idyllic whatever

I found a neighborhood I'd never heard of before, east of the East Village. Its main feature was a large castle-like structure blocking the entire length of Houston right at the entrance, beyond Avenue D and the FDR overpass. People came from all over the city to look at it. Apparently it was built by a bored and very rich fourteen year old whose parents never let her leave the house. She built the entire castle inside the main room of her parents' mansion. Her parents were so proud of her work that they had it transferred to Houston as a permanent installation. I guess they were rich enough to pay off all the fines for blocking traffic in perpetuity.

The castle itself wasn't that remarkable, aside from the fact that it was in the middle of the street. I was able to walk right up to it and peer through the narrow windows built into the sides. It was hollow inside and full of trash and blankets.

Beyond the castle, the neighborhood felt like a mix of Franklin, Michigan and the Cotswolds. Lots of sloping green fields and adorable houses and a little main street full of antique shops and art galleries. I decided it was my new favorite part of the city. I went there one day with a friend of mine for a summer picnic. Hundreds of people were gathered in one of the big clearings, sitting on the grass and laughing their heads off.

Then my friend started kissing all the girls around us. We got up and walked down the main street holding hands, and at each house a girl came down to the front gate for a kiss while I stood awkwardly to the side. I realized all these women were people I went to high school with who had since married, some of them with kids of their own. I also realized that somehow, probably in a way Freud could explain quite nicely, all of the above means I am totally psyched out by the prospect of my impending high school reunion.

the new world

I joined an improv troupe, but our chemistry was all wrong. We just weren't funny, and I think two of the other girls were clinically depressed. The rest of the group decided to order in some fried chicken, stay up all night, and work everything out, but I jumped ship and headed to Michigan to hang out with my coworkers.

They were eating dinner at the house of one of the publicity assistants' parents, which was on a Manhattan city block transposed over one of the hilly forested areas near Ann Arbor. The publicity assistant was mad because one of the publicists had taken over her bedroom and filled it with baby-related gear. The really annoying part was that the publicist doesn't even have a baby. Still, I liked what she'd done with the place. Everyone was debating whether or not to head over to a party on 6th Ave. It was only one block away, but that block was steep and icy and covered with heavy forest.

We decided to drive to the frozen yogurt place instead. It was a no-name Pinkberry imitator, and they weren't doing so well. The place was a mess, with napkins and fruit bits and yogurt residue covering every surface. I was almost to the front of the line when the place totally broke down and became two narrow strips of land running in parallel across the Atlantic Ocean. A neverending train of prehistoric animals, from pink brontosauruses to baby-blue woolly mammoths, trudged along the isthmuses toward their new homes.

I cut a perilous path between all those giant, adorable legs and soon found myself in a small port city somewhere in Spain, full of notable architecture and elevated causeways. At every corner, there was a park with artfully arranged bushes and benches, so that the heads of the people who sat there poked up like rows of cabbage, making out, taking naps, or just taking in the scenery.

my shiny derelict future

I was an old homeless woman who had been living on the same street corner for twenty-five years. That stability was the reason I was able to get such a good rate on car insurance. The agent cut me an excellent deal, and told me so as he shoved me up against the hood of a nearby car and pressed my face into the windshield. "The only reason I'm even giving an old hag like you any deal at all is because I know where you live, and I know I'll always be able to find you here," he said. "You got that?"

Then he had me fill out a form indicating all of the items in the lunch box my mother still made for me every morning. The rate went up slightly because I had switched from cheddar thins to whole wheat crackers, which seems counterintuitive, but who knows what crazy algorithm these insurance agents use to figure this stuff out.

The insurance wasn't actually for a car. I haven't driven in years, not since I moved to New York. But the fancy new subway cars require it. You know, the ones NASA designed? They strap you in like you're riding a roller coaster and take you from stop to stop elevated several thousand feet above the city. It's a big rush, but they haven't worked all the kinks out yet, so proof of insurance is still required.

late-night bike adventures

I was staying in a fortress with my extended family. The grownups got bedrooms and my cousins got the foldout couches. I was stuck on a cot in the corner, which was fine, because the foldout couches were pretty much impossible to sleep on anyway. Someone important was also staying with us, or else we were somehow important, because the fortress was heavily barricaded and guarded.

To pass the time, we conducted experiments on slugs. At first I thought the slugs were kind of gross, but I got over it. Soon I let them crawl along my arms and snuggle against my ear. Looking back, this is still kind of gross.

So the hypothesis we set out to prove in the current experiment was that slugs, being stubborn and contrary, would only eat food we did not want them to eat. We set out a chicken caesar wrap on a table and let the slug do its thing. It ignored the wrap. Instead, it crawled on my arm, down my torso and leg, and onto the floor under the table, where someone had dropped a stray french fry. The slug latched onto the fry and hightailed it for a corner of the experiment room.

My partner exclaimed, "It's true! He went for the fry!"

The slug, who had turned into a small man resembling Kal Penn, shouted tinily, "Of course I did! Can't you give me some real food? Who wants a freakin' wrap?" He was carrying the french fry, which was about half his height, in both arms like a giant bag of laundry.

Suddenly, one of the copy editors, who had also been staying with us, went nuts. She was convinced the guard stationed outside the front door and across the highway was actually a terrorist planning to kill us. She tore out of the door with a gun, and we all chased after her to try and stop her. We dodged through the traffic on the five lane highway like it was multiplayer Frogger and assembled on the dusty median, where the copy editor was pointing the gun directly at our guard. The guard was actually a very nice, non-terrorist guy, and we all knew it. The copy editor's eyes looked all crazy. Her normally neat hair was blowing around in unseemly wisps.

She fired several shots, but her aim was terrible. The bullets came right at me, and I had to run around in the median trying to dodge them. Luckily, my bike was there, and I hopped on and took off. I had plans to hang out with my soccer team at the movies, anyway.

The cinema had a whole room devoted to self-serve candy---at least twenty of those giant gumball machines that give you handfuls of Mike and Ike or Sour Patch Kids instead of gumballs. There were also displays of candy bars that you paid for on the honor system. One of those creepy twins that I keep seeing around town (at dodgeball, on the CUNY station, at H&M, in my dreams) stormed in, told us to cover for her, and ducked down to steal some candy bars. My other friends pointed out the security cameras. "But it's not like they really care if you steal anything," one of them said. Regardless, I was too chicken shit to take anything.

I hopped on my bike again to head home. It was now dark out, and I was trying to turn left at the intersection of 14th and 6th without a helmet. I should mention that I have never ridden my bike in Manhattan before, ever. It was terrifying. I took off as quickly as I could at the light and tried to keep up with traffic, but there were cars everywhere, and for some reason I was carrying a book that prevented me from braking with both hands.

I stopped in at a coffee place, where this really cool person I know works. I wish I could be as cool as she is. I don't really wish I worked at a coffee place again. I was there with an investment banker type who somehow had never been in a coffee place before. He must live under his desk or something. We were standing outside, talking to the cool barista girl, when an elderly couple from the neighborhood walked by. The barista went inside and made them free drinks because they were a charity case. We waited for them in the store, browsing through bins of death-themed tchotchkes. They soon came back, showing off their fancy drinks---a peanut butter mocha ripple and a coconut latte.

My banker friend became fascinated with the drink process---although I think he just had a crush on my cool friend. He watched her make all sorts of drinks for other customers, putting a dollar in the tip bar every once in a while, even though she hadn't made him a drink. I got fed up and decided to continue my trip home, but that meant riding on the 110 freeway at 11 p.m., and I knew I wasn't going to get very far.