Weekend Recap

It’s truly remarkable how much better you feel in the mornings and what efficient use you can make of your time if you don’t drink too much and get a decent night’s sleep. Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner?

Case in point? My weekend. Which felt remarkably long, but in a good way. That the eight days of rain in a row we were theoretically going to get did not materialize only made it better.

I kicked things off right by laying pretty low on Thursday night. Had dinner with CS at Tournesol, which I’d recommend and to which I’d definitely return. I’d been a number of times to the wine/cheese/oyster bar they have a few doors down from the bistro, but not to the bistro itself. Good stuff (I was a fan of the mushroom-stuffed calamari in particular), but very filling, especially after having done the 95% vegetarian thing for six weeks or so now and not being in the habit of eating too much fatty/fried food these days. I was in a serious food coma after dinner and it was all I could do to make it through a movie before calling it a night. In other words, I was pretty well-rested going into the weekend for a change.

Friday night I finally hunkered down and did some serious spring cleaning, which I told myself earlier in the week I would finally get done. As I’m still subletting, I’m a bit constrained in terms of what I can do with the place vis-a-vis getting rid of / replacing furniture and the like, and it had gotten a bit uncomfortable lately, what with the accumulated piles of magazines everywhere, stacks of DVDs lying around, and the turntables sitting in my living room. Shipping those few thousand records to NYC a few months back didn’t help, either. Anyway, I got into it and, after a few hours of work,  I am now pleased to report that it feels like a much more liveable spot, and that I feel quite a bit better about clocking the upcoming summer there.  I contemplated going out afterwards, and made tentative plans to grab a drink at Macri Park with DS, but in the end I decided staying in was the better bet. By “staying in”, of course, I mean having a few quick drinks at my neighborhood bar, where I quite fortuitously ran into a friend from the neighborhood and had a conversation about internet ad pricing (he being a print journalist).

The staying in totally paid off on Saturday morning — By 1:00 I had already gotten up, had breakfast, done some shopping, popped by work for a minute, gone to the gym, gotten my hair cut, taken a shower, and stopped by the bar to enjoy a pre-Kentucky Derby libation…

Had lunch with JL in the neighborhood (good conversation about the failure of Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, among other things; more on that later) and then hopped on the bus (the train was skipping my local stops this weekend, which was mildly annoying) to the city.

Made it to CS’s new place right around 4:00 to meet the roommates and get our shrimp cocktail and sangria on. I’d been to the building before, as two other friends live there, too (neither of whom was around on Saturday), but hadn’t seen the roof, the club level, the gym, etc. , and must say that, now having done so, my take on living downtown is quite a bit improved. Might have to consider giving the neighborhood a shot, especially given its ease of access to the 4/5/6.  Sadly, the weather on Saturday, while not a downpour, was definitely a bit on the chilly / windy / drizzly side, and more or less put the kibosh on what otherwise would have been a few lovely rounds of rooftop croquet while we waited for the race. I did get to meet CS’s roomies and a ton of their friends, though, as well as hang out with LB and EP for a bit and make plans to go to Belmont with BM this year. Moving the soiree to the club room ended up working out pretty well, too, as there were both a kick ass flat screen and a pool table to occupy ourselves with. We found out later that apparently you’re not supposed to drink in there, but, um, that’s what club floors are for, and it was a bit late (e.g., many bottles of wine and several cases of beer later) by the time the staff caught on.

  Now, I love me some horse racing. When I was a kid I used to ride English for a few years (even showing at a pretty into level 8 or 10 times), and spent a fair amount of time at the track with my dad. An uncle of mine had a horse run in the Derby a number of years ago, and as chance would have it Kent Desormeaux had ridden for him on few occasions. I still regret not ever making the charter bus trek to the race itself when I was living in NC for two years, but never miss out on watching the race itself, even if I haven’t had the chance to hit the OTB (ghetto fab, right?). While conventional Derby wisdom is that the favorite almost never wins, how delighted was I to see Big Brown take it then, not only because it was a great race, but because I also won $400. I can’t remember the last time I ended a weekend with more money than I started it with. Sweet.

Post-race I headed up to JS’s birthday in Chelsea, splitting the cab with some girl I met in front of the building heading to the EV for her friend’s birthday (they’d lived in Spain together; we rapped about Barcelona en route) and talking Clinton vs. Obama with the cab driver after we dropped her off. (Has anyone else noticed how much cabbies seem to want to talk election politics lately?) I get to the restaurant (El Quinto Pino, also now recommended) only to realize that jackass is, um, a day early. Party is actually on Sunday. D’oh.

Head home to change and shower, pick up CS, and then hit the Mayday party at a friend’s bar in Bushwick. Said hey to a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in a while, had a few drinks, and called it a pretty early evening (2:00am?).

Yesterday. Was. Awesome. For all of the hullabaloo about the lousy weather we were supposed to have this weekend, it was picture perfect outside yesteday, bordering on warm even. And everyone knows what that means… Sun’s out? Guns out! I was up and about by 10:00am and already halfway through my Sunday paper by 11:00, and CS and I decided to walk to brunch rather than wait on the ridiculously slow-moving bus that runs right by my place.  We tried to view apartments in two buildings near the water with big “Now Leasing” signs draped all over them, both of which turned out, annoyingly, to be at capacity, seemingly obviating the need to broadcast how open your leasing office is. We grabbed lunch outside at Masso (which, again, I hadn’t been to and will totally eat at again; amazing panini sandwiches), and despite the lovely weather, decided to take advantage of being up before 4:00 in the afternoon to hit up P.S.1 to catch the part of the Olafur Eliasson exhibit showing there. Visually it was a great exhibit, I thought, and I’m now intent on seeing the part of the show running at MoMA, but, well… Art is still gay.

Went home and took a nap, following that up with a stroll through McCarren Park (which was packed; glad to see the Nest is still bringing them in), then jumped the packed L over to Union Square, from where I meandered down to the Rusty Knot for a quick drink before a stop by Hogs & Heifers on my way to JS’s party (for reals this time). Had a great time catching up over cava and light tapas, the semi-awkward half-drunk couple in attendance aside. Somehow think I let a friend of his convince me to go skydiving in the near future. Perhaps if the weather stays like this…

And now it’s back to work. Blech.