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Seven Days.

2008-04-14

First things first. There's a reason I haven't posted lately, and it has something to do with the fact that Emma and I have switched coasts in this down time between posts (hey that rhymes!) and are currently in the big (cr)apple. Don't worry , it's not nearly as glamorous in a half-assed ‘Muppets Take Manhattan' way as you'd think. Anyway, rather than give you a hundred-thousand word post on everything that's happened in the seven days since we arrived in the city that never sleeps. I'm going to post a brief day by day description of everything that happened on those days.

Sunday (the sixth) : We melancholically leave Donnie's place in Santa Cruz and head up to San Fran to take a flight back to New York. However this flight is going to be Monday morning , so we check into a reasonably priced hotel for one night before. I'm going to miss hanging Donnie, he being my best friend after all. The last nine months or whatever it is has been strangely reminiscent of hanging out in college again. I know this sounds pathetic, but I don't care. I'm going to miss all the meaningless b-s chat about pointless topics most of all I think.

Monday: Travel day. Typically pleasant U.S domestic flight, which no amount of high tech gizmos in the seat can diminish. Seriously, what with this American Airlines cancellations and the service, is this really the price you pay for protectionist economic policies? I know almost nothing about economics, but I always half assumed it was something anti-regulation people made too much out of, but wow this is ridiculous.

We were met at Kennedy by my sister , whose place we're going to be staying at until we find an apartment of our own. After getting cleaned up, in the evening Emma and I have dinner with my sister and her long term boyfriend Stephen at a neighborhood Italian place. While Emma was  using the bathroom, my sister comments offhandedly that she was surprised we're still together.

Tuesday: Did general touristy stuff around the city with Emma, who's never been to New York before, which I for some reason find extraordinary. Walking around I start finding myself complaining about the cold, which I don't think I've ever found myself uttering around this time of year. I felt like such a tourist and started wondering if this is the effect spending most of the year living in a warmer weather place does to you. I used to think it was just something New Yorkers made too much of to justify ever leaving the city. Later that night Emma awakens multiple times to inform me she's having trouble sleeping because of the street noise.

Wednesday: Sister seems to be being actively friendlier than at Christmas. I attribute this to not being around the poisonous environs of my parents. Speaking of my mother. I spent most of the day ignoring the flurry of text messages inviting Emma and I to there for dinner. The rough odds of this occurring voluntarily amount to a snow ball's chance in hell. Began to suspect sister had ratted me out to parents. Apart from that we do touristy stuff again, before I let her go and do her own thing and I visit my old office that I start at again next Wednesday , to see if anything'd much changed. It hasn't.

Thursday: Sister starts dropping pseudo-subtle conversational hints about when in fact I'm getting my own place. Nothing much else happens apart from visit to Jim Hanley's. Emma doesn't attend.

Friday: Meet up with old-time friend Jeff for drinks in late afternoon at ‘my local'. Manage to avoid talking to ‘my antagonist', who was also there, and you may remember from way back here. Emma seemed to really dig my friend Jeff , initially I suspected a bit too much. Caught Chien-Ming Wang's complete game, and felt better about the Yankees' prospects this season. Managed to avoid temptation to talk to ‘my antagonist' about it.

Saturday: Nothing  sort of day, apart from sister mentioning the apartment situation again about 3000 more times. In evening grudgingly attend ‘welcome back party'. Said party basically consists of friend Ed from ‘magazine I'm soon to be working at again' throwing a get-together and inviting everyone he seems to think I know (sadly including ex-girlfriend Katie) at one of his friends' places. For some bizarre reason when Emm and I arrive, all the lights are out and suddenly came on as everybody yelled surprise. This just made no sense. Who exactly was it a surprise for? Not me. It wasn't like I got hit in the head back in Santa Cruz and came to out here, not realizing I'd left the left coast. Party is relatively fun regardless.

Sunday: Spent most of day looking at apartments with overly friendly real estate agent bitch. Most apartments sucked-but there was a very reasonably priced rent-controlled one in village. The one caveat being that ‘reasonably' is a euphemism for needing to get a down payment loan from my parents. This put me in an understandably bad mood. Later the two of us joined Ed and Jeff for a few drinks at bar to watch Sunday night's Yanks-Sox game. After which I came to the conclusion the Yanks aren't making the playoffs this year.

The way the team is set up is just weird; on the  one hand you've got an average rotation with one above average guy (Wang) two over the hill guys(Pettitte and Mussina) and two green young guys on pitch counts (Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy) . Now this would be o.k. if this was a young team overall, but its not. The lineup's filled with a bunch of sluggers the wrong side of thirty. This means by the time Hughes and Kennedy become reliable big league starters in two or three years (a big if by the way), the lineup'll be filled with even older guys. Now the Yanks haven't exactly had great starting pitching since oh...2003, but for the past four years the hitting was strong enough to overcome it. I just don't see it this year, not with guys like Matsui, Giambi, Posada, Damon (and possibly Abreu) all of who are in the beginning stages of terminal decline. Basically the only truly reliable offensive guy they have is A-Rod, and he's not getting any younger either. The Yanks could be a non-contender for at least five years the way this team is presently constructed. However on the plus side they've got a back-up shortstop called Alberto Gonzales. How fun is that?

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