FIRST SHOT. FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I guess officially moving to New York actually happened for me when my plane touched down in La Guardia at around 11:20pm. Oddly enough, the flight was the last for the Senior Pilot after 39 years of flying. I’d made a stop in Charlotte NC, and soon after boarding an announcement was made, how the pilot had flown since 1967, flew three-million people, logged in something like 39,000 hours in the air, had a perfect flying record. He had his whole family in first class and I was thinking how appropriate this guy was doing something similar, starting over like myself. I also thought how ironic it would be for the both of us if we crashed.

It was a perfect flight, and we all applauded on landing. It was warm and muggy at the airport and the taxi driver had trouble with my directions. I had to call Cara to help out. It was strange for the both of us as reunions can be, a bit stilted, and me so exhausted I didn’t know how to react to anything.

I slept in while Cara went running, and when I woke we had some breakfast and went to Starbucks which is about the last place I wanted to get coffee but there’s no neighborhood joints in this area. I should say it’s still really warm here, in the 80s with humidity and felt great. Cara had scoped out a juice bar already that had wheatgrass and juice so I poured that into me with the coffee and we headed for the subway station.

I’d seen a listing in the NYTimes for a show at the Pierpoint Library so we took the A-train downtown at 34th (about a half-hour ride) and walked the rest of the way to the library. By now we back in sync and everything was so New York, something new on every block. We passed some Union/Labor parade in the making, went to the remarkable public library, watched some street performers breaking and doing some amazing moves. At the library we found out the listing was all wrong, and rather than pay 12 bucks to see some medieval manuscripts we opted to try the Dada exhibit at MoMa.

There was some huge street fair in Times Square, with the street closed off and vendors selling food and clothing. We bought some Cashmere scarves for five bucks each, had a Kebob and headed to MoMa which ended up being a waste of time since it closed in an hour by then. We’d brought our swim gear so walked to the YMCA on 67th for a swim. The pool is old and small (four lanes) with fine Italian tile motifs on the walls, the water was the perfect temp, the chemicals good, the lifeguard made sure everyone swam in the lanes appropriate to their speed and everyone wore a cap. We swam for an hour. I met some guy in the dry sauna who used to live in Seattle and knew the owner of Glo’s. He was a psychiatrist who just got back from Cape Town on some world tour conducting grieving seminars.

Afterwards we walked over to Columbus circle then up to 72nd for a Burrito at some local joint where by some strange chance I ran into my former Seattle Weekly colleague Mark Fefer who I hadn’t seen in years. Oddly enough he’s moving back to Seattle to take over as editor at the Weekly.

After dinner we had some ice cream and wandered around. It was a perfect evening, still around 80 and just beautiful. We were both beat so we headed back to Washington Heights. I bought some delicious and cheap Bustelo Coffee at some corner store.

I didn’t think about Seattle all that much though it came up in conversation. NY has a way of making you get out of yourself, out of your own way since everything else is heading right for you.