While Provincetown was lovely and idyllic, New York is the place that always whispers to me with enchanting dreams of moving here. Of course, it helped that today was pretty much the perfect day in the city - San Francisco's crackheads and face-stabbers have a hard time competing with lovely weather and fancy evenings out (although, I guess when I put it that way, I have a lot of lovely weather and fancy evenings out in SF).
But I digress. I got out of bed around when Terry was getting ready to leave for work (9am-ish, although she'd gone to the gym at six and I had stayed asleep like the lazy bitch I am). I made it out the door by eleven, and I took the subway down to the Meatpacking district, which is approximately where my old NYC office was - the memories were slightly bittersweet, but they were mostly bittersweet when I was walking by the fancy places where I used to be able to expense meals/drinks/rooms, and not because I actually missed anything about my job.
I worked for an hour or so at a coffee shop that has reached peak hipster - they had twenty or so coffees available, which makes it like Philz. But unlike Philz, they have a bunch of pneumatic pipes, and when you order a coffee, they pull the exact amount of beans necessary to make your cup, grind them (all without leaving the pipe system), and make your coffee. Yes, it was precious. But the coffee was nice and it was a great place to get some work done, so #noregrets.
Eventually, though, I stopped working and met my friend Maya for lunch + writing at Cafe Minerva. She's approximately my age and also writes historical romance, and we always have a great time together, so our afternoon was perfect. We caught up over an extended lunch, but we forced ourselves to be diligent and work (we're both in edit-mode for various projects and couldn't take the whole afternoon off despite our desire to talk). Then we had more caffeine at another cafe with outdoor seating, where I was v. productive and felt good about what I was doing (although there's still miles to go before the book is done done).
But her battery finally died, and I was ready for a break, so we spent thirty minutes walking down the High Line and talking about life. Then we went to Dos Caminos, which does a respectable job with Mexican food in NYC. Terry met us there, and we secured coveted seats on their outdoor patio (which was gorgeous - it was supposed to be miserably hot today, but instead it was perfectly hot). So I had three margaritas, and we ate our weight in chips and guacamole, and we split some tacos, and it was generally tremendously wonderful while also tremendously uncomfortable (but my dress was loose enough to accommodate my weight in chips, so #noregrets again).
When we adjourned from there after a couple of hours of good clean fun + talk of puppies (multiple kinds of puppies), Terry kidnapped me and took me to another bar, where we met up with Colby and Nisha, who are her friends from business school. Terry works with Colby and so sees him every day, but Nisha was visiting from SF, which is why they'd gotten together. I don't know either of them all that well, but it was a v. entertaining way to spend a couple of hours (even if I ordered rosé and I'm pretty sure they used the interior darkness as an excuse to give me chardonnay instead).
Then we came back to Terry's apartment, and she hooked me on the first two episodes of "UnREAL" (a fictional show about producing a reality show similar to 'The Bachelor'), which were pretty good (and which I would binge watch now, but I know I need to work on my book instead). And now I'm going to sleep - I have social plans in the afternoon, which means I must write in the morning. Goodnight!
But I digress. I got out of bed around when Terry was getting ready to leave for work (9am-ish, although she'd gone to the gym at six and I had stayed asleep like the lazy bitch I am). I made it out the door by eleven, and I took the subway down to the Meatpacking district, which is approximately where my old NYC office was - the memories were slightly bittersweet, but they were mostly bittersweet when I was walking by the fancy places where I used to be able to expense meals/drinks/rooms, and not because I actually missed anything about my job.
I worked for an hour or so at a coffee shop that has reached peak hipster - they had twenty or so coffees available, which makes it like Philz. But unlike Philz, they have a bunch of pneumatic pipes, and when you order a coffee, they pull the exact amount of beans necessary to make your cup, grind them (all without leaving the pipe system), and make your coffee. Yes, it was precious. But the coffee was nice and it was a great place to get some work done, so #noregrets.
Eventually, though, I stopped working and met my friend Maya for lunch + writing at Cafe Minerva. She's approximately my age and also writes historical romance, and we always have a great time together, so our afternoon was perfect. We caught up over an extended lunch, but we forced ourselves to be diligent and work (we're both in edit-mode for various projects and couldn't take the whole afternoon off despite our desire to talk). Then we had more caffeine at another cafe with outdoor seating, where I was v. productive and felt good about what I was doing (although there's still miles to go before the book is done done).
But her battery finally died, and I was ready for a break, so we spent thirty minutes walking down the High Line and talking about life. Then we went to Dos Caminos, which does a respectable job with Mexican food in NYC. Terry met us there, and we secured coveted seats on their outdoor patio (which was gorgeous - it was supposed to be miserably hot today, but instead it was perfectly hot). So I had three margaritas, and we ate our weight in chips and guacamole, and we split some tacos, and it was generally tremendously wonderful while also tremendously uncomfortable (but my dress was loose enough to accommodate my weight in chips, so #noregrets again).
When we adjourned from there after a couple of hours of good clean fun + talk of puppies (multiple kinds of puppies), Terry kidnapped me and took me to another bar, where we met up with Colby and Nisha, who are her friends from business school. Terry works with Colby and so sees him every day, but Nisha was visiting from SF, which is why they'd gotten together. I don't know either of them all that well, but it was a v. entertaining way to spend a couple of hours (even if I ordered rosé and I'm pretty sure they used the interior darkness as an excuse to give me chardonnay instead).
Then we came back to Terry's apartment, and she hooked me on the first two episodes of "UnREAL" (a fictional show about producing a reality show similar to 'The Bachelor'), which were pretty good (and which I would binge watch now, but I know I need to work on my book instead). And now I'm going to sleep - I have social plans in the afternoon, which means I must write in the morning. Goodnight!
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