all we need is somebody to lean on

I continue to love my time in New York, and I continue to be unenthused about returning to SF (although I'm v. enthused about returning to my own bed and sleeping like the dead next week). I didn't sleep all that well last night, probably because I had too much alcohol and too much fire running through my veins after burning things. But I stayed in bed until 8:45ish, and then I went downstairs and had a cup of tea with Kathia while enjoying the early(ish) morning light in her living room.

Then I showered, packed, etc., and we went into town and wrote for an hour at a coffee shop. Then, we had lunch at a diner down the street - this is the first diner I've ever been to that has one of our favorite sparkling wines (cremant, which is not champagne by definition, but is super delicious), which seems to fit into the general fanciness of the rich small towns of upstate New York. We didn't have cremant, though; instead, I had an omelette with home fries and gluten free toast, which fortified me for my journey.

Then, we took selfies and said goodbye, and I caught a train back to Manhattan. The train ride was uneventful, and then I enjoyed (wrong word) the hazards of securing and taking a taxi to Terry's place from Grand Central (I ended up walking several blocks away from Grand Central before finding a cab, which was probably just as fast as waiting for a cab in the clusterfuck around the station; taking the subway would have been faster, but I didn't feel like hauling my luggage up and down a bunch of stairs). When I got here, I took a nap (v. necessary), freshened up, and went about my next plan for the day...

...which was to meet up with Kathia's sister Parisa for drinks. Parisa edits my stuff, and I hadn't talked to her recently since I haven't finished a book in a long time, but I wanted to see her while I was in New York. We were supposed to meet at what looked like a cute wine bar, but it was closed for a private event, so we ended up at Alta, where we sat at the bar for a couple of hours and had some delicious snacks to tide us over (the fried rice balls were delish, and there was another dish with tiny bits of egg on top that was to die for). Oddly, when I finally went to the restroom at the end of our time there, I realized I had been there before; Vivi and I had dinner there in January 2014, but I never would have guessed it from sitting at the bar, since the bar looks like a regular bar and you have no idea that the restaurant stretches far into the back and opens up into an atrium with a second story balcony (which is where Vivi and I sat). Bizarre.

But when we finished our drinks there, we met up with Terry (remember her?) at Grape and Vine, which we chose solely because we were able to get a reservation via OpenTable an hour before we needed it. This should tell you something. As it turns out, the food was really good (I had steak), and the wine was good (we split a bottle), and the company was excellent (Terry and Parisa are v. entertaining), but the service was pretty slow. However, it was still a lovely evening...

...which then went sideways when Terry needed to meet a coworker friend at a party, which turned out to be at Fat Buddha in the East Village, which turned out to be a total jhoke. It was as close to a club scene as I've been in a really long time, and I was probably too tired to enjoy it. But I liked Terry's friend a lot, and we took some entertaining photos with the friend's friend, and it was all good.

Then we said goodbye to Parisa, and Terry and I came back to her place, where I have once again turned on the air conditioner in an attempt to survive the night. So now it's time for bed, and we'll see how I do with sleep tonight - goodnight!