walking

We closed up the library last Friday evening, went out for a quick end-of-the-week decompression drink, then parted ways -- Nick off to Brooklyn for some party or other, Brooke making a mad dash to the Upper East Side in the hopes of getting to a particular store before closing, Erica down to 102nd Street for a slice of (so she claims) the best pizza in this entire town, and me, well, I had some time to kill.

I had plans to meet friends at the Rubin for a birthday gathering around eight, so I walked with Erica down to her beloved hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, and then, because the weather was just right and because the streets were teeming and because I had comfortable shoes on that day and I suppose, really, just because, I kept going.

And ended up walking all the way down to the museum. First through the familiar family-friendliness of the Upper West Side. Past Lincoln Center in all its cultural, if currently under construction, glory. Around Columbus Circle and the crowds converging on the Time Warner Center and the overpriced shop(pe)s all lit up and glowing from within. Down through the 50s and the 40s to Times Square, continually mind-boggling in all its flashy glitter, attracting millions of tourists like bats to a bug zapper (but not attracting me).

Did not linger there, but kept descending, and found myself somewhat taken aback by the trashiness, the industrial sleaziness, of the 30s, the upper 20s, with their topless bars, flickering neon, broken glass and cigarette butts, vast, empty buildings and trampy women and beckoning men.

Slipped, eventually, across some invisible demarcation line and into the hyper trendiness that is Chelsea, headed east on 17th street, trailed a mohawked man across 7th Avenue, and finally, finally, entered the Rubin Museum of Art, sank into its strange, blue-lit, Friday night pseudo club-scene glow.

I was relieved to immediately see Dave & Josh (I am always relieved to see Dave, who, at 6'4", is always easily see-able above the crowds). And I was amused to find the unknown mohawked man chatting with Dave & Josh, and with whom I am now affirmed Facebook friends.

So there we spent much of the evening, gulping red wine from plastic cups and sipping cocktails with names like "Blessing" and "Buddha's Tears."

Oh, this world we live in.