spotted! bloated wood nymph

last night i had dinner with fannin and colista, two of my all time favorite fellers. normally, though not intentionally, we see a terrible movie and eat lots of candy. this particular night, we had a very civilized meal at teany, the only place i ever seem to eat. in a city with more restaurants than roaches, i always wind up at this tiny tourist attraction on the lower east side. though the music was playing at it's usual stadium concert level, we managed to enjoy ourselves over three "garbage salads" (my term for a heaping plate of salad that could easily have been pulled from the dumpster out back) and a glass of wine that more closely resembled a trough (bless moby for letting his adorable servers pour with a heavy hand).

the evening culminated in a whole lot of back and forth about dessert that could easily rival anything a group of teenage girls could come up with. we decided to split one piece of cake in an unusual display of restraint (though i took one for the road). all in all, a lovely evening that soon slipped into Bizarro Land when we got to the oven hot 2nd avenue train stop where we stood on the platform in full-on flop sweat for 45 minutes waiting for the train. this would have been completely insufferable if not for two guys and two girls, all in their 20s, that showed up and stood by us. one guy was positively mesmerizing with his soft white body, spit curls, sleeveless button up, rhinestone pin, highwater jeans made even more highwater by the suspenders he was wearing, slip on loafers with gold pins on the top of them and argyle socks. the cherry on top was the man-purse he was carrying and the fake dolphin tattoo he had on his muscle-less bicep. i coul not take my eyes off the guy. i realized i recognized him from last sunday when i was running in prospect park. at the time, i thought i was hallucinating when i saw the guy in those pants, shoes, socks, suspenders, and a gold lame tank talking into his cellphone emerge from the trees like some bloated wood nymph (if wood nymphs spent time in the gay clubs of nyc). apparently, he was all real. but i'm hoping that it really was all a dream and it was just my brain broasting in my skull that triggered the image.

and...curtain.

this one's for the philosopher in the midwest

it's another toasty day here on the east coast and i'm continuing my chicken-minus-head shuttle between my edit in purgatorio (aka times square) and the inferno (aka my office on 50th street). my latest self-discovery: 1) i strongly dislike tourists 2) i hate flip flops 3) i especially hate flip flops on tourists. if i had a buck for every heavyset individual with an I Love NY t-shirt, short shorts and platform flip flops, i'd be incredibly rich by this point. during today's speedwalk back to the office for a 15 minute meeting during which a lot of people talked and not too many people listened (aka the usual), i spotted no less than 15 pairs of the offending footwear, complete with bad toenails, flat feet, etc. one woman even fell off her shoe, pretending instead to have tripped on some particularly steep air.

in the interest of self-deprecation, if not fairness, i'm an equal opportunity flip-flop hater and despise it on myself as well. after running 13 miles yesterday in my ongoing desperate effort to train my body, genetically predisposed to eating and couch-sitting, for the nyc marathon in november, i was forced to don the offensive "flops" to spare my beaten hooves the experience of confinement. no doubt, many a traveler gagged at the sight of my blackened toenail and generally ugly feet (another genetic shortcoming).

alas, i feel i am righteous, not because of any logic or reasoning, but because at the very least mine (feet and shoes) are local.