New York Dreaming

My friend is passed out in a food coma in his boxers on the queen size bed in the Air BnB he’s staying at in Brooklyn.

I am super tempted to take photos of him.

SUPER.

But after the amaze balls meal we just had this evening at Peter Luger’s and the fact that he footed the bill and the taxi ride back to the pad, well, it inclines me to be gentle with him.

Besides I love him to bits.

And today would not have been the day it was without his company and guidance.

I did not have to negotiate the subway system.

He did it for me.

I did not have to figure out what to do or where to go.

He knew what I wanted to see and do and we did it.

He asked me before I got here what I wanted to eat.

Steak.

And he made reservations at Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn three and a half weeks ago.

We still had the latest reservation one could have at the restaurant–10:45p.m.–but we got in.

He took me to a place I hadn’t thought to go and was thrilled beyond measure that we went.

Tavern on the Green.

I mean, it really was a dream of a day.

One in which I started out “late” from having needed to catch up on sleep missed from the previous days early up and at ’em after a long travel in from San Francisco.

I slept in until almost 10:30 a.m.

Late for me any way you slice it.

Late for me now, but I cannot go quite to sleep, I had more than one latte at Tavern on the Green, and I am wide awake.

Plus, my body is busy digesting all the tasty that was had at the steak house–iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese (the real stuff) and heirloom tomatoes, thick cut bacon, a half a medium rare lamb chop, a half of a rare porterhouse, a bottle of bubbly water–I am going to be digesting for the next week, I think.

But that’s ok.

The month of eating meat like it’s going out of style (three weeks Burning Man followed by this weekend in New York) and I will be going back to my simpler ways.

No.

I am not a vegetarian.

Although I have played on one tv.

I am just a simpler eater.

I like my food simple and clean and though it was not “dirty” to say the least, it was just a lot more full of meat than I normally eat.

But I am on vacation.

A short, sweet, quick bite of the apple, and then back out.

In fact.

I fly out in less than 8 hours.

My flight leaves JFK at 8:10 a.m.

Current time?

1:38 a.m.

Current location?

Somewhere in Brooklyn, just off the J line at Myrtle and Broadway.

I figure I am going to have to get up in oh, about three hours, get dressed, pack my bag and split for the subway, giving myself about an hour commute time to the airport, maybe an hour and a half (although I don’t think the trains will be busy, I just don’t know how often they are going to be running at 5 a.m.) and then the mandatory hour or so to make sure I check into my flight and go through security.

It’s almost late enough that I don’t want to go to bed, that I could just stay up and watch my friend sleep and listen to the occasional honk of the horn going by, or the whirl of the fan in the window.

It’s warm and sultry and it’s been humid.

Man, oh man, you should see my hair.

I have a lot of it.

It’s curly.

And it’s humid.

It’s like getting twice the hair in one shot.

It was pretty hot today, 91 degrees, but the humidity was so high that it felt like 100 degrees.

I got rained on a little bit, not too bad, just enough to have to dash underneath an awning after a late brunch at Ichabod’s down off of Irving and 3rd Ave.

I don’t know exactly how to explain all that happened today.

It wasn’t much.

But it was all a dream.

It was the fantasy made so real that I teared up a few times, wanted to pinch myself, and thought over and over and over, how is it that I am here?

How did this happen?

And I can trace the arc of it and still be amazed to be this woman, walking around Chelsea and the West Village, drinking an iced cold pressed coffee, dancing about the High Line Park, taking photographs of the skyline, and wearing a hat I bought on a corner from a street vendor who I bargained down to $20.

I felt like I was in a movie.

I laughed like I was in my own life and fulfilled and myself and I cried a little too, with joy, with gratitude to be walking with an old friend through a street fair on 3rd Avenue, eating watermelon out of a plastic cup and joshing with each other about going to that one place, on 19th and Dolores so many years ago, nine, now.

I got to be the woman sitting with an old lover at Tavern on the Green, eating olives with my fingers and watching the French couple at the bar holding hands underneath the ledge while Frank Sinatra crooned  a little song about New York over the speakers.

I watched the horses trot past pulling carriages and tourists and my heart-felt full and when my friend said, “you picked the right hat,” I knew he was right.

He picked it, by the way.

When the subway connections all fell like dominoes and we dashed up and down the stairs and made three transfers to get dropped off two blocks away from the steak house, walking in right at 10:45p.m. when the lighting flashed and the thunder boomed, and the skies opened up again, deluging the streets of Brooklyn with a wash of water from heaven, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

And the dream.

Well.

It’s done.

It was a good dream.

And it was a lovely movie that I got to star in today.

Now.

Onto other dreams and other goals.

Now to settle my restless heart for a moment, catch a three-hour nap, and off to the airport.

I have places to go.

And planes to catch.

But New York.

I won’t forget you soon.

Though I may not dream of you again.

I am so grateful I got to live through this.

Like a bright stack of gold foil wrapped chocolates on Christmas morning.

You were sweet.

Tags: Brooklyn, brunch, Central Park, dreaming, dreams, friends, home, iced latte, Ichabod's, JFK, love, New York, Peter Luger, Peter Luger's Steak House, postaday, San Francisco, serendipity, subway, Tavern on the Green, tourist, travel, Union Square Park