Hot Child in the City

Day Eighteen

Yesterday was one of the more interesting days we've had so far. I planned out a route of exploration of the Lower East Side for the day, so I set my alarm for 11.00 (yes, it was necessary). I was busy playing the "five more minutes" game with my snooze button when someone knocked on my bedroom door. I freaked out. Not only was no one else supposed to have access to the apartment, but I was completely naked - I had even kicked off my blankets while sleeping.

Thankfully, it was just Elke, who, if you remember, was supposed to be at her Second City class. But she never made it to her classes that day. One of the trains she was on magically turned into an express train to Brooklyn (it happens more than it should) and she ended up going 20-30 minutes in the wrong direction. Then she got on the wrong train and went even further into Brooklyn.

When she finally got on the wrong train she started talking to the man next to her about her morning and it took an entire minute before she realized she was sitting in a HUGE puddle of what appeared to be piss.

And all this was before I woke up. This is why I don't understand people who try to tell me I'm missing too much by getting up at noon - waking up early just gives the day more time to go wrong. Not as many things go wrong at night, for some reason.

Anyway, Elke showered and vowed to stay in bed for the rest of the day. I woke up, but it was a very groggy morning. Because I was so upset the night before I barely got any sleep. I ended up having to take a nap after my shower as well. But when I woke up, Elke still wasn't up.

At 3.00 I burst into her room and demanded that she get out of bed. I figured if anyone needed some retail therapy, it was her. If nothing else, she needed a new pair of pants to replace the ones that got soaked in urine. So we got ready and set out to the Lower East Side.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the Lower East Side is a seedy little part of town with very few places worth going into. However, one place about which I was very excited (which is actually the reason I was so excited about going down there) was Babeland. It's been one of my favorite websites for years. I didn't get any toys, but I did get a really cool-looking book, Erotic Fairy Tales. I prefer historical romances (erotica or not), but they didn't have any, so I figured this was certainly second best.

Then we stopped by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum gift shop, but the only thing we got there was this week's issue of Time Out New York, the main story of which is called "Stoned in the City." It has a bunch of things to do when you're stoned. Unfortunately, it had no listings of where to buy the stuff that makes you stoned in the city and we are out until tomorrow. Then we went down to Henry Street, which is where Barbra Streisand lives in Funny Girl,which is Elke's all-time favorite movie - she's seen it at least 8 million times and knows every single word. And she sang "People Who Need People" while I tried to figure out the easiest way out of there.

Then we got on the subway and rode 3 stops and then got off. Much to our delight, this led us to Greenwich Village, where we haven't really had a chance to go yet. We walked around for a bit until we realized we were hungry and then I got all excited because I remembered Chumley's was in the Village and it is this literary mecca of a bar.

Chumley's used to be a speakeasy, so it's hidden on a residential street. There's no sign or anything - you just have to know it's there. The food wasn't fantastic and the service was AWFUL (we left a $2 tip on a $40 bill and I though that was being REALLY generous) but the place itself was really cool. There were book covers all over the walls, all of which were written by people who ate there. There were also pictures (some autographed) of the authors themselves. It was a huge hangout during the Beat Generation, so of course there were pictures of all those guys. I went to the bathroom and got really excited about the prospect of peeing where Jack Kerouac had peed (a bit creepy, I know, but I thought it was cool).

After leaving Chumley's we walked around a bit more. We didn't want to go home but we didn't really know where to go. There was a jazz concert on one of the streets, so we watched that for a bit, but then we felt the need to keep moving. Then we made the genius decision to walk home. From 14th Street. And we live on the Upper West Side.

We actually ended up making it pretty far. But by the time we reached 42nd Street it was starting to get really dark and Elke had to pee and after all, we'd been wandering around for hours by that point. So we hopped on the train at Bryant Park and headed home.

posted by Megan @ 10:41 PM