Day Off Adventures

Not a lot of adventuring, mind you, but I feel a city this big gives me a lot of leeway to be timid and take my time getting to know it. I could liken this process to a relationship of some kind, but that wouldn't be doing the city justice - in a way, each separate borough is its own relationship, its own challenge to discover and become acquainted. It's such a huge task, and there's more information about what to see and do than I can really cope with. But I've got a new adventuring strategy, and one which I think might serve me well: I choose a point (something fairly arbitrary, like today's choice of the Magnolia Bakery), set my coordinates, and then wander the area around my target for as long as I have time, trying to get a feel for that particular area. It takes longer to get places here, so a single point of interest might take me an entire afternoon, but at least I'm moving outside of the tiny circle that I'd drawn for myself. That's forward motion.

Today's exploration of the Village was very pleasant. I don't know how much of it I covered - I walked up and down Bleecker Street again, but a different part of Bleecker Street than before - but I saw a lot of interesting boutiques, a ton of wonderful-looking restaurants, and a few shops here and there that I'd like to return to (most notably what looked to be a weapons store, but one which I hadn't mustered the confidence to go into just yet). The line to get into Magnolia on a Saturday afternoon was literally out the door and around the corner, but it wasn't as long of a wait as I'd thought it would be. This particular Magnolia is one of the smaller ones by the account of the . . . box-opening boy? He said that they don't have all the specialty cupcakes of the larger bakeries, but that was clearly no kind of turn-off for the fifty people mulling around on the sidewalk waiting for a shot at these glorious, fresh cupcakes. I actually saw a little hipster girl digging through the distinctive Magnolia Bakery boxes in the trash can next to the building, opening each one to see if there was anything left inside. She clearly wasn't that poor, but then again, I've never understood hipster culture well anyway.

I'm still disappointed that I'm forced to patronize Starbucks. It's not that I'm so terribly anti-Starbucks - those of you who know me know that I have no strife with the fact that it's a behemoth company with essentially no soul - it's just that I'd hoped to find an Immac/Cool Beans style place to hang my hat and feel at home. No such luck yet. And if three hours of wandering the Village didn't find me someplace like that, I feel like it might be a lost cause. Funny story: when the Starbucks employee wrote my name on the cup, she spelled it "Rachell." With two, very distinct Ls. I've never in my life seen a name like that. Anyway, there was some kind of street market going on very near the two subway entrances that I used, and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering past all the stalls of eclectic food and jewelry and wares. I stopped and bought a 3-dollar cup of cut watermelon, which not only tasted great but reminded me of home, and those white-hot summer afternoons eating huge pieces of watermelon in my backyard. (I get sentimental when I'm out of town for long periods of time. Sorry, all.)

Two things about the subway that I'll note today: 1. Anytime I sit next to someone, I feel this bizarre need to justify my seating choice. As if I could actually turn to the person I sat next to and say, "I'm sitting here because I'd like to be able to see which stops we're at without having to crane my neck, and not because I'm weird or creepy or want your body," and not seem like a total weirdo. I don't know what it is - maybe it's my own personal issues with body space, manifested towards the people whose space I'm intruding on by sitting next to them, or maybe it's that most New Yorkers seem to look at me sideways just a little bit - but I just want to tell them exactly why I chose that exact seat. I suppose I'm the strange one in this particular scenario. 2. I feel bad for the people have been stuck sitting next to me for the last couple of days. Imagine this scenario: you're sitting on a train, minding your own business, and down plops a rather slight looking 16-year-old (I'm judging this from someone else's perspective, and have come to accept the fact that I look like a child) who proceeds to sit next to you, ruffle through book pages, jostle her knee to her music, and sniffle. Not just a little sniffing here and there, but regular, repeated sounds that probably disgust you. She can't help it, mind you, but the fact that you're sitting next to someone on the grimy, overly-peopled subway who is clearly sick with some unknown ailment . . . not exactly the most comforting thing on earth.

I feel like my poor, distressed Toms have become something of a leitmotif for this blog. At one point today, while skipping a little to avoid the puddle that would have left my socks soaked, I noticed a guy crossing the street in the opposite direction staring at my toe. Maybe if I wore navy socks in my navy Toms this wouldn't be such an issue . . . anyway. And I thought to myself, in deadly earnest, "if it's such a big deal, maybe I won't get a new pair of shoes." My Toms, those mangled and ruined strips of canvas attached ever-less-surely to a completely bald set of soles, have become some twisted point of pride for me now. I say this having had to pick up a few razor blades from the floor of our theater, lest my toe get mangled on them the next time I walked by; having had to watch where I cross the street, lest my feet get wet; having actually felt the wind cutting through the one layer of sock between me and the open air. Sure, this conviction to continue on out of loyalty will probably go away soon (although in the case of those American Eagle jeans from 8th grade, it never actually did go away, they just got a little too skanky to wear outside the house), and I'll eventually cave and buy a new pair of shoes, but dammit if I don't think I could wear them just to spite the world. Crap. Does this make me a hipster?

Tomorrow, it might be time to learn the ways of the laundromat. I'm actually totally terrified. I've never in my life used a laundromat, and since looking like a dumbass is also something I'm really not a big fan of, I'm (fairly legitimately) nervous about trying this out. Quarters, right? And something about taking your own detergent? I guess I'll take my book with me, try to knock out the final hundred or so pages, and just hope that I figure it out without too obviously having to figure it out. I can do my own laundry, but what if this is a totally different experience? WHAT DO I DO!?

Last thing. I'm going to be "that girl" in this post, the girl who quotes song lyrics and then tells you how deep and meaningful they are. This is definitely a step past the song of the day, and I loathe myself for it too, don't worry. But go listen to "Brightly Wound," by a cute little band called Eisley. "It's happening all the time, when I open my eyes/I'm still taken by surprise/I hold sunlight and swallow fireflies/And it makes me want to cry." I guess it just sort of sums up how I feel about the city - it's beautiful and magical sometimes, and it surprises me all the time. But still scares me, and makes me feel intensely lonely. Also one of the later lines: "We were walking there, and I had tangles in my hair/But you make me feel so pretty." Thank you. :)