Brooklyn and back

Last Thursday Mackenzie, Jamie, and I bravely boarded a New York City-bound Lucky Star bus. I was going to Brooklyn to visit Uberfriend Will Murray '03 and I had a flask of Wild Turkey whiskey. Also, I had made three unique peanut butter and jam sandwiches for us-- cherry, blueberry, and classic strawberry. Additionally, Mackenzie also had a flask of whiskey. Too.

While we feared flaming gasoline leaks and exploding tires and overturnings, we were somewhat comforted by the silly dragon Lucky Star logo. This dragon is so very clearly drunk and also tripping on acid while smoking a blunt-- if the bus does explode, he's not going to care. We thought that was a pretty good attitude and proceeded to pay homage to the Dragon Spirit.


We tried to play a drinking game that involved drinking whenever we saw a blue tarp or a Howard Johnson's. The blue tarp component comes from my youth when, on road trips, we would count blue tarps. As I was explaining this to Mackenzie, we actually passed a blue tarp and were able to drink immediately. Unfortunately, that was the last blue tarp we saw for the duration of the time we still had alcohol. We saw a Howard Johnson's on the way back, but we didn't have any whiskey then either. Discouraged by the lack of blue tarps, we switched to drinking while making eye contact with Truckers and drinking again if they honked at us for being awesome. That happened twice. We drastically underestimated the amount of alcohol we needed to sustain ourselves on the bus and as sobriety increased, awareness of intense urine odor increased in a directly proportional manner. We stayed awake just long enough to buy delicious ice cream sandwiches at a seedy pit stop-- chocolate ice cream with nuts! Then, I woke up at midnight in Chinatown.

I took the subway to Will's street. This is Will when he lived in Flushing-- he did a lot of thinking then.
Now he lives in Brooklyn with the World's Largest Cat

He also lives with the World's Luckiest Kitten, but he can tell you that story another time. In the morning we had a nice brunch, took a walk around Prospect Park, and discussed the Battle of Brooklyn. I said that it sounded fake and that there was no Battle of Brooklyn, and Will insisted that there was a monument and the war was a reality. We walked a little further and Will spotted a monument.
Anticipating an informative block of text on the other side, we walked around to the front.
Now there's no way I'm ever going to believe any Brooklyn war stories!

Later, after an aborted game of Scrabble, Will told me that we were going to go "meet Richard at the Sleep Lab." Richard [Image Unavailable] is Will's Uberfriend and Classmate, and together they are steps away from guy duo-movie stardom. Richard works in a Sleep Lab on the 13th floor of a building in Manhattan and, more specifically, in a room filled with medical records. Will and Richard enjoy Philosophy and picking on Science. Or scientists, at least. You know, theoretical physicists and how they define information. I pretty much have to wake up each morning feeling confident that electrons are the minuscule droplets of glue that hold everything together, so their philosophical harangues fell on already ruffled feathers. But this is exactly what I enjoy most about Will and his friends-- the heated debates. We also played Pétanque under the bridge and attended a rooftop barbecue, which are both classy things to do.

I also managed to visit Ben where I gave him a bottle of Groth and he gave me this bird book and a jar of honey.
The bird book is great because it consists entirely of casual answers to casual questions. Example-- Q: How much do birds eat? A: It depends on the bird!; Q: Do birds have knees? A: Yes, and not where you'd expect! The honey is delicious stirred into plain yogurt. Also, I want an Xbox now thanks to Ben's demo.

It was sad to leave on Sunday, but even sadder was the fact that I had to walk from the Riverside T-station to my street at 11pm. The minute Lexington turned into Moody a pick-up truck containing two Mexican men slowed down and I was addressed in their native language. They were subsequently addressed by my native language which consists of several variations on the Icy Scowl.

Back in Waltham, the temperature was 95 degrees Fahrenheit and Pearl suggested we check out a public pool. After Pearl effortlessly lied about being residents of Newton, we scampered through the nightmare of a locker room, failed to take the mandatory pre-shower, and hopped into the People Stew. We made some observations:

1. People around you hate it if you talk about peeing in the pool
2. There are no average-build kids anymore-- they are either sticks or butterballs
3. Public pools aren't as fun as they used to be [Pearl is faking mirth in the upcoming picture. I'm not.]
Also, I cut myself washing a cracked wine glass and wrapped dental floss around it to stop the profuse bleeding. I'm reasonably sure it might be a touch infected.

And now I'm back to farming flies and tearing their developing brains out such that I can study neurons-- those ion-pumping conduits [and electrons have nothing to do with ions, I swear]-- in their proto-eyes.

The summer is grand!