slowly.
    “Remarkable! A glass, if you would!”
    Andrew’s ritual proceeded in much the same way. I felt very classy.
    “Uhm, of course. But if I could… maybe see some IDs?”
    The classy feeling was gone. Jerry slumped forward on the table with his phone, bored.
    We ended up splitting two khachapuri and a plate of mushroom khinkali, and I had a bowl of lobio. When people ask me about Georgian food, the word that jumps to my mind first is ‘spicy.’ But not in the spicy sense of high-Scoville peppers and South Asian cuisine, but earthy, quieter spices that convey an intricate depth of flavor. The lobio warmed my very soul. Andrew seemed equally happy with his sausage-based dish. The only sad part of the meal was finishing it.

    Tarun took me to Koreatown in Los Angeles last summer– the food was fine, but the clubbing afterwards left me a bit scarred. I was worried when Jerry suggested our next destination be Koreatown for drinks. Fortunately, the Koreatown of New York seemed a lot less aggressive. We found a pojangmacha on the second floor over a boba shop. My understanding was that pochas are generally outdoor foodcarts, but I guess the indoor flavor is a necessity on the tight streets of Manhattan. We sat down. I fell in love with the waitress immediately.
    “I’ll have a Terra and a Coke,” Andrew ordered first.
    “And I’ll have exactly the same,” I said when she looked at me. She smiled. I fell in love again.
    The pocha’s signature drink was a half watermelon filled with high ABV soju, but Andrew and I shot that down before Jerry even reached the rising inflection of the sentence. Jerry ordered some kind of watermelon soju milkshake for himself instead.
    “I’ll have some kind of watermelon soju milkshake,” he said at a volume completely inaudible versus the pocha’s music.
    “I’m sorry?” my future wife asked.
    Jerry repeated his request at the exact same volume.
    “One more time? I couldn’t hear you over the music, my apologies.”
    Jerry said the name of the drink again, except this time he changed nothing.
    The waitress leaned in close. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. What would you like?”
    Jerry said it a fourth time.
    “Ah! Okay! I’ll have those right out for you guys!” She rushed away.
    Andrew shook his head. “Jerry, sometimes you’re so autistic I wonder if you’re actually a chad.”
    We sat and drank, quietly at first, but as the alcohol left our glass vessels and entered our flesh vessels, conversation became less about Andrew’s job hunt and more about Andrew’s fervor for Japanese pornography. It turns out Terra is disgusting– I ordered a Sapporo next to cover the taste. I was either intoxicated on import, or the way the waitress’ eyes made you feel like you were the most important thing in the world when she spoke to you. But it was enough to tune out the obnoxious lighting and loud music inside the pocha. I felt alright.
    We paid in cash, and then took the subway back to Brooklyn.

Saturday, April 19th

    We ran back the bagels. We had to. It’s New York. Jerry was less than impressed with our breakfast decision, and elected not to join us. He took the subway into Manhattan to shower. Jerry doesn’t shower in the apartment– he insists that since he pays $300 per month for an Equinox membership, he should only use their showers to maximize the membership value. I’d make fun of him for it, but Nicole does the same. New Yorkers are a strange bunch.

    After coffee met bagel, Andrew and I found Grand Army, went into Manhattan, and then found the aerial tramway to Roosevelt Island. The line for the tramway was long, but they really pack you into the car, so we didn’t do much waiting. I have a weakness for novel forms of transportation, but with the crowd and the humidity, I think I could pass on taking the aerial tramway on future visits.
    Roosevelt Island is an interesting place. It’s an island smack dab in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens, about two miles long, and about a stone’s throw wide. The island is very residential, with apartment buildings lined up, reminding me a bit of the apartments of Paldiski in Estonia, albeit much more modern. It’s also eerily quiet, with the gentle hum of cars to be heard from Manhattan, and a nice path running the circumference of the island. We walked to the northern point, and took a few pictures of the lighthouse.

    The Roosevelt Island Lighthouse is unique in that it wasn’t commissioned by the Lighthouse Establishment, but by the city of New York itself. It was architected by the same guy that designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It doesn’t take a seasoned pharologist to immediately notice that its architecture is unlike most American lighthouses, and fits more with the private constructions you’re liable to see around lakes in the Midwest than any coastal light.

    I finished taking my pictures and we returned to the station, where we met Jerry at a Starbucks. The vibes were great, sitting there near the river, with the view of the bridge into Queens overhead. We discussed Superman comics.
    “Let’s go get lunch, rai,” Jerry said.
    “Lunch was bagels, buddy,” Andrew replied.

    By the time the sun began to peel the shade we had found away from us, Andrew chose Rockefeller Plaza as our next destination. We saw a Fiskur Ocean just outside, which I thought was crazy, which made me realize I was becoming a Car Guy, which I thought was crazier still. 30 Rock was not particularly interesting. There was a Tiffany’s nearby– I sent a picture of it to Drew via Ashen. “They got confused when I asked if they’re still serving brunch,” I wrote. I was rewarded with a ‘Lmao.’

    At this point, we’d run out of ideas, so we decided to honor Jerry’s request of visiting the Sex Museum. Tickets were $45 each.
    “Maybe we could do something else instead, rai,” Jerry asked.
    I bought the tickets and we went inside. We were greeted by a dildo taped to a jackhammer, encased in glass. The remainder of the floor contained all sorts of sex paraphanelia, ranging from Bill Clinton shaped vibrators to anal torture devices. I don’t have much interest in sex, so I quickly got bored of reading item descriptions and turned my attention to the reactions of the other guests.
    “‘Pleasure Perch? The fuck? Man, just call it a sex chair.”
    “Bruh. How you supposed to be getting off to that. Ay, come here, can you get off to this?”
    “OH HELLLLLL NO. AIN’T NO WAY I’M PUTTIN’ THAT IN MY COOCHIE.”

    The second floor mostly consisted of sculptures of breasts and butts, and the third floor was the most boring by far– the intersection of sex and drugs.

    I thought we were done after that, but an attendant led us into a movie theater, which began playing a highly disorienting short film about sexual traveling carnivals in the 20th century. The curtains opened, revealing a mirrored passageway. At the end of it was the museum’s own interpretation of the sex carnival– our ticket was good to activate a handful of fair games and booths, all themed appropriately.
    Jerry, Andrew and I each entered a bathroom stall to try the glory hole simulator. With a loud buzzer, fake penises began emerging from holes in the wall. I grabbed them and began stroking them, and some of them retracted. After about a minute, another buzzer sounded and I left my stall. Jerry had won. The attendant gifted him a donut plushie.
    “I don’t get it. I couldn’t make half of the penises retract. I stroked them, but they just… stayed there.”
    Jerry and Andrew looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. “You’re supposed to yank on them to make them go away. You don’t jerk them off.”
    “Oh.”
    “Bro.”
    “Dude.”
    As expected, we all got the consolation prize on the “bring a woman to orgasm” simulator, and got our fortunes told by the ‘Wisest Drag Queen of Them All.’ Mine was that I need to speak my mind when it comes to romance.
    “Do you guys, uh, want to go back to Koreatown?” I tried. We went to Madison Square Park instead.

    Madison Square Park was absolutely lovely, and by far the best people watching place I’ve found in any of my recent travels. With the backdrop of skyscrapers and gentle rain of blossom petals from trees, my position on the bench would have been perfectly satisfying, even without the horde of New Yorkers before me on the lawn. A patchwork quilt of grass and picnic blankets functioned as carpeting for a sizeable percentage of Manhattan’s population on a perfect spring Saturday.
    I watched a pair of babies deconstruct a bag of chips while their parents, probably my age, possibly a bit older, sported handsome polos and sundresses and chatted around a plastic bottle of sparkling cider. The four adults were later joined by a fifth, and they hugged their pleasantries. I didn’t recognize their language.
    A toddler a few blankets over was playing with a toy rocket. He carefully threaded the rocket through one of the holes in the knee-high fence separating the lawn from the sidewalk, and it fell through. He began crying. Presumably his dad, not stopping his conversation with another man, stepped over the fence, picked up the rocket, and returned it to the child. The child stopped crying, and after a few minutes, the rocket was once again through the fence and on the sidewalk. The dad moved again to pick it up, the conversation still streaming.
    Another blanket had four Asian women, each wearing a baseball cap, possibly my age, possibly a bit younger, sitting quietly reading books. Their postures were quite impressive for sitting on a blanket– suddenly conscious of my own, I straightened my back. I imagined they were all friends, part of the same book club. Were they reading the same book? Were they just meeting for some communal reading? Perhaps they have a monthly ritual where they all go to the bookstore together, then take their finds to the park and read.
    “Thoughts on dinner?” Andrew asked.
    “I’m down for Thai. Hey Jerry, what’s that Thai place in Manhattan that everyone recommends? Nikita was talking about it at Kayhaun’s funeral.”
    “That’s probably Soothr. We won’t get into Soothr without a reservation.”
    “It wasn’t Soothr. It was Thai something. Here, let me ask Nikita.”
    I texted her.
    “Hii!! Soothr!” she replied immediately.
    “Okay let’s find something else.”
    We went to Thai Villa instead. The hostess seated us at the bar.
    “As you can see, we have a lot of offerings and highly recommended specialties you can’t get at other Thai restaurants,” our charming waiter said, pointing at particular items.
    “Fascinating,” I replied. “I’ll have the pad kee mao.”

    We finished eating and found a brewery in the financial district, where Andrew and I begun exploring New York’s craft beer scene. I was particularly impressed with a mango pineapple concoction called a Brooklyn Sunrise. The Knicks or the Nets or some New York team were playing the Pistons on a television behind us. I drank myself blind.