P: Back in the Madre Terra.+ Brighton Beach Outing

The minute I stepped off the Fung Wah, I could feel my blood boiling.

(photo cred: wikipedia)

There was the usual wahgul, wahgul (a Korean onomatopoeia) of Chinese people crowding up the Bowery, and me and my rolly suitcase were already irritated with the sheer volume of people, as I'm trying to bustle my way to the train station. My frustration was rising, and I could already feel my shoulders and neck start to tense up. After having spent the past eight months in a non 9-to-5 routine, and taking the Boston T about 1 a week on average, I forget that you have to deal with people traffic. Also while avoiding puddles of fish innards oozing out over Canal St.

Who was I? Was I becoming a softie? I felt so discombobulated, and my post-synaptic activity was on overdrive (as a result of the barrage of external stimuli) and I felt like I was going to short-circuit out.

Anyway, I came home Wed for my nephew's 2nd birthday and for Mother's Day. Since I'm only going to be in this country for another three months, I am trying to spend as much time with the fam as I can. I'm also trying to cram in as many "American" experiences as I can (like eating hot clam chowder after running a 5k...because I was in New England!). Incidentally, the night of the birthday dinner (technically one day earlier than little Richard's actual birthday) was the same night that they were announcing the award results for a little writing contest I entered, sponsored by Bukowski's Tavern. First place: $2500. Second place: $1000. Third: a set of steak knives. Plus all 3 entries (and this is really the kicker--I'd have taken this over the money) was getting your stories published in the Weekly Dig, an alt weekly publication here in Boston. So I wrote an essay, a "Beer-Stained Letter to 'Hank," aka Henry Charles Bukowski, aka dirty old womanizing drunkard, whom I was simultaneously repelled and attracted to in high school. The only problem was, you had to be at the bar on that very Wed night to claim your prize...otherwise, they moved onto the next person on the list. And the bar's in Inman Sq, which is a good 15min walk from the closest T station. Kind of out of the way for most people, unless you go to MIT or something. Anyway, the only person I know who lives in Inman is this computer programmer from running club (who happens to have a really hot Indian roommate), but he couldn't make it, and my friend Amy could only get there late... LSS (Long story short), the computer programmer went for the first half-hour, and Amy--long suffering Amy!--went for the next...hour and a half, and it was all moot, because I DIDN'T WIN DOODLY SQUAT! What's the point of wasting time writing these pieces if I don't get them anywhere, anyway. Bah! Regardless, I have to remember to buy each of them a twelve-pack of craft brew as a thank you.

Thurs was more time with my nephew and my sister and bro-in-law, which, I have to say, is going pretty well. My sister thanked me for leaving school early to come to the party, and she said she really appreciated it. As a family that doesn't emote, this is the equivalent of resounding words of mushiness and sentimentality. And there was even a moment where little Richard seemed to motion for something--I thought he meant water--and I gave him a tumbler of water. Which--the little rascal--he plunged his entire fist into it, splashing water everywhere.

"Don't give him water from that cup!" my sister said.

To which I sputtered, "I didn't know--" and I was about to toss back, I thought I saw him drinking from a big cup a previous time!

But instead, I bit back my tongue and said, "I'm sorry. I'll know for next time."

To which SHE then relented with, "I know you didn't know. He just always does that when he has water from a big cup. He's got a sippy cup for water, so you can give him that instead."

So this is about as good as we'll get, which doesn't seem like much, but it actually means we've made quite a good deal of progress since last month (or rather, since the last 2 years).

Later Thurs night, Jessi invited us to her friend's AIDS walk fundraiser, which was a lot of fun. So it was first to a beautiful Chelsea terrace space at her coworkers' apt (where some kind of Maker's Mark and mixer concoction was on the offering), and then Jessi, Diane, and Morgan and I were at Il Bordello, on 23rd and 10th. It was oddly both restaurant and bar, and I felt like we were being intrusive crowding about the diners trying to angle for elbow room to use their forks and knives. But it was an interesting mix, because this was the first time I was at--shock, gasp, i know, yadda yadda-- a black professionals soiree. And might I say, this was a better dressed crowd than any publishing mixer I'd ever been to in my life.

Diane commented, "I feel like the girls here are giving us dirty looks" or something to that effect. This all sounds horribly ignorant/provincial/sheltered, but it felt a little bit like that moment in Save the Last Dance when Julia Stiles is about to get it on with Mikhail Pfeiffer, and the other girls are like, you can't take our men! ....This was all moot, because no one was talking to us ANYWAY that Thurs night. Although I have to say, it was a nice change to be in a happy hour situation where the men actually look like MEN, as opposed to skinny, runty hipsters with beer potbellies and crumpled jeans that look like they're going to blow over at any minute.

In a colliding of the Northeast-Southeast Coast worlds moment, ANNIE!!! calls me, and I put her on speaker phone with the girls! Yay! Although it was so darn loud you couldn't hear anything anyway. Sigh. From there, we headed off to Half-King for burgers and a beer ($14 for burgers and $7 for a Lagunitas IPA? Freakin highway robbery).

Fri was more playing with my nephew and niece, and then I met Morgan for dinner at Cafe Spice, so we could have our little date. Interestingly enough, as Morgan was going to meet me on the street, my sister was like, why don't you just have her come up to say hello? and my jaw nearly dropped. So she did, which meant Morgan got to meet baby Clara (little Richard now being asleep), and we were off to dinner. Then to V Bar on Sullivan.

Sat I asked my mother to take my shopping at Loehman's, so I could finally buy a pair of 7 Jeans, in an attempt to find something flattering to my posterior view. To which we dropped $100 beans on a stupid pair of jeans, and then another tener to get them hemmed. Why can't designer jeans please, please come in inseams other than 36 inches? who has such freakishly long legs, BESIDES maybe Diane? This was killing me.

Sat night I met up with Nick and Jen from Swarthmore, and my friend Paul perfect-square stopped by. Then I crashed with my brother.

Sun: What a beautiful day! Mother's Day! My brother and I attempted to do a Brighton Beach walk he read about in the Times, and as we suspected, when we showed up...we were the youngest people there by about 40 years. There were some people with canes. We took one look at the scene and were like, um, this is going to take HOURS. So thanks to Jessi, who had become something of my Human google that weekend ("Who's Ollie Perez?" "Where're Russian eats in Brighton Beach?") she points us to the boardwalk, and we have a nice stroll, then we turn down Brighton Beach Ave and I felt like I was in a foreign country. It was bona fide RUSSIAN. I mean, there was no signage in English. So, being the children of grocers, my bro and I went to all of the supermarkets, including Brighton Bazaar, (photo credit: village voice)

where my brother was on a mission to get some head cheese.

(Mm, gelatinous. Photo credit: parade.com)

Which, in case you don't know, is not cheese at all, but rather the blasted and amalgamated bits from a calf or pig's head, rolled and compressed into what looks like a cylinder of bologna and sliced as lunch meat. Gross. There were displays of tongues, livers, and then of course five billion different kinds of pastries, breads, blintzes, pierogis...CARB HEAVEN! We also went to M& I International, which was featured on Andrew Zimmerman (which is what spurred this whole head cheese/Brighton Beach trip in the first place).

Then we came carting back our goodies to my sister's apt, where we had a Mother's Day luncheon. Then the Fung Wah home, and I arrived just before 11pm. And...scene.