This weekend my friend's improv troupe Tickles (awesome name, right?) was scheduled to perform at The Creek and The Cave, a restaurant/bar/comedy venue in Queens. His group has gigs there often, but usually in the middle of the week and on weeknights I have a bedtime. Like a toddler.
This show fell on Friday--a night when I am always WOAH excited to stay up and play late with the big kids--so I was super stoked to go.
In theory, getting to The Creek and The Cave from Manhattan is relatively easy. It's two stops from Grand Central, and you can get to Grand Central from almost anywhere in the city in twenty minutes. Under normal circumstances, I would have been looking at about half an hour of travel time, tops. But the gods of MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) had other plans.
No 7 trains were running between Manhattan and Queens that night due to what the MTA gods were vaguely referring to over the loudspeaker as "... an emergency." Which, I mean, c'mon. Really? Somebody dared have an emergency at a time that inconvenienced my travel plans? Rude.
This forced me to take an advised "alternative" route involving no fewer than three subway trains. But I would not be deterred. MTA gods be damned, I was going to make it to that show! So, I took the S to Times Square, then the N to Queensboro Plaza, where I got off to transfer to the 7 train, still running in Queens (just not to Manhattan). All was going swimmingly. I was sitting on the 7 with just enough time to make it to my destination and still not be too late for the show. I sighed a contented sigh of satisfaction. Take that, MTA gods. I beat you yet!
Only, I hadn't.
Several stops passed, and I still hadn't seen mine. I pulled out my phone, just to check how many more to go. That's when I realized I'd made the rookiest of rookie subway mistakes. In my hurry to hop onto the 7 train I'd seen pulling into the station just as I'd gotten off the N at Queensboro Plaza, I'd gotten on it going in the wrong direction. Damn you, MTA gods! Not again!
This is a mistake I made a lot when I first moved to the city. It's easy to do when you're first learning the different letters and numbers for each line. But...I've been here nearly two years now. Major fail.
I got off at the stop just past Woodside (in other words, very, very deep into Queens) and then transferred to the 7 going the right direction. By the time I got to the show I was way late and also felt like a big idiot. This feeling was only intensified when I tried to sneak into a row of empty chairs, then accidentally (and LOUDLY) knocked over a drink someone had hidden on the floor under a chair.
BUT--on the bright side, at least it wasn't my own drink! And, there was still half the show left to go so I did actually get to see Tickles perform. They were, as always, hilarious. So, a Friday night salvaged.
At least until I had to make my way back home and the 7 still wasn't working.... I took the G missed my connection to the N and so then decided to take the C... in other words, Friday night was basically a subway-style road trip. Check out the marked up map below to see my completely indirect, roundabout route! Note: "To" route is in red and "from" route is in blue.
So last Friday I went to this bar in the Lower East Side called Cake Shop to meet up with this guy we'll call Ralph for a second date. Our first date went well, as far as first dates go. We'd met up for drinks, and, over the course of the next few hours neither one of us managed to say anything that completely pissed the other one off. This I consider the height of first date success. Also, he was pretty cute, and didn't seem at all crazy--other things high on my list of priorities.What can I say? I ask a lot.
So, the first date having not been a complete disaster, we made plans to meet up for a second at Cake Shop to see a few local bands play. The billing included I Am the Heat, The Press, Ben Franklin, and The Gay Blades all for $7--gotta love the LES scene. I hadn't heard of any of the bands, but had browsed their websites and decided they were all pretty emo/alternativetoalternative/punk/indie-style, in other words, totally my cup of tea.
Ralph didn't know any of the bands either, but his friend had recommended The Gay Blades to him as one he'd probably like. So, all in all it appeared to be a promising evening of drinks, live music, and general enjoyment of each other's company. Well, I was right about two of those things...
The night got off to a bit of a rocky start. I was late, which is sort of unusual for me--I'd gotten lost, which is not at all unusual for me. Usually I allow enough time for this mostly inevitable course of events, but even allowing myself an extra ten minutes to get there put me there about fifteen minutes after the agreed upon meet up time. I wasn't really sorry, although I apologized when I got there. Fifteen minutes, to me, is not a deal breaker. He seemed fine with it and we went down to the basement where the first band was setting up. I don't think this is what ruined the evening but, because I'm not entirely sure, I'm mentioning as a possible piece of evidence for this puzzle. Maybe you, dear readers, can figure out what was the actual curdling point.
We made small talk while the band told the sound people they need more vocal. "More vocal. All you've got. We'll take some more--thanks." All bands said this. Apparently vocal is key. Also key, considering every band did this as well, having a member take off his shirt at some point during the show, or, hell, before the show even starts like the drummer of the first band I Am the Heat. Not criticizing. Just observing. Closely :)
While the first band was warming up and the drummer had just finished the obligatory take-off-shirt ritual, Ralph got up to use the restroom. I ordered another drink. Perhaps this was rude, ordering without him, but I didn't want the awkwardness of "who pays for this round?" and, well, I was thirsty! When he returned he saw my drink and, I noted, did not order one for himself. Curdling point? The band started to play.
I was enjoying the music, not really sensing that anything was amiss, when something weird happened. We were sitting at two bar stools, facing the band. My leg brushed his accidentally, as legs sometimes do beneath a bar. And he immediately pulled his far away.
Probably nothing, I told myself. But, just to test a theory developing, I took my arm, which was propped on the bar, and casually moved it one inch closer to his, still not touching. And he moved his one inch away!
What. The. Hell. I ordered another drink. He did not. I probably would have been more irritated by his obvious concern with any physical contact with me, but I was really enjoying the bands. At one point I'd even almost forgotten about the whole weird episode, and had sort of chalked it up to him possibly wanting to be respectful or some other reason, maybe personal space issues? But then we got up from the bar stools to get closer to the stage and I noticed, the place was packed, people everywhere sardine-style, and he somehow managed to maintain a foot's distance from me at all times. Which, in this environment, took near-Herculean efforts!
What. The. Hell. I ordered another drink. He did not.
The bands were still awesome and I'd made up my mind that I was going to have a great time this Friday night if it killed me, and then never see this jerk again. I jumped up and down with the rest of the people out to have a good time. I sang along to songs I did not know the words to. I supported a guy 2x my weight crowd-surving--I did all the things you basically sign up to do when you decide to go to a concert. He did not.
And here's the kicker. The much-anticipated headline band finally got onstage: The Gay Blades. You may remember that this band was the band Ralph's friend had recommended, the reason we had ultimately decided to come to this bar instead of any of a dozen other LES bars with live bands playing that Friday night. It was at this moment, when the band started to play (not a member shirtless yet, might I add!), that Ralph turned to me and said from his foot-distance away, "I think I should go home. It's getting pretty late."
It was 11 p.m.
"Really? I mean, isn't this the band you wanted to see?"
"Yeah. But, I should leave. It takes me a while to get home."
And here is where I made a huge mistake. I left the bar, even though I was having a great time, because I did not want to hurt his feelings.
Ladies: Never, ever consider some guy's feelings over your own. Especially if that guy is someone you're on a second date with who seems convinced you're crawling with cooties. If you're having a good time somewhere and you're with an asshole who wants to leave, stay. And listen to that band that's supposed to be so good! And then call all of your girlfriends for an impromptu night out after the show, and, by God, salvage that evening! Because Friday nights are sacred and should be enjoyed, whatever grand effort this may take.
So, to end this sad tale of a Friday night shot to hell, because I had not yet acquired the wisdom to stay, I left with him and we walked to the subway together. When we got to the station he informed me that, although he'd had a great time, he really didn't think we should have another date.
Insult to injury! That was my line! How dare he beat me to it?! I, being the lady I am, thanked him for a fun evening and wished him a good night (code, under these circumstances, for "have a good life"). Then I went back to my apartment, and got a drink. And I'm almost certain, he did not.
I'm normally not very political with this blog (recent Bahrain post excluded), but bear with me here. Today I attended my very first protest, and I am awash with the kind of crazy, self-righteous, angry energy that I assume one only gets from standing in the cold for three hours chanting things like "Political Defiance! Political Defiance!" and "No We Won't! No We Won't! (in response to whether we were going to take this outrage lying down)"
To keep it brief, the House of Representatives (click here to see if your Rep was a party to this...) recently passed a bill which denies all federal funding to the nonprofit organization Planned Parenthood. A bill which would, effectively, bankrupt it. If this bill also passes in the Senate and is signed off on by President Obama, millions of women will no longer have access to affordable health care services like screenings for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and HPV; STD testing; sex and family planning education; prenatal care; and contraception.
The reasoning behind those in support of this bill is: Because [in addition to ALL of these important, life-sustaining services Planned Parenthood offers women] PP provides abortion services, they should not receive government funding. Abortion is a hot-button issue and I don't want to get into the messy debate usually associated with that, but I will say this: If Planned Parenthood is forced to close because of this bill, millions of American women will no longer be able to afford reproductive health care. This will mean more teenage pregnancies; the spread of STDs, cervical cancer, and breast cancer; and a country with a culture that blatantly disregards women's interests. Not good things.
OK. End rant. Now, more on the actual event.
So, the protest rally itself was kind of awesome. There were all of those things one expects to see at a protest: picket signs, stickers & buttons, important people speaking at a podium, musicians singing while strumming acoustic guitars, and a general orgy of facial piercings and other forms of body art. There were also things I didn't know belonged in a protest setting: mothers with strollers, women in their 70s and 80s pushing forward to get to the front of the action, guys without their girlfriends (i.e., there of their own volition), and a miniature poodle I silently nominated as our mascot and dubbed "Protest Puppy." Please leave any better suggestions for this brave pup in the comments below!
All in all, I'm very glad I made it out. This protest thing was one of many new experiences I've had in the city, and was definitely a more exciting way to spend my Saturday afternoon than fumbling around with laundry or going out for groceries or any number of mundane things I usually end up taking care of on my weekends...
See pics below from the rally. And thanks for humoring me this one uncharacteristically semi-serious post!
Just a bunch of angry people with signs, move along now, nothing to see here--
