cupcakes, coconut juice, and concrete containment

After a mere 11 days in the city, Adele and I both woke up on Sunday morning going box crazy (concrete box crazy, to be exact), dreaming of wide-open, grassy fields with trees and breezes and quiet and the occasional small furry animal scurrying in the bushes. In other words, we started dreaming about the opposite of where we are living and what we are experiencing: concrete, trash, anonymity, constant white noise, shouting, car horns, traveling hours upon hours in dark holes underground. This inspired another bout of laughing, but certainly not as tremendous as the ones earlier in the week. We were exhausted—coming home late night after night, damaging out feet by walking constantly on concrete.

On Friday we were the partial hosts of a robot-zombies themed dance party. (it was really Dana's party with all of Dana's friends, but we live here...). Up the road from our house, on the way to the A train, there are a lot of little clothing stores that are really vibrant, and cheaply priced—Adele and I purchased our “Zombot” costumes there: skin-tight silver pants, glow-in-the-dark neon underwear with skulls (to wear over the pants), and bright neon shirts, which we later sprayed with silvery paint (our “robot blood”). There were a fair amount of people dressed up, and it was a relatively successful party with much dance-able music. We were super loud (dancing with thumping thuds, screaming “don't stop believing”), but no neighbors complained. Let the white kids have their fun? Thank You Senator Fulbright also performed about 4 songs that evening to the drunken masses (well, probably like 10-15 people)--it went over well, but we didn't have any mics, and people were being, well... drunk... so, we were screaming our pretty little harmonies. I also realized about halfway through the evening that Adele, Lauren and I were the only ones barefoot—A cultural trait of NCF?

Saturday we decided that we needed a healthy day apart. We independently prepared our things, and then I asked Adele “so, what are you going to go do?” She answered, “I'm going to go to a cafe to do some work”... “.... me too...” I said. We didn't end up going to the same cafe. We had plans to meet up later at a substance-free dance party called “Barefoot boogie”--an extension of “Dance New England.” In Northampton, there is a branch called “Dance Spree” that Adele, Patrick and I went to before we left for NYC.

After sitting in a cafe for a couple hours, I went to Maoz vegetarian falafel place to eat supper. About half-way through my meal, I looked up and saw a crazy, short, blonde girl squishing her face at me in the window – Miss Nina Barraclough, accompanied by Camilo, and his sister, Carolina. They were just passing through the area on their way to eat at another falafel restaurant. Later, after I got off the train for Barefoot Boogie, I was walking down the street and passed a Starbucks, did a double-take and saw Adele sitting at her computer in the window. New York, New York – it's a helluva town.

I forgot to mention that Adele decided it would be a wonderful idea to immerse herself in the local culture of our area on Thursday by meeting one of the street vendors near our apartment and consuming some of the fresh juices that he was pressing. She engaged the man in a delightful conversation in Spanish (or so I heard, I wasn't there, and can't understand Spanish), and then decided upon coconut juice. She consumed it greedily, concluding that it tasted kind of funny, but that it was worth it. Her stomach only started bothering her later. By the next day she was in full-on-food-poisoning-pain. She didn't throw up or anything, but she definitely looked a little down and spent a long time in the bathroom. This was a lingering problem for a couple days.

Barefoot boogie was pretty good—there were a lot of friendly free-spirits, although we didn't socialize very much. Lauren Edwards came, and we all boogied barefooted to a strange mixture of popular hip-hop and “world-music.” It was raining by the time we were going to leave, and the train that stops closest to our house is currently being renovated. We were offered a ride by a socially inept 28 (or so)-year-old massage therapist. We hesitantly, and skeptically assented. When arriving at his car, I made sure to check the locks on the doors. At first, I closed the door, and it seemed that there was a child-safety lock on and I sort of freaked out, but then realized that there actually wasn't. Adele and I remained focused on the streets we were passing, and the roads we were taking to get back. Ultimately, he was innocuous, but I was definitely playing out the story of sociopath-murderer in my head. He told us how he had lived with his grandma for the last four years of her life in her uptown-commune-apartment, how her death had been hard for him, how he studied botany in continuing education, and is really excited about somehow connecting massage with his passion for plants and herbs. I don't remember his name, but he was lean, had short, dark hair, and was wearing a dark blue and beige Hawaiian-patterned shirt, and black slacks. His gait was nervous, his eyes were brown and a little shifty. Although he took his eyes off the road to gaze back at us in conversation a little too often, he was a pretty good driver—not speeding or going through any red lights. He dropped us on the corner of our street, and we will most-likely never see him again.

On Sunday we got dressed-up as hipsters to go to a hipster part of the city (Williamsburg) to play an open mic at a venue called “Pete's Candy Store” (candy not included. I'm guessing it used to be a candy store, and they thought it would be quaint to just keep the sign). In preparation, we were sitting on our couch in the living room, and Adele asked Dana “Do you have any hipster clothes we could borrow—do you know what's in style?” She gave us some advice (plaid) and then gave us free reign over her wardrobe. We played it cool on the couch with our laptops until she left for her run. Adele looked at me, I looked at her, then we both jumped up and ran excitedly into Dana's room and began peeling back the layers upon layers of dresses, and designs. Did we mention how cool Dana is? I'm talking cool cool – she's “in style,” she's an exceedingly friendly, costume-designing actress who just got a job designing for the Independent Film Channel, and we had been anxiously waiting to have access to her clothes for 12 days... especially since I packed really light. God, I've turned into such a girl.

Anyway, we got to Pete's Candy Store, and although the general area around it was hipster-mania, there weren't very many inside of the bar, and especially not in the open mic. Long and short of it, we ended up just sticking out as hipsters. I was wearing light blue skinny jeans, converse sneakers, a long red plaid shirt, accompanied by an unnecessary thick black belt, a side-ways pony tail and big sunglasses. Adele was wearing a blue plaid shirt, jeans, converse sneakers, and a green cap. Whoa, man, cool. The set went alright... except for the fact that the guy hosting it called Adele “cupcake”... there was a hush and tension in the room, but Adele still had her food-poisoned stomach, and so blood didn't spill this time... I was waiting for it, though. Maybe next time! Dana, Dana's boyfriend (Ronan), Ronan's roommate (Andy) and Lauren Edwards came to watch us. It felt really awesome to have a group of friends supporting us. It's great to have a network.

On the train-ride home, we bore witness again to another in-subway attempt at pan-handling. This time the man explained how embarassing it was to be homeless and ask for money, and how he was doing it only as a last resort. He wasn't very good at it, obviously, because no one gave him money. I think he picked the wrong train. The A-train in uptown is not full of rich people, after all. We have seen a lot of people get on and off attempting to spread messages or get money. My personal favorite occurred when I was alone, on my way back from fixing my guitar, and getting conned by a 19-year-old-oh-so-cute-and-oh-so-passionate-new-school-student trying to get me to sponsor a child in a third-world country (he knew all the right intellectual answers to my quandaries and... I still have to go online and cancel it. I don't have income! What the fuck!) Anyway, back to the train. A relatively normal looking dark-brown-haired late-twenty-something guy with a long, black beard stepped onto the train. His posture was a little hunched, but all-and-all I wouldn't have taken him for a fanatic. The doors closed, and he began his passionate speech about how we were all damned and going to hell, he paced the train back and forth, waving his mini-bibles around and telling us that we shouldn't poison our minds with sinful pleasures like books, movies, and premarital sex (and education?). He was gesticulating wildly, and then, as we approached the next stop, he attempted to hand out his bibles, but no one took them. Do people actually get turned to Jesus by subway fanatics? I wonder.

Adele and I are currently writing a song using the “fucking A” train and trying to some how match metaphors to turn it into a shape-shifting woman. It's really painstaking, but I think it's going to be a good song. That's our song-writing process. Painful, but rewarding... (like childbirth? No... not quite).

We saw an awesome dance performance in Prospect park in Brooklyn as a part of celebrate Brooklyn summer series. It was a $3 suggested donation. I'm going to let Adele describe it, though, because I don't feel like it. It was like a NCF reunion, though... We went with Nina, Camilo and Marcus Michaelson, ended up in the same place in line as GiGi and Jason S., and were sitting two rows back from Gabriel Defazzio and his friend.

Signing out!

--Lee Ellen