Weekends are always great, but weeekends are even better. (See that? Extra day off = extra E). Steer clear of the wekends though. That shit is just insulting.
Thanks to Presidents' Day last month, (That is why we had that holiday, right?) we all got an extra 24 hours to credit toward activities/obligations of our choosing. I thought I really loved three day weekends in college, but once you acquire a 9-5 jobbie job, you realize that college was a three-day-weekend. A four-year-long three-day-weekend. Oh, real life (sigh). Oh, bills and rent (double sigh).
Whoa, back it up. This is a happy post.
Alright, so I just basically had a freaking awesome weekend (honoring our former president, George Washington, of course), and I wanted to share it with you:
Saturday - volunteering with Hurricane Sandy clean-up and then singing with my cousin
Sunday - cousin brunch; auntie dinner
Monday - laundry, band practice again, and Downton Abby
...ok, so I didn't do much with my extra day. So sue me.
First things first. "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." (#LewisCarroll #AlicesAdventuresInWonderland) (Are hashtags just twenty-first century citations? The bibliography of the future? Is Twitter just one long Works Cited page? These are important questions.)
Saturday. I woke up and caught the Long Island Railroad out to Long Beach to assist with clean-up from Hurricane Sandy. It was hella cold, and it actually snowed at one point, but I spent the morning pulling out drywall from a first-floor bedroom in a house that flooded when the storm came through. I had found All Hands Volunteers on the Twitters, so when I showed up to help I didn't know any of the other volunteers. Though I did get to know a very nice older woman named Ann who helped pull out stray nails from the floor boards. After the demolition we decided to grab lunch. Over thai we discussed being vegetarian (her currently, me formerly), world travel, and college admissions (she's a high school art teacher). Ann was such a cool lady, and it was really refreshing to make a new friend and just chat for a while, to just let life do its thing and introduce me to who it thought appropriate.
Oh, but before lunch, we walked along what remained of the damaged boardwalk. All that was left were the concrete pillars that had held the boardwalk up. The wooden ramps from the road were gone, the steps down to the beach weren't there, and sand had been bull-dozed to create a sort of wall separating the debris from the incoming tide. As I stood there, I saw runners jogging by the waves and people walking their dogs. The aftermath is just really surreal.
Concrete is all that's left of the boardwalk.
Beach (and Ann).
What little did remain of the boardwalk had collapsed.
Surviving pillars.
Walls of sand.
This last one is a big rough, but you get the idea.
Later that night I had plans to go over some songs with my cousin, Heather. She's a badass and you'll hear more about her as I continue this blog, so remember the name. We have a gig in Brooklyn (tonight actually) and had planned a few run-throughs so we'd be prepared. After such a long day on Long Island, all I wanted in the world was to climb into sweatpants and a t-shirt and watch a movie with a bottle of wine (glass of wine? I meant glass of wine... of course). But I had made plans with Heather, so my sweatpants and I hopped back on the subway for band practice (can I still call it band practice if I'm not actually playing an instrument?)
After going over a few songs in Heather's apartment, Mark the Guitar Player suggested we drop in on a speak easy nearby where the bluegrass folks like to have jam sessions. I guess if you're going anywhere public in sweatpants on a Saturday night, a speak easy is probably your least embarassing bet. I could just pretend that I was intentionally dressing down... you know, to be ironic. This is Brooklyn, after all... It was amazing though. This place was an unmarked bar, and as I walked in the side-door-that-was-the-front-door, I saw about ten people (mostly old men) sitting around with guitars, fiddles, banjos, harmonicas, and an auto harp. At one point a man entered with a bass. An upright bass. A three-quarter bass? I don't even know what it's properly called, but this man was serious! You do not just stroll along the streets of NYC with your bass, just in case you stumble upon the opportunity to play with some strangers. Or maybe you do. I don't play one so I don't know... But Heather and I sang a few covers from Oh, Brother Where Art Thou and the young hipster crowd sang with the chorus, and the band (our impromptu, motley crew, live band) went around the circle so that every instrument had their turn to perform a solo. Then we'd come back in with the final verses, finish the song, and go grab another beer to enjoy some really awesome live music.
The next morning Heather and I ordered brunch-for-delivery (jealous?) and listened to old blues records. We got to talking about New York and the stress and over-stimulation of it and how somewhere so densely populated can be so completely isolating. Honestly, I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear that somebody else felt that this city can make you a little crazy... (this has been a theme in my life recently, but I'll elaborate more in another post).
That evening I had dinner plans with my great aunts, so I walked back down to the subway to get myself from the bottom of Brooklyn up to the top of Queens. I spent the night chatting with the aunties over lamb chops and red wine and hearing how pretty my hair looked. These ladies are so great for that. They always fill me full with good food and compliments and make me feel like my sweatpants and ponytail are suddenly effortlessly stylish.
With the windchill outside the temperature had dropped down to 1 degree. A single degree. And as I decided to stay overnight, I came to fully appreciate the unforeseen practicality in my choice of attire since this weekend had morphed into a series of overnight visits with my relatives. I'd borrowed a few books of Heather's (in connection with the theme I mentioned earlier. Seriously, stay tuned!) so I climbed into the twin bed in the upstairs guest room to do some reading. This just happened to be the same bedroom in which I'd slept for my first month after moving to New York, back in October of 2010 before I found a place of my own. I got to thinking about how much I've changed since then (and how I haven't) and how many things I've been able to experience in just over two years.
I guess you could call this weekend a stay-cation of sorts: getting out of the house and connecting with others, whether they be strangers or family. I didn't necessarily get away from the city, but I had found a few precious enclaves where the speed and impatience of New York couldn't get to me. Being with people you don't have to impress is so crucial and healthy, but it's not always an easy thing to find here.
And as I stated in the beginning, I didn't really do much with my Monday off, but regardless of what you choose to do with it, a free day is always a good day in my book.
That evening I had dinner plans with my great aunts, so I walked back down to the subway to get myself from the bottom of Brooklyn up to the top of Queens. I spent the night chatting with the aunties over lamb chops and red wine and hearing how pretty my hair looked. These ladies are so great for that. They always fill me full with good food and compliments and make me feel like my sweatpants and ponytail are suddenly effortlessly stylish.
With the windchill outside the temperature had dropped down to 1 degree. A single degree. And as I decided to stay overnight, I came to fully appreciate the unforeseen practicality in my choice of attire since this weekend had morphed into a series of overnight visits with my relatives. I'd borrowed a few books of Heather's (in connection with the theme I mentioned earlier. Seriously, stay tuned!) so I climbed into the twin bed in the upstairs guest room to do some reading. This just happened to be the same bedroom in which I'd slept for my first month after moving to New York, back in October of 2010 before I found a place of my own. I got to thinking about how much I've changed since then (and how I haven't) and how many things I've been able to experience in just over two years.
I guess you could call this weekend a stay-cation of sorts: getting out of the house and connecting with others, whether they be strangers or family. I didn't necessarily get away from the city, but I had found a few precious enclaves where the speed and impatience of New York couldn't get to me. Being with people you don't have to impress is so crucial and healthy, but it's not always an easy thing to find here.
And as I stated in the beginning, I didn't really do much with my Monday off, but regardless of what you choose to do with it, a free day is always a good day in my book.
