� For all the People finding this page through Google: Chat-N-Chew is a great place to eat. I love it there! �
i had the best time this past weekend.
I get off the train in Penn station and after about 5 minutes Cristin and Patrick find me. We decide to wander around while Patrick looked for a new jacket, so we all make plans to meet at Chat-n-Chew a restaurant SOMEWHERE in NYC. We head to Barnes and Nobel to spend some time before heading to the restaurant. Cristin finds Beau Sia�s book in the comedy section. It�s a Poetry Book, but they filed it under comedy because it�s a parody of Jewl�s a night without honor� so they can�t consider it REAL poetry, even though it�s better, so Cristin takes a couple copies and put them under Sia in the poetry section and next to Jewl�s book under� sucks.
After B&N we went to the coffee shop Cristin and I went to while walking Taylor's dog Apollo the night of his last Poetry Salon. While sitting and talking over our cups, Noel streaks by. All of NYC, a mostly random coffee shop, and a friend of both of ours runs by. Cristin flagged her down, we chatted for a bit, and Noel was off again.
After coffee we go to eat, wait a bit for Patrick to show, and then eat. Good food, fun conversation, a great attempt to make Patrick start performing in a wheel chair. Purely for how wrong it would be for him to pretend to be a paraplegic and to try and get extra Slam points for this crippled-ness. He says he�ll do it if Cristin gets him the chair. Cristin and I think he�s lying.
Patrick�s apathy amazes me, it's as if his persona is wrapped around the phrase "everything sucks" but it really isn't. He reminds me of my old friend Ken.
Later that night we hung out at Amanda�s � another Urbana performance series member. Her dog Stella is really sweet. We hung out. We hung out eating ice cream, I drank three beers, Cristin doesn�t drink, Amanda drank one� Patrick had left a while ago by then. I got my ass handed to me in WWF Smackdown for the Play Station. That night I got to bed at 4am.
I like the cities subways. They�re easy to figure out and full of life. Chicago�s suck in my opinion. Boston�s are so simple it�s a joke.
Sunday morning we went to the "best diner in Queen�s" �good food. By then Noel had joined us, so Cristin, myself, Noel and Kim (Cristin�s roommate) ate at the "best diner in Queen�s". Guess what? I am willing to bet it was the "best diner in Queen�s."
I got to see the offices of about.com and help Cristin work on her manuscript that Bob Holman is going to submit to a few publishing houses for her. She�s according to her, �one of the most chaste poets on the scene� but has a job writing copy for the porn section of about.com. An amazing paradox until you meet Cristin � a person who could probably do anything she set her mind to. After the office visit, we went to Urbana and they had a great show. Some would say it was a whacked out night, but the night�s are always whacked out, this was just a different sort of whacky-ness. The people who I thought were going to win the slam � didn�t. Selena Glenn won, and she deserved it.
It was a great trip. I really enjoyed Cristin�s company. It seems strange to me she�s dating this guy named Shappy, but then again, I don�t know Shappy well at all. Hell Cristin�s happy, and that is all that should matter...
I got up early and with Kim�s help got off at the right stop for the train. An hour early, I sat in the waiting area to return to this life I currently live.
So I�m sitting in Penn station waiting for my train back to Providence and behind me a group of men sit down. Gang bangers, street thugs, semi homeless persons, ex cons, black men� pick a label if you�re the type who needs one. A cop comes over and tells them they are welcome to stay but that he remembers the guy with one eye from when he busted him about a year ago. �how do you remember me man?� �because you resisted, we always remember when a guy resists�� �oh yea� The cop asks him what happened to his eye, the guy replies �I got stuck, while I was in� �well I�ll be back around soon�
The older white guys, their shoes half off, heads back, mouths open, snoring two rows away� never even woke up.
NYC�s finest leaves and the men behind me keep talking� about prison, about the woman one of them was giving a break today �I want her to wonder when I�m coming over �Corey when you gonna come by?� I want her wondering�� �Man the joint really messed you up.� �yeah it sucked, one time we were in the shower and there�s this young little white boy showering in his tighty whiteys, this big black guys comes in, walks up and knocks him out, then he just fucks him. right there. when the kid wakes up he starts shittin himself right in the shower.�
silence
�late 70�s and early 80�s it wasn�t like that, I was in Fed for 4 years, yeah stuff like that happened but not like that� times are changing�� �how�d you lose your eye� �somebody stuck me, I already told you, somebody stuck me.�
